Any Human Deviation Is A Disorder?

[Sonic_Spork]

Originally Posted by ocnjgirl

Just an aside, are used to work in special ed and public schools. Special ed kids cost the school district is much more money than they get. Probably a fourth of the budget at least is just for special ed now. They want to classify the least amount of kids as possible believe it or not.

I don't know if I'm glad to hear that. (Because of cases like Sassy's above post.)

All I know is it was 2 weeks into Kindergarten, and my son had only ever gone to smaller daycare type places. I was a young Mom and he was my first kid in school. He was having difficulty "transitioning"...in other words, when they told the kids to stop coloring and get in line to go somewhere, he wanted to finish his coloring and he didn't understand why he was being dragged away from his activity. So he got upset, and crawled under a table and cried.

So they gathered a group of school administrators and a Psychologist from the county seat and had a meeting where this woman said in the most condescending voice I've ever heard, "I don't know if you've ever heard of autism...?" I told the school that I thought it was very premature to be making this call, as he was in a new environment and not used to dealing with a crowded school, big class sizes, or being made to interrupt his activities like that, and their response was, "Well the sooner we catch these things, the more we can help your son."

I wasn't buying it. I insisted that we wait and asked his teachers to try and give him a warning when it was a few minutes before a change of activity. This was enough to completely help him with these "transitions" until he could adjust to school. Later doctors and teachers, when I told this story, scoffed at the notion that anyone ever thought he was autistic at all. He's done just fine, he is 20 now. Graduated school, and is in college, and engaged. Makes friends easily, has a few really close friendships, has none of the hallmark difficulties of people who are on the spectrum.

Maybe it was people in that area who were conspiracy theorists telling me about the funding thing.

But my opinion was reinforced because when we lived there, my in-laws did too, and they had sons very close in age to mine. Both of them went into special ed type programs at young ages, though neither showed any signs to me that there was anything out of the ordinary about them when they were first going into school. But we heard within the first few years of elementary school that they were on meds, and we watched them struggle with eating disorders and other issues over the years, and their outcome has NOT been good. I am not qualified to say if they really have disorders that they always had, that are to blame for the problems they've lived with...or if they could have been pretty normal kids who didn't need the drugs they were given, and that combined with elements of how they were parented, brought them to where they are. I cannot know.

But I appreciate input from someone who has a different and more informed perspective. Thank you!

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by jimmy12345678

While I do believe in certain mental disorders, I think lots of them are just a way to quantify any different human behavior as a “disorder” rather than just a different way of seeing and interacting with the world. It’s medicalizing human behavior and enabling the powers that be to label anyone different as “a problem”. It was widely used in the Soviet Union to quell dissenters, and I see it used the same why both online and IRL.

IMO, those that go against what’s considered “normal” are the trailblazers throughout history. Those that weren’t concerned with the opinions of others and often (rightly so) dismissed them as merely attempting to enforce conformity and social cohesion.

Basically the hive mind (the average, everyday, non-thinking Joe Blow walking down the street) is more worried about shaming those that deviate into compliance (often not even consciously). We as humans need to recognize this behavior for what it is and become better than it, by both refusing to carry on the “tradition” ourselves as well as punishing those who propagate it via social ridicule. They’re dumb enough to actually CARE about such a thing, whereas those that are above that recognize it for what it is: the ignorant, unwashed masses attempting to enforce conformity.

Thoughts?

I don't think you have a grasp of the concept of "disorder". Mental disorders are diagnosed, when behavior becomes disruptive of one's personal relationships, and dysfunctional, chronically impeding a person's reaching their goals and leading a stable life. Someone with a mental disorder can adversely affect their loved ones, causing children to grow up with adaptive behaviors that become dysfunctional in adulthood. In this way, disorders can become multi-generational. This is why it's important to identify them, but the problem is, they're difficult to treat effectively. But at least, they can be identified for the victims struggling to make sense of their experience, when they become adults. This can bring about healing for the victims.