Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering
The author really does not do a great job, here, at least in saying something sensible as a response to DeBoer&#x27;s piece. The core premise seems to be that:<p>&gt; I find it so very irritating that there is no term for my so-called ⸢attention deficit disorder⸣ that does not have the word “disorder” baked into it. I know what a disorder is, and this isn&#x27;t one.<p>But the author then argues against a strawman:<p>&gt;  Why does any deviation from the standard have to be a disorder? Why do we medicalize human variation?<p>It doesn&#x27;t, and in fact, the diagnostic criteria for ADHD and many other disorders require that the deviation <i>amount to a disorder</i> rather than not interfering with someone&#x27;s life.<p>What the author really seems to be criticizing is that he learned and began identifying with the <i>medical term for a disorder</i> (&quot;the ADD really is a part of my identity&quot;) and now he&#x27;d like a different way to describe his experience.<p>Fair! But get the cause-and-effect the right way around: we don&#x27;t need to &quot;stop labeling every difference as a disorder,&quot; we need to not adopt diagnostic terms and apply them to ourselves inappropriately. That&#x27;s a part of what DeBoer is criticizing—that people self-diagnose and then &quot;perform their various personalities.&quot;<p>To be clear, I agree with the author that it would help to have terminology for people who <i>don&#x27;t</i> feel negatively impacted by their brains being different in a way that we can label, not just for those who do. Maybe the author could get started with that by dropping the &quot;disorder&quot; bit and just identifying himself as someone with an attention deficit.