Differences between mild Aspergers and severe Autism?

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I'm not sure I would be bothered enough to put lots of time into trying to get a profoundly autistic person to trust me.

At five, I was sociable (but didn't know how to get along with the other kids), absolutely loved animals, loved being picked up and hugged (although it became slightly excessive at times), was very communicative, stimmed a bit, separated things, used stilted language at times, read a lot...not a very typical Aspie 5 year old overall. At 7, I was noticeably different to the other kids, but parents and teachers put that down to me being gifted (stupid English school system!). When I was 10, the symptoms were much much more pronounced. Since I only have mild Aspergers, it took a while to appear, especially since my parents are pretty open minded in some areas and are used to people being a bit wacky in our family (depression and weirdness runs). My mum started getting worried after about 9 years old because I withdrew. I'd been this very happy, content child and then suddenly I was crying at friends' houses, refusing to talk to them, having trouble at school, throwing scenes at home, etc. I was just fed up, confused, maybe a little bit scared. I remember thinking constantly WHY can't I just be normal like them!

Well I have AS and Dyspraxia, and an anxiety disorder, what the doctors have diagnosed separate from the AS. My anxiety disorder shows worse than the AS and Dyspraxia symptoms put together, but I was officially diagnosed with all three. My intelligence is just average with most things, and my communication skills aren't bad at all. I don't stim, and I have no problem in recognising other people's emotions and facial expressions, tone of voice, and ect.

But let's get to the point - I was always taught to imagine Autism spectrum as a line, and one side of it is yellow, which is mild AS, and it changes to dark yellow, then orange, then red, which is severe Autism (where the person is not aware of anything and needs care and unable to take part in society and can never hide any of the symptoms).
Think of it as a virus. A mild cold is where you're not ill enough to lay in bed burning with a temperature - you can still get up and do things. But the flu has the same symptoms as the common cold, but appear worse and makes you more unable to do anything. Moderate viruses probably include a bit of both - (for example) chronic aching and very feverish but may not have a blocked nose. Also, like AS, colds can be ''bad'' depending on the person, some only have to get a little sniffle and they're off to bed for a week, but a bad flu is enough to make anyone ill when experiencing all the symptoms where you really can't get up and do things. Same with severe Autism (the red side of the spectrum) where people aren't able enough to be able to be independent.
So in between (the orange part of the spectrum) mostly include a bit of both: noticably poor communication skills but still able to take part in normal society, or someone could be very intelligent (or average) but appear very unaware of other people or something. But for me, being on the yellow side of the spectrum, all symptoms are mild, and I can easily hide most, and one or two symptoms are just moderate (like the sensitivity in my ears). But neither are severe. (For example, if I hear a loud noise I don't run away screaming - I just gently cover my ears or try to stay cool when out in public.)

"Not aware of anything" is not true. "Less likely to react" can be true of some.

And it's not a one-dimensional spectrum, either. It's a combination of many different spectra, and any given autistic person at any given point in time is located at different places along each of them.

Aspies have average to above average intelligence.

Go to Youtube, type in Aspergers documentary, and click on Asperger's Documentary - My Crazy Life. Part 1 of 3, and watch most of the video. Notice how the teenager is aware of the world, can talk to the camera, and they even described AS as being a mild form of Autism or something like that.
Then type in Severe Autism then type in, What severe autism can look like and how to protect the person, and there is a big difference between the first clip you saw and the second clip you saw.

And I'm not saying that's what Autism is. I'm saying that's what severe Autism is. I have a friend who is Autistic, but is successful, self-aware and happy, but still shows more symptoms than me which come out more obviously, whereas I can hide mine. Therefore he is not severely Autistic.

But when a person is at a point where they are really unable to be aware of anything and can't even talk properly to his own parents, that is in the ''red side'' of the spectrum. Not many people on the spectrum are that severe, which means most people on the spectrum have average or above intelligence, hence they aren't on the ''red side''. It is not a stereotype - it is a true fact.

It's not a "true fact", it's a very popular myth. There is plenty of evidence that it's not "intelligence" that defines where you sit on the mythical one-dimensional spectrum. (If it were, it wouldn't be "severe autism", would it, it would be "severe intellectual disability".) There is also no way to truly measure severity of autism yet because we don't know what defining feature makes autism what it is. Perhaps severe autism makes it easier to navigate the world than mild autism. There's certainly evidence for that if you count severity by number of observable autistic traits. And I heard that from two separate autism researchers, one of whom I co-presented with at an autism conference on the topic of the mythical nature of a line from high functioning to low functioning, mild to severe, or whatever.

All you're doing is pointing to two autistic people and saying they look different. That's not news to anyone. Then you're purporting to know why they look different and place them on that mythical line, and that's what people are objecting to. No amount of pointing and saying "But it's obvious!" will change people's opinions because the only reason it's so "obvious" to you is that you believe what you're told by the standard cultural story of what autism is. Other people are aware of that story. Making us aware of it isn't necessary. What we are doing is questioning the reality of that story. So simply repeating the story at us won't actually convince anyone who has heard it before but disagrees with it. It's really not that we've never heard views like yours before. Many of us have probably had views like yours before. "It's obvious" simply isn't so obvious to anyone who has done some questioning of the reality of that myth.

Why do they have a name for high functioning Autism then?

So at job interviews I can turn around and say, ''I'm severely Autistic'' if I wanted to.

You could gauge severity by how well the person was taking care of themselves, I suppose. But you'd have to remember that it's possible to break all of the stereotypes--look really really autistic and still be able to live on your own and work and everything; or hardly look autistic at all and have to have help all day every day. And of course that changes depending on your environment and the stuff you've learned and your physical and mental condition...

They have a name for it because they believe in the myth. Names aren't reality, words in fact distort reality even in the best of circumstances. And autism lore is not the best of circumstances.

I'm not saying you should go to an interview and say you're severely autistic. Or mildly autistic. Or high functioning, low functioning, etc. What I'm saying is mild/severe/HF/LF are all bad (inaccurate) ways to describe autism. Instead, people should focus on the traits they're talking about. But they should also be very careful that they actually know what they're doing when they mention those traits. Simply replacing "severe" with "low intelligence and no understanding of the world" doesn't help, especially since they are assumptions rather than true descriptions of a person's ability. And they should also be careful not to simply play out the same myths with different words --"autistic people who can do X have nothing in common with autistic people who can't do Y and should never act like they know TRUE autism" is another bad one. And also making assumptions like "autistic people who can't do Y could never possibly do Z" isn't great either. So you have to be careful with it, but generally describing each person's specific abilities communicates far more than simply slapping a functioning label or severity on them.

There is no good place to put me on the high to low functioning spectrum. I am discovering that I effectively 100% blind to some important social information. I am continually having things happen that leave my head spinning and thinking WTF was that all about? This after many years of trying to figure out how these things called people work.

My executive functioning is messed up so bad that I am hanging on to my present job by a thread.

Conversely, I am quite good at some things. My verbal skills are definitely not low functioning. I am really good at analyzing things. I have gotten very good at not blurting out what pops into my mind my tongue so I don't inadvertently offend.

Take away my verbosity or capacity for analysis and I am finished. I would be on public assistance.

I have a foot in two worlds - one where part of me seems completely ineffective and the other where I might be considered hyper effective. They balance each other perfectly, leaving me stuck in a no mans land of mediocrity.

I have to agree with anbuend. HFA/LFA are such over simplifications that they can be useless. They perpetuate stereotypes and do little to promote understanding.

It seems like autism could almost be defined as being something which causes people to have sets of skills and impairments that most other people will find counter-intuitive and confusing.

I can look at people tell what sets off the "looks ret*d" or "is really, severely ["different than normal"] reaction -- I get that. I think people forget to question, though, how much that impression is giving them true & useful information. That reaction often seems to short-circuit reasoning processes such that people don't notice that the things they think aren't based on any actual information about the person.

Perhaps evolution programmed the human brain with some 'shortcuts' that masquerade as "logical" or evidence-based beliefs, but actually aren't. (I wish there was a word for that.)

I completely lack that particular shortcut. I can't tell who is supposed to be HF or LF just by looking. I can only tell by how others react to them (or me as the case may be). I can tell other things but not that. Which is why I get so irritated when people say "Just look at them and you'll know what I mean." No I don't. And half the time I identify strongly with whoever you're pointing to to say that person's empty inside. And then they go "Oh come on you could see it." No, no I couldn't. But getting anyone to believe that...