What is autism to you: disability or difference?

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Definitely both for me. I really like where my mind runs off to - my little autistic universe where everything lines up in neat little rows. But I have to live in a world that is radically different than that place. I am definitely not operating on a level playing field in that arena.

An advantage

I don't consider it a disability but I do consider it a condition that I have to live with.

It isn't a disability to me because it doesn't stop me from doing anything I want to do in my life.

I think of my condition (Asperger's) as a gift. Like some gifts it is not easy to receive or appreciate, but its value becomes known over time.

ruveyn

A cause and effect

In the words of Lady Gaga: "whether life's disabilities left you outcast, bullied or teased, rejoice and love yourself today 'cause baby, you were born this way"

Last edited by Asp-Z on 20 Apr 2011, 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have to say both. I do see it as disabling to some Aspies more than others, depending on the severity of certain symptoms. I mean no offense to anyone; if you're an Aspie and you can make a living and be productive, that's great. But personally, I've lost nearly a dozen jobs because of it, despite trying my ass off, and there's a chance of me ending up on the streets in a few years. So yeah, I'd say I'm pretty damn disabled and I think sugarcoating it would only make things worse for me.

That is a good point. Lots of life's problems and difficulties depend on the person. This even applies to NTs too.

I suffer from a lot of anxiety, and I know that the anxiety is my main symptom and affects my life more than any of the other symptoms do. I know not all Aspies necessarily have anxiety, but it still can be common in those with AS, and I just happen to be an Aspie with anxiety issues, which has affected me lots. It's easy for other people to say, ''ohh, just ignore what is worrying you!'' because it isn't that simple. I do try to conquer the anxiety by facing my phobias (which are loud sudden noise, crowds, toddlers, teenagers, and change), but the phobias just never go away. This is the severity of the anxiety I suffer with, and I am getting help. It's taken me almost 3 years to find employment because I'm just too anxious to find work, even though I am getting out there and doing my best to look for work, and I attend every interview I get offered. But employers don't seem to take me on, probably because I give off too many vibes what I can't control. That's another thing what makes my anxiety worse, and disabling - is the vibes I give off. They make young people make me feel uncomfortable in the street, make most people stare at me (and this is when I'm acting normal, which I always do anyway), and probably make interviewers not like me. It'd be nice if there was a way I could stop these vibes, but there isn't, and so it's going to make life very hard for me.

I think for the Psychiatrists to label autism as only a disability and a disorder and not a gift does a terrible disservice. No wonder there is so much discrimination at work because why would any sane employer want to hire someone with a disease?
I think that autistics would do fine at work if only they were given reasonable accomadation. But autistics are not given reasonable accomadation. During yearly performance evaluations autistics are judged only by their weakest attributes. During one performance evaluation I was slammed for being an idiot and there was not one mention of me winning a very prestigious recognition award because my boss thought that award was a joke. I go in a job interview and I had my foreman experience included in my resume and everyone thought that me being a foreman was a joke.

I wanted to say both too, but that's only because of the way the world is. If there was a magic pill that you could take that would get rid of my AS I wouldn't take it, because then I wouldn't be me anymore. If you wouldn't change something about yourself can you still call it a disability?

I voted both. I've always been told that I have a different way of seeing things. But it's also disabling to me, because it does keep me from doing things that I'd like to do. I think it's pointless to say that it wouldn't be disabling if the world was like us, because that isn't reality. I have to judge it by how the world actually is. And the reality is that I am seriously disabled in some aspects. That doesn't mean I don't have work-arounds. People in wheelchairs have work-arounds too, but that doesn't mean they aren't disabled.

It did take me a while to admit to it though. I never thought of myself as disabled, despite all my problems. I guess I always felt that if I just tried even harder that I could do it, but I didn't because I was weak or lazy or whatever. Nevermind that actually was trying really hard.

I also see it is both. It is a difference obviously, but I am also not completely functioning in my life as many of my old NT schoolmates are. That makes it a disability for me too.

But the psychiatrists do not want you to be you. The psychiatrists want to change you into someone else. If the psychiatrists had their way they would use applied behavior analysis and use electric current to shock you and torture you every time you displayed any behaviour they thought was deviant.

I voted both. All disability is a form of difference, and especially where that difference meets a society that isn't planned around it.

I actually find it irritating when people say we're not disabled. Because we are. And because denying disability tends to be caused by opinions that are ableist at worst and not understanding of what disability is at best. If you want to value your particular condition, whatever it is, it doesn't require distancing yourself from disability. It would only require that if you believed that disability is inherently and totally awful, and it isn't. (Degrees of awfulness vary and are often dependent on factors well beyond the particular body configuration.)

I guess I'm more equipped to see this because I'm disabled in a large number of ways. How I react to each of those ways depends on a lot of different factors. There are things that literally do nothing but cause pain, others are just an inconvenience, others have positive sides to them (but may also be painful and inconvenient), others I see almost entirely as positive.

Autism is a word for the parts of my mind that in some ways I value the most, and yet those exact parts of my mind cause me extreme discomfort and debilitation at the same time. But the discomfort part isn't what makes me disabled, it could be entirely positive and still make me disabled. But I just don't want anyone to think that my valuing being autistic is because I don't experience any serious effects. I actually experience effects that (based on polling at least), very few people here experience. The bad and the good are inseparable, two sides of the same coin. You couldn't separate them because the bad comes from the same thing that makes the good and the good comes from the same thing that makes the bad.

Additionally, I actually don't see the bad the same way a lot of people do either. I don't see myself as uniquely suffering, I don't have the energy to waste on self-pity. I see disability as an integral part of the human experience, and I consider suffering an integral part of the human experience as well. This doesn't make me specially cursed in some way, it's profoundly ordinary. Most human beings will be disabled if they don't die young. This is absolutely part of humanity and not some special separate caste that experiences unspeakable suffering. Any suffering we experience is part of the human experience, I don't... I don't know how to describe it, I just don't see the parts that involve suffering as... the way most people would see those parts. Humanity is richly varied and even the bad parts are part of our variation from each other. I don't consider the suffering involved in being disabled, as separate from the suffering that nondisabled people routinely endure. That's what makes me different from many nondisabled people who do see disability as a unique form of suffering (whether it actually causes suffering or not), and also different from some disabled people who totally buy into that view and feel sorry for themselves. It's hard to feel sorry for oneself when you know you're just one small part of the larger pattern.

Both. I don't logically consider it a disability, but it can certainly masquerade as one.
...The world gets in my way.

Both.

I consider it a difference, in the same way we are of different races...but it can be a disability, for me I could pass as an NT a few years ago, since unemployment it has without doubt become a disability in that my social skills are now so bad it prevents me living my life day-to-day and finding employment. With the right support both in general and in getting back into this wouldn't be a problem, for a large part it's only a disability for me because of how society approaches things such as disability and mental health.

I know when I'm working again and thus back into a good place mentally that my 'symptoms' will improve so no longer cause problems for me, thus for me asperger's will cease to be a disability.