Do I have "milder" Aspergers?

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People say my Aspergers is very mild, but it doesn't feel that way. I also got diagnosed with mild Joubert Syndrome, I feel very low right now. I basically feel out of energy and motivation to achieve things most of the time. Am I still "mild"?

I used to believe that severity scales (mild, moderate and extreme) were self-evident to everyone. Then, this week, I was re-reading my diagnostic report from over a year ago and realized for the first time that my GAD and OCPD were rated a GAF-60, or moderate. Wha?!? So, now I amn't so sure about severity scales, or at least, my interpretation of them.

Many people have a strong normalcy bias whereby they believe that their life experiences are perfectly normal, average and regular. I suspect that my normalcy bias wasn't quite as realistic as I had believed.

Despite all this, I have read (Tony Attwood and others) that Asperger's Syndrome is usually a DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder severity of Level 1 (mild). So, if you have AS, maybe it could be beyond mild. Or, maybe your JS in combination with your AS presents a "mild +" severity.

I look forward to reading what other, more informed, commenters might say about severity scales.

Personally, I have always had a problem with words such as mild. I find it all too subjective. My spouse has a cousin who is labeled low functioning. This confuses me because she has held down the same job for years and can easily navigate her town (she lives in Baton Rouge). I have been called mild and moderate. I cannot hold down a job or navigate my town which is tiny in comparison. She manages to maintain herself with composure when out in public. I shut down if I am out and about too long.

At the end of the day, for me anyhow, it is a spectrum and it is not set in stone. I have days where I function better and days where I function worse. This seems to be true for everyone. I am under the impression that labels such as mild are simply a general starting point used by medical professionals/schools/whatevers to have some kind of idea about where the person they are dealing with is coming from. I do not know if I said that right. Hm.

Anyway, I imagine where you are now, OP, is temporary... though I do know nothing about JS (does that cause permanent changes in your level of functioning over time?) If it is a temporary thing, we all have ups and downs. I do not see why that would change you from mild to anything more. I hope this passes quickly for you.

If a person with Asperger's is quite adversely affected by the Asperger's, then I would say it's not "mild" by any means--despite "normal or above normal" cognitive ability.

I have a saying it's mild when something happens to somebody else, not when it happening to you.

You can have more than one condition. Sometimes AS alone is mild but another thing they have may be more severe. I knew a boy who had mild AS according to his mother but the boy was pretty aggressive. He would get violent whenever he didn't get his way and he had been hospitalized several times and he took pride in harming others and breaking kids bones at school including on the ones who couldn't fend for themselves because they were in a wheelchair. Does this sound mild? No, he also had ODD and I don't think that was mild but his AS alone may have been. I think his main issue was ODD and that gave him the most social issues and problems. Sometimes I think he also had Conduct disorder because read that with ODD, aggression is absent because they are not aggressive towards animals and people. ODD does usually lead to that disorder when not treated or outgrown.

It could be depression you have or something else that is giving you lack of motivation and not enough energy.

GAF of 60 does not mean you have moderate autism. GAF just measures how much your symptoms are effecting your life. There are milder conditions than Aspergers (things like mild insomnia, mild general anxiety disorder,etc) , so these people get the mild scores of 61-70. 60 isn't that low. A person with occassional panic attacks also gets a GAF of 60.It just means you have symptoms and more difficulties than someone with say, mild insomnia. A person with moderate autism would likely get a GAF score of around 25. A LFA would get a GAF score of about 15.

"Moderate" autism is only "moderate" when compared to LFA- it is actually a very severe disorder- so a person with that gets a score well within the severe range on GAF. In the DSM V , moderate autism (level II ASD) is defined as needing "substantial support" in a number of areas.

I didn't say that it did. I used it as an example of the problem of subjectivity of severity scales of any kind.