How Can Anyone "Be Proud" of being autistic?

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How can anybody be "proud" to be human? Look what human beings do to one another.

being "ashamed" of one's human-ness is a signpost on the road to transcendence.

Eh, I mean. I'm learning to accept the traits that are harmless... (self-talk, special interests, stimming and echolalia) but there are things we can work on too (social etiquette, reciprocity, time management etc).

You kind of have to strike a balance between traits you want acceptance for and problems that you do need to solve.

Never been ashamed nor proud to be autistic.
But I do pride myself as an autistic who can overcome the fate and cycle of disproportionate anxiety and depression -- never had meds, never had formal therapy -- that many NDs fallen into, in which many can't get out from even with support, accommodation and understanding.

I savor the fact that I don't have phobias, have lesser things to deal with, and born with serious compensation abilities, but this does not mean to be proud of. It's simply something I have, along with the other things I supposed to be ashamed of.

magz wrote:

auntblabby wrote:

being "ashamed" of one's human-ness is a signpost on the road to transcendence.

or suicide.

point taken, i shoulda said it was the signpost @ the fork in the road leading either to transcendence or the cul-de-sac.

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I'm very proud my daughter looks at the world so objectively and is resistant to the bias that NTs absorb so quickly from group think. Her innocence and lack of hatred/malice she is teaching me much about myself and how much I can grow and develop as a human being.

She is proud of being herself...the label of autism has nothing to do with it...it is after all an NT creation

Have these issues and I think the main problem causing them is the current system in place plus the culture it created.

If we lived in pre-industrial times there would have been all sorts of jobs that don't require 'STEM' or much communication at all that could have earned you plenty of money. Although some are risky but contained excitement.

Many non-communication jobs I once dreamt of wanting to work are in the history books and no longer available, or are now illegal (Like being a mercenary that protects people from bad things without joining the army first). Idk, in theory because they aren't communication jobs.

It was reported by some that many people who worked in artisan or mercenary band jobs had traits that would kind of resemble stereotypes of the autism spectrum today.

Also people were in closer knit communities and did not often have to interact with strangers, it seems we were built for that life?

Who knows what life any one of us was built for? We all fit into the Autism Spectrum constellation in some way, but how we relate to the dx and each other can be quite different.

A lot of us may have been made to feel ashamed for harmless behavior (echolalia and stimming), called the "r" word continuously, and pride is a way of rebelling from the type of shame we were made to feel. All that said, I also understand why some don't view their dx with pride.

We need to let everyone tell their own stories about what their "autism" means to them. Trying to overgeneralize is one of the worst habits of this community...

As I wrote here:

- I take pride in the ways I've worked around my difficulties, not by heavy-duty "masking" but by finding places where I could be myself as much as possible. (My greatest desire these days is to help other autistic people find or create such places too.)
- I take pride in the ways I've resisted and avoided pressures to conform to oppressive norms.
- I take pride in being a deep analytical thinker. (And I think most of us are deeper thinkers than the average person is; we pretty much have to be.)
- I take pride in my curiosity and my natural desire to acquire deep knowledge of whatever I'm fascinated by. (If that's an autistic trait, then, without the existence of autism or at least BAP, science would never have come into being, nor technology, nor scholarship of any kind.)

...thread killer? " Bocie " was (Is ?) something in New York State for " spaz/ret*d " for Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, a " special " division (not in the five biggest school districts in NYS).

That's an interesting question ...........

I have no problem with who I am and if someone could wave a magic wand to take my ASD away then I wouldnt want them to.

Pride? Not sure.

Acceptance? Yes.

I do not view it as something invasive, alien, unwanted or harmful. It is an integral part of me and I am OK with myself. In consequence I am OK with my ASD.