Autism Spectrum Identity

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Aspie. But its a matter of context. If someone asks me what i work with, i dont say "Aspie" or "Well, i'm an Aspie so i naturally work with computers". And neither do i shake hand and say "Hi, i'm an Aspie and my name is..."

If it comes up in conversation, then i use it.

I'm a person, first and foremost. Usually my condition doesn't come up, but if it does I'll say I have Asperger's Syndrome (I like to pronounce it the original German way, Oz-Perger's, to avoid the obvious jokes)

That was the way my psychiatrist pronounced it. You are the first person I have come across on the internet that has provided the reason why to me, as I was not sure if he was pronouncing it correctly or not.

I did not want to ask, and am not surprised he was correct in German translation because he is extremely intelligent, and acts a little like he is on the broader autism phenotype to me. After all, Asperger was in that field and considered to have some traits himself in childhood, and 4 out of 11 of Kanner's case studies had a parent that was a psychiatrist. That is a very systemizing field, although far from a perfect science of categorical analysis.

I see some of those traits in the pioneers that translated, described and continue to be top experts in continuing Hans Asperger's work, including Simon Baron Cohen, Tony Atwood, and Christopher Gillberg. However, the expression of the traits if they exist seem almost hidden in Lorna Wing and Uta Frith that were most directly responsible for the actual diagnosis for Asperger's syndrome. But I do remember Lorna Wing identifying some of the autistic traits in herself, and she reported having a severely impacted child on the spectrum.

I use "condition" and "disorder" rather interchangeably, so I wasn't hung up on your word choice. I wasn't really criticizing your framing, for that matter - just trying to explain I don't really get the whole person first/condition first dichotomy, because of how I experience my autism.

Thanks for clarifying, I think I was caught up in providing more detail than was necessary in the poll, as I too find the person first/condition first dichotomy confusing, particularly when I first heard about it..

I choose to say "non-autistic non-neurotypical". I know it sounds formal to NTs but I don't care, it's the most accurate.

I did not have a developmental disorder, instead I had a brain infection around the age of 13 that was undiagnosed for a very long time, and now I have a lot of autism spectrum qualities and fully relate to autism spectrum. Because my case is not developmental I CAN NOT ever be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.

Ways I am:

I get overstimulated, an example: I can't go to grocery stores, because if I do I get overstimulated and depending on how long I'm there or how stimulating it is (terrible lights, too many people, noisy, too many things to look at, too disorganized) I have a range of resulting behavior: stimming, depersonalizing (can't look at people or their faces), I can't look at disorganized things, I start to feel myself disconnecting, when I get home I may need to spend some time under blankets or my desk and not look at disorganized things.

I speak formally and precisely

I struggle with sarcasm, understanding when people are being sarcastic, the social codes, etc.

I have a hard time being understood and making friends.

I get frustrated with how people talk to me, ie they seem to say random things or say the opposite of what they mean because I get into trouble acting based on what they tell me.

I can't be touched in the face or head or hair. I do my own hair because I can't deal with the salon. They always want to wash and massage your head, and NTs love this but it's a form of torture for me.

I am obsessed with a few things, and if I don't get to do them I can get really uneasy and depressed.

I also talk about my interests, and I have a hard time realizing when other people are bored, or how long I've been talking about that. I think people get trapped by my conversations sometimes.

I worked really, really, really, hard, read a lot of books, studying, practicing, taking classes, and reading articles trying to understand social things, and even so I struggle.

I don't like when I can't predict what is going on or if plans change. I get really upset if someone makes plans with me and then cancels. I'm upset if I plan to do something one day and then something happens and prevents it. I try not to be an ass about it but I think I probably am.

Well I probably have more things than this but I can't think of them. I feel so comforted by logic and logical people, precise language, etc.

I know I differ from the typical AS model in that I want to have friends, but I don't think it makes me any more successful in making friends. I'm usually good at early stages (getting them interested in me) but later people abandon me because they don't understand me, or they grow frustrated because I don't understand them.

I also don't really have anxiety. I have some depression, and that is usually when I feel alone or fail socially. Maybe if I was this way from childhood things would be different and I'd have become anxious but I know a lot of AS people are anxious.

Another way I differ is that I've read a lot and practiced a lot about communicating and I've gotten good enough that I've been a professional writer (writing about my interests).

I hope other people still welcome me here and I'd like it if other people who are in similar situations could know they aren't alone either.

I was going to vote "Aspie," but the I realized that I'm more inclined to say "Autistic" to someone when they ask me. So, I voted for "Autistic" instead.

A lack of interest in having friendships is not a requirement of diagnosis; an impairment in developing and maintaining peer appropriate relationships becomes a mandatory requirement in the DSM5 ASD, which sounds like it could fit your description. Anxiety while a co-morbid condition is almost completely absent in some individuals on the spectrum whose limited ability to experience fear can potentially be dangerous for some individuals.

http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/works ... -in-autism

The underlying causes of what results in the observance of the behavioral impairments described as autism are diverse, and not well understood, but brain infection is considered one of the potential environmental underlying causes of those observed behavioral impairments. At this point in time a person could be diagnosed with PDDNOS or Aspergers, later in adulthood, as a potential result of a brain infection as an adolescent because there is no mandatory requirement for symptoms in early childhood. Particularly if the diagnosing professional was not aware of that earlier medical record of brain infection.

It's ironic that there seems to be a potential environmental causal factor that can be pinpointed to the challenges you meet associated with similar ASD observed behavioral impairments, but you are excluded from a diagnosis in the DSM5 ASD because of the age of brain infection whereas the brain infection would not necessarily preclude diagnosis in early childhood.

There is no clear answer for why some people fully manifest these observable behavioral impairments later in life. Currently a DSMIV diagnosis, as loose as the criteria requirements are, provides the assumption of a childhood neuro-developmental disorder, but does not necessarily provide any actual evidence of one. That requirement though does change by history in the DSM5.

While the diagnosis in a book may differentiate a label, the experience is what is with or without that label. It is possible that you could be diagnosed at this point in time if the diagnosing professional was not aware of the brain infection. It also seems like it would be hard to determine the full impact of the brain infection on genetic propensity that was already part of your makeup. Sooner or later through research modern medicine may be able to provide more information on this variance that may not always be an exception to a diagnosis of ASD by DSM5 criteria. US legal code already defines autism as a limit of brain function per the code that governs the American's with Disabilities Act. But the specific causal factors of that limit in brain function is not well understood, or even easily observed in a brain scan in most people.

This is part of wherere the vaccine debate and autism get a little fuzzy as there are very rare side effects of vaccine that are identified as causing brain infection as well as behaviors that are very similar to what is described as autism, but they are described as a result of organic brain injury caused by inflammation or infection, and attributed as such, rather than autism. This is also part of the reason for limited continued research associated with autism and vaccines to explore the potential of individuals more predisposed to these rare side effects. It seems like the question should also remain open for you if it was fully an issue of brain infection or potentially a general genetic propensity, as well.

The behavioral observance is written in a book and defined as autism, but the underlying causes for those observed behavioral impairments are far from understood well.

Don't understand how an ASD can be an identity.

So, a person with an ASD (just like, a person with OCD).

I think it's great! And I think it's fine for a person who's a 'bridge person' so to speak to participate here at WrongPlanet and can often contribute a lot, and by this I mean someone who has some Aspie traits but not others, and actually it sounds like you have a lot of Aspie traits.

I, too, want friendship a lot, and struggle, I think often because I overtry. And then I get frustrated and disappointed that people are shallow and superficial. And the difficult part is that to a considerable extent people are shallow and superficial, or let's just say most people are interested in other things.

Seeing as I don't have an official diagnosis (and I don't want to outright self-diagnose for fear of being wrong), I prefer something along the lines of "person with autistic traits," because regardless of where I am in regards to the autism spectrum, this is the one thing I can say with confidence. Otherwise, "quirky" works. As for describing Autism itself, I prefer calling it a "condition" or a "way of being" rather than a disorder. I prefer "Asperger's Syndrome" over "Asperger's Disorder."

I put down other because I have something called NLD (nonverbal learning disorder). I don't know if anyone here has heard of it.

I went with the spectrum option, because I don't have a professional diagnosis from anyone, and I don't like to downright say: Oh I diagnosed myself with blah, blah, blah.

I'm also more AD(H)D than anything, but still feel like I'm somewhere on the autistic spectrum, so I chose the spectrum option.

Autist (in German). That's a strong declaration because it can serve as an answer to "Who are you?" -> "Ich bin (ein) Autist."

To avoid making some people nervous about being confronted with a disorder (and to avoid them forgetting about the person who has said disorder), I sometimes say that I have autism (same in German) because that serves to shrink the importance of autism in reference to me as a subject. After all, I can say that I have autism but I can also use the same sentence construction to declare that I have donuts, books and good grades.

I have at times wondered to myself whether it was still appropriate to continue referring to myself as 'autistic', especially from age 17 to 21- considering that I was relatively 'mild' in my ASD to begin with, and had made great improvements throughout my childhood leading up to late adolescence. (Recently, however, certain aspects of my autism appear to have intensified).
But I was diagnosed as 'autistic' at a very early age, which means that, for most of my childhood, I lived and grew with the knowledge that I was autistic. As such, I consciously carried autism with me through the milestones of my formative years.

I wonder how I would have reacted in your stead, if there had been no 'cause' for an autism diagnosis in my early life and I had gone without the notion that I was on the spectrum for years before an official diagnosis were made.

It's interesting that you mention you worked with more severely autistic people prior to your diagnosis. Have you, either back then or in the time that has passed since then, made any observations concerning the self-identification types from your poll above among people on the more severe end of the spectrum?

Also, I suppose you were stationed at Guam or the Philippines?
I mentioned the aspect of cultural identification earlier, because their was an interesting little theory suggested (as a throwaway thought) by another poster a couple of months ago, saying that HFA/Aspergers are less likely to go for the 'condition-first' self-identification if they are already part of one or more minority groups (cultural, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, other disability) within their society, preferring a 'person first' approach. I thought it was a provocative suggestion, but had to confirm it in my own case, where I identify as belonging to several minority demographics, but don't necessarily feel part of the corresponding communities. With my self-identification as autistic, it's no different.

It's interesting you view it that way, seeing nuances between Autist sein and Autismus haben...
Dutch corresponds to German very closely on this point, and yet I never saw a difference between saying 'I am an autistic' or 'I am autistic' or 'I have autism'.
Curiously, some posters above have expressed reasoning opposite to yours for their preference for saying 'I am autistic'... feeling that 'I have autism' makes it sound like it's an affliction of some kind, where 'I am autistic' makes it sound more casual... But as I was saying, I don't really have a preference either way.