Mental health diagnosis as a badge of honor

This one baffles me. I was just at a coffee shop and someone struck up a conversation with me after overhearing a friend of mine and I discussing psychology. This gentleman and I spoke for about ten minutes and then he asked after finding out my degrees about diagnosis in regards to mental disorders. I then at this point brought up as an example autism. He then after chatting for a bit interjected and this is critical, it was with the flow of conversation and socially appropriate that he had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. This was shocking to me for two very distinct reasons. One he had a normal back and forth conversation with someone who knows how to diagnose this disorder and I did not think for ten full minutes of chatting that he had any mental health diagnosis (obviously some diagnoses are not apparent). However, for a diagnosis of autism, it will be genuinely obvious to many people and especially someone trained at the grad school level of that diagnosis.

This is particularly important because normal back conversation failure is criterion A-1 of the diagnosis. I thought his communication was completely normal. Plus, he had totally normal reading of non-verbal communication as in reading my sarcasm of the rolling of the eyes on a topic of which he laughed at. This is criterion A-2 as in reading facial expressions and understanding them. Again, I was shocked. I started to point out how some clinicians are simply bad at diagnosing disorders.

Now for the truly interesting aspect is that he basically started to argue with me regarding the diagnosis. It was as though he was number one challenging someone like me who actually knows how to diagnose autism. Then on top of that I brought out my phone and read the three criteria that needed to be met initially and he did not meet two of them already. The third being relationships, navigating them, establishing and so on. I was not evaluating since I was not acting as a psychologist for him. That means I did not even try to ascertain that info since criteria A-1 and A-2 were not met. Yet, he seemingly came across as being proud to have been diagnosed with autism. So, he was basically all be it lightly, defending and debating that he was autistic.

Over the years I have heard of people using their diagnoses to give an excuse or justification for bad behavior or interactional patterns with people as we have all experienced. What is interesting though is when people like this gentleman seemingly and how it came across to me as bragging about having a diagnosis. It’s just simply strange to me. In truth I guess it is better than getting depressed with being labeled as having a mental health diagnosis. Also, the stigma associated with mental disorders. Yet at the same time, I would not recommend going around advertising it. In the end you normally don’t win points for justifying behavior on the basis of a mental disorder.