# Re: my diagnosis

I just put this together: my diagnosis can be seen as the external world giving me clear parameters for engagement. This perspective makes it clear why the diagnosis has been so fucking *useful* for me. Many people have stressed to me that "your diagnosis is not who you are", and that's fine and fair and actually very kind, thank you, but I think that speaks to a passive/receiving perspective -- a perspective in which I am handed a label, and the question is what do "I" do with that. I think that the more useful perspective for me is trained on the *giver* of that label. Not Dr Oster specifically, but the society that produced that label. When I went to Dr Oster for an evaluation, I was approaching Society At Large and saying, "hey, I feel like you probably have a word for me, in your language, and since I'm not a native speaker of your language, can you have a careful look at me and see what word fits? so that I may know how I fit into the way you think?"

Social expectations and dynamics make for hard mental labor for me -- none of it is intuitive. Having the person on the other end tell me what they make of me, and having them tell me what I may expect of them, dramatically improves the odds of a producing a peaceful and productive dynamic.

Having this diagnosis gives a similar boost to the dynamic I have with Society.

Big deal. And a very, very great relief. :)


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