I feel like for me personally, it’s a good thing. When people think of someone with Asperger’s, they think of someone much higher-functioning than me. I need more support and stuff, may never even be able to work or live on my own. I’m guessing (I was in fourth grade when I was diagnosed, didn’t get any specifics about my diagnosis beyond “Asperger’s syndrome,” any of that information probably went to my parents instead of me and they didn’t tell me any more than that) I was just labeled with “Asperger’s” instead of “autism” because I had no speech delay, and because of the label I was lumped in with “high-functioning” when really I’m “moderate-functioning.” So for me, it was doing me a disservice, putting me in a category of people who don’t need as much support and assistance as I do.
But as per usual, I seem to be in the minority with my opinion.
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"