Diagnosis as "shot me paper" glued at the back

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[quote="Griff"][/quote]
I agree with most you wrote, but I believe your conclusion is excessive strong, and most people will bully one another at some situation... but this is another story...

the points are: is it good for an adult to be diagnosis by a medical authority?
is it good for an kid or child to be diagnosis by a medical authority? won't this people be turned targets in consequence of diagnosis? Is medical diagnosis more reliable than our ones?

In fact those "mind experimentds" popularized by Einstein, were not really experiments, but arguments

How can an oficial mental diagnosis turns anybody cool? won't it turns the guy only a weird? (and all this kinds of words?)

Ok, the two sides of the coin.

This will all be great, the question is: how will the medical diagnosis of the "ilnness" that we "suffer from" (how disgusting is to write such things!) turns this actions cool? won't medical diagnosis turn it even more weird?

This seems to be a surrealistic discussion!

You are absolutely right! and I believe that medical diagnosis throughs us very far from the litle on the geek that is respectable!

It's not that being diagnosed as an Aspie would make someone cool. I doubt kids will ever go around saying, "Man, Jimmy's so cool! He has Asperger's!", just like no one goes around now saying "Man, John's so cool! He's neurotypical!" The idea is that Aspies can be appreciated for their unique talents and knowledge, instead of teased for being different. Personally, I think that being good with computers, or knowing a lot about French history, or being able to recite pi to 10,000 decimal places is pretty cool already. If all NTs felt that way, they might be able to focus on an Aspie classmate's gifts, rather than any unusual social behaviors.

It's not the medical diagnosis itself that creates this difference. It's one's interaction style and how it is perceived by NT peers. Anyway, it's not like a kid gets diagnosed with Asperger's, and the school psychologist posts an announcement up in the lunchroom. The kid or their parents can decide whether or not they want to reveal the diagnosis to classmates. If their classmates are big jerks, maybe not. If they feel however that classmates understanding more about their child's interaction style might promote tolerance, it could be a good idea.

The question remains; why to do a diagnosis? How will it turn us cool?
seem all this remains surrealistic!

I was not diagnosed as a kid (it didn't even EXIST as a diagnosis until I was in my teens) but I don't think it would have made the slightest bit of difference - I got bullied into the ground by my peers and treated like I was invisible by adults, and it wasn't because I had a bit of paper with a diagnosis on it. They all just knew as well as I did that I was different. I think a lot of adult Aspies have been there.

I am glad I'm diagnosed now, and it's not nothing to do with wanting a 'syndrome' to make me special, or because it's 'cool' to have something wrong with you. For me, it's validation that there *is* a reason I'm like I am.

I agree with the point made back on page 1 - deliberately misdignosing someone to see how those around would react would be completely disgraceful, and I hope no ethics committee anywhere would ever approve it even if some researcher were sick enough to propose it.

Why does Aspergers have to be 'cool' or 'not cool' anyway? There are both cool and uncool people with diabetes, epilepsy, every other medical issue under the sun, and the Aspie population will be the same - some cool, some not. What is 'cool' is pretty variable, anyway.

Not necessarily. I see it becoming more like ADD/ADHD: overdiagnosed, stupidly overmedicated, and everyone knows it.

Last edited by Griff on 26 Apr 2007, 11:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Having or not having a label really doesn't make the difference; the label just quantifies what's going on. Like LostInSpace said, it's how you interact with people that makes the difference.

I don't think any label will 'turn someone cool', and I really have no desire to be 'cool' anyway. I want to get diagnosed for MYSELF, not because I want to flaunt some label. You seem to think that getting diagnosed means you have to tell everyone you come across that you're Aspie, which obviously isn't true, and it's not like getting diagnosed will really change how other people look at you and treat you, because a diagnosis doesn't change who you are. It just gives part of you an easily-identifiable identity. I would never get diagnosed for other people. I'm doing it for ME.

You might want to examine your assumptions.

a "spitball" no i never did it. i was too nice

for me it was the same, i was treated like a 'brilliant girl' whenever i was motivated, or 'the one to bully' whenever i was lost and wandering (which happened a lot), later(when i was 20) i got the ettiquet of being 'artistic' which was better, but still didn't account for who i really was. i would have liked to have known about asperger's for my self, to understand my own self when i was young.

still, i wouldn't say to just anyone i have asperger's, the persons to tell about have to be able to grasp the idea, otherwise it would only stygmatise (me or even worse my aspie-son, that's what i tell him too, don't tell it to just anyone. i told his teacher cause he has the right sensitivity and it helped solving some of the problems. my son and i don't have any difficulties with the idea of having AS ourselves, it's just a different way of being wired, certainly not a bad one.)

but that's the reason why i would not have a diagnosis, it would give other people the right to treat me or view me in a way they'd determine, without me being able to adjust it if necessary. and there are a lot of stupid (and sometimes even bad intentioned) people around, don't want them to mess with my image (it's tough enough to control it as an aspie)

and i wouldn't want to do this to an NT either, although the idea, like just thinking about it, does learn us something about perception,
maybe it would be a good idea for a movie or a book.

In what planet than the wrong planet do this classmates that understand more about their child's interaction style and promote tolerance exist?

I believe children all over the world will understand mentally diagnosed children as targets!