What exactly is "mild" Aspergers?

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Many of the posts here deal with severity levels of AS, and one way or another, I find such posts tend to annoy me, and I'd like to articulate why with a question or two.

Mild or severe by what standards? Who's standards?

Some of you might recall a post of mine a while back titled "Too pretty to have AS" or something of the sort, in which I shared my observation, and annoyance, that the better one looks, the less likely someone is to believe one has AS. If one does not look outwardly different, then one is assumed not to be different.

While this does have it's advantages....those with AS who wish to be more accepted need merely adopt a good sense of style, I believe it also presents many disadvantages to those who feel they struggle with certain aspects of their lives due to AS, and seek help, only to be turned away because they look too good, and if they actually do have AS, it's assumed it must be "mild", because after all, if it weren't mild, something would appear physically wrong with them...so many individuals seem to think.

Whether one is inclined to consider AS a disability, or an illness, condition, defect, or not...perhaps even a gift, is irrelevant really because despite what it is, in the context of our modern day society, people with AS will struggle in one area or another.

It seems to be the tendency of many NT's to judge whether someone has "mild" or "severe" AS by superficial factors alone. Yet these factors cannot serve as an indicator of the extent a person actually struggles.

Am I mild because I can pull together a fairly fashionable outfit, look someone in the eye when I smile, say hello, and introduce myself, and then have a brief yet well balanced conversation with them?

Or am I severe because I like to stand in the corner of the living room for 45 minute intervals with my head against the wall and quietly think, despite all of my study of the subject, still can't seem to make a friend, have daily, drawn out internal battles over mundane transitions, wear one model of shoes and find it very upsetting when I have to switch, have a persistent preoccupation with prime numbers and weather, among other things, can't pass a personality test for any of those minimum wage go nowhere jobs, have gotten fired multiple times for doing EXACTLY what I was told to do, not doing what I wasn't told to do, but still expected to do, and doing what I wasn't told to do but seemed like common sense to do and thought I'd get fired for not doing, and, according to testing, still have no idea what the hell little Jimmy is doing in those goddamn picture stories, or maybe what he was doing was irrelevant and I was just supposed to describe how bad I felt that he almost got bit by a dog. Who the hell knows, it's impossible to figure out what NT's expect of me half the time.

I'm going to go stand in the corner and think now until I can't keep my eyes open anymore, because that's the only way I can force myself into bed, and I have to be up to give a presentation tomorrow.

That is a very good question. I would be considered very mild, because I can mostly pass as normal. I can take care of myself. I can hold a job. I can keep up my end of a conversation. I can dress in a way that is not too unusual. I am capable of figuring out basic social rules by watching people.

Yet, I cannot make and keep friends. In any sort of social gathering, I vanish, because I cannot figure out how to interact with groups of people. This inability to socialize causes me a great deal of distress, because I am not naturally a loner. I offend people because I cannot judge how they will respond to what I say. I suffer severe depression, which is largely due to my inability to socialize.

It is very perplexing. I have very mild AS, but at the same time, the effect on my life is huge.

Oddly enough, my mother probably has more severe AS than I do, but it causes her less distress. As far as I can tell, she is so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she does not even realize how different she is. She is less severe, but the somehow she is not seriously affected by it.

I think it's mild if you can pass in society outwardly and not have any obvious impairment. If you have a job, relationship and friends (or possibly two of those three at any one time), I would think it's mild. As an adult it would be difficult to get diagnosis I think.

When my son was diagnosed the assessment team specifically said that there is no such thing as "mild" Asperger's. You are either AS or you are not.

Individuals with Asperger's are all different from each other, and the differences will be inherent to them as a person and their difficulties will manifest differently according to all sorts of factors - environment, stress levels, stage of life etc.

Interesting topic. I consider myself mild AS too, and have very similar problems. I'm now reading the hotline from the beginning, quite valuable.

That's just an artifact of their classification scheme. We can see by the number of adults who have trouble getting a dx. Those adults arent suddenly healing themselves at age eighteen. They are just learning coping skills and masking their symptoms. The degree to which you can do that does seem to be describing a severity of some sort.

If the proposed changes are made to the next DSM, there won't be an AS at all. You'll just be classed as autism spectrum and given a severity number. So mild might be more easily measured under that scheme.

But of course the point of the OP is just that even apparently mild forms are still a pain. And I would agree with that.

The idea of mild AS is perfectly simple, if most of your symptoms are on a mild level your AS is mild. If there can be moderate and severe levels of AS then why not mild? Being classed as mild doesn't make you any less of a valid case, and yes it is true you either have it or you don't, and if you do it's perfectly possible to have mostly mild traits. I'm mild, the doctor that diagnosed me said so, the teachers at school said so and I agree with them. I'm nothing like someone with severe AS, I knew a guy at school who was obviously severe AS and there was a giant gulf between us, we were nothing alike.

Last edited by MONKEY on 04 Mar 2011, 7:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

This. This is what most people seem to think of when they think of mild AS. The stereotype is a monotone voiced person who looks at people's shoes while stimming uncontrollably with their hands and delivering long monologues on the mechanical difference of trains of various makes in 1883 to people completely uninterested before being picked up by someone who looks after them because they're obviously incapable of even simple tasks like walking home by themselves - even if they live only a 5 minute walk away with no streets to cross. Sorry but that's the general stereotype. If you don't appear that way, if people just think you're a bit odd or dorky, then a lot of people will say it's obviously mild or that you can't possibly have it.

I can pass, for a while. But because I can pass, my difficulties when they come out, are in some regards less understood. In a sense I sometimes feel like I'm in no-man's land, because I can mostly pass people don't want to put me in with the AS who show more outward signs and much of what they propose as solutions for them I find can't fit me, I've gone too far towards NT to accept them. But at the same time I can't fully fit into the NT world either and I keep failing there in the long run. Mild AS seems to be a term people use for how a person appears to them, but does 'mild' AS automatically mean the person has less difficulties in their life? I'm not so sure. The problem with masks is that they only hide what's behind them, they don't remove it.

Mild or severe... who gives a s**t?
Did Temple Grandin give up on her goals because of her diagnosis?

It's all a question of support and self-empowerment
If you don't have either one it's just a house of cards waiting for a strong breeze...

...btw, insomnia is a b***h!
and it's going to undermine ALL your efforts untill you get rid of it.
"Body Stillness" meditation cured mine,
I won't say it's your thing, but look into it

I think the right way to put the question is this: Is one a well adapted Aspie or not. A well adapted Aspie can "get along", navigate his life in an overwhelmingly NT world. I consider myself fortunate to have adapted myself to the NT world, which is most of the world. I am still my Aspie self, but use behavioral modalities that I worked out empirically to get along. I pass for human rather well at this stage of my life.

ruveyn

Hi Chronos: Thanks for starting this post. I think its a very thought provoking message you wrote

By the person making them. The person adopts some criteria and makes a judgment based on if the person passes it or not. The problem with mild or severe or AS in general is that its open to interruption. What may be mild to one person may seem severe to the other person and vice versa.



I have to agree with everything you said in this quote except for the last paragraph. NT's are not the only ones to judge. How many times on these forums do AS people make judgment calls on other AS people if they describe themselves as mild or severe. How about the great debate about having been diagnosed or not diagnosed?

Human beings in general make snap judgments based on our beliefs of what those classifications mean about the other person. We do not think to ask questions or think "outside the box" about what is really going in with the person. Just easier to make those classifications and "know" what is going on with the person

Me being a human also, is quick to make judgments. What I said in the last paragraph is just my opinion on human beings not actual fact. Not all human beings do that, but it was easier for me to say or think that.



Nope you are not mild. You are just someone with AS nothing more or else. The fact that you can pull together a fairly fashionable outfit, smile, introduce yourself and have a good conversation just allows me to know you better.

Does that fact that I had 45 years on this Earth to learn NT ways and therefore compensate more for my faults make me a mild or severe? Was I severe when I couldn't compensate because I hadn't learn to fit in yet? I am neither, I'm just like you someone with AS.



Still just a person with AS. What you said just allow me to know you better and your struggles with AS.

Am I more severe than you, because it will take me a couple of hours to write this post.? Time spent focusing on just writing this and doing nothing else because I find it hard to organize my thoughts and type them up. That I feel people will misunderstand what I wrote because it was so hard to type it up. Therefore more time spend redoing the post to express it differently. Then the loathing I have for myself after submitting the post because I spent so much time just on doing this which could have been better spent doing something else. With all that going on in my head, I end up with a severe headache. The answer is no, just allows you to see where my struggles with AS are, despite sounding and looking normal to everyone else.



I hope the presentation goes well for you

I hate this notion of mild vs not mild. Clearly, some are heavily challenged by autism. It kills me when I read some of the struggles people are going through. But when did "getting by" become equated with not impaired?

There is this huge inconsistency in this culture. A great deal of lip service is paid to maximizing realized potential. But as soon as you can "get by" without "burdening society" maximizing your realized potential becomes your responsibility alone. My more cynical thoughts lead me to believe that a lot of services provided to the disabled are really more about easing collective social guilt and not really anything to do with the empowerment of disabled individuals. Some of the horror stories I've read here are just unfathomable to me.

I am existentially exhausted, continually depressed, and functioning way below my ability. I have ALWAYS been this way. But I have never been on public assistance, never had any disability services, always managed to get by, one way or another. But, because I don't act like Rainman or piss myself, I have 'mild' autism.

Whatever. I just wish people that don't know jack s**t would quit playing god with my life (and anybody else on the spectrum as well).

And ironically, good looks seem to positively correlate with AS. Both my real-life Aspie friends are quite attractive, and I wasn't so bad myself at one time.

"Mild" AS is rather unscientific. I guess a reasonable working definition would be somebody who scored within some defined region around the diagnostic threshold on the AQ test, or fell into the "some Aspie traits and some NT traits" category on the Aspie-Quiz. But I'd prefer to just see the numbers. When I asked my diagnostician how strongly I had AS, she simply referred to the test scores and said that I'm about halfway between NT and the maximum possible Aspie score. I'd call that moderate.

"Mild" can't really describe anything exactly, so I don't think there's a definitive answer to the question.

and this



x 1,000

"Mild Asperger's" is a funny expression. Kinda like, "tall midget"

I really like this paper describing introversion as a non-clinical part of the autism spectrum:

http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0003090/Grime ... 005_MA.pdf

So mild would be somewhere on the border between non-clinical and clinical criteria continuum.