We're all on the Spectrum

I did TheCatWoman 

Why not try reading the body of the OP rather than just the title, it would save so much time and confusion?

I agree pietro, but this is what we're all told and I wondered what the extreme NT end of the spectrum looks like and how people who are at that end are?

Well all the language is so deficiency based, I thought it might be nice to not be so hard on ourselves when we think of our quirks.

Apart from sweeties almost universally being considered as being a pleasant treat to have...

"good enough for who and why does it matter?"

Maybe when one is able to put aside society, or even be able to have society put one aside and still be able to live (this mainly an economic thing if friendships and relationships don't matter to one)  However having basic human levels of respect and understanding for one from other people are critical to mental well being.  (Elon Musk please, please eat your own heart out, I mean it - literally...)

Why should we autistic people get on? (I completely agree not all the time of course...) because we are all on the autistic spectrum.  We are all definitively "other" to neurotypical society which steadfastly refuses to make efforts to understand and integrate with us on our terms rather than theirs.  We know what it is like to be autistic, ok to varying degrees and with our own different pattern of the spectrum.  We know how damn hard it can be and we owe it to one another and to future autistic people to because only together are we going to stand a cat in hell's chance of getting representation, recognition and a sniff at fairness in what is fundamentally a neurotypically biased society.

And also because evidence suggests that autistic people may have a significantly out of proportion role in invention and discoveries that feed neurotypical society - we should self-police the likes of some of the less salubrious autists and be more careful about what neurotypical society does with the progress that comes with those "special interests"... 

The "tests" identify a person as being in a separate spectrum to that which neurotypical people overall,

Within that spectrum there are 7 separate components arranged in a line like in the pictures in the web page you shared.

Or if someone wanted to they could be arranged like slices of a pie.

The point is how much of these varies with each of us and in autistic people these things are present more or less.  The overall total added up from the separate components makes one "autistic".

These values get "messy" somewhat.

Like interrupting people when they are speaking - this can be quickly "knocked out of someone" behaviourally so that they don't even speak...

Or say difficulty in tidying one's room - some people go the other way and obsess over it - perhaps because they got told off so much if they didn't...  and this simple thing is so damn hard that they aren't able to do anything else...

or not being on time...  doing nothing else all day because one knows that at 2 o'clock you have to...

Or stimming - hidden from other people but when in private, rocking and sucking the thumb like crazy...

or that all people are on a spectrum that includes autistic people?

Just to make it clear, is your title saying that all autistic people are on the autistic spectrum TheCatWoman ?

all people are not on the autistic spectrum I think is what Bananatropics26 might be saying here TheCatWoman .  Same point I was making in my post referencing Prof Baron-Cohen et al's work

That is probably the most offensive thing you can say to someone with a formal diagnosis. We’re not all on the spectrum. Most ‘normal’ people are not on the spectrum. 

I see the opposite end of the spectrum NT being someone who is very loud and expects everyone to do what they enjoy doing. Probably also they travel a lot and do lots of things on the spur of the moment with no planning needed.

I wouldn't say that pietro, I might get accused of racism, lol

The idea of the spectrum as a metaphor, a spectrum is a rainbiw or band of visible light sandwiched between darkness, Its a sliver of light in fact only perceptable to humans if we are talking about certain colours, but the rest is black - that is where alll the neurotypicals are

'No we are not', what?

No we are not

I guess we do get a lot of hatred, I guess that being diagnosed so late in life, I've sort of learned to ignore it and them, but then I'm quite self contained and self sufficient.

I think growing up was all about learning to defend myself, bth physically, mentally and spiritually, mostly though I just carry on doing what I want to do, I guess its one advantage of having been an only child, I learnt not to need other people to amuse myself, I'm often surprised at how many people need others for validation. Validations nice, its certainly an advantage, but I dont' need it anymore, I spend years feeling like my own ghost that I was haunting my life, but never really a part of it. Then I realised that most of it was feeling that I needed out side input and I really don't. I don't others to make me feel like a real human being.

I don't think I've ever had a role model, autistic or not, I've never felt the need for one or have never found somebody I admire enough to want to emulate. To me role models are an NT thing, a stick to beat others into competing to be "good enough", but good enough for who and why does it matter?

Would I want to be like Elon Musk, no, most definately not, the mans a menace! He's the only person I can think of who's been radicalised by his own social media platform! I suspect we don't see many successful ND people as they don't advertise themselves, they just do what they do and get on with life.

I think there can be a lot of hatred and negativity within groups and ND people are no different to NT's in this. There's always somebody playing the burning martyr, smouldering away in the middle fo a room, shouting 'look at me, none of you care', some people like hierarchies of suffering, thats not a game I want to play. But then why shoud we all get on, no one would expect any other random group of strangers to get on all the time, so why should we?

Hehe

"The Autist's Flag's a deepest Spectrum,

died with the rainbow of dum de dum.."

Phased said:

We autistic people need to get together, get organised, support one another with care and love and if necessary develop separate communities with enough power to protect us and allow us to thrive

What a rallying cry! 

Each sweet is a symptom, so I think support needs come when you have enough for a condition. So you can still require support as an NT if you have conditions like depression/eating disorders etc. You can reduce your sweet count for some conditions such as depression with support.

A completely fine person would likely have no sweets and never had sweets. Is this a very rare person in today's world?

I think that's where NT and ND differ. Where as some conditions you can get better from, being ND is more like what bag you put your sweets in -you can't switch your bag type, and we can't 'get better' from the selection that makes us ND?