"You may have some legitimate mental health issues". No, I have legitimate mental health issues. I'm diagnosed and have been working with my dificulties since I was 13.

"You were jealous of a guy in a wheelchair". Really? Yes, sure I would rather be in a wheelchair with a healthy mind for the rest of my life and not have to tell/remind people that I'm handicapped everytime I meet them, but I was using the wheelchair guy as an example on how people seem to forget that being in a wheelchair isn't the only handicap. And I would give up all of my mental illnesess in a heart beat too, why wouldn't I? I just fear that my mental issues have set me back so far in life that I if I was to become normal again, it would be a long road to the top. Now I have help and funding from the state to survive, if I become normal and that is taken away, then I am forced to start climbing up the ladder again.

Yes, I would probably wear a shirt where it says what I suffer from, but you make it seem like I would hang a sign around my neck saying "Handicapped" because I love being hadicapped and I love the attention. I do like the attention, but to much attention can also cause me to panic and run infront of a buss. Much like in ground school when my tight pants split, everyone gathered around me and started taking pictures, I lost it and decided to try and run home wish was far away, instead I ended up lost, running around in the small town for hours with my pants split in half so everyone could see my butt. But who doesn't like attention? Especially a guy with Asperger Syndrome who can't go outside and get the attention natrually.

I estimate that 90% of threads posted on this forum are from people looking for sympathy, and people usally give it because they're nice, even if the person they are giving sympathy to might not have his/hers mind in the right place, it is clear that they are going through a tough time. With this thread I wanted to make a point that just because I do not sit in a wheelchair, it doesn't mean that I'm not handicapped and shouldn't be treated as such, and since people don't see my handicap they tend to forget it. Sure, it gets wierd and makes me look needy because I HAVE TO ask for people to treat me diffrently, unlike a guy in a wheel chair, I HAVE TO tell others that I suffer from mental illnesses and I can understand that it makes me sounds like I'm "bragging" about my issues, and that I use them as an excuse to get privilages.

Peter: Hey Oliver, why don't you have to account for you work infront of the whole class?
Oliver: I have Asperger Syndrome.
Peter: LOL that's a new one.

"I suspect you are not really as dysfunctional as you would like people to believe". I haven't made my mental health issues up, I don't have to make anyone believe that I am dysfunctional because it's right here in the papers as I have been diagnosed by doctors. Unfourtunatly I don't tend to carry these papers around to show and force people to read before interacting with me, instead I have to try and tell them.

Me, aswell as the guy in the wheelchair both want to be treated diffrently, because we are diffrent and we need to be treated diffrently in order to have a smooth and normal day, and that is not us thinking or wanting to believe that we are diffrent, we just are because of our handicaps. And honestly, sometimes I think that normal people get jeallous on me for being that special guy, no one wants to be like the majority, right? But they just "kinda" want to be special, they just don't want all the downsides that comes with being special. When they see that one guy sticking out of the crowd, they wish they could be him.

My family tolerates my antics because they have to but mostly because they love me, and while they do stuff for me I also do stuff for them, but trust me, they are not the only ones that have to tolerate stuff, I have to tolerate them too. I have fear of bacteria, and my mom sneezes about 100 time a day because of her allergies. My little sister has same mental diagnoses as I do and dad has ADHD. The point is, no one is perfect, but we all have to tolerate eachother. And no, you don't treat a handicapped guy like a regular guy. This is why handicapped people, including me have legal rights to get treated diffrently, and we can ask for "privileges".

I think, that many handicaped people, after a long while become attached to their handicaps and learn to like them. Even the guy in the wheelchair, when he is trying to get up some stairs, and a nice girl comes to help him, he must love that and after a while, you can't imagen youself without the handicap. Excluding the more severe handicaps like paralysis.