Oh, for fuck's sake.

[rivka]

Ninety-nine percent of the time, when I'm offensive, (a) I know that I'm being offensive, (b) I'm doing it on purpose, and (c) I'm willing to acknowledge it. This may not be much of a virtue, but sometimes it's all I've got.

In another journal to which I shall not link, a commenter presented the opinion that "autism and ADD are 'massively overdiagnosed.' " When I asked if she had any evidence for this claim, she posted a long set of justifications involving lazy teachers, parents with no discipline skills, venal psychologists, and suggestive idiots who see symptom lists on the internet and become convinced that their child is autistic. Here's the money quote:

what is often diagnosed as autism is more likely a lack of parenting skills combined with a therapist's interest in creating a lucrative "treatment" plan - one that involves "specialists" "drugs" and "group therapy" - all of which line someone's pockets.

My response, I acknowledge, was not at all kind or temperate. I regretted, afterwards, not making the same points in slightly more temperate language. But I am not amused, today, to discover that she made a long self-pitying post in her own journal about how victimized she was by my horrible attack. Because she is never one to make a point offensively, herself. She's very gentle.

If the bit I quoted above is not unbelievably offensive to parents of autistic children and to mental health treatment providers, then I need a new definition for the word. Yes, when I fired back, I was harsh. But I'll be damned if I'm going to accept a version of events in which I am supposed to have fired the first shot.

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

More about diagnosis in the next comment, because I'm not sure how much space I get.

I do see a trend towards expanding definitions of mental health problems (in children and adults) to define as illness behaviors and personalities that would once have fallen on the quirky/gloomy/antisocial end of normal.

Another way of looking at that same phenomenon might be that there's an increasing awareness that people don't have to be miserable most of the time, and increasing acceptance of seeking help for emotional problems. I don't see much expansion of diagnoses into areas where people feel perfectly fine about their differences; rather the reverse, really, when you think about things like the de-medicalization of homosexuality.

I'm not sure what historical timescale you're using when you reference this trend, but as an interesting sidenote, last time I visited my parents my mother had found a bunch of 1940s-era Parents magazines. I was shocked at the extent to which almost every article was loaded with psychoanalytic jargon, and how much they brought concepts like "complexes" into everyday child development. You really got the impression that your child had an unbelievably fragile psyche, easily disturbed by even the slightest parental misstep. So probably we've been up and down on this issue, as parents.

I say this as a woman on anti-depressant meds for 4 years after crippling episodes of depression and anxiety who wonders often enough if I really merit them

I felt this way about prescription painkillers right up to, and sometimes after, I started walking with crutches because it hurt too much to just use a cane. So I'm with you.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Another way of looking at that same phenomenon might be that there's an increasing awareness that people don't have to be miserable most of the time, and increasing acceptance of seeking help for emotional problems.

I love you; please marry me.

MKK