Do you consider yourself Autistic?

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This is tricky. I'd consider myself to have Aspergers, which is on the Autistic spectrum. However I associate the word Autism with lower functioning.

When I was around 12 in the late Sixties autism suddenly burst on the scene in the public consciousness. I used to hear about it on the radio and tv. Hearing about behaviors of autistic children made me wonder if I didnt have some watered down mild version of autism myself. But no such 'mild version' of autism was ever mentioned as existing. So I put the notion out of my head.

Then four decades later, near the turn of the 21st Centurey, aspergers became a recognized diagnosis in the USA as a 'mild form of autism'. And a few years ago I was officially dxd with that. So yes, I do consider myself 'autistic', but always hasten to add 'mild' because im not as bad off your classic austistic (aka Low functioning autistic).

No. I am not autistic, but merely have some traits, that I have to consider in certain situations, like work and a few others.
I seem to meet the DSM-V criteria too and I secretly identified with "autism-lite" before dx.

I think, that "real autism" is considered to be the "low functioning" part in DSM-V scale, whereas the AS area (high functioning) is characterized by individual mixtures of traits, without the handicaps, that seem to be predominant in classic autism.

I did once.

But now, I'd prefer to be schizoid (since AS isn't really a label anymore).

My ASD isn't bad enough for me to consider "autistic".

Yes, because I am. (I was diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, but I think Asperger's is autism.)

No, of of course not. Those are unrelated to me, anyway - the same as Skilpadde said. Anyway, autism is associated with intellectual disability. Once there was a post "what do you do for our silent brothers and sisters", you know, those with LFA, those who can't even speak. I said, according to the truth, that nothing and that I didn't have anything to do with them. Some folks felt offended, like I said something shocking, but it was true - what can a smart (even if weird and not dealing too well with her life) woman have to do with ret*d people who can't even speak and can't take care of themselves and so on? I have nothing against them but do you REALLY want to be associated with retardation?

But still, it IS associated with mental retardation. Aspies have normal intelligence so if we have some problems with taking care of ourselves (like myself), it only means if we tried harder, we would do better. I know I would deal with life much better if I was on my own - it's just my laziness, I'm mentally normal - normal intelligence, I mean - so if I tried harder to overcome my ADD, I'd be able to deal with this. I do have problems with organising and planning due to my problems with concentration, but there are many people who are just weak at this or that, nevertheless they are expected from in this department like everyone else, so I don't see why I would want expect others to treat me like a big baby.

I am speaking for myself. I'd be embarrased like hell if being smart, I couldn't take care of myself. After all, everybody is better at this and worse at that and those who have nothing to do with AS, often are hopeless at something, but they are treated normally, no one gives them special treatment so why would I want others to help me to such a big extent? It's jus ta lack of talent for something. If one is smart, everybody thinks they should be good at taking care of themselves, for being smart entails being better at planning and rationally analyzing the situation when it comes to the topic: "what can I do to improve my life?" If people must help you to a really big extent - well, don't fool yourself that others won't be looking down at you, every time I saw folks needing a LOT of help, unable to do practically anything, the others were talking about them behind their back that they were losers, for the social expectations are that one at some age should already have known how to do something. I'm only saying what the truth looks like; for example when my cousin was divorcing and it turned out without her husband she was unable to deal with her life on her own, she didn't know practically anything about things concerning self-care and all family members had to explain to her thoroughly how to do this or that - well, everybody was commenting on what a big baby she was. And she is of average intelligence (well, low average but mentally normal). Her daughter in turn sufferes from mild to moderate retardation and everybody treats her problems with self-care with understanding due to this.

But that's not nice to hear such things about ourselves from others. I don't want to be thought of as a loser.

I agree completely with those statements, Irulan.

My diagnosis is Asperger's and I call myself Aspergian or Autistic, because Asperger's is a variety of autism. The term I use depends on how specific I want to be or who I'm talking to. These days I generally say Autistic to people who know about the autism spectrum, and Asperger's to people who don't, because I have less resemblance to the pubic perception of autism than I do to that of Asperger's. I generally relate more to other Aspergians than to people diagnosed with autism, but I see us as having different amounts of the same traits, not separate conditions.

But one of the first times I referred to myself as Autistic when talking to my mum she said, 'You're not autistic. That includes people who can't speak', like not speaking was something shameful and terrible. I'm not ashamed to have the same identity as people who can't speak or have learning disabilities or who need more care than I do. None of these things are shameful.

Autistic Hoya wrote a blog post saying that people with an Asperger's diagnosis identifying as aspie or Aspergian as opposed to Autistic contributes to the division in the Autistic community between people labelled 'high functioning' and 'low functioning'. Here is the link: http://www.autistichoya.com/2012/04/pro ... rgers.html

Bumping this 9+ year old thread to see how the membership of today's WP react. Of course you can answer the poll question.

I am autistic, and prefer not to use the "Aspie" nor the functioning terms... for reasons