[Source:  Ramp Up / ABC.net.au]

The latest Diagnostic and Statisticians Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) collapses Asperger’s Syndrome and autism, along with other disorders, into one diagnosis – Autism Spectrum Disorder. ‘Aspies’ may feel like a little piece of themselves falling away, says Katharine Annear, but she believes a name change in a book doesn’t change who they are.
I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome 10 years ago and had suspected I was on the autism spectrum for several years before that. Being a child of the seventies, autism would just not have crossed the minds of therapists who came to know me for my anxiety and intensity. I grew up without a label and after having many thrown at me in my late teens, finding Asperger’s was like finding a glove that fit.
Around the time of my diagnosis, I spent hours and hours in online forums chatting to other ‘Aspergian’ folk. I found a sense of belonging on a long since archived website called Aspergia and found an Internet Relay Chat room of which I am still a member today. Asperger’s quickly became part of my identity.
In his recent TEDMED Talk, “How does an illness become an identity?“, Andrew Solomon
Read the Rest of this Article on Ramp Up