How Asperger's are you- is it even a legit question

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I have a close friend who has been working with me on my social anxieties, and who knows I have Aspergers. However, she knows a couple other people with Asperger's, and says that I am only affected 25%.

I appreciate the sentiment expressed, but I feel she just doesn't understand the real extent to which I am affected.

For example, when we go out to eat I order the same, exact, thing, ALWAYS. A friend of hers with an autistic child said that this was common to Autistics, and now she wont let me order that anymore.

Do you think that Autism Spectrum Disorders affect you to a different extent? Or does it just manifest itself in different manners?

I don't think her comment is legitimate either. Either you are on the spectrum or you aren't. There are no percentages. I think the difference, as with all psychiatric disorders, is in how well the individual is able to function despite having the condition. People vary significantly in how they behave even if they have the same diagnosis.

she won't let you order what you want?? ok, if she's paying, i suppose she might have some justification for that, but what does she think, that if she stops you from the outward expression of AS that you will be cured or something?

i think that at the very least, she needs to actually learn something about the subject, rather than just knowing a few people.

You can't be partially Autistic. If you are on the Spectrum than you are on it. You may be affected more severely or less severely and you may have developed coping mechanisms that help you navigate through life but that does not mean you are only half or a quarter Autistic. That's just an ignorant and stupid thing to say. I am going to use the dreaded "R" word here, not as an insult but just for what it clinically means. If someone is mentally ret*d, he is mentally ret*d. Even if it's only mildly. You would not say that a person who is mildly ret*d is only 25% ret*d, that would not make any sense to say that. You would say, he is mentally ret*d whether he is mild or severe. You can say he is mildly ret*d but if you say he is 25% ret*d than what is the remaining 75%? Is that percentage of him not? And how do you go about breaking down what parts are and what parts are not? You certainly can't do that with Autism. "Well I think this part of you is Autistic but that part is not." You can identify Autism specific behaviors and say this behavior is an Autistic behavior or not but if the person is on the Spectrum than his entire self is on the Spectrum, not just half of himself or a quarter of himself. That just shows that that person has no knowledge on how these conditions work and what it means to have them.

Maybe your friend is 25% idiot and 75% uneducated and ignorant.

Not sure if thats how it works...
You may have 'mild' asperger's but cant be part aspie & part not.
You are a 'mild' aspie & hence can cope with it quite well & look 'normal'. It doesnt affect your functioning as much as it affects others.
That's what I belive.

The classifying of 25% makes no sense to me. Autism is wound into our lives and our personalities-it's not a definable part of us, in my opinion. She probably meant it as you only being mildly affected but trying to assign a percentage to it is just wrong. Also I personally hate it when people refer to my Aspergers as mild-people haven't done it in a few years since they realised how many issues I actually have but it used to happen all the time and it made me feel as though I constantly had to hide my stimming because I would get told I didn't need to behave like that because my Aspergers was "only mild". To me, it just seems to be a way for people to dismiss our difficulties by assuming that we are too mildly affected to have any difficulties at all.

I'm going to defend my friend, because I know she meant that as a compliment, and she has helped me a lot, without her pushing me out of my comfort zone, I'd be a lot worse off

I'm 3.1416 Aspie.

What the hell there are not percentages of being autistic its not like you're 25% aspergers and the remaining % is neurotypical. You either have aspergers or you don't. However there can be varying degrees of severity of they symptoms but nothing to measure mathmatically with percentages and what not. I am thinking she might not have the best grasp on how having autism works.

And what the hell is wrong with eating/ordering the same thing every time, I feel sorry for the kid who's parent said its good to not allow them to do that. I mean is it really harmful to eat the same things and not vary too much from that? Its as though parents that think like that think just disallowing any autistic behaviors/traits will make their kid normal........in the end though probably just frusterates them since no one can let them be with anything and is always trying to correct their behavior to be normal.

Either way your friend has no right to tell you what you can and cannot eat....hell even a lot of neurotypicals might only order the same thing when they go out to eat...no harm in it at all.

When I go to an Indian restaurant, I always order Lamb Curry with poori bread.