Disabled or different..???

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I've been pondering something. People on the spectrum are labeled as disabled right. However many feel as tho they are just different. Do you think you could have asd but not be disabled? Can you just be more different and not more disabled than the next person on the spectrum ex two people on the spectrum have asd but one happens to have a likeable personality so he tends to have more luck with employment

Definitely a disability. I think the emphasis on difference is due to non typical neurology and development.
For sure many of the disabling experiences come from lack of accomodation, but the same is true of most disabilities.

I can easily drop into a flow state that allows me to do a ton of work in a short time.
I can go through thousands of error reports and make significant progress each day until I'm all done.

I can't speak for others, but I know that for me, the way it affects me, my autism is absolutely a disability.

Raise a person differently, can make either a person disabled or not disabled different.
Raise a person like a disabled, then they'd definitely be disabled and different.
Raise a disabled person as they are differently, they may end up not becoming as disabled as it appear to be.


I won't argue whether or not autism is a disability or a difference, but it is certain that most people don't know how to raise an autistic child, bother knowing how an autistic person learn and most people don't know how to work around and 'manage' an autistic development and systems.
The same faults within any ND systems really. Even towards NT systems are mismanaged, and possibly the result of several self-perpetuating myths about being a human.


My autism itself isn't the problem, but something else indirectly from it.

I'm just as disabled if not more as someone with chronic insomnia who happened to be autistic. Without it's effects, I'm just different and better, and not as disabled.
I can affirm this, because I have a real experience what it was like, and feel the difference between the fully functional me, with all my faculties and abilities, from a dysfunctional me with limited processing and bottlenecked abilities.


In other words, I'm someone who's currently ill but also happened to be autistic. If I no longer have to cope with that illness, then I'm no longer a disabled autistic.

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It actually is a difficult question to answer because individual autistic traits can effect individuals in many different ways from severe to mild. Some aspectsnof autism can help the individual (E.g. like the ability to hyperfocus).
And also I will say that there are people who are really effected by an autism trait who have been assessed and found not to have enough traits to be on the spectrum... So these people are in a difficult position of unofficially having a dissability but it not being officially recognied.
On the other side of the coin, there are people who are definately on the spectrum as they display many traits, but the traits may not severly effect them?
Actually something that I find fascinating, is there are people on the spectrum who have never experienced meltdowns or shutdowns. (I am not saying that they are not affected in other ways...). They must have an amazing ability to absorb over stimilation or other similar stressful events with out their brains showing signs of being effected? I do have a theory along these lines in that maybe they do not mask? But maybe they do? I am just typing my thoughts...
Anyway. Most on the spectrum I would class as dissabled as they have one trait or another which has impacted their lives in a noticeably negative way, which effects their quality of life.
But here is another thought. What classes as a dissability? One person can have a toe missing and they do not even notice. Another person may have lost their big toes and have big issues in balance as the other toes may not be strong enough to compensate. Or still another may have a leg missing... Where does one draw the line? I believe the line needs to be drawn on if the missing limb effects the persons ability to do things in their day to day life.
In the same way we can ask a similar question with autism and other mental conditions. It is a very difficult question to ask with autism because (And I have not been assessed yet) if it wasn't for experiencing shutdowns and partial shutdowns which have an effect on my life to the extent that if I disn't experience them I would probably be a high achiever when it comes to a job and career... And instead I have been in times close to poverty where (While it has never actually been like this as God has seen to it that I and my Mum have survived) knowing where the next meal will come from... (I am no longer in that situation but it has been close to that in many times in the past where due to the effects of an accumilation of partial and full shutdowns, my ability to work, and find the energy to physically work has been seriously hampered to the effect that with the last burnout when I last worked last summer, I just could not see how it was possible to take on another job in the future unless things improve (As the hours per week I could manage had reached the point where the travelling costs involved in commuting were at times more then I was earning in wages (I actually left two jobs in the past for this reason as I could not cope with working the number of hours in a shift to pay for my travelling costs of getting there and back. One job, the money I had in the bank was slowly going down (Not that I had much to begin with) rather then up and my only costs coming out were to pay for the commute!)).
So yes. Autism is normally a dissability for the individual though it effects each individual in different ways, though there can be the fortunate person who may be mildly effected and just carries on in his or her own little ways without it hampering them... But to be honest, from the stories I have heard in here on this site... It is not that often one comes across this.
BUT... Something I watched on youtube. A professor who was talking on autism as autism was his specialist subject. He said that if he assessed 100 random people from any country in the world, he would find 6% would be classed as being on the spectrum and this is fairly consistent from country to country... However, he said that the percentage of people calssed as autistic per country is usually 1 or 2 percent. Now this means there are around 4% of the population who are blissfully unaware they are on the spectrum, and may ask the question if their lives are effected or not? For me, I can say I went through about 45 years of having issues but not knowing the cause, and it was only me picking up very small clues that I stumbled upon aspergers/autism... (Actually I believe God sent me these clues as I had been praying to ask what is wrong with me!)
And even though several people had told me or asked me if I had autism or aspergers I thought they were joking or pranking me so I had ignored them!

I'll accept the "Disabled" label, but only if it gets me a better parking space.

I prefer to leave disabled spaces for people who need it. For some, they really need the extra space just to get in and out of their vehicles.

I think the psychiatrist's / medical model / disability view of autism is sometimes useful but wholly insufficient for addressing the social wrongs done to people on the spectrum.

Each person's expression of various traits falls into a continuum, on one end of which is pathology (eg seizures) and on the other end of which is mere difference.

Especially on the pathology end, but also by way of compensation / mitigation on the difference end, medicine and medical accommodations make a contribution towards our well-being.

The disability label is the principal means by which society acknowledges our need for access to medicine and accommodations. I view this as society's shortcoming, not ours.

The picture remains incomplete, and fair treatment of our difference remains out of reach, as long as the social model goes unrecognized by everyone who dishes out neuro-normative treatment on we who perceive differently.

The social model says that most of the negative experience autistics accrue over time results not from their traits, but from how their differences are treated by others.

The latest and best thinking I've found on this topic comes from Neurodiverse Academic Robert Chapman PH.D.. Where he expands beyond the social model, expanding the idea of autistics as a Serial Community. I think all neurodiverse advocates would do well to explore these ideas further.

Clinical Psychologists, inasmuch as they work with what people are thinking and the nature of their interactions with others, still operate within the medical model inasmuch as they diagnose by DSM/etc criteria, but tend to find themselves acknowledging social realities of the way our difference is treated, so the experienced/specialized psychologists can display an approach more aligned with the social model.

Just to clarify ... my "parking spaces" comment was meant semi-sarcastically. The truth is that my current situation is enough for me, so unless having a "disabled" label provides some extra advantage or perk, I'm not interested. I do well enough on my own without the need to tell others that I may have a disability.

I prefer to think of myself as being different because, to me at least, disabled carries a stigma that there's something wrong with me or my "programming", that I'm somehow defective or less than. However, one of my roommates who was born with his own condition is trying to tell me that I should accept and embrace being called disabled which has really been rubbing me the wrong way ever since. Then again, this guy's also a major homophobe so I don't pay as much attention.