Published on 12, July, 2020
Hey Everyone,
I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on functioning labels I see a lot of videos and posts on various social media pages. That are of the view that are a bad thing that segregates people within the autistic community. To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about it, I'm not sure I care enough to pass judgment on the topic. I do understand the purpose of them because there are autistic that can live independently with minimal to no help from all the way up to people that need full time round the clock care and everyone in-between.
I would never judge or treat any autistic person differently if they were for example nonverbal vs someone like myself who would be considered high functioning. I guess I just don't necessarily understand why there seems to be a of distaste towards functioning labels.
Hidden autism, as someone recently diagnosed late in life i quite liked this term. I became interested in the subject supporting a colleague leading a neurodiversity group within the company. As I structured the work and read the research the patterns matched so following some online, then a formal assessment. You get told 'you are on the spectrum'. So that comes with a whole new identity you did not have before. So I now understand why my visual observation skills are different (would happily walk between two other people talking, and do) and the strengths that allowed me to have a fairly successful career. But what next? How should this define me?
hi welcome to this forum .
Everyone says it shouldn't define you but i found it pretty had to ignore how different I am in theory.
Zen teaches me to not to blame others for your problems, not to be dualist in your thinking eg a them and us approach.
There are many autistics who believe they are an autistic in a Neurotypical world. This type of thinking leads to further damage.