Can Asperger Syndrome be mild?

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I went to see a psyciatrist yesterday and he told me I have mild Asperger Syndrome. When I asked him what he meant by "mild" he said its because I have had a relationship in the past and have been able to work.

Does Asperger syndrome have different levels of intensity in different people? or is it really just that everyone is different and so different people with AS will respond to it differently?

I am feeling a bit annoyed at his describing it as "mild". I have had one main relationship in my life, but never really understood it. I manage to lose my job every year or so and suffer the most persistent periods of depression. I have few friends and hardly go out in my whole life.

The only time in my life that I have managed to attend a social situation without being confused and stressed was when I was on ecstasy as a youngster. All other times I feel too uncertain and confused so generally freeze up or go home.

I can manage to work but it is so exhausting that I cannot manage anything else in life. But I should not mind because a doctor who met me for an hour at the age of 40 told me its mild.

So I wonder if people on here can understand my little rant, or do you think the doctor has a point?

AS fades quite smoothly into the typical. So, yes, it is possible to have AS that is closer to typical than other cases of AS. Whether you can call this "mild" is another question (people with "milder" autism often seem to have more distress and a higher rate of comorbid depression).

Autism in general is very diverse, and can cause profound disability or disability so slight that it's debatable whether it should be diagnosed at all. So, yes, you can have "mild AS"; but as you correctly state, that doesn't mean that it is not a serious issue for you. In fact, people with "mild AS" can have it harder because they are "not disabled enough" to take advantage of the adjustments that people with more obvious autism tend to get. It's a matter of effort expended to do what's expected of you in your environment; if you had been obviously autistic from childhood, you might have had your environment changed so that you were only expending two units of effort to get through your day; whereas since you have no accommodations, you are probably spending five units. (Physical example: People in wheelchairs often spend much less energy to cover the same distance than a similar group of people who can walk the distance, but with crutches.)

Yes it can be mild.

I think mild means how many traits you have or how often you display them or how badly they impair you. I think it goes by how extreme they are and if your traits aren't that extreme, they say it's mild. Or if it's not that noticeable they say it's mild. I think every doctor has their own definition of what mild AS is. Some go by if you have worked before or had a relationship or if you ever finished high school or college or ever went or how much help you needed in school.

When my son was diagnosed I was told that there is no such thing as "mild" Asperger's. You either meet the diagnostic criteria or you don't and each individual with Asperger's is different.

That is what the assessment team told me, and I agree with what they said.

I tend to agree with this, in regards to the current diagnostic criteria. If you don't meet the criteria then you don't have Aspergers. That doesn't mean you aren't somewhere on the broader spectrum, everyone is.
However, if the proposed changes to the DSM go ahead, then there won't be Aspergers at all and you will certainly be labelled as "mild", "severe", etc. But again, if you don't meet the criteria for Austism Spectrum Disorder then you don't have it, mild or otherwise. The labels are primarily there for intervention and support purposes, which is why it tries to be as clear-cut as possible.
Anyway all I'm trying to say is, autistic traits are spectral in nature, but diagnosis tries to find cut-off points for labelling. To say you have "mild" Aspergers should be irrelevant to the support you are entitled to with an AS diagnosis.

I don't know what my exact Dx actually is, since I got it through a chain of people (doctor told mom told sister who finally told me), but I'm going to guess I'd be labeled as "mild" considering I can socialize and I can keep my job in which I work with customers all the time...

but I have very definite Aspie traits which make so much more sense to me now that I know that I am one and have researched it.

My son has also recently been diagnosed with "mild" Asperger's. He is 10 and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with support groups. I don't know where to even start, I think I am still a little overwhelmed with this..but then again it seems to explain a lot about the last couple of years. Anyway, back to concern. I am interested if anyone has any positive thoughts about support groups for children. We are in the Denver, CO, area and I have found a lot of adult groups, but not too many child geared groups.

DISCLAIMER: Not a parent, am a person with Asperger's.

Welcome to the group, dlee28! Okay, as an adult in my mid-40s, looking back on it. Two things helped me as a boy: judo and boy scouts. That way, I didn't have all my eggs in the one social basket of school. Probably additional things would have also helped such as: baseball (really kind of an individual sport in a social context), explorer coeds in my mid-teens maybe on paramedics on something else really interesting, maybe attending city council (if there had been an adult who could model working for improvements and at the same time cutting the existing officials some slack).

I am good at organizing---tag games, backyard carnivals, car wash businesses. What I'm not good at is standing around in this kind of low-grade social. So, Why don't I play to strength! And obviously I think I should. I roll with my strong points and try to matter-of-factly add extra skills.

I have patchy social skills. Next girlfriend I'm going to simply tell her that. People sometimes think that because I'm so good in some areas, the other stuff is intentional, and it really isn't.

I have been a retail manager on three occasions (it doesn't pay that much). Okay, for the last two years, I have been living with my parents. And it's been hard. My Dad in particular is highly critical.

So, this kind of economic turndown, a lot of people have hard times. The important thing is just to keep trying. For example, I'm looking into starting an SAT tutoring business. And a lot of our Aspie traits kind of blend over with entrepreneurial traits. Straight up, 80% of new businesses fail, those are the facts of the matter. In particular, the thing that will kill you is paying rent, upkeep and labor hours on a storefront. So don't have a storefront. Think service business, and then the Fred DeLuca strategy of testing the main idea as economically as possible.

High functioning is probably a more apt description than mild.

I'm with Marcia. If you meet the criteria, then you have Asperger's. Either you do or you don't.

An analogy would be to say that when you think you have the flu, either have it (i.e. you have all the flu symptoms) or you don't have it (i.e. you only have a stuffy nose). If you suffer from all the the flu symptoms, you may not feel all that sick, but you DO have the flu! If you meet the criteria for Asperger's and it those traits are causing you difficulties in your life, then you have Asperger's; there is no "mild."

It IS possible to only have a few autistic or Aspergian traits that are no problem for you whatsoever, in which case, good for you, but you do not then have Asperger's.

This is where the doctor could have ping-ponged it back and forth a little. He might initially say it's mild (or high-functioning), but once you tell him this, he could say, 'Oh, Okay.' And he might have some methods that could be helpful, or at least worth experimenting with.

And depression is eminently treatable, just not all the time. As I understand it, everyone's biochem is a little different, and it takes about 2-4 weeks to tell if a medication is going to work for a particular person. And important to have a doctor you can ping-pong back and forth with, okay, this medicine doesn't work, this other one might. And not a doctor who's an egoist and gets locked into a particular treatment and into being "right."

And Robdemanc, I think your rant is quite understandable and I'm glad you posted it.

And Robdemanc, me, and everyone here, depression is so common, I think we could do a real service if we could do some research, say on google books, and try and find some of the better books. And let's see how far we can take it.

At the very least, we could help our fellow members become more informed patients, and be able to better tell when they're receiving high-quality medical care, and when they're not.

And we can do it in a thoroughly half-assed way! We will undertry, and because of that we will probably be more successful. (Besides, a sense of obligation that we 'should' do this, is as dry as dust. And realistically, there are many good potential projects.)

If Asperger's is a spectrum disorder of course it can be mild! It affects people differently, based on their personalities.

I personally feel I have mild Asperger's, though I've never been diagnosed. I don't have any problem working, as long as it's in a job where I can have freedom over what I am doing. I've never been in a relationship however and I have SERIOUS issues in that arena. I have a few close friends, which is all I need. I can deal with social events if I am given time to mentally prepare. I have some sensory issues, but nothing I haven't learned how to deal with by now. My routines and anxiety over changing things- even little things like my shampoo- are probably the worst of it, along with the relationship issues.

In my opinion, it really depends on the symptoms that you have and which ones of those are more severe or more mild.

it depends on the symptoms that the individual has and how they present themselves.

(My diagnosis is Nonverbal Learning Disorder, btw) Personally, I feel like my level of impairment really depends on the situation. For example, I always did fine academically, so I didn't realize how "severe" my NLD was until I left school and I was thrown into situations that I wasn't as good at. Therapists will overestimate my abilities for interaction, since a one-on-one conversation in a quiet environment with no other stimuli is what I'm best at. It's also not what conversations are really like out in the world. So yeah, I would say my NLD goes from mild to severe, depending on the situation and how NLD-unfriendly it is.

Some of the people that helped me described that there are atleast three categories of Asperger/High functioning Autism. Mild, medium, and heavy. Some are mildly affected and have some aspects of this syndrome. Others suffer heavily from it and are in the heavy category. The medium range, such as myself, suffered a lot from it but managed to fit in well with the NTs.