Is asperger necessarily a disability?

Post Reply New Topic

I think one issue with many on the spectrum under the old system is many traits can overlap. I read that for most cases they classified those with a low IQ as having autism and those with a high IQ as having aspergers syndrome, so I can understand where things can overlap with certain traits.

But it is very difficult to work out in some cases if a person is or is not dissabled unless they are effected in a significent way.

I remember filling out these forms to put in for a benefit that I did not expect to get (As I am not assessed yet and to be honest, I do not know where I stand).
I was asked "If you recieved this benefit, how would you spend it to make a difference to your life?"
I have to say I was quiet as I have never thought about this, but also, I was thinking about the shutdowns and if I was in a full shutdown, I am in a coma like floppy paralysed state so I am not able to talk or see etc... Now in this state it is pointless to have a carer because I could jot instruct them to do anything! And if I am not in a shutdown, physically speaking I am ok... So it was a question that to be honest I was unable to answer and would have to be answered tor me by someone who has experience in knowing what is and what is not a dissability.

Is anxiety a dissability? When I was hitting burnout I was having to go into work earlier and earlier. I could drive the 16 miles to where I worked but when I pulled up into that carpark, anxiety hit me big time and I could not get up out of the car. Often I had to wait half an hour before I could walk.
BUT on the other hand, when I am calm and fine and not in any shutdown trigger zone, and I am not on the recovery from a burnout (Which takes a long time. It has been over a year and I am not back to where I was before the last burnout yet and I want to be fully recovered which is going back to where I was before I hit the last three or four burnouts), I am physically fine.
(Why I say I want to be fully recovered, is because I hit the last three burnouts because I stupidly became impatient and tried to work again each time before I had completely recovered from the time before that, so I hit another burnout simply because I did not give myself enough time. My experience is that it takes me a year and a half to two years and even then I ended up repeating a burnout... But that was due to work overload and not due to not having properly recovered. The last three I hit were due to both being exposed again to shutdown triggers in the workplace, and not having complete recovery from the burnout I had before).

But anyway. When I have been assessed, if I am on the spectrum or even if I am not, I am hoping to find out far more about myself and know exactly where I stand.
I know how I felt a few burnouts ago when I was really not knowing where to turn or who to ask for help because I dis not know what was happening to me except that it was happening, and I was ready to die because I did not know how life could get any worse!

That's where it all falls apart for me. Unless someone sees me in a situation where non-verbal/practical skills are needed most , and verbal skills are a secondary factor, it's been reckoned that any failure to perform as expected is due contrariness/laziness/passive aggressiveness etc.

That's because the vast majority of interactions with (mental ) health professions are short, verbally based ones.

To put it in simple language

Blindness means there is something wrong with the eyes
Paralysis means there is something wrong with the legs
Autism as a disability would mean there was something wrong with the self

It would require being far more broken than the first two. It would require being a fundamentally broken/lesser person. My eyes need glasses - they are inferior eyes and I do not mind admitting that. I will not admit that there is something wrong with my self, any more than for any other human. I do not wish to be someone else, I do wish I had better eyes.

This Healthline article might be of interest: "What’s the Difference Between Asperger’s and Autism?".

And it might be worth mentioning that a lot of what is in that article (and some posts on this thread) are talking about the situation in the U.S. where we use the DSM which, in 2013, stopped separating Asperger's Syndrome from Autism. Now we have the broader Autism Spectrum Disorder. My understanding is that some other countries still diagnose Asperger's separately.

The DSM's autism spectrum also has defined levels of severity, as described in this Healthline article: "High-Functioning Autism". The level of severity is apparently determined by how much support the individual requires. And that the severity level might change, over time.

I thought what distinguished Asperger's Syndrome was "not having any delay in language learning or cognitive development typical of other, similar neurodevelopmental conditions". So I thought Asperger's Syndrome and Level 1 might be almost but not exactly synonymous. That is, I thought while an Aspie might often be on Level 1, some Aspies might not be Level 1 (and some folk at Level 1 might not be Aspies).

Which leads to the observation that diagnosing an older patient as having Asperger's Syndrome might sometimes have been difficult because wouldn't you need to somehow know if, at an early age, they had had delays in language learning or cognitive development?

P.S. Though I was diagnosed at age 64 I have records indicating I did not have a delay in language learning. But, while they show when I said my first words, they do not say how soon thereafter my parents wished I'd shut-up.

Before I knew anything about autism I had hit burnout many times and each time it hit hard, and harder then the time before. I did not know what was happening or how to describe it or the shutdowns I have had which during burnout I would have LOTS of them instead of a few every other day (Partial shutdowns tend to be a few a day or every other day. If I have had a good week (Rare) I would have avoided having even one partial shutdown, but as I get older life hit more so such weeks became rare. I would LOVE a carefree enviroment which comes from a carefree holiday but rarely have I had this...).

But anyway... When I was in a mess I felt that I needed to see a doctor for a whole 5 days of continual day long appointments to even hope to speak to try to explain what I was going through.
My problem was that I couldn't describe what I was going through.

It was only when I hit the last burnout and I had found out about autism and joined this site and I had realized that I was going through burnout, and that I just so happened to be told about an autism open day the day after I finished my last day in work (Which was a real struggle to do and if I had quit two weeks earlier when I saw the signs of burnout then I would have saved myself some damage) and somehow I made it to the autism open day and saw people from my local autism team... And when I spoke and realized that they understood what I had been and was going through, it was like a dam of pressure had burst.
They were the first people EVER that I came across who understood me and what I was going through.

Before that and before I started hitting the many burnouts that I had I was having shutdowns and trying to find out what they were without success, but somehow I was holding things together and managing. Back then even though I was actually told I needed to e assessed for autism, but I did not believe it? Mainly because my concept of what autism was happened to be based on the worst cases that we see on the TV news where people are hardly able to move and need to be in a wheelchair to move them from one point to another. (I had reasoned that I can't be on the spectrum because I am not physically dissabled (Except if I have a full shutdown)).

I see your point that often we can fit "Inbetween" criteria where we are not classed as having one thing or another and yet one can be struggling. I have actually always felt like this but in a different way..... But it has been the story of my life until I found out about what the autism spectrum actually is (And I am still learning about both the spectrum ad its traits, and myself).

Yes. This "Inbetween"... I almost felt like wanting to go down with something terrible just to avoid being an inbetween and not because I wanted anything bad, but because I had spent a life time of struggling with something or other going on in the background in which I or the doctors I saw could not explain. (I am not good a
t explaining things in regards to my feelings and it is only really lately in my life that a whole lot of these jigsaw pieces are making sense, that I am able to see a picture which I can describe to others so I can now describe some of my feelings).
This to me has been a giant leep forwards.

Not sure what you mean by “something wrong with the self”. You are more than your developmental disorder (autism) surely? Your interests, family, beliefs & values?

I personally separate myself from my Asperger’s, just like Steve Wonder probably separates himself from his blindness, he has of course his music, show biz career, friends & interests, his blindness is just one part of him.

The article was about Asperger’s (mild autism) as magz said to me previously, but if you’re referring to autism as a whole, (including severe autism) you are unfortunately setting yourself up to take it personally anyone who mentions taking action to prevent or reduce autism`s symptoms.

After all, if autism as a whole was so fine why would anyone need to take anti depression / anxiety pills or receive therapy to deal with it? To receive welfare & carers to live with it?

Its not a normal situation for a young adult human to require a carer or to not be able to live independently, which is why it’s a disability.

Of course, it’s your life & its not for me to tell you what to do. If your happy the way you are & dont want changing thats great.

But if someone wants to nail their entire identity & being to be a physical embodiment of a "developmental disorder” and have the impossible task of defending it, don’t be surprised if your regularly offended and stressed when 99% of the population refers to it negatively which they undoubtedly will given the life restricting problems it causes.

I'm not stupid, I'm not disabled, therefore autism is not a disability, it's just a difference.
Oh, but I am not high-functioning because functioning labels don't exist any more otherwise how would we get the support we need with this disability difference we have?





It's a disability, OK? And don't be afraid of having a disability, because disability does not mean stupid.

I never thought it did mean "stupid". And clearly many are disabled by it. The law may or may not say it is always a disability. Maybe it disabled me a bit back when I was still going to school or working. But I'd be hard-pressed to think of any abilities I don't have that aren't just for blending in with the NTs. In my current circumstances, I'm fine.

I'm very high-functioning. I know we're not using that term any more but...I am high-functioning. I live with my NT boyfriend and so I'm in a stable relationship, I have a driver's license, I work, I'm independent (can take care of myself without any outside support), and I have no trouble communicating and expressing my thoughts and feelings.
If that isn't high-functioning then I don't know what is (which is why I get annoyed when ASD people deny any functioning labels).
But I still consider my Asperger's and ADHD to be a disability, not a difference. Sometimes I call Asperger's a mental health disorder since it mostly causes anxiety, depression and emotional overwhelm, but I think calling it a mental health issue is quite forbidden on WP. So I just say disability.

From my simple understanding of labels, a diagnoses is given if there is a significant impairment. If you are not impaired by this disorder, you are not autistic. You do not meet the criteria.

When I see anyone say online how autism is another way of learning and thinking and just a fancy label for those that think different, either they are in denial of their condition or they do not have it. If they have been diagnosed, it could be they are in denial or they have learned enough to no longer qualify for the diagnoses.

And how does anyone get diagnosed if criteria isn't even met because they have no impairments is beyond me. Maybe they mean the doctor told them "you would have been diagnosed but now you don't qualify anymore, congratulations for learning to adapt. Your symptoms are no longer an impairment" and they took it as a diagnoses? Or they are in denial and I have seen people on here say they are inly impaired because of other people causing it due to their lack of tolerance. That is like saying "I would be a good driver if there were not so many cars on the road and so many a**holes."

I have no problem calling myself high functioning or very high functioning. No one can word police your language on yourself like some autistic SJWs try to do.

That is a good analogy.
It's no good blaming the rest of the world. I usually read on WP that a world ruled by autistics would not work, so what does that tell you?

I don't feel impaired by ASD these days, but that doesn't mean to say I don't have it. Sometimes I do question my diagnosis but then I think back to my teenage years when I was a lonely and weird teen with obsessions and struggled to fit in with my peers at school and even did some autistic things. In fact I think I temporarily went through a phase of alexithemia when I was aged 13-14, even though I was never alexithimic before or since.

But yes I am definitely high-functioning. Functioning labels DO exist. It's blatantly obvious.

This forum now has spoiler tags?! And HTTPS?? Now we're cooking with gas. Still rather surprised that we're using BBCode and not rich text, but, eh, I guess that's part of the charm of this site. Brings some good nostalgia from the Internet of the mid-to-late 2000s.

Getting back to what I was going to talk about before getting distracted, yes, I do agree with the author whose post I'm quoting. For a few years, it's been my belief that there are very many subtypes of autism, in that they have different neurological causes, but they result in fairly similar behaviour. Since behaviour is what's currently used to diagnose ASD's, there's not really a reliable way to distinguish between the different subtypes.

Of the subtypes that Edna mentioned, I think I'd be the first one, the one that appears NVLD. In fact that's what a psychologist thinks I actually have.

An additional complication occurred to me: U.S. DSM-5.

I was diagnosed in the U.S. in 2019. My formal diagnosis is: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1 (Mild)--because, under DSM-5, I could not get a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. DSM-5 moved "Asperger's Syndrome" under the new "Autism Spectrum Disorder" diagnosis.

My psychological report also noted that I displayed "many of the qualities of individuals diagnosed with high functioning ASD, or what was previously known as Asperger's Syndrome." If I had been diagnosed before 2013 my diagnosis would have been Asperger's Syndrome. If I had been diagnosed in a country that still has the "Asperger's Syndrome" diagnosis, that is what I would have gotten.

So, officially, under DSM-5, the U.S. uses an "autism" diagnosis that is much broader than the "autism" diagnosis in other times and places. Officially, I've got that diagnosis. But where you are I might not be considered autistic at all! From your vantage point I might have Asperger's Syndrome.

This complication probably does not apply just to me. It potentially applies to anyone diagnosed in the U.S. since 2013.

And, there may be a further complication on top of that! I understand that one Asperger's Syndrome diagnostic criteria relates to early language skill development. That might be difficult or impossible to determine for an older patient. In which case, even if you live somewhere that distinguishes Asperger's Syndrome from Autism, there might be an increased chance of getting one of those diagnoses when really you should have gotten the other.