[Kitsa]

it's only a crutch if you let it be one.

I don't see anything wrong with being forthright by way of explanation. People around me know that I pull my hair when I'm stressed because I have OCD. People know that they're just going to have to wait a moment while I try the door 10 times to make sure it's locked, that sort of thing. And I put up with whatever their idiosyncrasy is.

Now, when I was in HS, there was a girl who parlayed simple OCD into prima donna-ism and I couldn't stand that. She claimed to be unable to start class until she had rearranged everything on the teacher's desk, and she'd burst into tears and run from the room if someone scooted a desk out of perfect alignment. I think a lot of what she was doing was attention-mongering.

I don't know what to say about Asperger's, except that it comes up a damn lot around here. And "Hi, I have Asperger's" is getting about as common here as "Hi, I'm new", so maybe people are transferring their feelings about that?

No idea.