I dont have autism!

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Here's how the criteria work together, roughly:

Asperger's Disorder has different traits in social interaction, communication, and activities/interests.
Autistic Disorder is strong Asperger's plus speech delay or developmental delay.
Childhood disintegrative disorder is Autistic Disorder plus late onset.
Rett's is Asperger's Disorder or Autistic Disorder plus regression and usually the MECP2 mutation (and associated physical traits).
PDD-NOS is anything with strong traits of any of the above, but that does not fit clearly into any one category.

Yep. See: me.

I can't interact with people. Some, well nearly all actually, base it on social behaviour in addition to developmental history, i.e., aloof as an adult and child with developmental delays.

I find it strange the way you say this, almost if you didn't wan't to be under the autism label? Because whatever people label you, its not going to change who you are.

Just utilize the positive traits while managing and minimizing the undesirable traits... see how it goes from there...

learn about yourself some more...

This is what I have been striving to do for years...

I can blend in most times in a world dominated by NT's.. I am aware of my abilities and limitations. I avoid situations I have a lot of difficulty with, other situations, aware of my limitation and abilities to cope and moderate my exposure to such things...

I went to a bar last night and met up with some people. I was able to tolerate 3 hours before I excused myself and left... the music started in that last hour and got really loud and the place was filling up with people... I had 5 beers and I was mellowed out most of the time but I knew myself enough when I was starting to get overloaded and left...

Theres good things as well as not so good things and it is a matter of how well you know yourself and able to adapt accordingly.... Adapt while maintaining your individuality.... If doctors had their way, we all would be assimilated like the borg on star trek with psychotic drugs to be like whay the ideal is for everyone else.... as well as guinea pigs for new drugs and treatments that is more applicable to symptoms like a band aid rather than root causes that adaptation with your unique abilites addresses.

My mom thought I had autism and then I got checked and they said I have a neurological disorder but they reviewed me on clasic autism and she believe I didn't have it. Deep down I don't want to have what ever is wrong with me. I see all the other girls my age having friends thy hang out with and doing things together and socializing. I want to be part of that. I know maybe if I try hard enough I can socialize smoothly with people. I'm friendly and out going. I don't want to be alone doing my own thing. I want to share with people. I want to be a part of the group. But I'm "weird" to them. I'm still trying to open bags and make change at work look fluid in my motions. I can hardly even talk let alone carry a conversation. I know there's something wrong with me. Not thinking or knowing what exactly what it is makes my self esteem better. Because I can still hope and try.

I can see why someone wouldn't want "Classic Autism" (the aloof variant of autism, which is usually Kanner's Autism, or just referred to as "Autism", and it encompasses both HFA and LFA):

If you don't want to stare at pretty pictures for most of the day, it totally fudging sucks.

Socialising? Forget about it
basic mechanical interaction? Sometimes
a boyfriend/girlfriend? Ha
dependence upon your parents and/or the government to actually live? Yes

Life with "classic autism" is not automatically horrible. Ask people with classic autism. You'll get the same variety of answers you get from Aspies--everything from "I hate it, somebody get me a cure" to "I love it--autism is the best part of my life". For the most part, though, you'll get something along the lines of, "It's got its benefits and drawbacks, but really, it's just part of my life, that's all."

Just because some people hate it doesn't mean everybody does. Some NTs hate their lives, too. Stop using NT criteria to judge people's worth; that's just setting yourself up for poor self esteem. If you expect an autistic person to live the same way an NT does, you might as well expect a cat to live like a giraffe--it's equally ridiculous.

Oh... I'm dependent on the government, I either lecture or have gaps in my sentences when I talk, I have literally no friends, I use scripts to interact, I don't want a boy or girlfriend, I melt down and have sensory craziness, I can't function without routines, and I'm pretty darn happy. Don't assume impairment necessarily causes unhappiness.

Nah, I'm looking at it from outcome studies and research papers. I don't use myself as a yardstick.

As I said, if you want to do things, things that you personally want to do, but can't, it'll suck if you have it, because you'll most likely never do those things. If you don't want to do such, then it doesn't matter what you have. The current thinking is that people who're completely aloof still have the same personalities as everyone else, it's just that this Autism thingy gets in the way of things--in other words, it takes choices away.

It's the same with any disorder, really (the more severe the disorder, the more personality and disorder conflicts).

Actually "autistic idsorder" or, Classic or kanner's, may have quite a few AS symptoms, but AS says no significant self help problems or cognitive issues(outside of social), and kanner's has no such exclusion.

CDD goes farther than being merely autism, and retts does also. And retts always has the MECP2 mutation.

Deep down, perhaps, yes.

But it does change other people's perceptions of who you are.

In my case, other people's judgments were limiting, so it did in effect change who I was and what I allowed to do.

This is going to sound crazy, but people treated me very differently if they were aware of my label, unfortunately often in a patronising and fearful way.

When people weren't aware of the label, they treated me like a completely different person: a normal, capable human being, not "damaged goods".

I hope that attitudes have changed since then, but labels do affect how others treat you.

This in turn affects your self esteem and options, hence affects your sense of self. Often, unenlightened folks just see the label and not the whole person.

This can't be ignored.

It's usually in individuals with a normal IQ with Autistic Disorder who have symptoms of AS (the all-encompassing interest being the big one). This is where the idea of the "spectrum" came from, i.e., the dramatic overlap in symptoms between AS (a "mild" and specific form of Autism) and milder forms of Autism that were already diagnostic entities.

And here I thought that spectrum referred to even the limited sets of variables within LFA.

1. Can they communicate
2. Do they have imagination.
3. Various intelligences(verbal, math, spatial, logical, social,physical, composite)
4. Do they have self help skills?
5. Do they NEED stims?
6. Are they hypersensitive (sound, light, touch, smell)
7. Do they have obsessions/compulsions?

etc....

That is a LOT of variables! a straight line left to right could represent, and usually does represent, only composite intelligence. Some people here claim to have a VERY high composite, but low math, spatial, etc... IQ. My social and physical ones are low. Luckily, they aren't in most IQ tests, but they ARE a judged part for autism. Technically, if your social IQ is too high, you can't be autistic. My math isn't all that high either.

Nah, that's a common mistake to make.

The "spectrum" was, and always has been several labels for the various disorders under the catch-all term ASD.

You have AS, which is social incompetence plus the all-absorbing interest (nonverbal difficulties and the one-sided and verbose way of social interaction being the main points in the social domain, with that single interest taking up the repetitive behaviour)

You then have HFA (a straight diagnosis of Autistic Disorder without associated MR), which is closest to AS, but there's some more stuff tagged on (more of the traditional symptoms of Autism, like motor mannerisms, a strict desire for routine, aloof social interaction, sensory integration disorder, etcetera; all of these things prior aren't found in basic AS to a clinical level--yes, there's probably a whole heap of people diagnosed with AS who actually have HFA in its place, or who have milder HFA than the prototypical cases from Kanner's, which is HFA)

blah

blah

blah

... and you get the point.

I think a lot of people with AS have some of those problems, or did at one time. I know I do. But I definitely do not have HFA.

But... look, those outcome studies are done by NTs. Using NT yardsticks. They measure quality of life by whether you have a job, whether you're having regular sex, whether you wear a diaper or not. That's surface stuff. Some of it isn't even relevant to some autistic people, some of it is even beneficial--MY quality of life wouldn't go up if I started having sex, for one thing. NTs are not the measure of all things. I've seen as much distress in Aspies as I've seen in Kanner's people, and most of it comes from the frustration of being rejected, denied services, expected to "be normal", and not allowed to participate in the world alongside other people. I really think that when it comes to psychological well-being, it isn't the level of impairment that counts, but the level of acceptance.

These studies could be regarded culturally biased when designed by NT people.

There's essentially an imposed etic consisting of NT expectations of how people "should" behave.



Agrees wholeheartedly.

Life might not be perfect but, things are a million times easier when people are accepted and valued for who they are as people.

This fosters good communication channels and happiness.
Open communication and balanced information decreases stigma.