How Can Anyone "Be Proud" of being autistic?

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Yes, exactly that.

Ok I need a cold shower!

I feel a great deal of acceptance towards my autism. I'm willing to accept that I'm different from the rest. I'm willing to accept that I have special interests that are a little unusual. I'm willing to accept that I need extra help looking for a job.

Acceptance sounds much better than pride so I agree. but I guess everyone has their own way of approaching their diagnosis and its not my business anyway.

It was an analogy he used.

Figured out that my view of what a 'cured' autistic person would look like and a curebie's version of what a regular autistic person looks like might actually be the exact same problem:

A person with the level of social need an NT has but without the social skills to make that happen.

That person, in my eyes, would be disabled. Or if not disabled, at least in a tragic state which isn't my life.

I hear some people talk about their experiences on here and it's like that's what's going on for them.

That's awful. But without a lifetime of learning experiences, an NT with social needs would be in that state. NTs learn about social stuff throughout their lives. If a person who hadn't learned those lessons suddenly had those needs where they hadn't had them before, that would disable them. I consider that this would be an immoral thing to do to someone merely in order to make them 'normal'. And in any case, they wouldn't be normal, the lack of skills would make them not normal.

If we could get people in that position to learn to either not have those needs or to be able to do what those needs entail (social skills), that would be a good thing and a 'cure' for being in that sad situation.

So... KT67, what do you consider Autistics who have similar levels of social needs to NTs? Is an "Autistic" person who desires NT levels of connection "not Autistic" to you, or "cured" of their Autism?

Acceptance is the right word for it.

It's like LGBT pride and I think the language comes from that.

It's 'I accept that I'm myself and that the world isn't set up for me but it's still ok to be myself'.

An older sense of the word 'pride' is arrogance. That would be silly. It would be silly of me to in any seriousness think of myself as superior for being bi or for being aspie. I just think of myself as equal.

I consider their autism to be a problem at that point.

I consider that worth solving in either a fix it so their social needs are less or fix it so they have social skills way.

I don't think that should be extended to people who are happy the way they are.

I don't think my brain is similar to theirs at all. Or at least, it's no more similar to my brain than any human brain is and I don't like (certain) NTs trying to guess that it is.

Bear in mind though that autism is literally 'of the self'. That sort of person doesn't seem very self-contained to me.

Autism is not well defined. Some who have "Autism" are fine with the way they are, some are not. My big issue with discussions surrounding Autism is that they tend to treat "Autism" as one thing, which it clearly isn't.

In this context its individuals with autism projecting their personal experience on all other people with autism.

I'm curious as the token NT here what your perception is of what you think NTs are trying to guess about your brain/thoughts?

It's a part of me! I shouldn't hate myself for it but instead be accepting. There are hard parts but the good parts make up for it.

The things are this:
1 I think the standard for declaring a brain broken need to be higher than the standards for declaring there is a problem with a leg. In the modern world, unless we consider the soul to exist, the brain is where everything is seen to happen. Where a person's 'self' lives. A person's leg belongs to them, a person's brain is them.
2 I think this is especially true when it is something that someone is born as. Or even is for the vast majority of their life. When someone has alzheimers, it's like they've already been lost to old age & their body will soon be lost to death. When someone develops anxiety, they wish to return (at least I wish to return - personal experience here) to their prior state. And they know what that was like. If someone is born with a broken brain - that's a majorly serious issue.

So we're not just dealing with medical stuff. We're dealing with major issues regarding the self. It can't really be compared to other parts of the body being weird or different or even broken.

I think if there are any benefits to be gained from that kind of brain - even if it is a 'weird' one - it is better for the person's mental health to focus on that and when it comes to the problems that brain causes - focus on alleviating the problems rather than changing the entire brain. And I think we should be creating societies in which more people are wanted/needed instead of less.

I have friends out of choice rather than out of necessity and the friends I choose have that kind of outlook on life: trying to accept people as long as they don't harm others and are artistic types. It's nice to be in that kind of environment - where you feel free to be yourself.

I think it's because theory of mind is very difficult to acquire. A lot of NTs stereotype this as an autistic trait but it really isn't - it's a majorly complicated skill to be able to put yourself into the mind of someone who doesn't think like you do.

For them, if they were quiet somewhere, they would be shy and sad.

They don't want me to be shy and sad.

So it's a failing of theory of mind. They're putting themselves in my shoes.

I hate the specific women who were doing it most recently for other reasons (they're racist gossips) but that's their motivation: it's not a bad one. The specific women in question were also quite closed minded with little sense of a world different to their own and I think that contributes to it.

A less charitable reading of the situation is that they wanted a charity case/Eliza Doolittle to change like a doll. People don't work that way - it's very hard to change/fix someone even an NT into another kind of NT or autistic person into another kind of autistic person. It should only really be done out of kindness to the person & even then it's usually not the kindest thing to try and change everything about someone. Maybe they thought they were being kind in trying to fix me but it just broke me.

People like you (from what I know obviously we know each other online only) and my mother try to actually understand the autistic experiences of your specific offspring. That's good parenting and done through love. For other people outside of family settings to attempt it would be genuine people skills - something I think we can all learn.

I agree.

I think that's why mum opposed my diagnosis.

She worked with severely autistic kids & knew a severely autistic woman. She knew I wasn't like that and didn't want that label on me.

She was only persuaded into getting one because 1 it would actually give me benefit in the educational world and 2 they promised that there was an additional label available 'Asperger's syndrome' which separated me from the kids she taught at the SLD school.