"I've been perseverating on what traits everyone with AS shares and which make someone autistic or not."
I have also been trying to get to the 'essence' of AS. My first observation was that when I do not make an effort to think, I immediately feel somehow confused or mentally 'adrift'. A later observation was that I do not easily engage emotionally with others.
The lack of emotional engagement is, i believe, equivalent to the social impairment. But I also wonder if the mental confusion is responsible for the lack of emotional engagement?
Regardless, I think it is quite possible that AS is a 'disability' or disorder, but that many of us develop 'gifts' in order to compensate for it.
On the other hand, it's also possible that we have a 'gifted' mind from the start, and therefore fail to engage with others at the same level.
There doesn't seem to be either in Kentucky either. Just a ton of ignorance. Mostly just of the having no bloody idea what it is rather rather being disagreeable about it but still...
What I've run into turned out to be both. I have never had a situation more... disabling than running into someone in a position of power who had no bloody idea what the facts were and decided to be disagreeable anyway, just because he found out, illegally, that I had a disability he halso had no bloody idea about.
That would be me too. I guess if I thought having AS was a gift I wouldn't spend so much time bumbling around feeling foolish about the things I do and say that I didn't mean to do and say. That is not to say of course that I don't find people with AS fascinating, and I love finding out someone has it because I feel closer to them automatically. I think if the world were a much different place than I would be ok with a lot of aspects of my AS, but the ones that make it difficult for me to manage my life, and let me be taken advantage of , or thought of as stupid, I could really do without. I guess I have a love hate relationship with autism. If I didn't have to live in this world, with all the nt people, I would feel differently. Or maybe not. I just want to be able to truly connect with people - I want that more than anything.
I wouldn't call it a gift either. More a difference. Differences are neutral. Gifts are wholly positive, and curses are wholly negative affairs
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Basically, I think we all just have to do the best we can, and take what life deals out day by day. I think we have to accept our flaws, be aware of them and try to compensate for them, and at the same time recognize our strengths - letting them be a source of pride. In that way we can live balanced lives and hopefully be successful enough to get by. I don't think elevating ourselves above the rest of the nt world and expecting others who have no way of understanding what it's like to be autistic to accept our differences is realistic. But I suppose if that makes it easier for some people than that is fine for them. It seems like you have a realistic grasp of what you have to do in your own life. That's the best we can do.
Yeah I'm not really big on denial of truth, I value truth VERY highly, as I see it without truth you don't have anything, Truth is reality a lie is refusing to except things how they are and how much good could that ever do?
Granted my lack of denial seems to leave me with very little hope for my life improving in ways I want it to so I guess you could call it a very sharp double edged sword that most certainly cuts both ways.
I should add, for the benefit of whoever might read through all this, that I agree with what you say about labeling oneself as disabled being a choice - probably for the same reason that you yourself believe it, given what I remember of the account you've given of yourself to this community.
I knew nothing of autism until I was in my fifties. By that time, I'd done all kinds of things that are impossible for autistics (when I look back, I'm often horrified at how I did some of those things, but the fact remains that I did them). I had an impressive history and I was in the habit of viewing myself as abled, so I wasn't going to change. At the same time, I recognize that it would be easy to attribute most of my mistakes to a disability. Maybe I do, but in a limited sort of way that doesn't increase the likelihood of making more mistakes in the future. It's more like, I know that if I weren't autistic, I would have learned some lessons with one experiential go-round less. It might be argued that I'm into the disability thing to a
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Yes, my experience is similar, although I learned about autism in my 40's, (just a few years ago, really).
I recognize that there are people for whom the label of disability is enabling. I didn't mean to discount them entirely. For all I know the OP may be one of them. However, I suspect that for the majority of us on this forum, the choice is simply one of arbitrary belief.
I'm definitely one of those people for whom the label of disability is enabling. If I didn't have that label, I would blame myself for a lot of awful things in my life that aren't my fault at all.
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I have also been trying to get to the 'essence' of AS.
My first observation was that when I do not make an effort to think, I immediately feel somehow confused or mentally 'adrift'.
A later observation was that I do not easily engage emotionally with others.
The lack of emotional engagement is, i believe, equivalent to the social impairment. But I also wonder if the mental confusion is responsible for the lack of emotional engagement?
Regardless, I think it is quite possible that AS is a 'disability' or disorder, but that many of us develop 'gifts' in order to compensate for it.
On the other hand, it's also possible that we have a 'gifted' mind from the start, and therefore fail to engage with others at the same level.
I'm sure there are other possibilites too.
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This would definitely be me. However, as I live in Texas where there is no activism, there is also no support.
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Granted my lack of denial seems to leave me with very little hope for my life improving in ways I want it to so I guess you could call it a very sharp double edged sword that most certainly cuts both ways.
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I knew nothing of autism until I was in my fifties. By that time, I'd done all kinds of things that are impossible for autistics (when I look back, I'm often horrified at how I did some of those things, but the fact remains that I did them). I had an impressive history and I was in the habit of viewing myself as abled, so I wasn't going to change. At the same time, I recognize that it would be easy to attribute most of my mistakes to a disability. Maybe I do, but in a limited sort of way that doesn't increase the likelihood of making more mistakes in the future. It's more like, I know that if I weren't autistic, I would have learned some lessons with one experiential go-round less. It might be argued that I'm into the disability thing to a ( ... )
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I recognize that there are people for whom the label of disability is enabling. I didn't mean to discount them entirely. For all I know the OP may be one of them. However, I suspect that for the majority of us on this forum, the choice is simply one of arbitrary belief.
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