Sweet Spot

(I hope Google Translate improves the writing)

Ask yourself the question "Does it bother me that someone has a diagnostic label" - regarding your daughter's partner. Or another question:
If in a sports competition the winner has a label. Would you remember him as the champion of the competition, or as the ____ (label) who won. The questions should be asked about a different label. Mental illness maybe. 

If one of the answers is that it bothers you, then it clearly means that a label will cause a different life path. And it is also a mistake to think that the problem is in understanding. Society accepts a lot of differences, it accepts them exactly as they are. You declare to society that you have a label that says you are not like the rest of society. No one will think that someone has bewitched you or that you are under a curse.

A label refers not only to the past and present - but also to the future. It states that a person is X or Y - forever. It clearly leads to problems and this is not a point in history, this is nature. This is the natural survival instinct.

I Sperg said:

I can use the card to slow down the pace a bit and force a rethink of the situation.

I have used it once to great effect, turning what was about to be an instant dismissal to a large redundancy payout and 3 months gardening leave.

It helps to have an employment solicitor in your contacts who understand the situation and can drop a notice of pending discrimination lawsuit with a few hours notice.

I agree about the one size fits all for school and work. My son, although there was some understanding was often expected to be the same as others. I am now having similar problems with work, where I was previously told I can't be treated any different. 

Under the old rules I am absent minded, (or to be perjorative, "Unreliable") Eccentric, possibly even weird, but essentially harmless. 

I add a bit of colour and entertainement to the normies and have useful skills. 

As an aspergers man I am possibly dangerous or statistically likely to be an "unacceptable deviant" of some kind it appears. 

I prefer when Autism is just an aspect of me not the whole of me.

The only time the label is useful is that rare time I've made a gaffe or been grossly misunderstood and during my apology I can chuck it in as a mitigating factor if I need to, and I believe if I am involved in an unfair and possibly out of control with the police that isn't of my making...

I can use the card to slow down the pace a bit and force a rethink of the situation. It's not going to get me out of trouble if I have done something, but I'm not above mentioning that 57 pages that they are mandated to read, and the accomodations they then have to make can be avoided if they stop "investigating" me randomly and get to the point...

I think that it's not the lables themselves that cause the problems, but the baggage that goes with them. Back in the day, I remember it just being thought I was either stupid, or 'could do better' as my school reports always said. We used to have eye tests at school then, but they were only for shortsightedness, never for long sightedness or astigmatisms, I wonder how many people didn't do well at school because they weren't diagnosed with an astigmatism for example? I reckon about 60% of my self diagnosed dyslexia was cured by having the appropriate glasses. The problems now seem to be that schools and workplaces can't cope with resonable adjustments, they rarely seem to ask what a reasonable adjustment is for an individual, and instead have some kind of one size fits no one approach. Physically I'm walking wounded, so I get no help because I'm not in a wheelchair.

I do think that normal life is becoming medicalised, periods of unhappiness, grief and depression are perfectly normal parts of life and as long as they don't go on too long or too deep help us cope with other life events. We should stop treating unhappiness and small stresses as disasters needing urgent intervention and instead help people build coping skills.

At least from what I've been told by younger family members no one over the age of 35 is that bothered by gender or sexual orrientation, I hope we can get to this with neurodivergence.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but as someone who has suffered far more from the diagnosis than the condition itself, I'd say you can be far better off without labels. 

It doesn't seem possible for anyone to have a personality or any interests nowadays. Everything is always a mental illness, or 'neurodiversity', or something of that nature.

Personally I think the label is better than just being "quircky".

I find these days people saying that there's no need to label everyhting. In cases like sexuality, for example, you don't need to, you can just let it be. Or you can label it if you want too.

But being autistic it's a very important part of ourselves that not only defines us makes us demand support. Just saying that you're weird doesn't get you the help and resources you need and people judges with or without label.

Maybe advocating for autism and making it visible to the world will help us thrive with the label in a hopefully (not so far) future.

Speaking for myself, I have to say that I am very proud and delighted to have the label, stigma and whatever else comes as part of being able to tell people I am autistic. I have been an artist all my life and spent years, too many years, simply passing off my 'quirkiness' as nothing more than that. But that didn't really help me deal with it. Knowing now what the root cause is has been extremely helpful. And I don't really care what assumptions others want to make about my autism.  

That is an interesting question. I knew someone who was described by those close as a little odd and had great difficulty when he reached old age. I now believe he was autistic and would have benefitted from an explanation. 

However I also get the not wanting people to know as most of my work colleagues only know that there are some things I find difficult like socializing in big groups, but that's all. I also have discovered that managing and covering up for difficulties has become harder. I am not sure how I would have coped if I had not worked from home since the pandemic, as many of the things I masked my discomfort with fairly well I would struggle with now. 

I suspect wealth, social class and gender played just as big a role in the past as it does now, if you're rich you're allowed to be eccentric, if you're poor you'd be some kind of bad or weird and women would be just bad unless they were independently wealthy. In more recent times, I suspect that it was easier to hide in manual labour and work on your obessions in private, like Einstien. But how many ordinary people never had the chance to develop any learning. Universal schooling was about educating workers enough to fufil the jobs market rather than eucation for it's own sake. Even when I was at school education for girls was still seen as fairly unimportant, I remember being told that there was little point iin educating girls as we were just going to get married and have babies, I suspect that women were educated to a level where they could support thier husbands social ambitions and class.

I hear you. Sorry you experienced that. I agree, feel sad that we fall in that lovely grey area of history in generations missed that now have to endure the transition to acceptance. It's not nice

JT said:

I do wonder, before 'high-functioning autism' was recognised, if those who were able to sustain their quirkiness without too much difficulty were just seen as creative types or colorful characters.

I certainly found myself stigmatised at work for letting my team know I was autistic and I'm sure it led to the end of my contract.

I certainly masked and scripted extensively and could pass as a slightly quirky neurotypical with a lot of effort and indeed did for decades.

Things like reasonable adjustments were not needed as I had developed the mental discipline to endure all the pains of the workplace and people long ago, and the impact of asking for changes would have been worse than the energy saved by having them.

Until there is a wider understanding and acceptance of the label of autism then I think it will remain a net negative in the workplace in almost every environment I have ever worked in. I do hope this changes as the newer generations seem much less capable of enduring the discomfort (and ideally they should not have to).

As to how we get there, I suspect more positive "out" autistic role models in the public eye are needed to subliminally educate the masses.