Autism as your identity?

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I am writing a short school assignment that will discuss identity within the autistic community.

My theory is that because Aspies feel marginalized by the NT world, they then marginalize the NT world.

What are your thoughts?

How do you see your identity as relating to the autistic community?

Thanks!

Best of luck.


Interesting. I would probably agree with this assessment. Even the fact that you are able to refer to "NTs" as a discrete group probably shows this tendency- they are, by conservative estimates, at least 99.3% of the population. It is rather an in-group/out-group phenomenon, much like the division of the world that occurs in most religions: you are either a Jew or a Gentile, a Christian or a Pagan, a Muslim or an infidel. Groups which feel marginalized tend to draw together for strength and identify more closely with members of their own group, artificially magnifying the importance of that group in the perception of its members.


Mostly above. It could also be seen as a sort of reactionary reverse-bigotry: we are told we are inferior, realize that this claim is unfounded, and then counter with the equally unfounded claim that we are superior. I know that I went through this phase on first arriving here, and I'm guessing many others have as well (and many are still in that phase). Even if Aspies are less group-oriented, for many of us WP is finally a place where there are others like ourselves we can relate to, this leads to a sense of kinship almost, and we probably would stick together moreso than most online communities because we view other posters here as being of "our own kind." We feel alienated from the world, so we find a community where we do fit in.


Well, I am autistic and that obviously shapes the kind of person I am. I do not consider it to be my most important defining characteristic, but I definitely feel my identity as an autistic. I identify with a lot of what I read on this site, and here I feel like I can interact with people like myself. It is important to know that one is not alone in this world, and that there are others who share your peculiarities, your gifts and your struggles.

Wow. I agree with everything you just said. Really. Very well-put.

/mother of child with AS (formal dx)
//probably wife of a man with AS (no formal dx)
///might even have AS myself, but fortunately am a good mimic and have learned to cope because I had to (no formal dx)

I never even thought about Autism much. When I found out I was Aspergers' and just sorta high functioning after I lived almost 60 years it was like waking up one morning and realizing I was Oregon State when I had been rooting for University of Oregon all those years. . .

Just because I had no ideat what Asperger's was, I was still an Aspergian, and
I was marginalized as a PERSON, but I was marginalized by people, not whole groups. I didn't even know I was a PART of a group till I got to WP last year.

and I only hated myself.
I was angry at them for rejecting me, though.
Merle

No.

(I don't understand the concept that's "identity".)

A Culture of One.

I hang out here because people often say things that make me think.

I did not find the world in general thought provoking, just provoking.

The Human Race is toward a self inflicted doom, or one caused by natural events.

Eat, drink, and be merry...Fare the Titanic, fare the well.

Autie-matic topic

Before AS, and before I knew about WP, I was an entity unto myself. I identified myself as separate from others, an island, and as Sinsboldly wrote,I was ostracized by individuals, not groups. Of course, once I knew about AS, and WP, then I could identify with the AS and Autistic community.

And, as nearly everyone here has intimated, I have come home. You are always welcome at WP.

Thank you you all for your help - very much helpful

Just one more question. I know this has been hashed out again and again, but just for clairification:

Why does curing autism so upsetting? What would it mean to you?

Thanks!

Brilliant response Orwell.

Having tried for years to fit properly into an NT world and failed unless I got the pretending really right, I have now largely rejected it and avoid social situations where there are mostly NTs if I think the event will go on for a long time (I cannot keep the pretending up that long), also if I will have to make a lot of normal' responses, that always catches me out and I either get into a lot of trouble for saying the wrong thing or I get pushed out as being a little bit too different. Lastly, I tend to avoid the predominantly NT situations because its hard work trying to make a go of it and I am tired of trying to do that. The cost to me as a person has been too high.

Wow, I wonder who you would be if you were never diagnosed Autistic? If you were never held to some different measuring stick.

Merle

Curing autism seems so offensive to most of us as it would be to take us apart. We are who we are because of autism. It is us. To cure autism would be not only seem to take away everything that makes us special and turn us into NT zombies, it is the thought of doing some of the illogical things whey do which is enough to make me feel repulsed.

I am at one with the world like this. I understand it's environment and how to interact with it in a far more satisfactory way than I gather NTs do. The understanding and appreciatation is phenominal, and as such it appreciates me. The problem is people in general are impossible to understand, and do not really understand or look at the world - everything is taken for granted. How can they interact properly when they do not notice a lot of what happens around them.

I will not say I notice everything - far from it, but I am aware of my situations I am in. So that is why I don't like the idea of a "cure":-

Any cure would be like making me blind to the world

This illustrates perfectly the schism between us "Elder ASpies" and the younger ones. We went through most of our life just feeling "odd" or "eccentric". We accepted that, and used it to the best of our abilities. I have always been proud of my creativity. When presented with a problem, I could brainstorm quickly, and come up with a solution that others didn't. My problem has always been social interaction, and office politics. But younger people nowadays get DX'd early on, and THAT becomes part of their identity. Something like 95% of all the people I've mentioned AS to have never heard of it. When I say it's HFA, they look at me like I have lobsters coming out my ears. I don't appear to be anywhere near what people think HFA "looks like". So I really have difficulty understanding how young people manage to go around saying "I'm AS" and people just answer, "Oh, OK".

I wasn't diagnosed until fairly recently, so I can answer this. I would simply have felt like a was inexplicably different from everyone else; I would feel profound disappointment at my social failings; I would worry over whether I would ever make anything of my life despite my reasonably high intelligence; and I would develop a general contempt for other people without realizing that there is value in every way of being.

Curing autism is upsetting for the obvious reason that such a goal assumes us to be inferior. To me, a cure for autism would be the medical community telling me that I lack worth as a human being and that the world would be better off if I did not exist. Personally, I find such assumptions rather insulting. Even if they only want to lessen the rate of autism in the future and are willing to leave me alone, they are still sending the message that their perfect society does not include people like myself, and that is still a statement that they view me as unworthy of life.

Sorry if I am getting this wrong, Orwell, but are you saying how you thought you were at the time of your diagnosis is how you think you would have remained?

what if you had kids and they brought your such joy you felt like you had made something of your life? What if love finally touched you like Ebineezer Scrooge and your heart melted from comptempt to compassion?

(These things happened. Even to Rainman;))

Merle

I guess I am answering you back a lot in this thread, but you say interesting things that make me think.
I have a progressive disease that really affected my social abilities (caused me to be a social pariah, no less) a danger to myself and others, affecting my health and my will to live.
I have had a daily reprieve from this disease for over twenty years but yet there is no cure. Just treatment, but as long as I do my treatment, I am 'cured'.
I am not who I was while my disease was untreated. I change sides of my personalities all the time. I have not lost anything from not behaving in the way my disease would have me interact and react to people. My sense of self, of who I was more developed than to be lost due to a radical change in my physical, mental and spiritual being.

I mean, I am still ME.


Merle