Comorbidity

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I just had an interesting thought a short while ago. We commonly see posts here regarding the comorbidity of other disorders with Aspergers, but might this only be a result of semantics and a definition of what is considered to be normal? The one thing above all else that seems to define neurotypicals is their overabundant ego and their tendency to think of everything in terms of themselves. If they are the ones who wrote the DSM, then might it not also be likely that they might have defined themselves as normal and everything else as a disorder? Who is to say that everyone is not normal but simply different. With their emphasis on conformity, the concept of difference in personality is also one that NTs seem to have difficulty with. There is no way to prove it one way or another, but it is an interesting thought... and one that you do not want to think about just before trying to get to sleep.

As theories go, this centers neurotypicals and what they do over mentally ill people, people with developmental disorders, and people with neurological disorders. Most everything is already about them so why not reframe the issue in a manner that centers people like us?

I don't think there's any point to really asking "who defined normal and why?" in this particular context. There are reasons to ask that question, but those reasons go well beyond disability and mental illness and into multiple other categories. Not all the answers will be the same because each category exists for different reasons.

I think "it doesn't matter if I am normal or not. What matters is that people contend with impairments, challenges, and difficulties that are not taken seriously."

So instead of asking "is mental illness real?" why don't we ask "How can the world be a better place for those of us who have to live with it?"

I don't consider my chronic depression and anxiety to be 'normal' or healthy. I have had many years to observe neurotypical humans functioning on a daily basis and they cope with life on every level with more ease and facility than I do.

I observed this for more than four decades before I knew what AS was, though I had recognized many years earlier that I had something in common with severely autistic children, but I couldn't put a name to what it was.

The fact that I go involuntarily mute when thrown into a social encounter with a stranger, that sometimes I cannot force myself to go places and do things I know are critical to my survival, the fact that under stress, I have trouble focusing on differentiating between human speech and irrelevant ambient noise, the fact that I find normal human thought processes utterly alien and incomprehensible (not to mention tedious and distasteful), the fact that I feel a severe electrical shock permeate my nervous system at the sound of a common doorbell, are just a few of the things that tell me without any doubt my condition is not normal - not just because someone decided to label it as "other than normal" but because it negatively affects my quality of life in ways that I can clearly see are not causing problems for others.

[quote="Willard"]I don't consider my chronic depression and anxiety to be 'normal' or healthy. I have had many years to observe neurotypical humans functioning on a daily basis and they cope with life on every level with more ease and facility than I do.

I observed this for more than four decades before I knew what AS was, though I had recognized many years earlier that I had something in common with severely autistic children, but I couldn't put a name to what it was.quote]

In these respects, you and I are living parallel lives.