I find this contradicting

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Some spectrumers are often against autism or Asperger's being called a disability and insist that it should be called a 'difference' instead.

But annoyingly Asperger's has been taken out of the diagnosis thing (so now we're all lumped together with autism) because many spectrumers have felt invalidated by the functioning labels and so have to prove a point that anyone on the spectrum can be 'disabled' in some way.

So what do we want? If we carry on insisting that autism a 'difference' rather than a 'disability' then autism would not be taken seriously at all. But then many spectrumers argue against autism being called a 'disability'.

Some spectrumers are even against calling autism a 'disorder', even though ASD stands for 'Autism Spectrum Disorder'.

Feels like I'm talking about a paradox here.

All disabilities are a form of disorder.
All disabilities are a form of difference.

Yet...

Not all differences are a form of disability.
Not all differences are a form of disorder.

Not all disorders causes disabilities.
And all disorders are a form of difference.




So what if each individual doesn't have the same experience nor point of view of autism?

If one individual never seen an LFA, dismissing it for low IQ or conspicuous behaviors.
Then one individual never seen an HFA, dismissing it for high IQ or passing behaviors.

In my opinion? I want all sides of truth.
As un-biased as possible; no cute fantasies or fear mongering narratives dominates. Except that's not how humans generally works -- allistics and autistics like, with different priorities and agenda.


Not everyone can easily grasp outside the polarized views and not see both as contradictory.
Unless they are very experienced of all facets involving autism, also unattached in any narratives and only see it for what it is.

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People want different things.

I want to be called aspie and for it to be seen as a personality type.

But other people want other things.

And medical model will push for more medical type language.

It's a difference to me at times; other times, it's a disability.

As far as my employment accomplishments are concerned, I feel like my disability held me back considerably. I would have better had I remain a "professional student" LOL

I guess we are all free to categorize autism as we need to. It is a disorder that is based on a difference to some degree. But there are aspects that are disabling regardless of the social communication differences.

As with many things, nothing falls into nice, neat boxes. We just need to live with the ambiguity. Both positions can be valid.

Never worked; no friends; need support to lead a fairly basic, i.e not high powered,life. For me, personally, it's a disability. I wonder how many want accommodations while claiming they're not disabled. Is there a degree of self stigmatising going on within the denial that it's a disability?

A contradiction is when two or more conflicting things come from a single source (one person).

Different people saying or wanting conflicting things is not a contradiction.

A lot of "Aspergers is a superpower" people seem to have left WP over the last few years.

I have been thinking. I have one aspect of my life that I can see (From my point of view) where if I was classed as dissabled would make my life much, much easier and that is in regards to having a dissabled toilet key and permission to use it, as here in the UK, most ordinary public toilets close at 5pm as the only toilets available are in pubs (They had a scheme to pay pubs to kep their toilets open for the public) and large retail stores, neither of which I can use when I am in a panic of being around people, and so I am very limited as to where I can go and which direction I can travel after 5PM. The dissabled toilets are available 24/7 for those who have a key and this wouls make my life less restricting, as usually when anxiety hits, I tend to drink a lot of water or cola as my mouth and throat is dry... Which the lack of toilets and the need to drink water makes me in a bit of a mess!
So far I have got round this in illegal ways by hiding myself in hedgerows or behind buildings to relieve myself, but I am scared incase I get caught, as this is where the shutdowns would really begin!
If there is no where near to park near a toilet, then dissabled parking would be useful for the few times I would be desperate to need it, but most of the time I would not use it as I prefer to park and walk if I am not desperate to use the loo.

(I am not one who would miss use a dissabled parking thing because I do not want to cause a scene if someone challenges me as people tend to challenge dissabled people who they don't see as dissabled. My Dad had this guy give him a mouthful once for parking in a dissabled space and he could not draw breath to talk back. All he could do was point at his dissabled badge. Once the man saw the badge he apologised. To me I would likely have a shutdown due to someone doing that, so I would not want to draw attention to myself as I do not mind walking unless I can't walk (When in a shutdown or a deeper partial shutdown) which the dissabled parking would be useless to me anyway! (As in a shutdown I will be on the floor unable to move)).

So would I class myself as dissabled? When in a shutdown, I am beyond dissabled. But when I am not, as long as I am not desperate to need to loo, I am fine! (The odd thing about me is that when I need to use the loo I can miss out the intermediate stage and not notice, so when my body says I need to use the loo, I can be bursting when my body tells me this which is annoying! It depends as often I can feel me needingto go but sometimes I can't until suddenly I get "I need to go NOW, quick" and if I can't go my body starts to feel poisioned).

But apart from shutdowns and the need to use the loo am I dissabled? I have social deficits where I can miss out on things, but if one does not want to be included anyway, then it is not such a big thing. I mean... Well. Picture this. I see a crowded shop I need to go in. Rather then face it and put myself at risk of a shutdown, I go back home even if I have a long drive as there is always another day when the shop will be quiet. These days my Mum also is nurvous in crowded shops so sending her in instead does not work! Haha. But usually she goes in instead of me... But with the virus restrictions, finding shops we can go in is difficult because I don't do queues due to shutdown risk, as I get panicky and nurvous these days, and my Mum does not get on with these one way systems in shops. She does not seem to see some of them, and I find when nurvous decision making is difficult so I end up with security guards watching over me which makes me even more nurvous. I can't shop in some large shops due to this, even if they are empty.
But apart from this, I am not restricted. My body works. But does my mind? HAHAHAHAA!

Contradictions in many things can depend largely on a point of view, or a difference in opinion of what's of primary importance. Frameworks, basically.

A tomato is a fruit, if you're looking at it in a biological/botanical framework. But it's a vegetable if you're looking at it in a culinary/nutrition framework. The frameworks have different definitions but use identical labels. It's just that the labels don't mean the same thing across frameworks.

A person who is a firefighter in a country (A) which is at war with another country (B) might be considered a civilian by country B, because they'd be using a war/military framework by default when describing aspects of country A, but the person would not necessarily consider themselves a civilian in day-to-day parlance because "civilian" in a fire-department framework tends to mean anyone outside the military or emergency services (which includes firefighting personnel).

So yes, some people are going to default to using frameworks where they consider "autism" as a type of disability. In other frameworks, it will be categorized as a neurological difference. In still others, it might be a little more nuanced. It all comes down to language use, categorization, and perceptions. Which, I admit, can be annoyingly fuzzy and imprecise at times.

It doesn't help that autism, as a brain condition, can be unthinkably complex in its variations. Even in modern times, we really only have approximations of exactly what it is, what it means, and how it presents. There is no 100% accurate test for it, and the tests we do have require human judgment - there's no autism-testing machine that you can point at your head and see if a little light comes on. And when you're talking about edge cases, "mild" autism and so on, the debate over categorization and labeling can be even less clear; you start running into definition problems like "What, exactly, counts as a disability?", and that itself can have legal and social implications, tangling things up even further.

In summary: it's a mess.