asperger's is not a mental illness

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my daughter agreed with some others that Asperger's syndrome is a mental illness....I tried to explain it is not....it is a difference...she is a normal, who obviously thinks that her kind of brain is the only kind humans have......she also thinks that I need therapy to get over my lack of social graces.....what resources can I share with her to help her understand?

This may get complicated; but you may need to explain that our brains are developed differently to so-called "neuro typicals".

How old is your daughter please?

No.......but it IS a disorder.

Your daughter is not an expert. AS is not an illness, because it doesnt have a recognized cause. She is right when she says therapy can help you improve (improve, not "get over") your social interaction. It has helped my daughter. I do not know if it works with adults, but I do ot see why not. Maybe your daughter does not want to "understand" and she is just upset her mother is "different". If she really wants to learn about AS there are a lot of resources online.

"Mental illness" implies a debilitating psychiatric disorder with a cause and treatment. AS does not meet this criteria.
Find a list of public figures confirmed or believed to have Asperger's. It's quite impressive, and may change your daughter's attitude.

It is not a disorder at all.

Basically in simple terms the Neo Cortex is more advanced and we are less limbic driven (at times). Thats the way I look at it. NT people feel things out with their limbic systems we think things out with our neo cortex.

Its cause is sound during infancy IMO, This can be compounded by inattentive care during the critical period of plasticity. This then sets the brain up to be more logical and less emotional. Its literally sculpted that way by fear in infancy.

If you want the full story on that click my profile and hopefully you find it.

Ilka and Kimer are correct. What makes it a disorder rather than an illness is that it has no definitive cause or treatment. However, to Xfilesgeek, a disorder does not imply a condition that needs to be corrected either, it is used to describe conditions outside of the norm; treaments may be applied if the person with the disorder is under distress and seeks relief.

One can cite bipolar as a disorder that is a mental illness, but a person with bipolar disorder is only ill when experiencing a depressive or manic phase, otherwise, they are entirely sane, and some may only have one high ior low phase in their entire lives. In the same way, people with autistic spectrum disorders are perfectly sane unless some mental trait well outside the norm occurs (which would not be directly due to ASD).

Finally, Janice, your daughter is not a "normal", she is "neurotypical", meaning that her brain processes information along average and expected ranges.

Last edited by dyingofpoetry on 16 Dec 2012, 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe it is a miss dx because people always people labels on other people. There is no biological prove that your mother has aspegers.

She obviously doesn´t the facts. Probably even does not WANT to understand. Try to sit down with her and explain all the differences between AS and TN way of thinking. But before you do it, write down some critical points on the paper, so you´d have the argumentation at hand when you need it the most.

Asperger is definitely a disorder, likely caused by some brain defect we have. Though it isn't some mental illness with a cure.

Technically it is because it's in the DSM and anything in there is considered a mental illness. We have just dumbed words down too much to be politically correct so people would feel better about themselves because oh no having a mental illness is such a horrible thing.


Thought I don't see myself as being sick. Even eating disorders is a mental illness and I never saw myself as such because I wasn't in the hospital. I wasn't dying and fighting for my life, I wasn't being eaten alive by my own starving body, I wasn't even a skeleton. Even a high functioning schizophrenic may not see themselves as sick because they are stable, not out of control, they live a normal life because their medicine keeps it under control. Even anxiety disorders are considered mental illnesses and so is OCD.

No point in getting upset about all this if it's listed in the DSM and classified as such. Many people have mental illnesses.

Aspies are not immune to going through phases.

And how is a schizophrenic NOT the same way? Having a brain that is wired differently than what is typical? You say "mental illness" like it's a bad thing...

Schizophrenia is different; the brain is imbalanced, not working as well as it could be. That's why medication helps people specifically with the symptoms of schizophrenia, while for autism it can only handle peripheral things like anxiety or meltdowns. And schizophrenia almost always starts in young adulthood; while the genetic vulnerability is there, environment seems to play some part (possibly in a vulnerability-stress sort of way, like with depression). There's not much of schizophrenia that can be put down to atypical neurology; it seems to be more of a chemical imbalance that impairs the function of a healthy brain, and can be mitigated by treatment and therapy. In the long-term, there are physical differences that accumulate, especially if schizophrenia isn't treated. Best outcome is to start treatment right away, and to have a good support network.

We have some things in common with people who have schizophrenia. We have the experience of being on the outside of society, of suffering prejudice and having to fight incorrect stereotypes. We have atypical sensory perceptions. We're often rejected by others. We both have to deal with executive dysfunction and social ostracism. For both groups, the best possible outcomes are for people who are integrated into society, given opportunities to do useful things, and seen as equals by the people around them. But autism and schizophrenia are quite different in terms of biology, cause, and treatment.

Ive tried explaining this concept to my sister before, but she just couldnt wrap her head around it. I think most NTs are the same, and they say we think in black and white...

*sigh*

Yes, it is.