How Can Anyone "Be Proud" of being autistic?

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There is more than two answers to that, the query presents it as a near ultimatum. The argument of the beard is not compelling nor is it as complicated as our actual lives, thus a poor generalization. For me it's more about being proud of spefics. What I am, rather than my subjective self distortion. I look in horror at low functioning AS folks so far comunicativly inert they are stuck on family and the public teat. Us high functioners don't get all the buttwiping and lifetime care. We just tough it out and it sucks. Be proud of that. As pissed off as I get, I can't take it out on a bunch of clueless neurotypicals unless I adopt a victim mentally. They are as clueless about us as we are regarding normal social circles. but I really don't know life any different. So if a bunch of typitards want to toot about curing me of me by cutting my personality out with chems or blades. Or want to cram every AS out there in the same room as wheelchair ridden seizure prone, drooling degenerative disorder severe down syndrome charity, they can stuff it. They are just wrong, they don't get it anymore than a man gets a woman's menstrual period or a woman gets getting wacked in the testicles. They just don't get it cause of the difference short of some Sci-Fi brain scrambling , it never will. We are what we are, no awareness will help. It only leads to socialist reform. I mean do we really want neurotypicals creating law based off of what they think we need? That would be like us personally calling 500 strangers for a lound unfamiliar dinner party that is outside our preferred subject. Hellish, actually pretty much impossible, I would rather get my teeth drilled. No I don't need the NTs awareness, I don't need the "help", I get new "friends" every year (my wife keeps tabs going for 5 years or so) and new jobs every other year or so. I am a sucky friend and terrible employee, who is more interested in my own world than doing the job I am hired to do. Then I panic and quit go on food stamps or if i am lucky I get written up because my sense of time is infantile at best. If I didnt have my wife to be my "spotter" i would probably be in prison or homeless. Proud of not driving my wife mad, not so proud of not knowing how to "spend time" with my kids and just railroading them into my preferred activities. That's about it.

This is the dumbest post I have ever seen. I'm not sending a threat, but I would be happy that people like you would leave this world. My mom is autistic

She is a mother
married to a man
had a lot of friends (so did I)
is generally happy
has a master's degree
can drive (obviously)

F*** your stereotypes

What is the former?

proud

We should be proud of having survived what we all been through, the different childhood, the bullying, the rejection, the disapointment, the lonelyness the mental breakdowns and so on.

Anyone born before the 90's you can double the impact of all that for each decade going back to birth!

I believe we can feel that way without rose tinted glasses falsly pretending we had a gift when its obvious it was more of a curse.

In fact prentending our autism is a gift is disingenuous and just undermines our struggles and demeans our victories.

Many NTs think they had it hard try having what we have.

The famous rocky saying comes to mind:

"it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward."

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I would like to have the ability to take any random NT who says we are "gifted" and plop him or her right into the middle of a foreign country where they don't understand the language or customs, and where everyone else sees them as "strange", "weird", and even "creepy" for just trying to get their help and understanding.

I was born in 1957 and I find it hard to understand how anybody my age can look at anything through rose colored glasses never mind autism.

A lot of autistics have negative thought loops me included. But we are also pattern thinkers. It took a long time but I started noticing the worst I kept expecting did not happen. Yes we should be proud of surviving and our accomplishments beyond that. We should not go too far and develop a martyr complex. If autism was a compete curse no amount of toughness, willpower, and smarts would be able to overcome it.

We were born the same year, and were likely raised in similar family/community environments. Coddling was for people who were genuinely sick, not for people who were later found to have an ASD. If anything, people of our generation were treated like we were being deliberately difficult.

"Look at me when I speak to you!"

"Stop that rocking, you look stupid!"

"I don't care if it's itchy, you're gonna wear that sweater your gramma gave you, and that's final!"

"Go outside and play with the other kids."

... and the worst ...

"A black eye, huh? What did you do to deserve that?"

But we are not victims, we are SURVIVORS!!

You were just a bad person loser in life, either "crazy" thus sent away and forgotten, a "homo/fa***t/queer", "ret*d", "lazy" or a "drama queen" or all of the above.

It went way beyond autism, it was a completely different world view than today.

Ask anybody about the reaction they got when they came home from college in 1970 the year national guard killed 4 students at Kent State. It was just like you said "they must have something to deserve it", or "too bad they did not kill all of them. "

Be it a teacher, cop, or doctor a judgement by an authority/expert was not questioned by our parents generation
Why? The experts had led them to victory in WWII, and the American economy and culture ruled the world.

About those autistic behaviors being viewed as deliberate, that has not really changed. Go to most ABA sites or forums or anywhere ABA is discussed and you will likely see the word "tantruming" used.

It's easy to be proud of being autistic when you remove yourself from the apathetic NT world,
and step into irl ND communities. We understand each other better and help each other get by.

We aren't as caught up in frivolous things. We don't care what the Joneses have, we'd rather go and do something interesting instead of accumulating things. We don't care to talk about what the Joneses are doing, we'd rather research and discuss more important topics.

Our little bubble is so interesting. I'm proud of that.

On the particular website you quoted, the word "tantruming" is used in the context of a kid who "tantrums (problematic behavior) to get toys." It's not clear whether they know the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown.

When I look around at how dishonest, shallow, lazy, arrogant, cruel, thoughtless, petty, vain, selfish, narrow-minded and just plain stupid so many people can be, I'm relieved (and even proud) to be who I am. And I wouldn't be who I am of I weren't autistic.

This particular BCBA-D doesn't know or care about the difference. Obviously I do not have the resources to do a META analysis of online ABA spaces and I never hear in person discussions. I can only rely on my autistic pattern recognition with the limited data I have seen.

I wouldn't say I feel proud of it, but neither do I feel ashamed of it. I spent most of my life in a state of self-loathing because of all my weird problems and the way people always treated me. Now that it all has an explanation, I feel much more at peace.

I'm not ashamed of having ASD. If NT's would be more understanding and accepting, I might be more open about having it and actually be proud of it. I don't really think that has happened yet. There's still a lot of discrimination, stereotyping, and stigma attached to ASD and other mental conditions. There are aspects of myself that I am very proud of. There are others that I wish were different. I accept myself for who I am, and if others can't do the same, oh well.