Are to many normal behaviours being pathologised?

I think we all have those!

i have a pathological need to eat and drink and sleep lol

to be fair, what doesnt kill you often makes your crippled or traumatised instead of making your stronger lol

Back in the day when I was a counsellor, I had many clients who would tell me their issues and how abnormal their feeling about them were, there was so much self punnishment and guilt, one of the first questions I would ask was, what would you say to someone else who told you all the things you've told me?' They would inevitably be far kinder to the imagined other person than they were being to themselves, so I would ask why they didn't deserve the same kindness and understanding? I think many people ND'd and NT's alike have some sort of guilt beaten into them for being human and feeling saddness, anger, depression and generally not knowing how to cope, I think we're losing the sense that these feelings are normal and part of a common experience of being human. I think this leads to a load of alientation amd people feeling like there must be something very wrong with them and this leaves them vulnerable to being pathologised. Society likes to pain a picture of everybody living happy, fufilled lives, with the perfect job, partner, home and children, families that are always loving, helpful and there for eachother. This is rarely the case but people seem to have lost sight that this is a fantasy, it maybe aspirational, but it's still a fantasy.

I sometimes feel that we, everyone NT's NDs all of us, need to reclaim our emotions and our emotional validity from the fantasy pedlers and fixers.

Amerantin (former member) said:

He very nearly destroyed my job and greatly impacted my self confidence

I'm sorry to hear that. 

I've been a victim too.

I've left several jobs because of it.

Amerantin (former member) said:

I suppose that just shows NDs can be as poisonous as NTs. We all have different personalities

A good observation to be borne in mind.

I was the victim of a very senior psychopath back in 2018. He very nearly destroyed my job and greatly impacted my self confidence.

Less than a year later he went off long term sick and was eventually forced out of the company when it became more widely recognised how toxic he was.

During his period of sick time he posted a lot on LinkedIn that he’d been diagnosed with autism and OCD.

I suppose that just shows NDs can be as poisonous as NTs. We all have different personalities. I still haven’t forgiven him for what he did.

T said:

Our society is set up for the wrong kind of people to succeed. 

Absolutely. 

The ones I was thinking of were successful in their careers which put them in the ideal position to walk all over people.

Deeply manipulative too.

We could have done with it; they were probably doing quite okay like that. Someone published a study recently tracking pupils behaviour in schools and where they ended up in life and it showed that kids who are noted by their teachers for aggressive and bullying behaviour earned more and were happier at work than their average peer. Our society is set up for the wrong kind of people to succeed. 

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

Along with behaviours which are expected and 'typical', which should be pathologies but aren't.

A few psychopaths I've worked with could have done with having their behaviour in the work place seen as less acceptable (and far less rewarded).

There is the danger, too, of diminishing the value of another person's experience by having or using a standard that may no apply to them. We are all so different. I try to ere on the side of accepting that if they feel stymied by something then they actually are and honor that.

I sometimes feel ambivalent, particularly when it comes to kids. We have a "one size fits all" cookie-cutter education system that has not changed much from the ancient Athenians.  We expect kids to be literate and numerate, quite rightly but don't value soft skills. We have individual exams and assessments and don't teach kids to cooperate and work collaboratively. We don't value critical thinking or teach appraisal, so opening the way for deliberate misinformation or sloppy, uncritical thinking.  A person-centred education system should be able to accommodate neurodiversity as part of the normal range of human variance. Schools should foster philosophy - the love of wisdom. If kids can be interested and involved there should rarely be a need for "behaviour management. So maybe we do pathologise differences.

So it goes, brother. So it goes.

It's interfered with many aspects of my life, oh yes.

But what doesn't break you, makes you stronger. 

And when it has "broken me" well bones heal stronger don't they?

I think your mind can be the same.

what'ho  whovian in good stead! Good to see you back! I think the line is "does it interfere in quality of life?" that's the only question I would use. I can't answer for others. they will have to figure themselves out.

Yes.

I'm quite tired. But these are good conversations to have. Along with behaviours which are expected and 'typical', which should be pathologies but aren't.

No worries cat, I am aware that you’re ND too, I suppose I can’t help but feel the need to oppose the point, because I think the issue of weighting the psychological side too much is the greater issue.

I feel the pull of nd criticisms all the time, I feel that every time a take my foot of the neurological gas as-it-were, the neurotypical side doesn’t. So I always try to hold this line where I can..:)

I am ND too you know, I know about masking and the problems it brings and many of your other points. But, I do think we're at risk of having our every expression positive, negative or indifferent over examined.

Well people do manifest behaviours over-time and in response to distress, and awkwardly so, where they have had to develop an atypical cognition in a typical world.

People who pose seemingly-normal behaviours, and are autistic, have a root of spared-cognition overshadowing those behaviours. Where a typical person may find a quick remedy to those issues, by declaring and communicating those issues, an atypical-person may find that they cannot communicate the issue to themselves rightly, let alone to the community.

It is lazy thinking to assume that an atypical person dealing with a simple issue, just because it seems simple to you, just because it is a normal problem to you. In fact an atypical person may be beguiled and warped for decades, because they are gas-lit into thinking that a problem is simple or they are lazy, they may develop stress and mood disorders as a result of being gas-lit into thinking they are lazy and not impaired.

In autism their are very few sufferers who do not report compensating/camouflaging/masking their struggle, so that they may appease those who cannot empathise with spared-cognition, insisting that ‘everyone is on the spectrum’ or other such lines..

I did use fire as an example, I think we need to start asking questions about the numbers of seemingly normal behaviours that are being pathologised, obviously some behaviour can be extreme, but I think we're losing sight of what's normal and that normal is a spectrum too. I want to ask, who does this increase in pathologising benefit? To me its not ordinary people, ND or NT's but psychiatrists, big pharma and the "wellness industry", big pharma has long had an "a pill for every ill" agenda and I think many psychiatrists act as their handmaidens. The wellness industry often just fleeses people for money, the New Age is just like the Old Age, just pinker and fluffier.

I am certain that some people do indeed pathologise more than needed so I am not completely disagreeing with your claim.