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Well, no argument there, grand mal epilepsy is certainly one of the more unpleasant things one can have as well.

The severity of Asperger's can of course vary quite a bit (as with just about any malady). Few people seem to understand it all that well and I don't anything can genuinely understand it who hasn't dealt with it.

My circumstances are somewhat on the more severe end of the Asperger's spectrum; I have always been extremely oblivious to social cues. For lengthy stretches, I've been quite reclusive since it seems as if I screw up with even the most casual social interactions (say something dumb; make a dumb gesture; etc).

Anyhow, here are a few examples of how dense I can be:

I was quite stunned when it dawned on me at about age 14 that people actually believed in religion. Prior to that, I thought it was some kind of curious charade that people went through the motions. Like some kind of game.

I was 17 when I figured out what racism was, and what the word ni**er meant. In fact, that was when I really figured out what race was period. I realized by example that a boy I'd been best friends with in 1st grade was black; and why people had an issue with that (I grew up in the South). Before that, I'd just thought skin color varied randomly - like they were really tan or whatever.

I was in college when I figured out what fa**ot meant and what homophobia was, which was also rather perplexing to me (then again, homosexuality was also rather perplexing to me at that time). I've still to this day never quite figured out what the big deal is (on any of these three things, from an emotional, non-intellectual standpoint).

But again, there's a lot of variation in severity and some people will of course abuse the 'label' like happens with ADD and whatever (to make excuses for other things). It's not a pleasant thing to have. I didn't figure out what the problem was until well into adulthood. A lot of it was masked because of my relatively high intelligence; schooling was effortless for me, so no one had any reason to get concerned even if I was totally walled off socially in my own little mental world until I was 18/19..