Recalling the Days When People Were Merely Called Eccentric

These days I am always careful to look whomever I am with in the eye. Why is that, you may wonder. Well, it used to be, back in the days when people were merely neurotic, I developed an affectation of not looking people in the eye. Beats me where it comes from, I think it has to do with being a little shy. But be that as it may be, these days if you do not look someone in the eye, you obviously have Asperger's Syndrome, and thus must be a barely functioning victim of an autism spectrum disorder. Thus I always make sure to look whomever I am talking to in the eye, at least once, during a conversation. Clever, eh?

I wish that my colleagues and peers would maybe realize that these DSM classifications are not to be thrown around casually, and that doing so is not only incorrect, it is also rude.

Perhaps we could return to a simpler, more innocent time, when someone was merely eccentric and colorful if he was a non-conformist.   That would be ever so much more accepting and positive, don't you think?   This trend of badly diagnosing someone's mental disorders and accusing them of it (or discussing it behind their back) is neither helpful nor accurate.

Eccentricity

Also, and I hate to mention this, but those who live in glass houses should not throw tactical nuclear weapons. It seems to me that the last five people I know who have "diagnosed" me with Aspergers should perhaps look to their own house first.

Even a casual study of the history of such things, these labels for eccentricity, show that society moves fast here.  One period's classification, for example, "moron", becomes a later periods' schoolyard insult.

In fact, I am "in touch" with my mental disabilities, if that is what they are, I think I have a good handle on them.  I am well aware that I am in many respects an outlier.  Some of the issues that some would see as a disability, I have become quite fond of, anyway.   The problem is not their diagnosis or management, per se, it is paying for their management in a society that seems to thrive on punishing the poor.   In other words, my problem is not ADD/ADHD or whatever, my problem today is cash flow.

Thus if you want to be a help, rather than throw diagnosis at me, throw money and that would certainly help me to be better adjusted.   Just trying to be practical here.

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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders

DSM-IV TR (Text Revision)
http://www.psychiatry.org/practice/dsm/dsm-iv-tr

DSM-V (In Development)
http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx

Eccentricity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentricity_(behavior)

Outlier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier