Is Autism a Disability? Or a Gift?

[SusanLR]

The comorbid disorders are what has caused suffering in my life.
Depression, anxiety and panic disorder has interferred in everything.
Would I have had them so intensely if I weren't on the spectrum? I don't know.
Sensory issues are really the only thing related to autism that really bother me.
So, if I'd had my druthers, no I would not have been on the spectrum.

 

[Progster]

As others have said, I don't suffer from autism itself, but I do suffer from comorbid condtions such as anxiety and depression. I also have also suffered a lot from things like: being bullied at school, losing and not being able to keep my job, a lack of financial security, misunderstandings and relationship problems with unpleasant consequences... all things which can exist without autism, but in my case are almost certainly related or to caused by autism.

 

[shysnail]

I don't think your "special snowflake" comment is a kind one. You're asking about whether anyone else experiences suffering because of being autistic. Had you considered that a lot of people on this forum have indeed suffered a lot as a result of being autistic and how other people have treated them because of it? If they are "special snowflakes", it's because they've reclaimed being autistic from the hands of people who have used it against them to hurt them. Please try and be mindful of that when you're saying things like that.

 

[Sarah S]

To me all my diagnosis have managed to destroy whatever hopes and dreams i once might have had of having a normal fore feeling life

BUT i have accepted my faith and diagnosis and try to do the best i can with what i got to work with

 

[Ken S.]

I don't really think my autism in itself was ever really a big problem. The comorbidities like sensory sensitivity (Especially vestibular) and epigenetic impact of working with several chemicals and having gone through chemo have negatively impacted my life much more severely.

 

[Pats]

Hi Derp. I didn't know it was autism that made some areas of my life so difficult until I was diagnosed a couple years ago. Growing up I thought the things that were so hard for me was hard for everyone and that they just handled it better. Then I realized it wasn't so hard for everyone and I was just different than everyone else and just didn't know or understand why. I started a thread yesterday that I felt like I doggie paddled my way through life, which is very tiring and could easily drown, especially trying to keep up with all those that know how to swim through life. When I learned about the autism it made life better because I knew, for once in my life, that I did not have the capacity to keep up with everyone else so it made me okay and more accepting of who I was. It also made me realize that my accomplishments were REAL accomplishments because I had to go against the grain in order to do those things.

But I also know that the same autism that gave me traits that made some areas so difficult was the same autism that gave me traits I was glad I had. And I think your 'special snowflake' is meant in that most of us do see ourselves as weird and like that about ourselves. Am I correct? Because, yes, some areas I did like being different, which made me that special snowflake. I have my own unique style and taste which others will see as weird, but I like it and that's what I'm going to stick with. And like, Cig114 "

I like being a happy person.

I also prefer to be happy - at least as much as I can.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Neither gift nor curse. Just a health condition and a fact of life.

 

[Derp]

Was this merged ?

 

[Bolletje]

Yup.

 

[100skerls]

Hard to say what is a product of my autism and what isn’t. But I like being who I am. I wouldn’t say I’m gifted, I’d say I’m happy (by nature, anyway) and strive to be a better person and lessen my negative impact on the world. If my autism played a role in any way in shaping my interests and values (and I think it did), I view my personal struggles with communication, sensory input, and anxiety to be worth it.

 

[Nomen Dubium]

It bothers me immensely that they do this.

They are trying to portray a positive image of autism to reduce stigma, I think; Which is well-intentioned but actually makes things worse for the majority of autistic people who are just ordinary people with a disability. The message they end up sending is that disability is something to be accepted and understood if you have enough extra-ordinary ability to somehow make up for/cancel out the disability.

They've done it again. That movie, 'The Predator', features a kid who suffers with Plot Convenience Autism. He's all over the spectrum - there's no consistency to his symptoms at all and they change virtually scene by scene, because they've been written to suit a plot that required child super-genius. There's no well-intentioning going on here - the scriptwriter (Shane Black, since you ask) seems to have decided to exploit it because he needed a vehicle with which to drive his lazy plot and decided autism - which he clearly hasn't researched - would be it.

It's been 31 years since Rain Man and they're STILL doing this.

 

[Derp]

I wanted this thread to be about other people who suffer from autism so I can here other people prospectives
Serious
Has anyone experienced self harm or suicide attempts ? or have had thoughts about this ?

 

[Dark-Code]

Asperger's making you super smart doesn't mean you don't suffer. I'm one of the "lucky" ones. IT STILL SUCKS!!

I can't relate to people. I can't communicate for more than a minute or two about things that don't interest me. And when I do find someone who is interested in math/science or whatever, they end up still thinking im weird because I inevitably go too deep.

 

[Autistamatic]

Has anyone experienced self harm or suicide attempts ? or have had thoughts about this ?

No. Never, but I know quite a few who have. Since depression & anxiety are rarely a stranger in autistic lives, such things are inevitable for some people.
I've been in the pits of depression, suffered severe anxiety and had 2 total breakdowns, but I've never blamed myself or my autism for it. It's other people's intolerance and prejudice that led me to it, not autism. Autism just makes me different to other people and if they can't handle it, they treat me in a way which sometimes puts me at a disadvantage. It is THEM that are the problem, not who or what I am.
Of course once you realise that the only thing that makes you feel wretched is caring what they think about you, you can turn it off and BINGO - life gets a lot less stressful.
Many of those I know who have had suicidal ideation or have attempted suicide in the past have come to similar realisations, and connecting with a community of other people who have lived through similar experiences has helped in that.
Autism is not the enemy, autism doesn't cause your suffering, autism doesn't make people shun us or treat us like pariahs, intolerance, ignorance and fear do.

 

[Fino]

I feel like half the threads mention self harm or suicide! The one I was reading immediately before this was about it.

 

[Baeraad]

I'm absolutely suffering. I swear I'd crawl over broken glass for a cure! I hate not being able to concentrate. I hate not being able to grasp concepts that have more than two moving parts. And what I hate most of all is that sometimes, rarely, I happen to be in the sort of situation with the sort of support that actually allows me to function, just so I get a taste of what being functional feels like before it's snatched away again.

I mean, there are parts of it that aren't objectively bad, sure. In a vacuum, I like many things about myself that are definitely autistic traits. But even those set me apart from most people and isolate me - not because anyone is actively discriminating against me, but just because they think one way and I think another. And I hate that more than I can say. Not to be painfully trite here, but I can see nothing greater in life than loving and being loved. I hate that this stupid crack in my brain isolates me.

To me all my diagnosis have managed to destroy whatever hopes and dreams i once might have had of having a normal fore feeling life

BUT i have accepted my faith and diagnosis and try to do the best i can with what i got to work with

Did you get your diagnosis recently? I remember my intense mixed feelings when I got mine. On the one hand, this thing that had tripped me up all my life was suddenly something that had a name and concrete suggestions for how it might be possible to deal with it. That was a powerful thing after all those years of floundering. But on the other, I also remember very clearly the blow of having it in black and white that no, this wasn't just me taking a bit longer than most to figure out the business of living - I was genuinely not normal, and I was never going to be.

 

[Sarah S]

Did you get your diagnosis recently?

The ASD i got 2010 the others first MBD ,Then ADHD and then + Intellectual disability and last ASD 20010 and the list keep growing as i grow older

 

[WildCat]

I'm done with the suffering now, and yes, I've already been through all the feeling suicidal and hopeless. No more "poor me" here, now's the time I start picking myself up by the bootstraps.

Is it a gift or curse, you ask? Personally, I don't see it that way at all. It's simply part of the hand I've been dealt in life and have to work with somehow, the same as anyone else when you think about it.

 

[jleeb05]

This conversation reminds me of Percy Jackson & The Olympians (one of my favorite movies though I've never read the books). In it, the titular character learns that he is a demigod (half-God, half-mortal) and that his ADHD and dyslexia are not disabilities but his "greatest gifts." His ADHD is really just a manifestation of his battle reflexes. His dyslexia is because his brain is hardwired to read ancient Greek.

Percy Jackson reminds me of the struggles neurodiverse people have in a neurotypical world. If you're a mermaid that becomes a pretty big disability if you're living on land. I recently watched a video on the YouTube channel Yo Samedy Sam (suggested to me by @Suzette. In the video, Sam talks about the need to "humanize" autistic traits instead of "pathologizing" them. I agree but I recognize there may be a tension between this and recognizing that ASD is a real disability that for some of us, can be very debilitating.

As we are all so diverse, I know our experience with ASD varies depending on the individual. It may be a bit of a false dichotomy, and I think the real answer for me is that it depends but like Percy Jackson's ADHD and dyslexia, I see my autistic traits as some of my greatest gifts. I think the issue is living in a society that isn't designed for them. While I have found navigating the NT world difficult and at times painful, I don't necessarily see my autistic traits as problems that need to be fixed...just better understood and accommodated.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My autism is a gift no different then my intelligence being a gift to live a happy life you need to leverage both as much as possible beauty and athletic ability are both leveraged all the time