Why do people consider Aspergers to be mental illness?

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Jayo
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25 Jan 2017, 6:36 pm

Growing up with Aspergers (the symptoms of which are greatly mitigated and controlled now), I noticed that folks tended to regard me as mentally ill, not telling me so much directly, but the same kind of shunning behaviours or treatment like I "wasn't all there". My subject post may as well be a rhetorical question, as I've a pretty good idea why people regard it as a mental illness, but it's a topic that I think bears some discussion among us.

My theory is that it's not so much raw Aspergers that could be construed as mental illness, but more the mental breakdown that comes from isolation from others, alienation that feels unjust and even cruel, bullying etc. As Dr. Tony Atwood, the world expert on ASD once famously quoted "You don't suffer from Aspergers - you suffer from other people."

I read an anecdote in the recent past about a woman's 22 year old Aspie son, who lived with her and she said that she was at her wit's end because he would have tantrums from being corrected on social blunders, he would habitually mutter under his breath and talk to himself, complain vocally that he hated everyone and everything, break things and punch walls, start going on tangents about a utopian world as if it was coming soon, etc. Those are behaviours that one could construe as mentally ill or insane, like he gradually went insane from the way he was treated and shunned, and not AS unto itself. While I'm in my early 40s now, I remember having occasional outbursts like this in my early 20s but it was more in private, with just a couple of public episodes where it could be construed as public mischief at worse, nobody was assaulted and nothing was vandalized, but I felt pretty darn foolish after. People must have thought I was insane though, w/o me going into detail. Luckily things got better for me later in my 20s especially with my diagnosis and a good therapist with supportive friends and father.

However, the grave reality appears to be that people will associate these angry or bizarre behaviours with Aspergers itself, when technically it could happen to anyone who's isolated in some way, maybe they were a burn victim or were wrongfully accused of being a pedophile or whatever, they might fly off the handle somewhat. In an extreme case you had someone like Adam Lanza where suddenly several ignorant people following the story equated Aspergers with mentally deranged. 8O

One insinuation of mental illness that keeps cropping up for all of us, is that dismissive but polite reply we get from people upon telling them of our ASD: "Oh? Really? you don't *seem* like you have Aspergers." naive me took this as a sign that I'd "fooled" them, which may have been true in some cases, but after years I realized the subtext was that my behaviour was seen as mental illness, which is big time stigma and taboo, and so people will do anything to change the subject. Having missed that subtext that I was just supposed to drop the subject, and continuing to protest that I *did* in fact have AS, I guess I ironically proved them wrong! :P hehehe.



kraftiekortie
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25 Jan 2017, 6:41 pm

You're not mentally ill if you have Asperger's Syndrome alone.



foxant
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25 Jan 2017, 7:48 pm

most people are ignorant or dont have interest or empathy with us. when people think in aspergers, they associate in their minds to the classic autist that cant comunicate, drool and that has a lot of parallel disease like schizophrenia, ocd. about the aspergers, its a classification that im surprised that people still use in this forum, since DSM joined arpergher and autists together in one word for over 3 years ago. i considered myself aspergher but since the classication changed, i just changed to high functioning autist(or middle, since im a little dumb, i dont get most jokes or understand sarcasm most times per example :P). For what i studied about both things, they are the same. you should had not be ashamed to have autism. the thing is other people. want it or not, even if our logical side of high functioning autists, from the emotional point of view, people who dont dont have autism notice some diference in our behavior. we act diferent. some people as ignorants, see that as mentall illness, and dont accept some behaviors. if they accept, their friends and other people around then will start to disrespect then or mock of then for trying to get along with people, who may have or not(from their points of views) some strange behaviors. i hope that message helped you somehow :)


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Exuvian
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25 Jan 2017, 8:39 pm

Jayo wrote:
...break things and punch walls, start going on tangents about a utopian world as if it was coming soon, etc.

Did you mean dystopian? (an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad). Utopian is the opposite and tends not to rouse concern in others.

Jayo wrote:
...that dismissive but polite reply we get from people upon telling them of our ASD: "Oh? Really? you don't *seem* like you have Aspergers." naive me took this as a sign that I'd "fooled" them, which may have been true in some cases, but after years I realized the subtext was that my behaviour was seen as mental illness, which is big time stigma and taboo, and so people will do anything to change the subject. Having missed that subtext that I was just supposed to drop the subject, and continuing to protest that I *did* in fact have AS, I guess I ironically proved them wrong! :P hehehe.

Hmm, you may be on to something. To me, "you don't seem like you have Aspergers" seemed intended, however awkward, to be a kind of reassurance. Dismissive and of unreliable accuracy (like a mother's assessment of her child's physical appearance), but reassuring nonetheless. I bet there is some subtext (at least in some situations) of, "there's nothing 'wrong' with you, now excuse me while I walk away quickly."... now that you mention it.

A lot of times depression/anxiety end up being a package deal with ASD, but those things are not synonymous with autism itself. I wish there was a better term for those things that didn't have the baggage "mental illness" does.



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26 Jan 2017, 1:24 am

I don't think that most people consider ASD to be a mental illness. Many people seem to be aware that it is a neurological condition, and does not qualify as a 'mental illness'; however, ASD could cause uncertainly and stigma similar to that associated with mental illness in those who are uneducated about it. Also, those who are unaware of an ASD diagnosis might incorrectly assume that unexplained ASD symptoms are signs of mental illness.


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26 Jan 2017, 1:45 am

Simply being a Non-Conformist or even merely questioning Main-Stream Beliefs has gotten reactions from the truly Mentally Ill people that I must have a Mental-Illness even though it's their Projection.


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26 Jan 2017, 8:38 am

Autism is a mental disorder, not a mental illness. There's a difference between the two. Or you could say autism is a cognitive disorder.



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26 Jan 2017, 7:58 pm

This is why I prefer no one aside from my parents know my diagnosis. People are so uneducated about this and the minute they find out, everything has to change.


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Jayo
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28 Jan 2017, 12:36 pm

Yep I've told more than one person about my diagnosis, and these are people I knew for a while, and after I did that was the last I heard from them. :(

That reaction pretty much parallels the reaction to anything insinuating mental illness - same driving-away stigma.