Why do people think it's OK to be autistic?

Hello Sickle Moon.  First of all, I'm sorry that you feel this way.  I must admit that I go through highs and lows with my condition.  A strong part of me is proud to be who I am, an autistic person, because I accept my autism as an immutable part of myself and who I am.  There is another side that periodically rears it's head, though, and makes me wish I'd never been born this way.  Usually it's when I find myself going through a negative experience, such as someone not properly understanding me, or when something has triggered me to have a meltdown.  Mostly, though, I have come to an acceptance of myself as a unique individual, just like every other unique individual, autistic or not.  The same as if I'd been born gay.  There isn't anything wrong with me intrinsically.  I'm just different.  That's how I have to look at it.  And if people reject me or judge me, then they're the sorts of people that I wouldn't want around me anyway.  I can't change the way I am.  But I can change the way I think about the way I am.  That's a hard one.  But it's something I've managed to do.  And I try to only associate myself with people who can accept me as I am.  It's true that men tend to get diagnosed with autism more often than women, but that doesn't make it a male condition.  Historically, it seems, women have been much harder to diagnose than men, possibly because they are better at masking or hiding the most obvious signs.  I don't know.  But I think more women are starting to get diagnosed now.  And I'm sure there must be many, many people out there who are still stuck in the quagmire of not knowing what's wrong with them.  I know how awful that is, having lived until the cusp of my 60s before finding out what was "wrong" with me.  Nothing, as it happened.  So the diagnosis in itself started to make me feel better.  Sometimes it felt as if my humanness had been stolen from me.  It hadn't.  It was just being expressed in another way.

Hello Sickle Moon.  First of all, I'm sorry that you feel this way.  I must admit that I go through highs and lows with my condition.  A strong part of me is proud to be who I am, an autistic person, because I accept my autism as an immutable part of myself and who I am.  There is another side that periodically rears it's head, though, and makes me wish I'd never been born this way.  Usually it's when I find myself going through a negative experience, such as someone not properly understanding me, or when something has triggered me to have a meltdown.  Mostly, though, I have come to an acceptance of myself as a unique individual, just like every other unique individual, autistic or not.  The same as if I'd been born gay.  There isn't anything wrong with me intrinsically.  I'm just different.  That's how I have to look at it.  And if people reject me or judge me, then they're the sorts of people that I wouldn't want around me anyway.  I can't change the way I am.  But I can change the way I think about the way I am.  That's a hard one.  But it's something I've managed to do.  And I try to only associate myself with people who can accept me as I am.  It's true that men tend to get diagnosed with autism more often than women, but that doesn't make it a male condition.  Historically, it seems, women have been much harder to diagnose than men, possibly because they are better at masking or hiding the most obvious signs.  I don't know.  But I think more women are starting to get diagnosed now.  And I'm sure there must be many, many people out there who are still stuck in the quagmire of not knowing what's wrong with them.  I know how awful that is, having lived until the cusp of my 60s before finding out what was "wrong" with me.  Nothing, as it happened.  So the diagnosis in itself started to make me feel better.  Sometimes it felt as if my humanness had been stolen from me.  It hadn't.  It was just being expressed in another way.