Oppositional Defiant "Disorder"

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Something in the Asperger's + BPD post reminded me of this.

But is this a B.S. pre 1966 conformist diagnosis or what?

Since when is a kid not wanting to do what adults tell them to a disorder? I thought that was...god forbid....NORMAL.

In fact, shouldn't the DSM contain some definition of "normal" to better distinguish what not "normal" is?

I think this is a condition is the product of other underlying disorder. If someone who has AS for instance never felt that they were taken care of correctly, they might be seriously skeptical of NT's judgment. I think I fit this description because I like being defiant and starting arguments with superiors.

Last edited by takemitsu on 14 Jul 2010, 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder is a lot worse than just being naughty. If it persists into adulthood, it usually turns into criminal behaviour.

It sometimes results from an ADHD kid always being in trouble and then going over to a point where he feels, "Oh, what the #@&%, I can't ever do anything right in their eyes anyway, so I may as well just do rebel against this whole stupid %$#@* world because there's no way I will ever please them."

But the way it's used is often to pathologize teen rebellion and other ordinary stuff like that. Especially in situations where group homes and schools can get money from it. It's really convenient to use against anyone who doesn't agree with authority figures.

I knew a kid with ODD and he was a bully. He often bullied others for no reason, lost his temper easily, never listened to his mother and he manipulate her by hitting her and breaking stuff to get his way. He also tear things apart like his room if he wouldn't get his way. He also had AS and I was friends with him.

I can remember someone here telling me in PM he sounded like he had more of a conduct disorder.

All children have traits of ODD but it's never at a point where it impairs them and how they function but I read that many kids outgrow it by the time they are eight years old or twelve. I also read it can lead them to having a conduct disorder.

Link: http://www.psychologynet.org/dsm/defiant.html

Doesn't basically describe any kid that doesn't get their own way? ffs! Every little thing just has to be a "disorder."

I agree. It's the kiddie version of "hysteria"...label slapped on by malcontent adults who feel they don't have enough control (just like hysteria was a label slapped on unruly women by malcontent men who wanted control...LOL)

~Kate

What a lot of people said...The idea of such a 'disorder' makes me very uneasy.

When you are a kid, it's normal to get sick of being told what to do. It's normal to try and see how much you can get away with.

There's also the fact that kids and teens often rebel for very good reasons.

Is it an ODD trait if a girl questions why mouth piercings are forbidden and earlobe piercings are not? Is it an ODD trait if she finds it hypocritical that ear studs are just fine by her parents and teachers, but a labret stud isn't?

Is it ODD if you argue with your teacher when he puts the whole class in detention because ONE kid did something wrong?

Ive always said ODD is just a clinical term for teenage rebellion- thats not exactly a "disorder" sounds like a moneygrab to me.


So, if i disagree with the president, not only am i branded a racist, im now branded "disordered" because i disagree with an authority figure.

Almost any teenager is/was "oppositional" and "defiant" at one point, heck, my parents were starting to tick me off so for a while i openly defied them, i learned from that experience and other than AS i turned out ok.

its not so much as a disorder but as a series of traits that are abnormal

I agree though, 'ODD' could probably be solved by simply getting MOAR DISCIPLIN'

ODD - Another cop-out for BAD parenting! But hey, that's what all the anti-spank parents wanted, wasn't it?

There's a thing I noticed that places like special ed schools and group homes do when they're low on money. I was in a group home that was for people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses who would otherwise be in a more restrictive form of institution. But then they had more and more trouble getting clients. So they started aiming their advertising at parents who wanted their obnoxious teenagers off their hands, and started using labels of that sort to justify the kids being in the group homes. (There is a huge industry of residential facilities for obnoxious/rebellious teens, some of which are really scary, some of which are even located in countries where there are no laws against really nasty punishments and stuff, so that parents can send the kids there and not get in trouble.) And of course pretty soon we had people who would try to toy with the rest of our minds, bully us, not do their work assignments (which meant that I was pretty much the only one feeding the animals at one point, the others said they didn't care if the cats starved), and other crap like that that hadn't gone on when it was just people who were first intended to be there. (Not that I liked the place. It was awful. But it was so much better to just have kids who had whatever psych labels, than kids who were just nasty on purpose. Kids with psych labels tend to be far less bully-like than typical kids with discipline problems.)

Anyway, my special ed school as a teen was likewise, meant for kids with a combination of developmental and psych labels usually. (Some with just one or the other, most with both.) There were a few bullies but it wasn't horrible. (Well it was horrible but normally it was just the adults who bullied, not the kids.) I looked at their advertising more recently, and they too seemed to start to aim it entirely at kids with discipline problems who'd been expelled from other schools for misbehavior. When in the past they were specifically for kids with developmental and/or psych conditions. And combining the two is such a recipe for disaster it can't be overstated how awful this is to do to people. (Not that I'm a fan of segregation in the first place, but if a place is going to have a large concentration of DD/mentally ill people there, then it really needs to not have a large concentration of bullies.)

And in both instances the ODD label was used on those kids who were typical but obnoxious or rebellious. And it was also used on kids who staged rebellions and protests and stuff (even though said rebellions/protests were totally justified usually, because we were often unfairly treated by teachers).

This is correct. In group home or institutional settings, if a resident/patient is disagreeable, even for a valid reason, they get pegged with this.

If you'd like to hear something more horrible, there is a youth authority (prison for teenagers) in southern California which used to regularly use THORAZINE to control "undesirable" behavior".

These institutions do not allow normal human beings in difficult situations act as normal human beings. They act that being non-compliant or upset means there is something wrong with the person and they are not justified in their feelings and persecute them for expressing them.

And another word about group homes, unless it is a disorder specific group home, for example, for people with mental retardation, or Prader-Willi, or autism or some combination thereof, most of them children in group homes, especially those who were placed there by the state, do not have psychiatric problems. They have bad parents problems and are responding to extraordinary life stresses in ways any child in that situation would respond.

How can you not be ODD if you're autistic? They tried to slap that one on me, but my mother doesn't take that sort of crap.

But seriously. You're too focused on being grammatically correct to get the message when there's an error? Well, you won't be obeying. You didn't understand an implied order, or treated a command as a question? (No, I wouldn't like to take out the trash, why do you ask?) You won't be obeying. Or if you have auditory processing difficulties and didn't catch what was said.

Or you're too smart and know that what's being proposed won't work, or you can't carry it out (any number of reasons, from issues with voluntary movement to executive function to not being able to go someplace for whatever reason), or you forget it (executive function issues).

Or you have problems with impulse control (ADHD is a common comorbid). Or visual tracking (read this).

Then you realize that all adults are idiots who hate you (what can I say? I ran into a lot like that), so why should you even bother? But that realization doesn't look like anything on the outside, 'cause you already didn't seem to be listening.

My AS diagnosis included ODD and I am neither a teenager nor a criminal.

I do however have serious issues with being told what to do and how to do it, when I'm perfectly capable of taking care of things and figuring them out on my own. I would think this would be a fairly common comorbid with Autism - having resentment issues with authority figures because we often cannot perform a task by the same methods a neurotypical might.

IME Alpha management types come unglued when faced with people like me who question their methods, suggest improvements and resist stupid, irrational orders.