Support meeting

Well, I attended an asperger's/HFA/PDD support group meeting this evening, which I didn't really get much out of. I was hoping for something a bit more proactive and informative - I'm not really looking for a group of parents sitting around objectifying their children and comparing behavioral notes. I mean, there's a thread of interest in hearing how other kids are manifesting their differences, but I was a bit shocked at how some of the parents view their own kids, or view people on the spectrum. "Those people," they were saying, talking about their own kids - not to mention the adults around them - as though they belonged to some other species with absolutely incomprehensible thoughts and motivations and emotions. It was totally weird and really offputting. I wanted to shake one or two of them.

But then, I think it's possibly a result of the dilemma in which I find myself. I don't particularly want the school district's assessment of Rose, or their "help." The problem is that the condition of thinking differently in this way is medically diagnosable. Sometimes it's caused by, or related to, things that 'go wrong.' So, other than the potential medical complications, why does it need to be quantified and treated in order to be accepted, to deal with it? Why (in an idealized world) can't people just note that So-and-so has these particular cognitive traits, which explain certain behavioral differences and certain strengths and weaknesses, and move along?

I don't know that I'm being particularly coherent, or logical. Mostly I'm shocked at seeing how some parents distance themselves from their kids on the spectrum. I mean, many of Rose's traits look a lot like mine, somewhat enlarged. I have several relatives who also have these traits, even more so, actually. Have these parents never looked at themselves? Or do they feel it's too stigmatizing? That just makes me mad.