"...There are bigger downsides to ADD, like the weeks when I can't focus on work, or when I get distracted by some awesome new thing and don't do the things I should be doing, or how I lost interest in projects and don't always finish them, blah blah blah. I am not going to complain about any of that, it is just part of being me and I like who I am pretty well. Everyone has problems and mine are less severe than many. ..."

What he is describing is everyone. The last sentence should read "Everyone has these problems just like me."

We are conditioned from a very early age to compare our insides to everyone elses outsides - the personas that they represent - or more accurately that we represent for them. Whether we imagine ourselves better than that persona or inferior in some way - it is all illusion.

Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so (where have you heard that before?)

Reading the comments below I feel there is a lot of beating oneself up. I know... I do this all the time. When I recognize that I am doing this I redirect it to accept and love my natural self (very liberating). This is our human nature. We all share in this. We should feel perfectly natural and ok about our nature.

The difficulty is in adapting to the structure of society. We are challenged to find ways to adapt and manage our nature in order to find some measure of accomplishment in that structure. Some adapt readily. Others have to work at it. We all face the same challenge and we all acheive different measures of success. Just make sure that it is your measure of success that you are striving to achieve.

The labels and their definitions are all a product of a feckless mental health industry that needs to create something to justify their existence. The definitions describe observable human nature and the labels categorize them. The negative connotation is a judgement - this is what causes so much stress.

This body of work is dynamic and changing. The American Psychaitric Association Diagnostic Criteria at one time included homosexuality as a mental disease. Can't suffer from Aspergers because technically it is no longer a diagnosis. So consider these examples to help keep it all in perspective.