Will the dsm5 contain or worsen the "epidemic of autism

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I tend to question the theory of significant impairment

If i or anyone has a job, acts their way through a social and family life and did ok in school i guess they arent significantly impaired

Yet if that same person internalized years of misery and heartache to the point of suicide, due to being different and not belonging


were they significantly impaired?

Yes, they were seriously impaired.

Many people, including some autists, do not understand that signficant impairment can occur without being apparent to them in the least. They make the problem worse for many of us rather than better.

thats where im at, i have a job and some friends, did ok in school


but internally im a wreck , my doctor learned to stop asking me about impairment in jobs and social life

he now focuses on my mental health

DSM-IV-TR AS says

Apparently, significant damage to mental health is a significant impairment because mental health is an important area (and even a prerequisite) of functioning. If you can't continue to function mentally without wearing yourself down, the next step would be the stop of overall functioning in everyday life - after a (series of) mental breakdown(s) that will both show physically and affect functioning in social, occupational and other areas of life. Or the next step would even be suicide or whatever and death is sort of impairing functioning because you're, well, not alive to manage life.

The same goes under DSM-V's "Symptoms together limit and impair everyday functioning."

If you're feeling a little less than great every once in a while it won't necessarily show (except for one in a while as opposed to "everyday" = every normal day). But once you start feeling bad most of the time/all the time because you got this autistic impairment but you're required to not have an autistic impairment and function normally, it's only a matter of time until the impairment shows when requested to meet typical expectations regularly.

I mean this is the point: It just seems to typify the whole crux of the problem of the DSMV. If you know how to deal with the problems perfectly and despite that have a lot of 'traits' that typify autism then somehow you don't have autism. Impaired functioning every day: Means you have autism.

I could throw up thousands of psychological explanations why an autistic person could have impaired everday functioning and I could have a thousand that explain why a person seems to have no impaired functioning. It's completely arbitrary to autism.

It's also vague. Impaired functioning and those kinds of words have been used to pidgeonhole completely inoffensive and yet unusual actions as 'autism'. Not looking in someone's eyes is an obvious example people quote all the time as an 'impairment'. How does not looking in someone's eyes actually help you communicate with them? It's just a western norm too. In some cultures looking in someone's eyes isn't typical. I bet 'autistics' there get accused of looking in people's eyes too often!

I know this may sound ironic (somehow) to some people but: Piss off and let me not fix my eyes to you all the bloody time. It's not important. It's my choice. Screw your authoritarian ass if you don't like it. It's like having to talk for ages and ages about nothing. It isn't unpleasant. It's just unnnecessarily boring. What makes people dislike it I think is the expectation that you're supposed to.

i can appear to function pretty well while being mentally unhealthy

my problem to was and still is (but is getting better) my ability to vocalize what is wrong with me


so for years i was always just sent away with a bottle of xanax , adderal, lithium or whatever



so maybe i just wasnt able to exactly explain what my impairment in functioning was , but i knew it was there

LITHIUM! That stuff screws you over eventually! I know so intimately.