Level of autism

I find leveling our autism is only helpful for us autists when talking among ourselves comapartively because to say I have autism in the same way as anyone else here is not only unhelpful, it's a lie.
Spectrum is a great word but also it can be too nebulous.
(And too many people outside my house seem to just ignore the spectrum bit altogether anyway.)
If the idea of what autism is was limited to say Christopher's (character from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the night-time) then I would never have got a diagnosis, my struggles would go unrecognised (actually they regularly do anyway but that's another topic). And then there are autists who wish their struggles were only limited to what Christopher's are.

The problem IMO isn't us using imperfect labels to try to explain our experiences but the inexplicable need of the avegerge allist (non-autist) to neatly pigeon hole their understanding of us into neat little boxes for their own comfort. If you tell me you have "HFA" I understand this to mean you may still have difficulties with stuff and need support but in my experience of allists they take "HFA" to mean "expect me to be "normal" at great detrimental cost to myself".

As Hannah Gadsby in her stand-up routine put it:
"I have what's known as high functioning autism, which is a terrible name for what I have because it gives the impression that I function highly. I do not."
I laugh because it's true. I know that, you know that. But for some (scarily a lot actually) allistics this is newsworthy.

I think we need to convene on this as a community and create our own terms for diagnosis that actually serve rather than hinder us a labels in wider society. Because existing labels seem to only be helpful when we self indentify rather than are being identified by others.

I find leveling our autism is only helpful for us autists when talking among ourselves comapartively because to say I have autism in the same way as anyone else here is not only unhelpful, it's a lie.
Spectrum is a great word but also it can be too nebulous.
(And too many people outside my house seem to just ignore the spectrum bit altogether anyway.)
If the idea of what autism is was limited to say Christopher's (character from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the night-time) then I would never have got a diagnosis, my struggles would go unrecognised (actually they regularly do anyway but that's another topic). And then there are autists who wish their struggles were only limited to what Christopher's are.

The problem IMO isn't us using imperfect labels to try to explain our experiences but the inexplicable need of the avegerge allist (non-autist) to neatly pigeon hole their understanding of us into neat little boxes for their own comfort. If you tell me you have "HFA" I understand this to mean you may still have difficulties with stuff and need support but in my experience of allists they take "HFA" to mean "expect me to be "normal" at great detrimental cost to myself".

As Hannah Gadsby in her stand-up routine put it:
"I have what's known as high functioning autism, which is a terrible name for what I have because it gives the impression that I function highly. I do not."
I laugh because it's true. I know that, you know that. But for some (scarily a lot actually) allistics this is newsworthy.

I think we need to convene on this as a community and create our own terms for diagnosis that actually serve rather than hinder us a labels in wider society. Because existing labels seem to only be helpful when we self indentify rather than are being identified by others.

Well said!