Is the majority of the people here really, "mild asperg

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So Ive read a ton of threads on here about people talking about how their mild cases. Are most of the people on here really "mild"? Because I would suspect all the people claiming to be mild are range from NTs thinking there aspie to aspies who arent actually mild. It doesnt seem like wp gets a higher representation of people at other ends of the spectrum (or they dont post as much?)

As for me, the psych that diagnosed me with aspergers claimed it was mild, and another psych who I saw a yr later said I had moderate to severe aspergers. So I just put together the diagnosises and say I have mild to moderate aspergers.

Im just wondering?

I remember I did a poll here in 2006 and the majority voted mild. My ex questioned it by saying "They want it to be" and told me they were not and said I wasn't either. I can remember someone else questioning rather aspies are really mild as they claim.

So are the majority here mild? I have no idea. Some have say there is no such thing as mild, you either have it or you don't and another person has said aren't all aspies mild because it's a form of autism, a mild form of it.

Not really

I consider myself to be hot and spicy

If I was a curry i'd be a vindaloo I leave Korma for the "mild" amateurs

Would one be able to/want to post on a message board if their Aspergers were worse than mild? I think coming here and discussing one's issues indicates that they are only mild AS.

I'm one of those people that you describe as a mild aspie. i've learned enough social and life skills to get by without standing out too much. i think one of the main ways in which my asperger's affects me is sensory-wise - i get overwhelmed by my surroundings very easily, and am always exhausted and overstimulated. I also have pretty bad anxiety due to having been bullied as a child.

how do i know this? my psychiatrist, and friends that know I have Asperger's tell me I have decent social skills. So we do come in all shapes and forms!

Are you mainly asking about whether the way we perceive ourselves is accurate to how the rest of the world perceives us? I think it can be very subjective. Is this what you meant?

Sure. Typing is a completely different activity from speaking, or self-care for that matter.

Edit: It's really hard for me to tell what my functioning level is compared to most people here, because I can't see what they're really like in person. I know that I probably come across quite differently online than I do in real life, mostly because I hardly talk in real life. And, I wasn't given any functioning level, but I'm not sure really how useful one is anyway.

I knew what I said would be misinterpreted. It's not just about typing...it's about actually seeking help and explaining your personal situation to a bunch of strangers. I don't think someone on the lower end of AS would do that.

It definitely doesn't mean that at all, although that assumption and lots of others tend to drive away people who aren't considered mild. It's like being invisible.

(Personally I don't think we know what autism is, therefore we can't measure its severity. And it might be something affecting so many abilities in so many ways that a single word couldn't possibly cover it. But I'm... both diagnosed with autism, and never been said professionally to have 'mild' anything.)

I know people diagnosed with severe autism who post on places like this. Sure, some people labeled severe can't post to a place like this, but others very much can and do. It might be more difficult (in some cases) but it's sure not impossible.

Being labeled severe AS or severe autism can be for many different reasons, it all depends on the person. Only some of those reasons would make people unable or unwilling to post on a place like this. (And some people who were once unable and/or unwilling can became able and willing while still retaining enough other traits to be labeled severe by most people's standards.)

There's just this problem that people think that you can tell by writing style or something who is who. When actually you can only sometimes tell. The two people I've met with the highest vocabularies I've ever seen, are people labeled with severe autism. So are some very good writers. Of course there are definitely people who can't do that, but ability to do that doesn't necessarily say anything about what severity label a person has been given. A person might be labeled severe for many other reasons than having no speech/writing.

As far as social desire goes, there are people labeled mild, moderate, and severe who would come to a place like this (for a wide variety of reasons), and people labeled mild, moderate, and severe who would fear coming here or be indifferent to it. Severity levels aren't about that either, although sometimes people think they are when they're not. (By which I mean, there's lots of people who are labeled "unwilling to socialize" who simply can't go through the motions of doing it. Such people might find online a lot easier for that, if they were able to write.)

Yes;after all, if there are "LFAs" in the forum, a severe AS could also have desire and skills to participate in the forum.

I imagine that mild AS could be the majority for two reasons:

a) Autistic traits in the population probably follow a gaussian distribution, or something similar - these mean that are more BAPs than mild aspies, more mild aspies than severe aspies, and more severe aspies than severe autistics.

b) in principle, mild aspies have interests less narrow than severe aspies; and, more broad are your interests, higher the probability that "posting and debating at WP" be within your sphere of interests.

You always come off with the best responses. As for me, I'm more of a butter and garlic.

I always thought the severity most professionals use is too general and doesn't cover all bases. I said in another thread that my symptoms and traits are not the same as yours. Each of us has our own set of difficulties. Social anxiety is a huge problem for me, for others it may not be. I'm into electronics and collected tea bags when I was a kid, another individual on the spectrum might be into refrigerators and collected various different kinds of masking tape. Saying I'm mild because I was able to hold a job for a numbers of years and socialize only addresses one social aspect of my AS, but yet when I am interested in a girl and go to talk to her my chest hurts so much it feels like I'm being run over by a truck because of the amount of anxiety I feel. Is that mild or moderate? I never understood the use of that kind of classification.

I think I have classic autism (although I have an Aspergers diagnosis), and I consider myself to be severe on the high-functioning side of autism.

Now I want chicken wings.

I'm not sure............I think in childhood it would not have been mild as I was described as unaware of my peers and surroundings and in my own little world, no friends ..............and my stimming and need for sameness were very pronounced and dominated my life. My language was well developed though and my prosody was normal (except for sounding a bit formal and pedantic). Maybe I would have been considered moderate. Now I think I would be considered mild. I was in social skills groups since I as 5 1/2 until high school..............which might have had something to do with it.

I was diagnosed at 13 years of age with no qualifiers (mild, moderate, severe). Now my psychiatrist said she thinks I have mild AS.

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 20 Apr 2011, 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If I use Laz's analogy I'd probably be just a mild korma, with sporadic onion bhaji moments on bad days.

I am mild, all of the doctors, teachers, family members and friends said so and I believe them. I don't just wish I was mild, although as a kid I was more oblivious so more of my aspieness showed through (I was maybe a tikka masala then ).

Severity is in the eyes of the beholder.

A measure of 'severity' is determining one's socialization capacity. That parameter is responsible for the etymology of 'Autism' in the first place, the disorder is defined by detachment, a presumed 'self' focus, etc.

It can be argued that one can only be as 'mild' an autistic as one is perceived to be by others.

Last edited by Dinosaw on 20 Apr 2011, 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When I was diagnosed it had only been in the DSM for a few years, and it was through my campus counseling center. They told me mild, but I've since been told by a psychologist it is more like moderate. It could just be that when it was a new diagnosis professionals were not entirely comfortable making the diagnosis and went with mild.