Define "mild"

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I use "mild" to indicate that I am not very disabled by my autism and that I don't need to access very many services or means of help to deal with it. I am much more disabled by depression and anxiety than I am by anything my autism gives me to deal with.

It also has the side effect of indicating how others perceive me (as merely "odd" and not having something "wrong" with me) and what they can expect from my behavior (that I have some features in common with the autism stereotype, but not all of them all of the time). These things are complicated and problematic-- in these cases the label refers to a negative kind of separation from people more affected by their autism. As in, it sets up a class of disabled people ("severe" or "low functioning") who I am trying to distance myself from by using the label "mild". I don't like that since it leads to discrimination against the more affected or those with intellectual disability, and leads to all sorts of ugly things within the autism community where people
scramble to declare themselves special people with the "genius disorder" and don't want to associate themselves with people who need more support for whatever reason.

On the other hand, again, while I understand that a lot of people don't like functioning or severity labels for those kinds of reasons (and for many other reasons brought up in this thread), I also feel like it is important to talk about how affected I am by autism so I don't end up speaking over people who have things worse than me. When I talk about my experiences, I don't want NT people to think that everyone who is autistic is like me or has it as easy as I do, and I don't want other autistic people to think I am speaking for them if I have no experience with their issues. I mean, I have passed as NT all of my life outside of the psychiatry world, found it relatively easy to pick up coping mechanisms for the problems I do have, am verbal and have no problems with using language outside of the occasional social issue, have above-average intelligence with no learning disabilities, and never needed to access educational, residential, or government resources to deal with my autism issues. The word "mild" is shorthand for me for all of this, and I still think it is sometimes necessary for me to declare this sometimes so people know where I am coming from when I talk about my experiences with autism/being autistic.

However, I am learning not to use the labels (especially "low functioning") when referring to other autistic people, since they have such a bad history. As KingdomofRats said, it's best to refer to people's specific "individual differences and difficulties" and to be careful about making generalizations about any population of autistic people.

I do have sensory issues, but only with sounds. When entering a supermarket, I can filter out the background lights and smells, and the only noise that bothers me is kids screaming or shouting, and banging noises like workers throwing down those plastic box things or something. And when I am agitated by these noises, I just tut inside but don't show that I'm agitated because I don't want to cause a scene.
I do own a pair of earplugs, but I only wear them at home when there are people there shuffling about or talking near my room, because it's too distracting when trying to read or write things on the computer in my room.

If I do express my frustration or other overwhelming emotions (obviously I don't in public), I am completely verbal, I shout and swear and cry and kick things and hit myself in the head angrily and threaten to commit suicide. I always have been verbal.

With change of routine, it depends. Sometimes I can handle it, other times I can't. When I can't, I feel a bit depressed, like something's not right. I don't like that feeling very much.

Otherwise, most of my issues are caused by anxiety and depression. I do have poor self-esteem, and also social phobia. I think having social phobia and low self-esteem with AS is a very bad combination. I'm not the sort to bigot NTs because there's a lot I really like, but there have been NTs that I have dealt with before who have helped destroy my self-esteem, and now I have grown up into an adult believing I have no self-worth and that I'm stupid and weird and people laugh at me, etc. And when people say about Aspies lacking empathy and NTs having it, it just makes me feel even more terrible.

Sometimes I can feel very disabled but I think it's because I get extremely overwhelmed with day to day tasks. If I had someone to do all those things for me I think I would be fine.

I have very few sensory issues, and they are to do with noise and chaotic movement. I have absolutely no problems with taste or texture, and have an extremely varied and comprehensive diet. It is only my OCD that makes me somewhat fussy with food - 'safe' foods and 'risky' foods.

I have no significant tactile issues either.

With regard to sound, I simply cannot block out extraneous noise when I am reading or doing any other task that involves the need to concentrate. When trying to get to sleep, my mind zooms in on all the little noises, and this makes me stressed. I have tried ear plugs but they did not work, so I put my fingers in my ears - this is uncomfortable, but at least it gives me peace and quiet.

I can only concentrate on reading if I whisper the words, otherwise I cannot create any meaning.

I don't like crowded places, but I have become better at tolerating them. If I have to, I can enter a crowded supermarket - I don't like it, but I can put up with it for a while.

Am I 'mild'? On one interpretation I am: I am very articulate, do not speak in a monotone, can easily pass as 'normal', can make good eye contact, and I do express interest in other people. But on another interpretation I am not mild at all: I have few if any friends, cannot compromise easily, am very egocentric and obsessive, and can have explosive tantrums. I also have OCD and severe anxiety, am on benefits, and receive a lot of support.

I also have dyscalculia and a large discrepancy between my verbal IQ (relatively high) and Performance IQ. My problems were picked up early in my childhood, but I was not diagnosed until I was 21.

I think it's good how people seem to know themselves pretty well. Is this because you analyse yourselves a lot?

I certainly analyse myself a lot. I have been told by my support worker that I have a lot of insight into my difficulties, probably because of a special interest in psychology. My egocentricity could actually benefit me in some ways! I also love learning about people, and how society works.

I can't think to analyse myself.

Actually, even some BAPs can have severe sensory issues. My mum has some autistic traits but is definitely not autistic and she wears all her clothes inside-out around the house (not out of the house) because the seams bother her. She cuts off tags so thoroughly she sometimes ruins shirts and will wear and keep shirts with giant holes in them because it's hard for her to find shirts in materials she likes. She cuts off the collars of nightshirts because they bother her.

My auditory sensitivity is pretty severe and I have great difficulty filtering out background noise to hear foreground. Some smells bother me A LOT too. There aren't a lot of textures of food that I can't eat but those that I can't I react to quite strongly. If there's a little bit of peanut butter or dried fruit or desiccated coconut in something I bite into I'll feel instantly nauseated and spit it out immediately wherever I am, for example. In other ways I'm pretty high functioning.

They say I'm "mild", I just say I have a high tollerance. Like right now my auditory system is almost overloaded. There are 6 conversations going on around me, 2 people crunching on chips, the overhead lights buzzing, the typing/pounding on the keyboards, plus the random noises when someone drives by outside. Now I know for some this would be well beyond breaking point almost to much to handle. For me, I am not "comfortable" but I can tollerate it. Now I'm only light sensitive, so the I'm good there, However sometimes the smells will start to push me over the limit, when a woman walks past who has perfume on, ie enough that I can smell it from 2 ft away.

I'm ok /mostly/ in the social aspect... I can look people in the eye, mostly because it pounded into me from an early age. I also don't hesitate when I talk, but again that was training rather than natural. However I do from time to time say things that people stop and look at me for, most like 2 phrases/loss of thought occurs and the words comes out all jumbled.

I don't like the concept of "mild" or "high-functioning" because it assumes that the person is competent in a wide variety of areas, whereas I've noticed that most people on the spectrum, even if they are fairly good at skills society values like getting a job or performing well in school, struggle quite a lot with other areas. I feel like the concept of "mild" really minimizes the severity of some of these issues and makes people assume that the person is proficient in areas that are not usually an issue with NTs.

Last edited by anneurysm on 29 Jul 2013, 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it'd be nice to be able to fly sometimes.

When NTs were hunter gatherers wondering through the jungles they developed capacity to pigeonhole people they came across into categories such as dangerous/not dangerous....good to eat/bad to eat (if they were cannibals)......my tribe/not my tribe......friend/enemy.....

This skill enabled them to survive in their environment. Even today while we don't really need to categorise people, we still prefer to make judgements about people's profiles in terms of their relationship to ourselves (are they are threat, what do they have to offer etc). We thus develop heuristics as shortcuts to quickly decide how to respond to people. NTs use plenty of heuristics which is why they are able to use them in social interaction so easily.

Those of us who still pander to our primitive instincts will cling to these pathetic labels as if they have meaning. The "mild" label is really for the benefit of NTs who (in reality) like to pigeonhole all of us but can say "shucks! this "special needs" person is not as bad as this other one so he/she is "mild".

I believe one's level of intelligence comes into play here.

The higher your intelligence, the better equipped you are to come up with coping/camouflage technqiues. Doesn't mean you aren't experiencing the same things though.

My opinion.

I think it is more a combination of cognitive abilities and the level of self awareness/analysis in certain behavioral patterns, combined with the basic behavioral profile for appropriate social interaction you created based on what you were taught as a child.

There are many people with very high IQ's also among the NT population who despite their intelligence lack the ability to camouflage certain traits, traits that others with lower IQ's have no trouble disguising, the question is however if the former would benefit more from education/therapy regarding their behavior.

Great points, I agree!

I'm a "mild" case, but I still have daily struggles. I think the main reason I'm able to function well, is because of a high intelligence and the fact that I was not sent to special ed. classes and told that I was fundamentally different from other kids. I think most aspies are "mild" cases. In any case, "mild" AS in my case, still means language problems (only when it comes to speech, not in written form), very obsessive interests, massive problems with changes in my routine, short term/unstable relationships, friendships that almost never last, problems with hand-to-eye coordination, sensory issues, inability to handle people who nag, lack of empathy (I still feel a lot of sympathy) and an almost nonexistant social intuition (whatever I know in terms of social interaction, I've learned mechanically by trial and error as well as guides).

Since I don't have NVLD as a comorbid disorder, I'm very good at math and science--and my memory is like a steel trap, though.