Is it OK to be autistic and not embrace autistic culture?

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Ahh, that is fairly different from how I understand it to be here. My state did not have laws in place until 2008 ensuring autistic people had the right to insurance paying at least a portion of diagnosis costs, as well as ensuring access to services like therapy if the person needs them. Here there's no such requirement for the government to be aware that I know of. My college's disability office was surprised I had referred myself to seek out starting the process. And I wondered that as well actually Trogluddite. I also wonder at times if my opinions and ways of thought are in opposition to the realities. For example after learning more about what I know about Autism, I begun wondering if a better starting point for a diagraming of the spectrum would be to return to the idea that while Autism and Asperger's syndrome both exist on the spectrum, they are distinct occurances. From there measure the varying degrees within both halves of it. Much like many complicated subjects I've tried to wrap my head around when they're represented by a more abstract idea I'm probably overlooking many details.

My take on it us just that people have traits - some innate due to their genes, some learned as they've matured as people. Autism is just a particular distribution of those traits - but each autistic person has each of those traits to a different degree, and the same traits could exist in a person for all manner of other reasons. Those of us that the doctor's officially class as autistic, just happen to cross several different lines drawn in the sand for each trait in turn.

While I respect that some people prefer the term Asperger's or aspie, and recognise Hans Asperger's clinical work, I find it is odd to single out only a few of the many possible combinations of qualities, and save for it the special honour of having it's own name. It seems far easier to identify and name the actual traits that we want to manage better, than it is to try and give every possible combination of traits its own unique name, IMHO.

I think that approach should be taken in psychiatry and psychology much more than it is - the boundaries between conditions seem as arbitrary as the borders between nations, very often, I think.

My understanding is before DSM V Asperger's was measured in 5 aspects instead of just 2 different categories of factors, so it allowed for a more diverse perspective. A common theme I keep reading in articles and items written before the changes took place voiced concern this reorganization would leave out more "capable" people that still cope with portions of Asperger's.

That is well put, and thinking about it again I think that's where my disagreement about the idea that it's a culture may be coming from. I like the concept of a "Neuro Tribe" because it gives me the idea that we're not broken or otherwise incomplete people, but instead simply different from what the expectations of what a person is like. Every aspie I've gotten to know personally is radically different from the next. I'm working on completing a college degree in business at my community college, an aspie friend of mine prefers to live on their own where they don't need to deal with stressors nearly as much, while another aspie friend lives with their family on their potato farm and works hard to help them any way they can with their farm.

Not sure something like an autistic 'culture' exists. What elements does that culture contain?

I don't think autistic culture really exists...what you have is autism advocacy and support groups...

Of course it's okay.

You can be yourself and be independent, you don't have to join any other autistic people or become an advocate or anything.

I pretty much remain independent. I just chat to ppl on here.

I'm new to this forum. My thoughts on a few issues. I agree with the concept that "if you've met one autistic person, then you've met one autistic person."

As for the autistic/Aspie terms: I've never been diagnosed as having Asperger's. My reading of the original definition of Asperger's syndrome is that the person doesn't have a language/speech delay. I don't fit that criterium because I did have a language/speech delay. I didn't talk in meaningful sentences until I was around 5 years old. The doctors told my mother that I was autistic when I was 3 years old and I got a recent diagnosis of high-functioning autism. The lack of speech is significant because in those dark days, those (like myself) who didn't have speech and didn't relate to others: our parents were told that we should be institutionalized. Fortunately, many parents ignored these "experts" but some autistics were institutionalized and are still lost in back wards of institutions. Those without speech delay didn't have this experience.

I actually like the new DSM-5 which states that we are all on an autistic spectrum.

I agree with you WaveTossed.

As an adult, putting my autism into a special category based primarily on the expression of a single trait from my early childhood seems rather peculiar. I understand that childhood history can be helpful for differential diagnosis to a professional clinician, but I too prefer to consider myself as simply having my own unique combination of autistic traits, just as everyone else on the spectrum does. Besides which, it seems to me that the terms "Asperger's Syndrome" and "aspie" are tossed around in the prevailing culture so much these days, that for most people they no longer bear any resemblance to whatever correct meaning they might once have had. If I am required to identify my condition, I call it 'autism', even though my diagnosis is consistent with the one formerly used for Asperger's.

The assumption that my verbal and academic abilities indicate that my other impairments are trivial makes no more sense than assuming that all non-verbal people are stupid. Neither are an accurate representation of the realities of being on the spectrum.

I would rather live in a "culture" which can accept autistic people alongside everyone else than create an "autistic culture" that risks becoming little more than a cultural ghetto. There can't be an "us" without there being a "them", and I think that is divisive, and unlikely to help the cause of autistic people in the long run.

As I've read up more, I've come to think of Asperger's Syndrome and Autism as the same when talking about the condition at large and in diagnosis, with the smaller differences coming into play more so when it comes to how the individual person faces life and their needs as an individual. That is to say they're the same when talking clinically or formally, but some differentiation is fine when it comes to one on one discussions. It may be personal bias, but in reading about autism and its many forms I see them as the same root viewpoint of the world, but I think it's important to not forget what makes each form different in their smaller ways.

it is totally ok to not be part of ''autistic colture'' , autism is a definition not a religion, every autistic is free to choose to be part of it or not

To be honest, I don't want to be a part of the cult "disability rights" movement either. I'm fine with telling people I have autism. I wouldn't want to shove it down anyone's throat though. I'm also okay with telling people I'm LGBTQ, but I don't want to shove it down anyone's throat. And what this group entitlement mentality about "rights" you should have?