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Please GET RID of functioning labels!!!

Hope

Okay, I need to rant. Today I felt CryYell after an ignorant Neurotypical told me that I am 'really high-functioning'. This person, athough not an expert, does work with people who have autism. She does not know me that well, so what does she mean by this? I look, for want of a better word, normal, very normal in fact. There are no outward signs of disability; I have a University degree, I am eloquent and can speak clearly, and do not exhibit any concerning behaviour when I am out in public (note - if I am highly stressed, I can put myself in danger, but most of the time I do not display any strange behaviour). Yes my traits not immediately obvious, but my life is severely impacted by my traits: I cannot organise my life without parental support; I have OCD;dyscalculia; anxiety. Now, on there own, these traits might not be that significant, but when combined, they prevent me from working and living a full and varied life - is there anything high-functioning about this?!!! This label trivialises my difficulties and is incredibly patronising. Has anyone else here experienced  anguish upon hearing this term? Has anyone else been described as 'high-functioning', while disagreeing that the term applies to them? And is not 'low functioning' equally problematic?

 

Parents

  • I get that, but can I ask you to consider that in using a term that you hate others to use, you're actually letting them to use it? Just a thought.

    I'll be honest and say that I've struggled with this too, particularly after the recent thread on here where we discussed the so-called 'survey' that the NAS carried out about what people want to call the condition, but used only a minor sampling of AS people compared to NTs. Are you aware of it?

    I actually coined the terms Homo Sapiens versus Homo Aspie as I found that it helped me not only to define myself but also to distance myself from , well, Homo Sapiens. I don't know what my behaviour is like, but I hope it's better than theirs! However, I have to accept that in doing so, I've added confusion to the issue rather than helping to clear some. Unintended consequences, we're good at those. Oops Embarassed

    I was only diagnosed earleir this year so of course I've struggled with all sorts of things, and one of the main ones is with the variety of names that AS people use to describe themselves. I don't like 'functionality' descriptors, so hate terms like 'high' 'low' 'mild' etc - I think you get that too? As far as I am concerned, all AS people have the same things in common, it's what defines us as AS, but some can achieve better interaction with the NT world than others. We are not NT, we are AS, we're different, that's all.

    I started by calling myself Aspie on here because I thought that other AS people found it easy to understand, but then, having discovered that there's a whole issue around this, found that I was getting more and more confused by the variety of descriptors. I just did the same as everyone else and decided on names that I am comfortable with.

    So I stopped using Aspie because people attach inferences to it like 'high function' etc, none of which I can agree with because it is so patronising and misleading. I don't even know how 'high' and 'low' are appropriate terms to use when basically we all have the same problems but vary in the things we can deal with and the ways we find to deal with them. If you consider, you can apply this rule to Homo Sapiens too, but you'll never hear them use terms like 'high' or 'low' function about themselves or each other. If they did (they won't) then all they'd be doing is describing people's 'adequacy' rather than their 'condition'.

    Does that make any sense?

Reply

  • I get that, but can I ask you to consider that in using a term that you hate others to use, you're actually letting them to use it? Just a thought.

    I'll be honest and say that I've struggled with this too, particularly after the recent thread on here where we discussed the so-called 'survey' that the NAS carried out about what people want to call the condition, but used only a minor sampling of AS people compared to NTs. Are you aware of it?

    I actually coined the terms Homo Sapiens versus Homo Aspie as I found that it helped me not only to define myself but also to distance myself from , well, Homo Sapiens. I don't know what my behaviour is like, but I hope it's better than theirs! However, I have to accept that in doing so, I've added confusion to the issue rather than helping to clear some. Unintended consequences, we're good at those. Oops Embarassed

    I was only diagnosed earleir this year so of course I've struggled with all sorts of things, and one of the main ones is with the variety of names that AS people use to describe themselves. I don't like 'functionality' descriptors, so hate terms like 'high' 'low' 'mild' etc - I think you get that too? As far as I am concerned, all AS people have the same things in common, it's what defines us as AS, but some can achieve better interaction with the NT world than others. We are not NT, we are AS, we're different, that's all.

    I started by calling myself Aspie on here because I thought that other AS people found it easy to understand, but then, having discovered that there's a whole issue around this, found that I was getting more and more confused by the variety of descriptors. I just did the same as everyone else and decided on names that I am comfortable with.

    So I stopped using Aspie because people attach inferences to it like 'high function' etc, none of which I can agree with because it is so patronising and misleading. I don't even know how 'high' and 'low' are appropriate terms to use when basically we all have the same problems but vary in the things we can deal with and the ways we find to deal with them. If you consider, you can apply this rule to Homo Sapiens too, but you'll never hear them use terms like 'high' or 'low' function about themselves or each other. If they did (they won't) then all they'd be doing is describing people's 'adequacy' rather than their 'condition'.

    Does that make any sense?

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