• Feeling isolated? You're not alone.

    Join 20,000+ people who understand exactly how your day went. Whether you're newly diagnosed, self-identified, or supporting someone you love – this is a space where you don't have to explain yourself.

    Join the Conversation → It's free, anonymous, and supportive.

    As a member, you'll get:

    • A community that actually gets it – no judgment, no explanations needed
    • Private forums for sensitive topics (hidden from search engines)
    • Real-time chat with others who share your experiences
    • Your own blog to document your journey

    You've found your people. Create your free account

Disorder?

Au Naturel said:
Getting hung up on labels only makes life more difficult. Using a different word to describe a condition (i.e. "differently abled") changes nothing.
Click to expand...

Except we are differently able. The point of using that phrase is to emphasise that, rather than to emphasise the opposite.

Your points are often useful and well observed, but there's also often a kind of tired of it all negativity that clouds your conclusions. It's not so cut and dried, we can leave room for other ideas that can sit side by side with our views.

We are differently abled. And sometimes it can be a big advantage to see things differently from the majority.
 
There are things I can't do or need extra help with weather or not NTs see it as the norm. If I forget to eat due to being absorbed in my interests, if the sounds of the birds or the grass on my feet overwhelms me, if I can't ask for help when I need it, if my motor skills lag behind.

it does not matter if ASD was taken out of the DSM tomorrow I would still struggle and more over if ASD is not seen as a disorder or disability I lose out on the services I need. Every single service I get is due to somebody else thinking I am disabled and they are not wrong I need the help.

I think the view that autism is just different brain tends to come from people who can be more independent easier or were diagnosed after they already made a life with children and spouses and jobs and that's ok it's just a different perspective but I will still call myself disabled because I am and I guess I am disordered too even if the word has a negative connotation for me.

I have many many positives that NTs do skip over but my world is contained to my house or even just my bedroom where I don't feel autistic in the way that I notice the difference and even then I notice when my self care and ADLs suffer without support.

I am lucky to have at the very least one person in the world who understands me (my mother) but I have to live beyond her at some point and I must accept the disabled parts of me. I don't suggest ignoring all the positive attributes we all have but you miss the fundamentals when you skip over the negative. ASD criteria states "Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning." this is a criteria that has to be met your life has to be harder without that you are just quirky or eccentric.

I would have not spent all that time in OT if I didn't have to, I would not have gone to so many therapeutic schools and special ed rooms if I didn't have to, I would not be moving across the country if I didn't have to, but I have to I have no other choice I need the help. That's a disability...that's a disorder. There is no shame in that.
 
danjustlovescoffee said:
Why do we say that ASD is a disorder and NT is not a disorder?
What's so great about NT? I don't get it. Some of the NT people seem disorder to me but apparently the world wants NT people and no ASD people.
Anyway, my thinking is that NT people often focus on the "whole picture". Sometimes that's good but it can also lead to carelessness or not learning something good enough. I don't like group learning with a bunch of NT people as many of them might refuse to learn the fundamentals. NTs skip a lot of the fundamnetal details. They hyperfocus on the "whole picture". They look disodered to me. They say that I am disordered as I cannot skip a lot of the fundamentals when I learn something.
Why are they not disordered?

I don't know much about ASD and NT so please explain this to me.
Click to expand...

I look at it this way. Disordered states are those outside the norm for humanity. Autism is disordered--but that doesn't mean it's evil. All evil is disordered, but not all disorder implies willed moral evils. (Think "evil" in the sense of a medieval peasant looking at a carbuncle & saying 'this is another evil; call Marjory the wise woman to rid me of this disease.') I speak in the sense of "absence of good," not "cartoonish villainy."

Looking at NT's from a disordered perspective will make them look disordered--Like me without my blue-light glasses; if I go into a grocery store I say "the light is bright." No, it's just that I have really sensitive eyesight. So I put my glasses on and blend in, and the NT's can shop too and be able to read the labels, and we're all happy.

No I don't believe in autistic supremacy. I believe in human dignity and degrees of perfection. We frequently display higher degrees of the perfection of Intelligence; they often display solid understandings of Emotions. We are a human community, not isolated drones.

(ends rambling)
 
Au Naturel said:
She'll jump right in that hesitation as if I'd stopped speaking and turned away.
Click to expand...
My wife doesn't wait for any hesitation, she just cuts me off mid-sentence with a response of what she thinks I'm going to say, but it never is. I have to ask her to please let me finish and to listen to my complete sentence. It usually goes pretty well after that. She seems to be slowly learning how Aspies communicate.
 
To most people, "differently abled" is just a euphemism. The word "special" can be used that way, too. Changing the word you use does not change the underlying condition. Positive thinking porn.

If I could trade 30 pints of IQ and all my supposed autistic "superpowers" for the ability to chat up strangers in a crowded dark bar with the music blaring, to be able to make casual friends at work, to be the "people person" the boss was looking for to lead the team, to enjoy sitting around a television watching football with a gang of beer drinking buddies rooting for the home team, to go to a party with my wife and not have to hide or leave from the discomfort, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Consider that I am at the top of the group, ASD-1. I can compensate by becoming philosophical. I can compensate with closer attention to detail. I can compensate with adapting to a more or less solitary life and enjoying the things solitude offers. I can compensate by accepting my limitations and working around them. Since I am not a genius, becoming a tech guru isn't in the cards for me.

ASD-2 can't function in society without substantial intervention. ASD-3 can't even survive without intervention. So, yeah, autism is a disability. Not as obvious as missing legs or vision but it is still a disability that ranges from slight to total.

I'm not being negative. I am being real. A negative person would just tell you to give up.
 
Au Naturel said:
To most people, "differently abled" is just a euphemism. The word "special" can be used that way, too. Changing the word you use does not change the underlying condition. Positive thinking porn.

If I could trade 30 pints of IQ and all my supposed autistic "superpowers" for the ability to chat up strangers in a crowded dark bar with the music blaring, to be able to make casual friends at work, to be the "people person" the boss was looking for to lead the team, to enjoy sitting around a television watching football with a gang of beer drinking buddies rooting for the home team, to go to a party with my wife and not have to hide or leave from the discomfort, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

I can get behind wanting to be able to make casual friends and visit family parties/gatherings, but would you really want to become to a total extroverted party normie?

Honestly this thread just sounds like "we want Asperger's syndrome back" the entire so called neurodiversity movement is just focused on asd 1 anyway.
 
Last edited:
It's a spectrum, so we don't need to assert and defend our own view or experience. Different people with ASD (or C ) will experience this differently.
 
Au Naturel said:
If I could trade 30 pints of IQ and all my supposed autistic "superpowers" for the ability to chat up strangers in a crowded dark bar with the music blaring, to be able to make casual friends at work, to be the "people person" the boss was looking for to lead the team, to enjoy sitting around a television watching football with a gang of beer drinking buddies rooting for the home team, to go to a party with my wife and not have to hide or leave from the discomfort, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

I am currently at my brother inlaws house. It is an important visit for my husband but I am going out of my mind. To compensate for feeling overwhelmed I disappear to our room or walk the dog. This is normally sufficient. But not this time.

My sister inlaw does not know how to breathe and not talk. Every family member I have never heard of shows up to brag on their kids, careers and talents. I hope they all have a nice life but they are boring self absorbed people.

They are shining examples of everything I dislike about "socializing". Do not wish for this upon yourselves!
 
I actually enjoy these types of get togethers, most [people are proud of thier kids, talents and careers. the trick is to determine what is accurate or B.S. and know the difference. Example parents brag how thier kid got accepted into post secondary education, what they do not talk about is when after the first year they drop out. My trick is to know when to say no thing.
 
Even enjoy visiting my Aspie brother, he rarely leaves his house other than for a solitary walk. no friends, obsessed with stock market. We talk for hours, drive's my wife nuts. his wife likes to travel
 
Yeshuasdaughter said:
Because, like it or not, we have disordered nervous systems. Most NT people do not get overwhelmed at the grocery store due to lighting or when they remodel. Most NT people do not have to stim to get out their nervous energy after a friendly social visit or walking past a crowded street. Most NT people do not have clothing, food, or other sensory issues.

Although it truly does benefit us in some ways, depending on the individual, we do have difficulties with how we absorb and process information from the world around us.
Click to expand...
I'm still waiting for some ways it would benefit me.
 
Think l always felt l was spinning in my own planet. And what goes on there is me, not a disorder. So this view of each of us is an island helps me keep a realistic view of those around me who are spinning on their own planets. Some people have more issues, disorders, situations to deal with then others but we all deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion.

And of course we are spinning around, because to spin is fun. Lol
 
Last edited:
phantom said:
Might be socially stunted, but atleast not mathematically stunted like most of the population :D.
Click to expand...
Think of it this way humans have altered or destroyed this earth to a degree where it's not surviveable so you're not socially stunted you're just designed for the earth before humans destroyed it
 
PastelPetals said:
There are things I can't do or need extra help with weather or not NTs see it as the norm. If I forget to eat due to being absorbed in my interests, if the sounds of the birds or the grass on my feet overwhelms me, if I can't ask for help when I need it, if my motor skills lag behind.

it does not matter if ASD was taken out of the DSM tomorrow I would still struggle and more over if ASD is not seen as a disorder or disability I lose out on the services I need. Every single service I get is due to somebody else thinking I am disabled and they are not wrong I need the help.

I think the view that autism is just different brain tends to come from people who can be more independent easier or were diagnosed after they already made a life with children and spouses and jobs and that's ok it's just a different perspective but I will still call myself disabled because I am and I guess I am disordered too even if the word has a negative connotation for me.

I have many many positives that NTs do skip over but my world is contained to my house or even just my bedroom where I don't feel autistic in the way that I notice the difference and even then I notice when my self care and ADLs suffer without support.

I am lucky to have at the very least one person in the world who understands me (my mother) but I have to live beyond her at some point and I must accept the disabled parts of me. I don't suggest ignoring all the positive attributes we all have but you miss the fundamentals when you skip over the negative. ASD criteria states "Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning." this is a criteria that has to be met your life has to be harder without that you are just quirky or eccentric.

I would have not spent all that time in OT if I didn't have to, I would not have gone to so many therapeutic schools and special ed rooms if I didn't have to, I would not be moving across the country if I didn't have to, but I have to I have no other choice I need the help. That's a disability...that's a disorder. There is no shame in that.
Click to expand...
Think of autistic neurology this way! a bird isn't disabled because it isn't a wolf or any member of the canine family ,it's just different
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom