What are your thoughts on the "high functioning" and "low functioning" labels? They seem to be going out of fashion, and for good reasons. How would you describe yourself?
If someone were to tell me, "Oh, but you're very high functioning," they would completely be missing the point that I am only usually so in some areas while rarely so in other areas. They just see how different I am to a "real" Autistic person like Rain Man! However, what they don't see is that I'm working really hard to mask my difficulties as much for their benefit as for my own. I only appear "high functioning" because I'm trying really hard to function in those areas that I find particularly challenging. A person who is non-speaking, say, is then stigmatised as "low functioning" because they can't keep up the pretence the way I can, even if they function better than me in many other areas.
Are these "functioning" labels just a rating system for how good you are at masking and making other people feel less uncomfortable?
