"Mild" form of autism

Post Reply New Topic

so, aspergers
Excuse my rant but i must voice this, now we've all had experiance with this I'm sure, from my brothers first procalaimation to his girlfriend "he has a very very very mild form of autism" to the partialy justified parents of LFA's, it drives me nuts.

I've been out of school for the past 2 years, because about two years ago I sort of fell apart from the overload I was receiving everyday at school
I go in, I do my things, try make friends, come home, collapse on bed and sleep till morning to do it all again, and that was my life for quite awhile, I really couldn't be happier that I'm finally getting somewhere and receiving treatment and being understood more, but I can plainly say that my days in school were a nightmarish mix of exclusion, argument and pity - it's been anything but mild, in fact the nature of my condition in combination with an unfeeling education system has sort of set me back several years, I probably wont be finished my secondary education now till I'm 20, this is not mild my dearest fellow, it is however milder then LFA, in the same way that someone who cannot ever walk is milder then someone who cannot move at all. (a clumsy analogy but you get my point)

Share your "this is not mild" stories, but try be up beat

Well, I knew a guy that had a mild form of cancer. He beat it, but it was a real pain in the ass.

a mild form of autism is still autism-I understand there are higher functioning people and lower functioning but we are all autistic-its like one time I had a gas leak and the person fixing didn't care how big or how small the leak was-it was a gas leak and the right conditions could set off an explosion.

I think this often comes from the way people assume "autism=severe". It's a stereotype. In reality, there are far more cases in the "mild" range.

So they say "very very mild" because they want to explain that this isn't like the stereotypical ultra-severe pity-this-poor-child autism. Even though you probably have a pretty typical case of autism.

It bothers me too.

But another thing that a lot of people don't realize, is that it's possible that a condition is always severe. It's just a matter of how severe. Like I have a severe movement impairment, but for the particular impairment I'm mild to moderate. So a person could be severely impaired by autism, and yet their autism could be said to be "very mild". That's assuming that autism is one of those things that is always severe by nature. (By which I mean, always causes a severe impairment in order to be diagnosed. But which within the context of autism can be divided into mild, moderate, and severe. But mild autism would still be a severe impairment objectively speaking.)

All that said, I don't know that I agree that that's the case, and I know that a lot of the people who talk about everyone who can communicate being "really mild" are people who either believe or really want others to believe, that we all have really mild impairments overall, and that's totally wrong. So I don't think they mean what I said above. Except some of them might.

I know someone who had mild Dissociative Identity Disorder. He only had three personalities.

I consider myself a quite high functioning person. I only find my asperger's truly becomes a problem when I am under axnxiety or stress.

I find that many people who describe their AS as "mild" are actually the ones who are the least comfortable with themselves having AS...regardless of their range of functioning. As they are uncomfortable with having this difference, they will attempt to justify it by emphasising the 'mild' part.

As for myself, I have done well in some areas of my life and could work on improving in others. During the deepest parts of my depression spells where I can't get out of bed, my functioning level is very low, but at one of my presentations, where people see me as an expert, my functioning level is quite high. It's all relative to the situations you're in, and because a person on the spectrum is so varied between skillsets (i.e. has a phd but no basic social skills), I think functioning labels are largely irrelevant.

Normally I just say I am autistic, but if I have to explain (for some reason) my severity, I say I have severe high-functioning autism. I don't always feels all that functioning (hence: severe); however, I certainly cannot say I am low-functioning either since I dress and feed myself, I am verbal (with some difficulties, but nevertheless...), I go to university, and I work a few hours a week. That being said, I am far from mild. I content with the term autism, but if people must further label me, I am certainly do not have mild autism....I have severe HFA.

Also, what you said about your experiences at school, I can totally relate to that. That is also how I felt at school so often. I ended up dropping out of school two months before graduation due to the overload I was experiencing there. Most of my years in school, I usually (not always) had one ``best friend``--a label that belonged to a new person every year, or sometimes more than one person a year because people eventually stopped wanting to be my friend since I was odd and could not connect properly, and was very very very rigid. Most other people were cruel to me and did not want to play with me, have me in their group or team, etc. For those who hated me, the nicest thing they did was ignore me completely. I was invisible to most, and I dreaded when we had to get into groups (not only because I was so rigid but because I knew I would be the only loner that no group wanted to take). For those that couldn`t resist but pick on me, I was tormented and tortured for years by various bullies. Then my older brothers would beat them up, it would stop for a week or two, then resume again until my brothers beat them up again, and so on. School was a nightmare for me much of the time. The sensory overload was also a huge issue, especially since I didn`t understand then what the problem was. I was far from mild, and the worst part is: I never knew I was autistic. While I myself didn`t know anything was abnormal, everyone else made sure that I was aware. I spent my life thinking that everyone would always hate me, that I was defective, that I was the daughter of Satan (due to my frequent, uncontrollable meltdowns), etc. I have been miserable ever since I was 8 years old because of not having the diagnosis of autism. Maybe now that it is identified, even though I know it will never be mild, I can learn how to cope better and be more successful in my life.


Edit: okay, not that up beat, but I will maintain that my last sentence is at least somewhat hopeful and positive.

Thank you littlelily I really indentify with what you've said, I'm glad you can finally get the answers you need to understand yourself better.

I wanted to drop out for a long time, my family were very worried because I was so much like my eldest brother and he dropped out for similar reasons (though he isnt autistic), I do wish I hated school for normal reasons, like homework and girl trouble or something silly like that, I think I'd beo ver the moon if I had normal problems.

My dentist informed me the other day, that "if you're autistic, you must have very very very mild Asperger's." Uh... thanks for your expert opinion. You're a DENTIST. But for that matter, I don't have Asperger's and I'm not "very very very mild" anything. You mean, because I could sit in your chair and said two words, I must be super high functioning? I didn't get it.

I got told by a nurse the other day that my ADHD must be very mild because I'm able to sit still, unlike her twelve year old nephew. I didn't bother to tell her anything about suspecting I might have mild autism. Haha. That would've gone over even worse... and I only disclosed the information because the medication I'm on showed up on a drug test.

It was a lesson, though. I think people are generally quite bit black-and-white in their thinking. As in, unless you conform to the stereotype of what xyz disorder is and actively exhibiting traits a, b, and c, then you are obviously mild at most. Hence, there is not a REAL problem, and therefore they don't need to make any special accommodations (in their head or literally).

Then, of course, there is the attempt at politeness... they don't want to say, "Wow! Your xyz disorder must be SEVERE!" because that would also be bad. So they go with what they think you want to hear. Mainly, that you might have that disorder, but you are otherwise pretty normal looking. So there's no need to feel self-conscious about it or anything. You are just like everybody else!

People often arent well informed about autism unless they have a reason to be so you really shouldnt expect them to understand. The way I look at it is that we have a mild form of autism but we still have something. And theres a reason why we have a disability. On the scale of normal, we are severe. We are close enough to normal were people dont really see that were different.

Even to the friends who have heard all my sob stories, they still see me as normal. Its like "get over it, everyone goes thru it" kinda attitude. Im not mad at them for it, I dont expect them to understand things fully, Im a very hard person to understand. They just see me as someone who lacks common sense and freaks out a lot. I tell em I have aspergers and they forget.