In the latest WAN Show the topic of Autism and Aspergers' syndrome gets brought up. As someone with diagnosed with Autism I believe that Linus covered this topic extremely poorly. The views expressed seem uninformed, and dismissive of individuals with mental disorders and other invisible illnesses.
"Aspergers is no longer considered by the WHO a real disorder. Because, to say that feeling socially awkward and, like, you're made uncomfortable about certain things... there's a reason they call it autism spectrum disorder. Because as far as I'm concerned, who's not on it." - Linus
To Linus, Luke, any anyone who wants to listen,
Yes, Aspergers is no longer recognized as its own disorder. This is because it has been reclassified as part of the Autism spectrum. It did not go away, people who were diagnosed with Aspergers are not suddenly neurotypical. Aspies still have Autism and it's a real disorder, with serious effects. Yes, it's been classified as a spectrum. There are high functioning and low functioning people with Autism, but as to "who doesn't have autism": Many, many people don't have autism. Being inclined towards a subject doesn't mean you have autism, having a hard time with social situations doesn't make you Autistic. I cannot tell you if you're on the spectrum, and unless you're a trained psychologist then you are also not qualified to say if you have Autism.
Many other conditions have the same problem with people diagnosing themselves as a disease because they hear a description and see a part of themselves that could be a reduced version of that aspect.
Being sad does not mean you have Depression, or that what you think "depressed" feels like is anywhere near the magnitude of the feeling that actually depressed people feel
Having different moods does not mean you are Bipolar, or that your moods are anywhere near the levels that they feel
Just because you're jumpy does not mean you have PTSD, or that what you experience is anywhere close to what they experience
Being socially awkward or being uncomfortable about certain things does NOT mean you're on the Autism spectrum, or that what you're experiencing is anywhere close to what they feel
I feel a lot of the misconceptions about invisible illnesses is that most people rarely notice a moderate case of these disorders: people with milder cases are able, through a lot of time and effort, to more or less blend in. But that doesn't mean that the underlying issues aren't there or that they'd be able to function without their coping mechanisms. People that see serious cases can easily misinterpret things as well: he's not autistic, he's just retarded; she's not bipolar, she's just crazy.
Speaking personally I'm lucky; I'm classified as high functioning and unless I people about the fact that I'm autistic they generally won't notice. But getting to this point took me over a decade of trial and error. And I still have my own serious issues, I've just quarantined them mostly to my own personal life where they don't bother other people.
This mindset particularly saddens me because I love watching LTT and it's various other shows, y'all even have a great episode on the Xbox Adaptive Controller and how it's going great things for the physically impaired gaming community. But mental illnesses are no less real than physical ones, even if you don't see their effects. And just like you wouldn't go to someone with a food allergy and start talking about how you're in the same camp, Indian food will make your face red sometimes, you shouldn't go up to someone with a mental illness and comment how you're just like them, citing potentially severely water downed symptoms. If you want to claim you have a condition, first you should actually get diagnosed with said condition by a qualified professional. If you want to claim that my condition doesn't exist because everyone feels something kinda like one of the symptoms at one point or another: please, don't. Go volunteer with some low functioning people near you, or make friends with people who have been diagnosed and hear their stories. Some people really are different.
I won't blame someone for their ignorance, we're all human. But once the ignorance has been highlighted I would be ecstatic if they could learn more about the things they talk about and help to share a more informed opinion if the topic comes up again.
Warm regards,
-Chris