Is Aspergers a mental illness?

Post Reply New Topic

Phonic has it nailed, as far as i can tell. i followed the same path and got the same results: AS is a mental illness.

a bunch of people above are talking about treatments and cures, but those things are not included in the definition. incurable developmental disorders can be mental illnesses too.

I'd rather be Krazy than normal, so I guess I got my wish.

My Asperger's impairs me in many, many ways. Phonic was well-stated expanding on the DSM points I brought up. Asperger's impairs my functioning significantly. Therefore, it is a disorder. Nobody would choose to live with an ASD, because there are always deficits that impair functioning even if there are benefits. Sure, I wouldn't want to change me, and I'm proud of the extraordinary memory skills my AS gives me, but if I were neurotypical, I sure wouldn't want to have the problems I do have.

I'd add, it's a "chronic" mental {whatever}. It's described as lifelong in texts, so there's the chronic.

I can't see it as a "difference", i.e., like a personality variant. It's too impairing in comparison to the other 99% or so.

That's fine, if you have a disorder then you have a disorder, I would never say you don't have one. But I'm autistic and I don't have a disorder or illness etc.

really? because another name for your diagnosis is Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The societal definition of mental illness could easily be rewritten as: A condition that is different to the 'normal' way of thinking (normal as defined by society) and which causes disorder and impairment because we bully, ostracise, mock and put the offending individual (how dare they be different) on medication until they conform to our way of thinking....

A lot of things defined as mental illness are not necessarily mental illness. They are just different to the 'expected' societal norm and that is what causes the dysfunction....a society that is obsessed with turning everyone into a mindless drone who lacks individuality.

examples:

Don't like conforming? Then you must have a defiant personalty disorder
Don't desire a relationship? Then you must be schizotypal
Prefer to wear your comfy pyjamas in the house because they are comfortable? Oh dear you must be depressed...give them anti depressants.
Talk to yourself because you are the only person you presently know that you can have a decent conversation with? You must just be insane...

Anything different is labelled as something wrong. Psychology has taken over where racism left off...Labelling someone as mentally ill because they think differently is not so far away from labelling someone as inferior because they have the wrong coloured skin!

Now in some cases yes, there are true disorders, but a lot of the symptoms listed for many of them are merely variations on the expected norm, and may not be all that abnormal.

Are rates of certain mental illnesses really increasing in today's society or is the field of psychology just finding more and more things to label as an illness instead? such as introversion and shyness for example.

Shy kids being given drugs because they are labelled as having social anxiety and are declared as being mentally ill? tut tut tut! When did shyness become a mental illness anyway? When did social awkwardness become a mental illness?

What is the field of psychology doing...looking for new clients because they are bored so they decided to start making illnesses up? The psychology profession is starting to resemble the medieval Church in some ways...

"How dare thee not conform to the word of the psychology profession. Our holy bible, the DSM, has judged thee! Thou are a sinful and defective human being who is tainted by insanity, please repent by eating the blood of our lord (aka taking medication given to us to sell by pharmaceutical companies who pay us money) and going to therapy for 6 months with a therapist who has been brainwashed into our sect and has been selected to recondition thee in order to purify thy defective mind so that thee can be a whole and acceptable mortal again...Praise the word of the DSM, THE DSM HATH JUDGED THEE!"

PN If not you will be locked away from, or ostracised by, all of society until you conform to, and worship, our way of thinking!

The field of Abnormal psychology is mostly BS, this is why I stopped studying it and went to Earth sciences instead. Far more useful.

I must be missing something here. I agree with impairment or disorder but not illness. When I think of illnesses I think of the flu or something attacking my physical wellbeing which AS is not. However it is an impairment to me at times and I 'm shocked by how many people don't consider it such. I'm starting to believe my AS is more sever than I once thought.

Technically phonic is right, but even though it can technically be considered a mental illness that doesn't mean that psychiatrists have to always treat as such. I guess what I'm trying to say is that since everyone is affected differently and under different life circumstances that may contribute to the impairments experienced with AS so it's unfair to consider a mental illness. Higher functioning people in the right life circumstances might not feel impaired at all, but being label mentally ill for being different might have a negative impact on their lives. Lower functioning people who really need the help who do feel extremely impaired should have the right to be considered disabled. I feel that even though I can find it disabling in better life circumstances it might not always be something that disables me. If NTs were a minority and their way of socializing more outcast by ours than would it really be as disabling for some?

No, not at all. A mental illness describes a normal brain that is unhealthy. Autistics have healthy brains, they are just wired differently.

Also, autism falls on a spectrum. It's not very specific, because no two cases are the same.

*applause*

I agree Bumble!

I think it depends on the definition of mental illness.

It's not an illness. It would be logical to say, if it's not an illness, then it's not a mental illness. Yet that's not always how language works.

I would not call it a mental illness. I see it as something different. But others might use the term "mental illness" to cover a wider variety of things that I would, and so, for them, with their usage of the term, it would be a mental illness.

Hang on. The term "mental illness" is, in practice, normally reserved for only for psychiatric disorders that are severe enough that a person actually becomes a danger to him/herself or people around them. In that respect, autism and Asperger syndrome is not regarded as a "mental illness" any more than mental retardation is.

I know, but I know myself better than the people who scrutinise me, and I know autism better than most of the people who think they're qualified to speak about it. I don't judge myself based on what other people think, I am more logical, open-minded and impartial than most. I trust my "diagnosis" of myself more. The fact that another name for my neurology is "disorder" displays the inaccuracy of the current speakers on autism, not a delusion I suffer from.

I view mental illness as a chemical imbalance. I view autism as a developmental disorder.

I found this interesting:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/all/1

I don't care if I'm labeled as mentally ill or not, though. I certainly have my fair share of acronyms to describe how my brain functions.