How do you identify?

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I am a man, not a number!


~Back to the Village~

I identify myself with my first name, I'm a person.
Feel free to stick whatever labels you want on me. Quiet? Aspy? HFA? Yeah probably. I am who I am, other people can feel free to call me what they want.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said,
"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey."

Personally, I would say I am a spiritual being on a human journey of which autism is a part.

In regards to my AS diagnosis I identify as "aspie" and "actually able to think for myself" / "not someone who walk and talk and think in step".

But AS is only one part of me. There is far more that makes up my identity. My life up to now, my age, nationality, personality, gender, sexuality, experiences, family, relations, (lack of) employment, education level and type, looks, where within the nation and even city I reside, interests, beliefs or lack of such, and many other things play a part of how I view things and how I see myself and who I identify with.

Some days as crippled and broken, not because of ASD, but because of my anxiety and trust issues.

I use mildly autistic, but of course it's one facet that heavily influenced my experiences and how I think. I could add a litany to that: resourceful, smart, stubborn, etc. It's unfeasible to try to encapsulate ourselves, but "autistic" is an obvious shorthand for any glaring differences.

I can't help but identify in part as what I appear to be or the groups I associate with. For example, I identify as female and I am a Christian.

But, always, I want to add, "Don't put me in a box."

Whatever I happen to be, don't expect me to meet a certain set of patterns because I happen to be/identify as such-and-so.

I feel the same way regarding questions of identifying on the spectrum, though I do not do so publicly (I have shared my suspicions with a few people privately.)

Don't put me in a box. Just get to know me and let the "real me" come through without the filter of your bias.

Orc

The whole dont put me in a box, labels are for jars...wtf? why would you not want to identify your struggles?

I think i would be lost without an autism label to make sense of my life.

As I never intend to obtain formal diagnosis, I classify myself as NT with some autistic traits...that should satisfy the anti self-diagnosis people here..."cough!! {{Fnord}} "cough!!

In my mind, it's someone with Asperger's/an Aspie. But in reality, I usually say it's a high functioning autism spectrum disorder because the actual diagnosis of Asperger's is no longer given where I live in the U.S.

The symbol that came immediately to mind was what you see when you look through a kaleidoscope - a dynamic constellation of different components probably represents it best to me. Aspergers is in the mix, it doesn't define me though it is an important part of the whole picture.

As a normal Aspie.