*"Is This the Politics Discussion Forum?"*

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I have been struggling with the difficulty of identifying with a label for a medically recognised syndrome/disorder/dysfunction at the same time as insisting that do not need curing ! !!

Maybe Aspergers is a good term for people who are, or feel, disabled by their "poor" social skills etc, but for the many people who say they are fine the way the are, or at least know that if they could free their heads of widespread denigratory ideas about introvert style behaviour they would feel fine about it, I think the term Introvert is more useful. Almost 97% of wp members who take the Jung-Myers Typology Test score as Introvert.
Much of our bad experience IS a result of discriminatory attitudes, ( the Neurodiversity argument, but without needing to bring any dysfunctions or disorders into it!), and/or chemical disturbance of the sensitive introvert brain by environmental factors.

I've realised that when i thought earlier this year that i was Introvert i was right, but it didn't seem to explain some of my more serious difficulties, genuine incapacities etc, so i turned to Aspergers.
But now see that actually the framework Introversion/Extroversion DOES explain everything if specify that i am/was a chemically challenged one, having been exposed to the opiate-similar effects of the food opioids in gluten and casein from birth onwards as a result of my wheat and dairy intolerance. Years of eating (opiate-similar) food-opioids of wheat and dairy have had a terrible effect on my sensitive/delicately balanced introvert system/brain. And quite possibly i will never recover all of the functioning lost because people who are on opiates for years and years don't.
But at least i can be rid of the non-sense of identifying with a medical label while insisting that i am " not broken".

There used to be a fantastic militant site called Introvert Nation, but it has disappeared. It raged, in super creative and humorous way, about the discrimination against introverts.
Introversion is NOT a medical condition, not a pathology. It is not a disability except when discriminated against. I don't think there is much use in attempting to argue for equal rights for people suffering from a condition which has a medical name and for which people are trying to find a CURE. People will just wait until it's been cured.
Of course people will try to eradicate something , by curing it or genetically engineering it, if it has a medical name etc and seems to cause problems.

The term Introversion has the added advantage of being part of a framework which includes, like day does night , the other end of the scale, Extraversion. Which has its own particular disadvantages ! !

Last edited by ouinon on 16 Dec 2007, 4:55 am, edited 16 times in total.

Medical terms get used for problems. Using a medical label for ourselves is making it much more difficult for people to see that it really is OK to be what we are, or would be if we weren't systematically discriminated against by most modern structures, of school, work, leisure, etc.

Why carry on using a term which just repeatedly suggests to people that we are "suffering" from something? Of course your average extravert wants to put that right straight away. A cure, a cure.

If the people on wp who currently say "i love being aspie/having Aspergers" ( which "means" being on the autistic spectrum which is currently classed as disability) were to say "i love being introvert",( with no pathological associations,) the chances of obliging people to listen and include our demands for a better world for introverts in general social programmes would be far greater. We would be a healthy part of the human race rather than some part that "needs sorting".
I agree that there is reason to think that introversion falls near autism, but what distinguishes aspergers from classic autism, when conscientiously diagnosed, is lowered IQ in the Kanners cases.

Using the term aspergers just makes it even more difficult for extraverts to understand us.

Last edited by ouinon on 16 Dec 2007, 11:22 am, edited 4 times in total.

If you look at the very bottom of every webpage on WP, you'll see what they stand for.

Are you referring to the tag line " aspergers is not a disease"? I know that many people on WP say "we aren't broken", and i simply think that it doesn't make sense to use a medical term if feel like that.
Using a medical term to describe ourselves is asking for misunderstanding.
And is not likely to encourage social change.

The reason i put this thread on here is because i think a name has political, aswell as social implications, and that the name aspergers does not help us politically.

Last edited by ouinon on 16 Dec 2007, 11:24 am, edited 7 times in total.

NB: Extreme EXtravert behaviour is very anti-social. It causes problems for a lot of people around them!!
Re-labelling Aspergers as Introversion ( with or without chemical complications to sensitive introvert brain) might trigger a long-overdue critical reappraisal of the anti-social nature of extreme EXtravert behaviours. That would be good. It would follow much more automatically than if we keep on referring to "everybody else" as "Neurotypicals".

Is noone on wp interested in the political implications of the label we use, despite the vast amount of time spent on arguments about such things on this forum? Is the possibility that political power might be easier to obtain if stopped using a medical label not even worth discussing?!?

Is in fact noone interested in chucking out the medical term, despite the positive chorus of outrage whenever the word "cure" is mentioned? Why do people want to be described by a pathology?

Where is the charm?

Where was it for me? ...hmm...In an encouraged/accepted/supported victimhood, in the absolution of "i can't help being a mess". Because the thing is that, unlike the term Introversion, it allowed me to carry on thinking that i was "a mess".
I didn't have to turn on society and say but look hang on these things you're calling "impairments" are how i am, a perfectly ok human ( with a few chemical complications as a result of diet but i'm working on that) . Reading the dx for aspergers, the criteria for which i more than fill, now think so what's wrong/peculiar/a problem in being/behaving like that, any of it?
But accepting a medical label meant i could still belong to society, still be accepted, because my inconvenient qualities, my unfashionable strengths and sensitivities and tastes and values are "just" a syndrome/disorder. In fact society much prefers me to say i have a disorder than that i, a human being, am being excluded.
I'm wondering how the case of womens rights compares at this point. (Being a woman is not a disease. But could argue that childbearing constitutes a weakness for which special allowances need to be made if women are to be able to move as freely as men in modern society. However if women had tried to win their case under the label of " The Weaker Sex" it might have taken a lot longer. Or "The Angel in the House" or "The Ones Under the Influence of their Wombs", or some other term suggesting an inherent inferiority/a disorder!)
But anyway, it is unfortunately still easier, more acceptable, less trouble, for a woman to make out she is frigid/got a headache/tired/premenstrual than that her partner is going about it all wrong, or that she would like to be doing something else entirely.
So is radio silence on a more powerful, assertive, wicked label for aspergers because of that ?

This IS a political issue, isn't it?
Rather than continue using a medical label which sidelines us, which quite reasonably makes us seem ill to the general population( however many times so many wp members indignantly and passionately refute this suggestion,) why not repudiate this term and choose one which automatically includes us with all other humans, AND reminds people of the other end of the spectrum?
It CAN'T be just because some/many prefer the excuse ( like a headache). It would be awful if was so.

The ones that really think they're ill obviously won't mind being seen that way nor be upset about people trying to find a cure.

It's the ones who don't see themselves as ill or disabled i don't understand. What reason have you for preferring a medical term over a non-pathological one? It's true that it took me about 4 months to reject it myself. Perhaps everybody who does just stops coming on here much. Which would be a shame cos is super place to hang out with other introverts ! !

In fact suddenly realised this is actually the secret den for introverts and mustn't blow our cover! Whoops. Sorry, don't want any extraverts coming in here thinking it's a fun place for super cool people!! ( except the Es who are with an I !)

And in fact its for a particularly exclusive group of introverts too. Feels cosy. In fact i begin to see that aspergers is good name cos doesn't apply to so many people. It's like being gay. A stylish small minority. Maybe it will eventually be good for our rights cos people will start envying us our exclusivity. Appreciating our peculiarities!!

So the rest is just for the record:
I fit more than the minimum criteria on the aspergers dx, and have "symptoms" going back to earliest infancy. I can "say" that i "have aspergers". But still not sure that the label helps us in attempting to bring about social change so that extreme extraverts ( and chemically challenged introverts while in up/"high"/buzzy state!!) ideas of an ideal world are no longer imposed on everyone, from pre-school, school, social life, through sports, shopping, to most work, open plan offices, etc etc.


I'll stop now.