NTD--Neurotypical Dysfunction

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NTD (Neurotypical Disorder) is a condition that puts society at a dysfunction. If we could just come up with a magic anti-jerk pill. They are considered dangerous because they will use any means of social force to put others down, mess with their lives, and ultimately place these victims in dangerous social situations that can be hazardous to their lives. I'm only referring to the NT's that suffer from NTD to a level that it is dangerous to others.

Now that you get the idea of us creating a disorder for NT's, I was just wondering if anyone wants to help me come up with some diagnostic criteria. I'm serious, I will submit a final version to the APA. It started as a joke, but the more I think about it, I really think that NT mentality is a societal dysfunction. If psychology wants to play up the normal emotions people get and call it disorders, then we can do that with normal social behaviors as well. Besides, most psychologists write books on how balance is key, and anything off balance is off, so like AS would be off balance on one end in the social arena, so then what would we call the off balance if someone is too far on the other end like the overly social that rely only on the social aspects. Do they even already have a disorder on this? IN theory, would neurotypicalism be part of the autistic spectrum such as the other side of it?

Anyway, so far i got, Often suffers from delusions of grandeur. I'm thinking we really need to categorize the basic ideas of NTD, and then list specific symptoms like delusions of grandeur into those categories, and then say they need two of the following to be diagnosed. I think the APA has categories already such as emotional symptoms i.e. depression, anxiety, etc. I just don't know what all of them are.

Oh, and the only health related topic I could find for NTD that already exists is Neural Tube Defect in the world of neurology, so we may need to change that around somehow.

Dysfunctional neurotypicals? Hmm... Well, yeah, there are a lot of them; but there are jerks of every neurotype; I don't see how being NT makes you automatically more likely to be a jerk.

Actually, I think sometimes that the people who are the ugliest to autistics and other weird-brain types are the people who have a little weirdness themselves and are deeply in denial; they feel really superior to the "obvious" weirdos, and probably feel ashamed that they don't have the guts to let their own weirdness show. They feel threatened.

Me... weird and proud of it... But lots of people would be really ashamed, hide it, and end up attacking weird people.

I mean, seriously, you can't believe that your average bully is anything like a well-adjusted member of society, can you? Sooner or later, it's gonna come back and bite him in the butt... maybe it's just that he'll never have the experience of really caring for another human being; maybe it takes until he's old and in a nursing home and nobody visits him; but it'll happen, eventually.

Last edited by Callista on 21 Dec 2008, 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I'd like to start off by saying that we have to be careful to point out that Neurotypicals individually are okay -- great people. It's mainly in groups that their pathology starts to emerge.

--In particular, NTs have one social psychological profile when they are individuals, which tends to be benign and accessible
--They have another social psychological profile when they form couples and pairs, when a lot of weird behaviors start to emerge
--When they form small groups of 3 or more, we see the rise of peer pressure effects and definite signs of pathological behaviors
--When they form medium sized groups of 8 or more, we see "mob" and new classes of large group behaviors
--When they form large groups of several hundred or more, they begin to form into societies and communities, where the social programming can take very strange local turns

So I would not say all NTs are bad or dysfunctional. In fact, individually they are great. It is that they are different depending on who else is around and how large the group context is for their behavior.

So the pathology is not so much that they are NT, but in their social behavior spectrum.

In my opinion, NTs suffer from a kind of unstable personality-identity socialization disorder in which their social behavior spectra shift dramatically depending on group size. They can be several different people, as they move from context to context.

It also seems that the larger the group, the more validated any normalized sociopathy becomes. So in large groups of NTs, if something becomes acceptable (socialized to be normal) with the whole group, they can engage in some really hideous behaviors, like genocide and ritual abuse. Yet when separated back out into individuals, i.e. reverted back to no peer influence, they become like AS people again.

So IMO, NTs suffer from increasingly personality disordered behavior in proportion to the size of the group in which they are at any given time. So the problem or pathology is not with the NTs per se, but their group behavior.

But I don't think you will get many takers for this thread because people are afraid to get in fights and won't engage in a serious discussion... maybe I will be wrong.

Edited to add: Based on my views above, I might refer to it as USBPD: "Unstable Social Behavior Personality Disorder" to reflect that their social behavior personalities are unstable and context dependent (in particular dependent on group size and group social programming external to the individual). Axis II disorder.

Last edited by ephemerella on 21 Dec 2008, 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Remember that NTs also solve problems more efficiently in groups of 3-5 people than they do alone... and that they are naturally interdependent, so that they can take on projects that take many individuals and succeed at them... I think you are just focusing on the drawbacks--ironically in a similar way that many uninformed NTs will focus exclusively on the drawbacks of autism.

So like AS people having talents, the NTs develop special powers as part of their group social behavior changes. So it's as if they become like AS -- some weirdness as they form groups but some special powers as well.

There is a difference between a species trait and a disorder. Disorders are not just 'pathological' or 'negative', otherwise we would call the need to consume energy or die from the lack NCDD or 'Nutrient and Calorie Dependency Disorder'.

Okay here, this is good so far.

First, I want to say I just discovered in another thread the following theory. AS do have great socialization skills. We all seem to socialize pretty well with each other on this forum right? So, actually, it's neurotypical social skills that we lack no different than neurotypicals do not socialize well with Aspies.

Second, I like that theory about the Unstable Social Behavior Personality Disorder, but that would be like an extreme neurotypical social behavior anyway. Isn't that part of their social structure, to go with the flow and be the follower? Don't rock the boat. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Etc.?

Third, I loved the theory on them changing in groups of people. But, I don't agree with the theory that as individuals they are okay. I've seen many individuals out of greed, ego, and pride screw over people all on their own while pretending like they are good people not doing anything wrong, and while acting like their victim's best friend in the process. The question I guess I need to ask myself when my 2 year old isn't trying to rush me off the computer is that is that a neurotypical thing or human nature?

Anyway, just some quick thoughts. Gotta go.

As a species our survival depended on ( and still does) co-operation in a group.

So the theory that NTs behaviour changes with the size of the group has a certain logic.

I suspect as the group size changes, the von verbal communication of each particular individual will change, becoming more subtle and frequent. and more frustrating because it will be different.

There seems to be a suggestion they are 'neurotypically unstable' if they do this, and I'm not sure it is productive to say 'Aspies are OK- it's unstable NTs who have got the problems.

I think there is a level of neurotypical instability going on, but that isn't the same thing as saying that AS is ok and NT got problems. I just think they are two different types of behaviors, and if one is a syndrome or disorder, then the other should be as well. It's apples and oranges, and while both are very different, they are both fruits. Just because AS is the minority doesn't make it a disease of the mind, and I think the true dysfunction to society is the group that can't seem to cope with diversity, which is probably comprised of AS and NTs. We could probably go there too if we wanted, but I figure the great start would be to eliminate the idea of diversity by showing the world that even the neurotypicals can be construed as a disorder. You've heard people say, "That guy kinda scared me...yeah, he was just too normal." That's kinda what I'm aiming for...too normal is just as bad as too different. Logically, it makes sense that is the way it should be. Psychology went from "you're either introverted or extroverted" to "actually it's a scale and you fall somewhere on it." Autism is a spectrum like a scale, but only autistic people fall on it with NT being this line at the end, and so therfore, it would only make sense to add NT's to that scale of autism as a spectrum as opposed to a line. It's like the autistic scale looks like this... NT[............... severe autism. It really should be NT............[....healthy balance....].............severe autism. The world assumes that neurotypicality is the healthy balance, and I totally disagree with that assumption.

OK. I will think about this some more. I mean, I could think of a lot of Mr. Spock gripes about "humans": illogical, etc.

I did want to say that once you get to the mob stage, NTs appear to become susceptible to mass delusions.

Some of the mass social behavior of NTs is truly bizarre and would be portrayed as insanity if it were in a marginal population...

I honestly do not understand the point of these tired and worn out 'lets all say the NTs are disordered and/or we are not' threads we get so many of.

Either you suffer clinically significant distress that is caused by AS symptoms, or you do not have AS. That is why AS is defined as a disorder/disability/impairment. Because it causes distress/suffering and inability that is not species-typical and is the result of the features of AS itself. Species-typical problems like needing to eat or you die are not disorders, because they are species-typical. When an individual has a trait atypical to its species, that causes that individual to suffer from disability or impairment or clinically significant distress, we call it a disorder. If this does not describe you (ie you do not experience disability or impairment or clinically significant distress as a result of AS traits), then you obviously do not have AS.

I think that providing thought exercises enables people to look at behavior models and trait profiles. Putting AS as a standard and NT as a deviation enables people to frame social behavior and traits in different ways. Multiple framing can help with understanding implications of social issues and disorders.



So an AS person who is happy and well-adjusted to AS traits isn't AS? You have to be unhappy or maladjusted to your traits to have the diagnosis?



I think in your description you are confusing "disability", "impairment" and "distress" as qualia, or experiences of the qualities, when in fact those words are intended to mark degree of severity.

That would depend on whether this person has particular impairments/symptoms that are causing distress in clinically significant areas.

To have AS (as in the condition diagnosed by the medical community) you need to manifest the condition being described by the medical community. Said description requires that one suffer from distress in multiple clinically significant areas as a result of symptoms (described earlier in the criteria) arising from AS.


I have no idea what this means Ephemerella. I know that I was not in the least confused about the words I chose in my earlier post.

I think one of my biggest problems with AS, and it must be an impairment, is that I find myself constantly repeating myself. I mean, am I not communicating this properly? Or am I just being ignored? Both seems to be AS specific situations. Maybe it's possible the people reading seem to lack reading comprehension skills, in which case, I'm wasting my time since all aspects of current communication require reading, and the topic happens to require some reading pre-requisites. Either way, here i go again....

"I think there is a level of neurotypical instability going on, but that isn't the same thing as saying that AS is ok and NT got problems. " quoting myself from earlier.

If depression is a disorder, well, it's normal. It's a part of life. So why can't normal neurotypicals be a disorder too?

Thank you for your psychoanalysis. I will sleep better tonight knowing this. I can't wait to tell my therapist. He'll be thrilled you finally figured me out. Then again, I NEVER said that I don't suffer any impairments. I said that too normal may be just as bad as too different, in which case, someone needs to start exploring the too normal side of the spectrum. Since NT's figure us out, why not we figure them out?

Please read my posts more accurately (or at all) before having something to say on how I feel or before giving me any future diagnosis. I feel like the Bible here. I'm constantly being read out of context. No where do I ever implicate that I didn't think AS wasn't a disorder or didn't contain any impairments. I see it as a syndrome that has many key impairments, and those impairments wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't a high group of extreme normalcy going on around us. A balance between the two is ideal or typical of our species (which I've already said...).

I know a person in a wheelchair who has totally accepted she'll spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair and there is no cure for her problem, and she's fine with that. She's happy about who she is, and if that includes a wheel chair, so be it. It does not impair her ability to function at all because she makes the best of it, and she's incredibly independent. Does that mean that she does not suffer from the impairment?

Our opinion of our impairments has nothing to do with the diagnosis, but it has everything to do with our treatment and coping mechanisms. In addition, I'm sure whatever level of impairment you seem to think is required for a clinical diagnosis was intended to be an impairment according to what is typical within the species as opposed to personal opinion. Even then, when you get bored, google the difference between syndrome and disorder. While at it, google differences between disability, impairment, and distress. That is if we are still going on your sources of clinical/medical fields. If you are speaking in general, then those terms are often used interchangibly. But, this is a neurotypical mentality to give different definitions to the same words because such a high level of people misuse those words (is that a catachresis?) or gives existing words new meaning, and irregardless of what's typical in the species, it is a dysfunction to the species (especially the communication they are so proud to have) which is what seems to go with the psychological definition of disorder which is why I chose that over syndrome.

Just in case I need to repeat myself again, just because I think normalcy taken to an extreme is an impairment doesn't mean that I think every other disorder and syndrome and whatever you call it out there is not an impairment.

Sorry, but you seemed to have hit a nerve with that whole taking me wrong. You don't know how often my family and friends in the world offline seem to misunderstand what I'm saying and miss my point all together. Sometimes, i might of well talk to the wall because at least it doesn't talk back. Then, that would pose for a very boring life. It's not always the way I communicate as much as the way people listen (don't get me wrong on that one either, I know I mess up on the communication aspect a lot).

For similar reasons why having a cold is an illness, and a normal part of life, but having a menstrual cycle is not a disorder or an illness.

Traits that are typical to a species characterizing a member of that species, are not what is meant by the word 'disorder'.

I have no idea what you are what you talking about. You surely can not be referring to the reference to criteria of the widely available and readily accessible definition (of AS) applied by the medical community as described in the APA published DSM-IV? Stating facts as unambiguously described in well-known and widely applied publications is very far from psychoanalysis, it's simply stating facts.


I do not know what you the above is supposed to mean, it does not make sense to me.
What I do know is that disorder as a medical term (the sense in which people with AS are said to have a disorder) has a particular meaning, it does not refer to just any deviation from a 'typical' state, but it always does refer to deviation. Hence why species typical traits, even if they are 'bad' or 'just as bad' or whatever other moralistic flim-flam, are not disorders.


I find it hypocritical and dishonest for you to infer (quite out of nowhere) something not even vaguely implied in my post, issue a bunch of accusations about it, while rabbiting on about not having your posts read accurately.

Nothing you've posted (include your earlier posts, which I had read) addresses the fact that disorder in the sense it is applied to AS has a particular meaning that excludes species typical traits such as you are demanding be included in the DSM.


Impairments that are atypical for members of the human species to experience is what is relevant to whether or not something is a disorder.

Do not be surprised if in trying to address this by telling those who are 'fine with being normal thanks' that they are in fact disordered, if you meet limited success in getting normal people to be less normal, or breed less, or whatever you imagine could somehow fix things by contorting the word disorder out of all utility.
It's normal to be normal.

Being non-autistic is typical of our species. Being autistic is not.