LD wrote...
It's kind of become a running joke on the internet that everybody nerdy says they have Asperger's.
It's also become a running joke in the professional community, except nobody laughs at it.
LD wrote...
No matter how it's classified, though, a medical professional needs to make the diagnosis.
Not just "a" medical professional. Asperger's is notoriously difficult to diagnose, and requires an entire host of diagnostic criteria (usually psychological/psychiatric, patholinguistic and neurological) to be checked against, hence the use of a diagnostic
team in proper clinical settings.
This, however, is almost always foregone for cost reasons in the anglosphere, hence (and the other reasons I gave before) the massive overreportage.
LD wrote...
It's interesting to learn about but unfortunately there's kind of a hostile environment when it comes to discussing it on message boards. Part of it might stem from people on the spectrum who don't really realize when they've overstepped their bounds even in a text-based format like this.
Most of it stems from people who run around, waving their self-appropriated Asperger's flag, using it as a convenient measure to garner unwarranted attention, while the real afflicted are suffering from the cripplingly poor treatment.