Autistic vs Has Autism

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I have diagnoses of dyspraxia, ADHD and Aspergers traits ( now autistic traits ).

My core conditions are dyspraxia and ADHD.

Lots of people say I have autistic traits , but I do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of autism .

Thanx for finding & posting the link. It explained both sides of this debate as well as the history of person-first language which is quite relevant to this discussion.

It seems to me that getting hung-up on the language phrasing with autism as well as other various disabilities, issues, & problems sometimes detracts from focusing on more important issues & aspects. It's much more important to find ways to offer support & assistance to struggling autistic people & the parents of autistic kids than worrying about how autistic people chose to identify & refer to themselves & what's offensive & not offensive to them. I'm NOT complaining about this thread or any posts in it. It's not uncommon for the media, politicians, medical community, & various support systems to overy focus on language while neglecting & ignoring the struggles various people & groups face in their day to day lives.

^
The adage "actions speak louder than words" springs to my mind.

I think a certain amount of discussion of this stuff is healthy, but by the same token, the changing of terms for arbitrary reasons is how the US got to the point where people think that it's sensible to refer to African descendants with no connection to the US as being African American. It literally makes no sense, and up until recently, they had gone from some extremely racist language to negro, which was then considered to be too offensive, so civil rights leaders started to push for Black, which eventually got replaced by African American, even though, it's kind of problematic in the sense that you've got people that are referring to people like Idris Elba as being African American, even though he's English. And you see the same sort of thing in other areas, the literal only reason that it is offensive to refer to various Asian people as being Oriental, is that at some point we collectively decided that the term is only for things. That's it.

Personally, I don't have a dog in those particular fights, but the eventual term tends to be the one when the group gained enough power and representation within society that playing word games was no longer any sort of desirable thing to do. In the case of African American, it's kind of interesting to see people starting to push back on it for being kind of silly and racist.

With a few exceptions, most of the time, this is just a distraction. It's not that dissimilar from the bit of The Life of Brian with the myriad names involving different combinations of people's, front and Judea being combined to have different groups that all think the others are splitters.

Maybe that's because he fakes an American accent so well in The Wire.

I think you raise some interesting ideas. I suspect the change in language from the N-word through "black," then "Black," then African American, is more OK as a natural phenomenom than it is as a policed thing. Again I would hold that what matters with racism or ableism is much more about what somebody does than what they say. I allow that what's said can sometimes influence what people do, but I'm not sure that the influence is all that marked. There's this thing called "performative wokeness" or "performative activism" which is when somebody uses right-on language disingenuously, in order to pretend to care about social justice when they either don't, or as a cloak to disguise the fact that they're actively working against it. I'd trust Huckleberry Finn, who used the N word but sacrificed his soul (or at least believed he had) and risked getting into severe trouble on Earth to help his black slave friend escape, more easily than I'd trust somebody who was simply very careful to say "African American." The fact that Huck's society only had the N word available to it dilutes my point to a degree, but even so, I think I'm onto something.

I'm just going to leave this here. An autistic person having autism.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0MertYGxt6U

For me it really doesn’t matter much. I just wanna find out what is the cause of my autistic traits that caused me a lot of suffering in life and till now I struggle with them, if it’s autism or some other condition and I wanna find a community where I finally belong. I was multiple times diagnosed different conditions. I’m super clumsy, have sensitive hearing but I’m insensitive to pain. I may not fully fit the criteria because I’m not that bad at recognizing someone else’s emotions, I usually see when someone is angry or sad, I recognize it best from the tone of voice but from the face only I hardly see these things. Also struggling with cognitive empathy and interactions generally. I also feel like it’s easier for me to understand someone’s feelings than my own, I scored high in alexithymia test.

Am I 'hypermobile' or do I 'have hypermobility'?

Technically,Autistic means a QUALITY of autism! For example, you can be avoiding gazes, or stimming, and those are AUTISTIC symptoms. That doesn't necessarily mean that they would say you have AUTISM!
AUTISM means you fit the DIAGNOSIS for a particular type of AUTISM.

Frankly, I think the way she described it to you is BACKWARDS! But the government will probably help you out more if they feel you have AUTISM. They may not care if you have an autistic symptom unless it is something that could affect employment.

BTW I don't necessarily agree with politicians, and many people don't understand autism AT ALL, so who knows?
MANY people STILL seem to think that "Classical Autism" is the only kind that exists.

The average person with "Classical Autism" apparently CAN'T do much. Apparently there are FEW, if any, that are HERE though. The MAIN symptom, and the defining piece, that ALL have in common, is the idea of things that affect social learning and interaction. Such people might never be able to marry, or act, or relate with people well, but may be able to do all sorts of other things BETTER than many people. And THAT is the reason why so many people misunderstand the "disability".