why do people claim to be OCD or Dyslexic? (when they are not)

 and why not claim to be diarrheatic, malarial and other more plausible conditions?

"Plastinated Human Body Worlds San Diego" by Pattymooney - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

body v/s  mind
shame. Blame it on Christianity, blame it on conservative idiots around the world - body is just not what it used to be. Covered with clothes, body is the eternal source of shame. So when a body system goes haywire, the instinct is to hide it.

concrete v/s vague
Body, by virtue of being available to touch, smell, see to ourselves; is real to us. It's existence is concrete and finite. Reality is solvable. Reality is boring.
The working of mind remains a delicious enigma. A mystery that is for the most part, unyielding to human curiosity. Or even when it does yield, it peels out in confusing different directions.


old v/s new
Conditions of the body have been known to us from long ago.. well atleast that is what we assume.
Awareness of the conditions of mind are very new. What were witch craft & laziness not too long ago, now are real conditions of brain.

 Association: disabling v/s  adding to ability in surprising new ways
Conditions of body are simple with their meanings. They enable or disable in very specific ways.
With conditions of mind, that is not the case. What might be a handicap, might help in a certain unknown way. or atleast that is the fantasy. Perhaps, your dyslexia is a symptom of your creative instincts. That dyslexia means a certain kind of as yet hidden genius. That OCD might have certain class connotations.


A problem v/s an identity
To be Dyslexic is to possibly be an artist, to be a survivor of an anguish filled childhood. To be Dyslexic is to be misunderstood, to have survived internal battles, to be a hero. When people identify with Dyslexia (who are not actually Dyslexic), perhaps they are trying to identify with these experiences, qualities.

For a person who is not an OCD, the debilitating anxiety is perhaps hidden.. what they see instead is the sometimes magnificent outcomes of this behavior. A mastery over the space and time around the person.