Autism and Acceptance!

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Last night i was debating with my brother about autisim and aspergers and he said to me "Being on the autistic spectrum makes you very different" interestingly he also said "Aspergers is more acceptable and normal than autisim and is a different condtion".

My own mother said something similar along the lines off "If you want to be different and not accepted by people don't tell them you are on the spectrum"

Is this just plain ignorance by NT people who belive the horrible stereotypes about autism becasue i believe AS in particular is more a variation of normal than a disease. Its insulting just because of a label i will be treated like a freak my whole life by people.

I belive I could have aspergers but there is also the possiblilty i have SPD which is the same as HFA.

Do you belive as well that asperges is more of a casual and acceptable label because when people think of someone with AS they just think "Quricky and Intelligent" whereas when people think of autism the film 'Rain Man' immediatley pops into there heads.

I don't know. I haven't really gotten into many discussions about Aspergers. I am told I am really high functioning, but I generally call myself "autistic" for general conversation. It's because I think they are the same, Asperger is just a variant on a theme. It's like saying Blue, instead of Cerulian Blue. The other day, though, someone was talking to me, and said something rather bad about autism and add, so of course I had to explain myself, since I'm dx'd with both. I didn't really feel like talking much, but I wanted to show him that not everyone with those dxs are completely dysfunctional and in diapers.
Just a few weeks ago, I generally wouldn't tell anyone, because I thought there was a stigma against both labels.

Yeah I think a lot of people with HFA should just use the aspergers label when around NTs as opposed to 'Autism' so they will be more accepted.

I mean don't get me wrong even if you say you have AS i think NTs will still not really be accepting but if you say Autism they will run for the hills

From your previous posts about your family's attitudes I can't see accepting much of what they say as reliable.

Just sayin ...

I agree i think they just don't know much about it

I tell people all the time that I am autistic. I let my actions speak to my intelligence. So far not a one feels like I am intellecutally disabled that I know of. Actions speak much louder than words.

kfisherx do you think NTs just blow autism out of proportion? As far as i am concerned people with HFA and Aspergers alike are like regular people they just might need more suppourt to get some things done but i don't know why people think being spectrum is like having cancer?

If society wants to paint autistic people as freaks who behave like rainman then no wonder others get these biased misconceptions about people who are not NT

I just don't get why being on the spectrum is a death sentence to NTs?

You are over-generalizing. Some NTs blow things out of proportion, some don't. Some Aspie's blow things out of proportion, some don't. You keep setting up this binary categorization of NT and autistic but then don't further define it. BOTH could be called a spectrum. There is a box of NTs and a box of autistics. Inside each of those boxes are a whole lot of smaller boxes that create the spectrums. Your family is in one of those smaller boxes labeld "ignorant by choice NTs". Find some NTs with a different label on their box.

I am guessing my family belive "If your not NT your f****d in life" Pardon my bad langauge

To be fair though i am not helping my cause at the moment because i can't function to save the life of me today

Seems to me you are at least trying to figure things out. That's helping your cause, no?

Yeah trying to figure things out at the moment . I wish i could do something about my mood disorder problems:(

If this statement were anywhere remotely true I wouldn't be unemployed, friendless, living with my parents, getting constantly yelled at by people and wishing my own death right now.

Asperger's is not as much a variation of normal as you might think. When I read posts like the OP's, it reminds me of something I saw in the yellow pages. It was and ad for a therapeutic retreat for children who are having problems. It had Asperger's, Autism and PDD-NOS all on one line, listed together. Apparently whomever was running that place didn't see much of a difference between the three and I am sure whomever it is has seen a lot of all three and probably has a great deal of experience with all three diagnoses since it is funded by the state government, partially.
Apparently, there are kids dxed Asperger's who need this place, same with Autism and PDD-NOS which makes me wonder, are they really that different from each other?