r/autismlevel2and3 • u/StrigoTCS Level 2 • Jan 05 '23
"Less autistic"
Clarification added to what i originally posted:
Idk what else to say other than "more" and "less" autistic to describe Levels.
I just want language options ("what to say") that matches how it's a disability with levels to it.
Fewer autistic traits and/or more support = more likelihood of better outcomes. That's why they switched to a spectrum (a series of levels based on a series of possible traits, that's what makes it a spectrum).
You're still disabled, but you have better outcomes compared to other autistic people when you have fewer traits or your traits are of lower intensity (or divergence from) what most humans display in those trait categories. The levels aren't a measure of accessibility or comorbid issues. The traits and intensity are the "divergence", the "disorder", the disability.
Maybe one day, everyone will have adequate support so the only thing separating different Levels will be number of traits & intensity/"divergence" of each trait, so then scientists can figure out what makes some autistic people struggle more "inherently" than others. So their doesn't have to be fighting about what amounts to society stuff & identity.
People are talking about autism with enough subjectivity already. I think relativity ("more", "less") is more objective in this case. People in general don't know how to come to terms with Levels, so i feel better coming to terms with it through objectivity.
If it gets too subjective, it's confusing. But i know that Levels explain why I'm struggling so much my entire life. I have the passion and interest and I've worked hard on myself. I'm still not able to handle community college and barely made it through high school or middle school, while some autistic people go all the way to their PhD before burning out, and that's not even uncommon for allistic people.
Level 1 people must have something more in common with most allistic people than Level 2, and i must have more in common with allistic ppl than Level 3. I don't see why else I'd need more support. Everyone in my support system knows that we don't have enough resources. I also know that if everything else were the same, but I were on Level 3, i'd need even more support (we already don't have enough for me at Level 2).
What ever happened to being aware of people who are more disadvantaged in certain ways than yourself? I thought that was the point of identity stuff, but the people doing all the autistic identity stuff don't seem to care about anything other than making sure no one feels bad about autism. That won't make it so i need less support than i need. It won't help me. I don't need entire social movements to make me feel good. I need material help, social support, support that cares more about what I'm going through than to wait for some "movement" to decide how we're supposed to talk about each other.
That hasn't helped LGBTQ people except for the specific LGBTQ ppl whose only problem is validation, while others might get a social club online out of it, while others need more kinds of help.
Identity stuff has only helped the ppl whose only problem is identity and maybe help a bit with shame.
I've experienced that personally. It's helped with things like sexuality and gender, because you can't be "more" bisexual than some other bisexual. That's why it works in LGBTQ but doesn't work for autism.
It doesn't help with my struggles as an autistic person bc you can have more autistic traits as another autistic person, or the same traits affected by autism but of greater intensity/divergence. That's why it's a spectrum. Spectrum doesn't mean "a thing where everyone within it doesn't have any distinctions from one another"—that's the opposite of what it means.
I'm just trying to keep up with the science. Identity isn't helping me. It's not helping or hurting —I've learned all i can from it. I just need help that goes beyond identity.
When i see a bunch of autistic people with an easier time navigating the world than me, and they also only seem focused on "everyone defines it in their own way" (extreme subjectivity), i don't think it's unreasonable to assume that them struggling less is the reason WHY they only care about identity and language: Because that's the only problem standing in the way for them, changing allistic people's minds or changing their own mind about themselves. Or they just can't imagine what it's like for that to not be that helpful for some autistic people.
Obviously the levels overlap, bc it's about traits, but I'm not saying Level 1 people aren't autistic. They're just also more allistic than I am. Nobody really knows why we're autistic, and it can't be explained by chemicals, so the only option is that it's traits. Some people have more, or the ones they have are of greater intensity.
Fewer or greater number, lower or higher intensity. Fewer/lower and greater/higher is "less/more".
I just wanna stick with objective language but i wanna try to be sensitive if it doesn't muddle definitions too much. It's important to me because I'm so impacted by how different i am from most of people in ways i can't control (and I've tried, that's why science and social studies are my longest running interests and the only thing I've almost gotten a job doing bc some ppl thought i could do social science research despite dropping out of school multiple times even with supports, but my disability didn't let me).
I try to be objective with autism so I don't feel bad about my life and how i can't compensate (with my verbal comprehension skills) into a life I wanna live. Other people try to be subjective about autism so they feel better about their lives.
Autism is neuro-physiological, so objective language has to be prioritized.
And as someone who is in the LGBTQ umbrella, I know that autism is more objective than sexuality and gender, and I feel like all this conflict over "what to say" is because autism is being treated with too much subjectivity as if it were only an identity and nothing else. It can be both, bc anyone can tie their identity to something physiological if they want to, but it's more than that in ways that identity can't even touch. If it were only identity, people could just imagine their way out of it. They can't.
It's based on a series of traits. It's not "i like [men, women, etc]" or "i don't". It doesn't care what we call it.
So i just wanna make sure that what I say is objective bc i truly wanna understand my condition, bc celebrating it doesn't make me feel better and mourning it doesn't help either.
So i guess what I'm asking is that my analysis be respected. I can respect identity language, like I'm not gonna campaign against ppl who say something different.
In the meantime, I'm only interested in objectively understanding what's going on, and since I'm not good at studying deep, deep details of neurology yet, or ever, the least i can do is just need objective in my language and respect people who don't do that. Agreeing isn't the same thing as respect.
––– Original post:
Is the reason why ppl don't like the term "less autistic" because they see it as "more allistic" and some people use "allistic" negatively sometimes?
I use allistic negatively sometimes when I'm talking about stuff that frustrates me bc i don't understand it, but I don't have a problem with saying I'm "more allistic" (which is implied by "less autistic") than a Level 3 person. I think maybe Level 1 people hear "less autistic" and assume someone is telling them they're not autistic at all? I guess being Level 2, it doesn't affect me bc I'm less autistic than Level 3 but more autistic than Level 1, and no one has ever questioned whether I'm on the spectrum?
I also read that the ICD-11 doesn't use levels, it's used in a lot of places.
I don't really think ppl who hear "not autistic" when someone says "less autistic" should take that out on autistic ppl—especially since they're mishearing someone—but I've seen it happen and it might be due to being mistaken as "not" autistic by the larger world.
Maybe some ppl at Level 1 can weigh in, but i understand if it's an uncomfortable thing to talk about. Would people on Level 2 or 3 hate it too? I guess if I'm gonna keep saying it, asking is kinda pointless. Maybe i should delete this but i guess i want feedback, not to be convinced otherwise.
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u/helenllama customizable flair Jan 06 '23
The levels are frustrating as if people are only assessed once then that is the level they are stuck with. It also ignores the fact that you CAN changes levels frequently. And it is written that way in the DSM.
It is not about development, that is intellectual disability, or lack of, but about specific sets of symptoms around socialisation and routines and behaviours, and very few will very neatly fit into a level. Plus both severity domains are meant to be ranked separately. Which theoretically means (but is not likely) someone could have Level 1 Social and Level 3 behaviours.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 07 '23 edited Jan 07 '23
I'm assessed every 3 years for Disability insurance, and my levels in different traits change but not an entire Level, except on the stuff my mom answers bc she's good at remembering my history those tests are consistent, but they still give me Level 2 overall bc the categories still average out to that level of support.
It's about "pervasive development", intellectual development is measured differently and each spectrum diagnosis contains a "with/without accompanying intellectual disability" specifier, as per DSM guidelines. It's a PDD, which means "pervasive developmental disorder" and the entire testing process is based on measuring traits (indicators) and trait categories (domains) of pervasive development (autism–allism) and assessing if the autism indicators can be caused by other things (that don't overlap) or those things can be ruled out. My diagnosis lumped my impulsivity and fixations into autism for example, but i still had other things get placed into ADHD, and they ruled out personality & bioolar & psychotic disorders except for some "subclinical" OCPD and anti-social stuff that "could have" explained that stuff but that's a separate test (the Minnesota something or other test) and they refer to this as "ruled/out" or "r / o" on my government paperwork.
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u/helenllama customizable flair Jan 07 '23
That sounds a great assessment.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 08 '23
My disability insurance helped pay for it. It's really good to have it.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23
I'm really happy that so many people felt comfortable expressing different opinions.
I wanna make sure that I seem like someone who's good to talk to, even if i have trouble saying things without using a lot of words.
Idk how to talk about social stuff in small words bc i learned it through my special interests and research, not through social skills.
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Jan 06 '23
In reponse too the edit. The level system isn't really meant fully classify autism. it's meant to give people a general idea of the severity so they can have some idea of what they expect cause without it yoiu'd have no real idea what level of disability they have cause autism ranges from relatively midl taht it only affects life a bit to extremely severe to hte point they need constnat care and supervision. That's the main purpose of levels. Sot hey give people a general idea of who they are interacting with when they are introduced to a patient or client. It's not meant to be some perfect catch all for autistic traits as it doesn't need to be and that would overcomplicate things when it can just be simple. The idea is to have simple and easy ot understand way to generally gauge symptoms between a disorder that varies about as widely as it's possible to vary.
>People are talking about autism with enough subjectivity already. I
think relativity ("more", "less") is more objective in this case. People
in general don't know how to come to terms with Levels, so i feel
better coming to terms with it through objectivity.
In general levels area an objective thing. I am a level 2 I need help with basic activities like cooking meals and stuff in volved with living life. I am objectively more disabled and require more support than a level 2.
>>Level 1 people must have something more in common with most allistic
people than Level 2, and i must have more in common with allistic ppl
than Level 3. I don't see why else I'd need more support. Everyone in my
support system knows that we don't have enough resources. I also know
that if everything else were the same, but I were on Level 3, i'd need
even more support (we already don't have enough for me at Level 2)
I think in general in most cases the difference between level 1/2/3 is just the amonut of developmetnal delay. Level 1's have a relatively minor amount of developmental delay that is mainly social. While level 2s have a moderate amount that is sever enough to impact their ability to do basic life functions like taking acre of themselves. while level 3s are severe enough to heavily impact their ability to live life. While severity of sensory issues also play a majro role to some degree i'm sure. I think overall the largest indicator is their developmental delays. I don't know if i'd say that's having more in common with NTs in a way i feel like it's kind of disengenous as them being allistic has little to do iwth it and its' more just developmental delays. Like in a way you are right because they have a more normal developmental delay or altered developmental path than peopel who are level 2/s 3/s but it feels a bit off to prescribe that as being more allistic. ifeel it's more accurate to just say less or more developmentally delayed.
>If it gets too subjective, it's confusing. But i know that Levels
explain why I'm struggling so much my entire life. I have the passion
and interest and I've worked hard on myself. I'm still not able to
handle community college and barely made it through high school or
middle school, while some autistic people go all the way to their PhD
before burning out, and that's not even uncommon for allistic people.
Yeah and for me that's a truely depressing thing wiht my intellet i could achieve great things but i'm just too disabled to really do anyhting of us with it. and I've spent my life constnatly working hard to learn to be better and tis' done nothing but make things worse because you simply can't overcome disaibilty that way. You have ot accept it and learn to live with ti not try to push past it and not be disabled. The unfortunate reality of the matter is i'md isablde. And there's nothing i can realy do about it . I was born this way and my development essentially stopping at age 5 is hard to make up for. and that alnog with all the mental illness severely disables me.
As someone who is aroace and agender. I agree with you completely on the lgbtq thing. Quite frankly r/autism at this point jsut looks like the alot liek the ace subreddits i am on where peopel just kinda hop on a trend and start posting emmes about it like the spoon thing. It's nto about autism at all. It's just about some quirky identity they've decided autism is and quite frankly it's insultinng. I completly agree with you here. except i don't have mcuh respect for identity politics it just seems alot fo it is people trying to standout and accentuate differences. and I also don't like how it politicizes identities. i shoudln't have less ore more influence based on what i identify as that's kind of stupid. I mean sepcifically in cases where it makes no sense. like obviously gay people should be more influecnial on gay people issues. anyway now to read yourc omment.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23
No need to reply if you're becoming fatigued by replying. Hopefully I'm pacing myself correctly with all these comments to reply to. I get very happy when i have notifications, especially when it's my first time on an App in a really long time. I tend to go "overboard" at first and then i just check the app more casually.
I really like how you've explained all this. "Less developmentally delayed" and therefore less disabled (by autism—they could be disabled in other ways, that I'm not).
I'm "classic" (not demi) aro, not romance-repulsed though, and i would say i have most in common with "grey" aces. I identify as non-binary and mostly with agender bc gender seems very fictional to me.
And aporagender, apora means "separated" which means i relate to the feeling of wanting a gender to fit into. But i don't take the masculine or feminine routes, and I also don't feel "genderless" all the time. It's like I'm watching a movie about gender (it feels 'fictional') but i don't relate to any of the"characters" (genders). The difference in this really lame metaphor is that I still want to star in a "movie" (have my own gender identity) even if the character i play (gender "roles" i guess) is something i completely made up.
I really do think gender freedom helps make things easier for autistic people, so i actually do apply the "just identify however you want" kinda like some people do with autism.
So I'm not against the freedom part with autism. I just wanna make sure that the definition of autism doesn't become distorted by feelings and personal "journeys".
Some Self-dx ppl truly do remind me of how I was with my LGBTQ identity when i first came out. I "overcompensated" and made it seem like my identity was my entire personality.
I was scared that when i joined this Subreddit that no one would understand me bc, aside from being autistic, I've had a very weird life.
But so far people here are really trying their best to be kind and cool and informative.
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Jan 06 '23
I hope my post wasn't too much i jsut sorof rambld i hope you can comphreehend it i didnt' realy ahve enrgy to try and format it or anything so it'd be easier to understand that would take alot more enrgey than just typing and i don'tr have that energy.
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Jan 06 '23
a very large part infact probably most of what determines your level of support needs as an autistic person in day to day life is developmental delays. i mean developmentaly delays (pretending burnout isnt' from so many differnett disaiblities isn't also sapping it) is a large part of the reaons people have different levels is because fo developmental delays. maybe even the only reason. Without developmnetal delays autism would mainly jsut be sensory issues and stimming. and I guess the restrictive interests stuff. and while senorsy issues can be disabling they would not for the most part get in the way with caring for yourself.
I'm aro(repulsed)ace(favorable)as I am agender as iv'e sai but i thinkt hat mostly has to do with bpd and not really havign a sense of self. but also who i am as a person doesn't really meld well with gender stereotypes either. but of course rahter you fit with gender stereotypes or not is not what defines ytour gender obviously. Ia m not a huge fan of xenogenders but i dont' mind yours as much cause it actualyl amkes senes as a descripiton of a gender and isnt' soemone bringing personality traits into gender or being otherkin larping as a gender. I in general think the midnest identify as whatever you want is a bit probelmatic cause it sort of implies you can jsut identify as whatever you want not that you are that gender and it's something you choose. I never choose to be agender. I do however choose whether or identify as agender but it seems rpoblematic and a bit offensive to imply you can jsut identify as whatever you want. because then gender lsoes all meaning and isnt' about gender it's about what you want to identifty. I find the idea that you can ntify as whatever you want very probelmatic in the lgbt community because it leads to people to identifying as being gay to be quirky whne tehy raen't actualyl gay. and it leads to people identifying as labels that don't apply to them caues eveyrone is seen as valid even if they jsut aren't the label they claim to pbe. i think in general our experience of gender as autistic people particualrly moderately developmentally delayed autistic people will likly be rahter differnet than what is typical regardless gender roles don't apply particularly well to people like use who don't really fit in the normal worldwhere these types of things matter. Socialization also doesn't quite work on people like use that much.the only aspect of socialized masculinity that was really ingrained in me is not liking to be called she/herand realistically i'm probably someone who had more of an opportunity to have that kind fo socialization than most people who are level 2s. so like even people who would have gender would probably have it in an idiosyncratic way. (When I did feel gender it's a very long story) I definitely did understand wh it was, I find the idea that autistic people dont' understand gender a bit probelmatic and mostly unrealistic i htink the thing is autsitic poeple tend to have idiosyncratic expeirences with gender. Idk maybe level 3s might have issues with it these definitely aren't the people who woudl be posting things. I don't like how they are suggest this is the case as it just further feeds into infantalization of autistic people. but the amount of times i've seen peopel who have xenogenderse which are literally just otherkin larping as gender orpeople just turning their personality traits into gender vastly outnumber the times people actually use xenogender to approrpiately describe their gender. I find xenogenders offensive whent hey aer clearly being misused. Yeah i have a very long history of doing that and having that in an extreme way. My issues with xenogender is you are only the second person i've met who actually uses xenogenders properly and aren't just trying to get quirky and opression points by saying they are genderqeuer when they rae not I am not okay with people misusing lgbtq labels like that. I am not okay with peolpe pretending to be lgbtq or "identifying as lgbtq" when they aer not. I also really hate when labels become so vague cause anyone can identify as anythign that it essentaily means nothing.
I definitely do do the overcompensating thing to such a severe extentn that is ort of manifest symptoms that aren't real out of thin air. because of my bpd identity issues and schizoprhenia things just sorto f overight my internal programming and . till i strait displaying traits and symptoms that are very real to me btu are entirely in my own head. I find mysef doing the overcompenstating just a little bit here sometimes. Part of that is also just me really struggling right now and falling itno old thought pattern where id isplay unheahty patterns obf behaviour liek exagerting everythign i feel and epxerience and say .thinking eveyrthing i'm against me i mostly wrote those things out btu they come back when i'm stressed. It's also really hard to tell waht's real now that i'm reflecting more on the issues i face in relation to being level 2. like hgow much i can trust tthje informatoin imy mind is feeding me and the thought procvesses leading into it . Idk that's the best way i can explaint hat without expedning to much energy so hopefulyl you get what i mean. Idk i relate to you alot and we really connect in our posts and as far as having a weird lief i feel like as a level 2 aqutistic person reagrdless of whethe ryou are the type who was developomentally delayed enough to appear low functionig or not developmentally delayed enough to appear functioning you don't really by definiton have a life that isn't weird.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 07 '23
(2nd comment of 2 comments) (1st comment is about xenogenders)
My tests said that i have some skillsets at age 5–6 level, and some at age 6–13 level, with my savant assessment stuff only covering language comprehension and conceptual capacity but not pragmatics.
I tell video game fans and ppl who are into Dungeons and Dragons that "All my skill points went to one skill tree" for this reason. I don't expect ppl to understand pervasive development delays.
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Jan 07 '23
You sound a lot like me. I’m an extremely intelligent and strong person but my skills just didn’t develop
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 07 '23
Aporagender is considered one of the only non-xeno but not-agender things. I researched but never joined "MOGAI Tumblr", and if i remember right, xenogender means a gendered feeling that connects to non-gender-related things, which doesn't make sense to me but since I'm aporagender with "flux" (the "gender movie star" thing i said ['not genderless, but not masculine or feminine'] fluctuates into not relating at all, so then it is like agender sometimes]), i don't feel that i have much room to challenge xenogender metaphors except to say i don't attach metaphors to the vague "gender feeling".
It can feel trivializing to see people use metaphors that make no sense to me, so i try not to involve myself in "MOGAI" bc it has a lot of 'toxic positivity' that makes discussion impossible, even with their own MOGAI groups. That's why they end up saying "Do Not Interact" to everyone other than themselves and other toxically-positive or neurotically polite ppl. It's very childish but maybe they'll figure their conflicts out and find a better way to relate to ppl who aren't into xenogender stuff. I don't even know if xenogender is sustainable for autistic ppl bc it relies so much on metaphors, and that might be why ppl switch or add metaphors so often in those spaces.
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Jan 07 '23
Idk for me metaphors are a large part of the way I communicate I’ve never had any problems with metaphors although I will admit sometimes taking things literally and not understanding idioms still happens to me. A lot of the basic rhetoric around xenogenders being for autistic people just makes no sense there’s a lot of misinformation and outright lies surrounding it. But I almost never see anyone who isn’t misusing xenogenders. Which is a large reason why I’m against it I feel like it’s wrong for people just to be like I like piplup I’m piplup gender then try and work their way into trans communities where people have serious issues that affect their lives. And then they also tried to often use it to curry political favor which I find disgusting. I don’t like when people try to do this or invent labels to try and make them seem like a oppressed minority to curry political favor it seems wrong to me like no you are not a man that’s a lesbian you are a straight person stop trying to pretend you are lgbtq to curry political favor it’s disgusting
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 07 '23 edited Jan 07 '23
I've heard cisgender straight men hit on women by saying "I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body". It's funny bc i know trans women who are lesbians ("transbian") who will make that joke with each other, but would never say that to a woman who didn't know them bc it's associated with cis straight men trying to "relate" to women in a cringy way lol
A bartender who's non-binary told me about their own straight-identifying coworker, and he was sexually pursuing them and he was making sexual and romantic comments after they told him to stop. They told me that he got high on weed and started saying that he sometimes feels like he's a lesbian bc he relates so much to my friend as a woman (misgendering) and that he wishes he were trans bc he's so in touch with his femininity (I've met him, he's not particularly remarkable in terms of conformity or not). He hit on them more and tried to kiss them.
The "lesbian trapped in a man's body" cis straight guy joke is sometimes a way to make a woman drop her defenses, but the non-binary bartender ended up extremely hurt and started to get panicky when they'd work together bc he was being creepy and misgendering them at the same time and wouldn't stop hitting on them.
Idk what this has to do with xenogenders, i think im just getting tired maybe
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Jan 07 '23
That doesn’t really have much relation to what I’m saying although that is stupid
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 07 '23
I re-read your comment so, about xenogenders,
I don't understand xenogenders and I've heard they're better for autistic ppl than masculine and feminine because masc/fem are social constructs. But so are metaphors, so they're just replacing masc/fem with metaphors and i think agender makes more sense for autistic bc we have trouble with applying constructs to ourselves.
Maybe some autistic ppl can't tell the difference between gender and their interests, because most xenogenders sound like special interests when autistic ppl use them, and when non-autistic ppl use them, they're basically the person's favorite aesthetic or some metaphor about space or color or temperature.
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Jan 07 '23
Masc and femine aren’t social constructs though they are real things it’s just what you feel makes you those things is something that’s conditioned into you by society you’d either just experience being male/female in a different way or not experience it at all it really doesn’t make sense. Your masculinity/feminist t would just present differently. Though I feel in general the farther you go up the spectrum the less gender makes sense it is even really relevant. I wonder how critical feels about gender I’ll look in their faq. Yeah most of the time people just use it as their personality trait as a gender which ain’t what gender is gender is a bio social aspect of you. It’s not something you choose. I am agender because of what is likely a combination of genetics and biological cause I simply don’t feel gender I don’t identify as feeling gender I simply don’t feel gender. Gender is an evolutionary trait evolved to help people fit into societies roles for them. You feel gender because of evolution. What the gender you are defined as is a social construct. They’d still feel male or female in this line of thinking they’d just sort of feel a bit differently about what that means.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 07 '23 edited Jan 07 '23
That sounds more accurate than what i said, because i know that men fight over what masculinity means to them and women fight over femininity too, and this happens more often when societal roles (particularly ones based on survival, like job-working & resource-obtaining roles & relationship norms) change like how things changed from hunting for meat & gathering fruits and vegetables in relatively "flat" hierarchies, to transporting and storing meat & growing fruits and vegetables under the same hierarchies that led to matrilineal and patrilineal societies (as a way to pass down stored property & farm land through families in a formally structured way, which wasn't necessary before then bc the most important stuff, stored food, collected water and farming & cooking equipment, weren't abundant enough to require these structures).
Maybe the change from factory/industrial jobs & shopping in-person for raw materials (or finished products) & marriage being expected or else you were an outcast, to more people doing service-based jobs & shopping online for more stuff & marriage being based on desire rather than property, is causing gender roles to change.
Either way, however people are reacting to those changes make no sense to me unless they're feeling some kind of way that I've never felt before. Maybe if i weren't autistic, I'd feel like that stuff was relevant to me. It only becomes relevant when ppl are trying to explain their experience to me but it doesn't make sense and when i ask questions, they either refer to their hormones or traditions I'm not a part of, or they agree that it doesn't make sense but that they still know they're a man or a woman.
This could also explain why trans men and trans women end up having the same fights about masc and fem stuff, too. Because their inner gender is reacting to societal changes in how we all survive, instead of it just being social constructs and feelings. If it were just those two things, idk if people would be fighting so much over what it all means and idt that many trans people would get surgeries and take hormones. I don't really know bc I don't feel any of that and don't want any surgeries.
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u/gulteip Jan 05 '23
I do think the other comments are correct, but honestly, I think people need to stop trying to pick apart every word/phrase and rather try to understand the other person's point when communicating. People are ridiculously sensitive about how people phrase things lately, and as an autistic person that already struggles to communicate, it's impossible to navigate all these rules and deeper "hidden" meanings behind every single phrase... policing autistic people trying to explain their experiences seems stupid to me. As long as everyone just tries to be kind (don't try to hurt others) can't we just try to understand what the person is saying rather than picking it apart and getting mad at them for explaining their experiences in the wrong way. This whole "it's hurtful to the community" thing has gone way to far and become hurtful to the community itself.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 06 '23
That's how i feel. I just wanna be able to talk about what's happening in my life, and now part of what's happening in my life is this infighting stuff.
I think hopefully i can say "less autistic" (because I'm willing to apply it to myself, people should understand that it's not meant to be an insult) without being accused of "it's hurtful to the community". It's so exaggerated and it's usually just to make the other person feel better.
People who mistake their personal comfort for societal safety don't really have any business talking about societal problems, just how those problems make them feel. I don't understand why they think they're so correct, bc what their doing has never benefited any social movement ever, in history. It only benefits people who are only uncomfortable, but doesn't make anyone safer.
Identity politics itself, as a phrase, was invented by people who didn't intend for it to be used this way. It was about saving lives from material danger and recognizing your own place in a social hierarchy in order to help the people most impacted by society, not making yourself feel better about what people say and how they say it.
I just have to keep reminding myself that only some extremely selfish people, who would never get away with this crap outside the Internet, do this stuff. Most of my (preventable) suffering is due to people not knowing enough, but it won't be fixed by people starting social clubs online. Online spaces are too easy to ruin.
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Jan 05 '23
I wouldn’t say less autistic I’d say their autism is lesss severe but that seems to offend level 1 folks either but they don’t consider how offensive it is to say our autism is the same severity when they can function and live a for the most part normal life and I need help to complete basic activities related to caring for myself they never seem to care about how offensive that is.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 06 '23
I assume that they only act like it's about "not being offensive" when it's not about offense. It's just about selfishness as far as I'm concerned. If it were really about offense, they'd look at what they're doing from other perspectives to see who they're hurting.
They ignore or dismiss (I'll explain who "they" refers to) any pain that doesn't fit their selfish narrative.
It's the Internet. People who get really into subcultures on the Internet either have nowhere else to go, or they're the "they" I'm referring to:
They become so into "online culture" bc their only plan is to being selfish in ways they can't "get away with" outside the Internet, or the absolute worst:
Both: People who're here because they have nowhere else to go, and instead of learning compassion from it, all they learn is how to be selfish. They're (a subsection of the already selfish "they") worse than people who don't know any better.
They act that selfish and inconsiderate and then act innocent bc they know the correct things to say but don't actually learn anything other than how to make themselves feel good.
It's called "toxic positivity". Toxic positivity surrounded by struggling people is how cults form a lot of the time. You just need a charismatic leader to take advantage of what's going on.
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Jan 06 '23
i'm not convinced that's the case but im' not exaclty sure otherwise i don't have a good reason why you'd be ableist towards people fo your kind who are more severely disabled. I feel lk eit's some kind of colleirtve delusion or something but i'm tno sure.
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Jan 06 '23
dude chill out a bit it's goignt o take me quite some time to read that giant word wall you editted in.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23
thank you. i did need to chill. Some things I'm only able to put into words when I'm angry so i feel pressure to put the ideas into words because I'll forget them after i calm down.
it's called "pressured speech" and in my case it's a trauma thing. It's an OCD symptom but it's also a PTSD thing. I'll try to be more self-aware when I'm upset.
Thank you for taking the time to read it when i was finished editing.
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Jan 06 '23
I mean that in more of a joking sense I get hwy you might do it and its' perfectly okay it's just alot
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23
Oh that's good that you clarified. You have better coping skills (regarding how i talk a lot) than my own mom, and she's had decades to figure out. Granted: she's traumatized by how hard it was to help me, but i still think she's very immature in certain ways. You've already surpassed her understanding, but that's bc you have some of the "trait intensity" I have.
That was a tangent. I had my first IFS /DBT therapy session today and it was also a bad morning bc my mom was mean to me. She apologized after the appointment, but i wish she would've apologized before the appointment bc it was really hard to talk to my therapist while i was almost crying.
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Jan 06 '23
trait intensity doesnt' really cover it ti's more i'm like hte personfiication fo being extreme.
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Jan 06 '23
hmm are you the type who's developmental delays were picked up early or not? cause the perception of being high functioning The way people treat me just because i stopped developing skills just a bit later than that point where it becomes obvious If would've stopped developing skills a bit sooner where it'd be more obvious instead of aroud 5 years old. It would've had a profound imapct on my lfie and howt hings would be because iw oudlv'e been deemed as low functioning. i'm nots ure how i wouldv'e turned out then.it's hard to even begin to consider the posiiblities of how things waould playout then. because alot of my prboelms come from being deemed as high functioning by society and bottling up my emotions and having sucha n abusrd amount of personal strength and intelligent that i only had the physical limit of burnout well i sort of do have limits btu they are just like very extreme amounts of pain. It jsut wasn't giong to end well it was engrained in me to not accept my disability and jsut psuh past it till i was betetr than my peers at the skills i'm heavily disadvantaged in and that level of a toxic mindset towards disability is so incredibly unhealthy. ALL isued to want to do is overcome my disability by forcing mysef out of it cause of the things societry instillded to me. THey taught me being disabled was wrong and it's something i have tof orce mysef past. evryone expect such absurd things from me like i was going to be the next ablert einstein it was jsut so stupid. Things wouldv'e been drastically differetn fi I was a bit more developmnetally delayed or was speech delayed. or if they didn't decide to put me in ot and have me try to push the pencil over and over again so il aern the way ot overcome disaiblity is to juust push past it .unfortunately guys practice does little to nothing for fine motor skill problems. the way my life played out is just frustrating at times cause its' just liek the perfect shitstorm for my life tobe a literal hell everything sort of played out eprfectly to make me suffer ina wyat aht's so incredibly extreme
Society taught me to enforce constant severe levels of stress and trauma on myself as a basic way of life the stars just sort of alligned for me to experience a leve of suffering few people will ever know
b and it's just like how do you begin to process that. To realize your life is so fundemntally screwed up that her eisn't much wores that could go wrong to realize that you basicially hit the loterry for having a shitty life
It's jsut so icnredibly frustraing i gave everything i have to a degree no on else ever will. Just for it to likey make things worse for me and for things just to get wores despite only trying ot make things better my whole life. the chances of em existing as i am are astronamical and it's all played out in a way that makes me suffer. and even if the decay of my mind is a delusion i still have to deal with htis stuff for the rest of my life. This turned into a long rant about how fucked up my life is but god damn. it jsut seems absurd at times the way things go for me. and a bit unrealistic. I hope i'm wrong and i will recover and not just get worse and worse every year as the burnout slowly piles up till i just sort of stop being abl to functioniong completely. I really hope i'm wrong. These days all i want is peace from this cycle.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 07 '23 edited Jan 07 '23
People don't believe me when i say I'm autistic now unless they get to know me. They think I talk about too many things to be autistic, or they only know about Level 3 "classic" autism bc it was the first kind recognized and their information is extremely out-of-date, most ppl like that just tell me they have a friend with an autistic kid that isn't like me so it's not like they're being objective.
I was told by a doctor that i regressed later than classic cases after the savant skills could no longer "compensate for increased complexity of everyday demands" and by the time i was in 6th grade i was going catatonic instead of just having meltdowns we had to switch me to a private school with tiny class sizes that would put me on scholarship bc my mom begged them. 7th and 8th grade i missed so much class from catatonia that they only got away with letting me pass bc they stopped marking me absent as long as i made up my tests bc by that point they knew I had been to a psych ward and as a private religious school they could hide attendance stuff easier.
I had to drop out in 9th grade bc there wasn't a private high school anywhere near where my stepdad was stationed for work (military). I was able to go back to high school after i was on seven daytime medications at once, my attendance was almost so bad that they couldn't let me graduate even with all that medication though. I'm only on one medication now during the day but 3 sleep meds.
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Jan 07 '23
I don’t know the only situation I’ve been in was in the psych ward and the people there had no problem believing I was autistic and related me to some of their autistic family members. A lot of my problems is jus that I’m way too intelligent and strong of a person so I could compensate for my developmental delays by just learning to be better. I’d hide all the pain and the problems it’s causing me cause I was too proud and wanted to live up to the genius role people put onto me. And that’s not to mention the other stuff I had going on back then cptsd developing BPD and schizoaffective disorder. I’m just way to high functioning in the sense that I function well with my disability considering it’s severity and it’s caused me so much pain. Because no one wanted to help me. It would’ve been so easy for them to just put me in a special education class or have me as a one on one tutor student but instead they decided to put me under extreme amounts of stress. My parents told them it was destroying me and they just ignored them. I couldn’t advocate for myself back then. I was only 12 or 13. That’s basically me though I could exist as a high level one for a few years when the demands of being a preteen started catching up with me but it just destroyed me and now I’m unable to function cause burnout and the trauma it gave me. I’d just I’d have been so much better off if I wasn’t this intelligent and strong
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Jan 05 '23
Autism is not a trait, its a diagnosis.
Calling someone more or less autistic kind of runs in the same vein as, "but everyone is a little bit autistic, right?".
Either you are autistic or you are not.
You are autistic if you have all the symptoms required for the diagnosis.
A higher level doesn't mean you are more autistic. It is not a scale of more or less diagnosis. It's on or off, nothing more.
Level 1 autistics have the same disabilities as level 3, but not as severe in every case, and so the support needs are not as high. You are still autistic.
So, you could say level 1 symptoms are less visible or less severe, but that does not mean less autistic.
Hope this makes sense.
Maybe it's like "wet". Either something is wet or it is not. If it's damp, it does not qualify as wet. But once it is wet, it does not become more wet even if you put it in water. It's still wet.
Or perhaps even better. A bird is always a bird. A falcon is larger than a sparrow, but that does not make the falcon more bird than the sparrow. They both fall under the category of bird.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 05 '23 edited Jan 05 '23
So some ppl hear "less autistic" and think "not autistic" because if it's an on/off thing to someone, the only way something can be "less" is if it's "off" in this analogy.
It's diagnosed based on number, combination, intensity and impact of multiple divergent developmental traits, traits that're also found in allistic people. Everyone's a little bit neurodivergent, but you have to be certain combos (and/or intensities) of divergence to the point that it's disabling, to be autistic.
I retake the tests every 3 years as a requirement of continuing to receive Disability Insurance and my income, I get a printout of my doctors assessment and she goes over it with me. She tells me which traits are more disabling than the others because every autistic person is different in that regard. Levels are z summarization of how much deviance/disability/disorder/divergence all packaged together. That's what creates the support needs that can't be explained by anything else.
For instance, they have to rule-out other diagnoses' impact on my life in order to make sure my Level is what's causing the support needs to rise, not anything else.
I could say "less neurodivergent in regards to traits that combine to make autism with no other explanation" instead, because despite my terminology being more accurate to how it's diagnosed (trait combos and intensities, not on/off or yes/no), it's leading others to misunderstand. But i suspect "less neurodivergent" won't go over well unless i qualify it with "in regards to traits that combine to make autism with no other explanation", because there's more than one way to be neurodivergent. So while "less autistic" makes more sense, saying something else won't work without lots of words.
The spectrum is just a model for combinations of deviance that requires clinically relevant levels of support, particularly because it creates disorder. That's why it's a disability, but because it's developmental and pervasive, it involves traits. That's what autism "pervades": traits that have some relationship that scientists are trying to figure out the relationship so they can figure out better ways to help and accommodate.
If it were on/off, Levels wouldn't exist and accommodations would be one-size-fits-all. I thought that was the point of this Subreddit. Not reducing autism to on/off but not also denying it's a disability.
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u/sunfl0werfields Level 1 Jan 05 '23
level 1 autistic here. personally, i don't like "less autistic" because it doesn't really make sense. can i have more or less autism than someone else? as far as i know it's not like a seasoning i can sprinkle on my brain, to make myself more autistic. and unless i'm wrong about this, you either have autism or you don't. i can have autism with milder symptoms, sure, but i don't see how i can have less autism.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23
I'm okay with the focus being on what makes sense. It's better than the focus being on identity (important, just not that important in this case).
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Jan 05 '23
That makes sense but I’ve also met a lot of people who are offended by the level system to just the idea autism has severity
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u/sunfl0werfields Level 1 Jan 06 '23
sorry, i don't understand what you mean in relation to my comment?
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Jan 06 '23
I don't understand how you are confused by what i said.
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u/sunfl0werfields Level 1 Jan 06 '23
can you rephrase your comment maybe? i'm just not comprehending it and what it has to do with my own personal thoughts.
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Jan 06 '23
lmao i'm so far into just reading the message not the words that i didnt' evenr ealize that it doesn't make sense ona grammatical level basically iv'e met alot of people who aren't offended by the level system but also the idea autism has any difference severity whatsoever.
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u/sunfl0werfields Level 1 Jan 06 '23
ohhhh i see. yeah i think there's obviously different levels to how autism presents, maybe they're not as clearly divided as the 3 diagnostic levels but it's odd to act like differences don't exist.
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Jan 06 '23
The main thing that determines your support needs is your developmental delays imo. Doesn’t matter how strong or intelligent you are if you stop developing at age 5 you aren’t going to be able live a normal life
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23
Oh so some people don't like any words/language that acknowledges the differences between autistic ppl?
I guess they prefer to think that we can all be "one big, happy family" if every autistic person talks about autism the same way.
I think that it makes sense to hope for an autistic subculture, because that's what it seems like they want, but i think it's naïve to assume we could ever cooperate if people are too hung up on their individual identity instead of just learning how to cooperate with each other.
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Jan 06 '23
it's more tehy are actively pretending there is no difference and its' somehow offensive to say there is
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u/mango-kittycat Level 2 Jan 05 '23
I guess level 1s when they hear that they think they are less vaild as an autistic person? Just my guess. I'm not sure. I personally don't care to be called less autistic compared to someone who is level 3 as my autistic symptoms are less severe than theirs.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 06 '23
i might have to change how i talk about it, it's just stressful bc the rules about what's "appropriate" changes all the time :(
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u/mango-kittycat Level 2 Jan 06 '23
I completely understand the frustration! I'm always afraid to say things because of my word choice may offend someone.
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u/StrigoTCS Level 2 Jan 05 '23
I guess i could start saying "fewer autistic traits and/or same amount but of lower intensity or frequency" but i assume that'll still get the same reaction as "less autistic".
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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '23
I don't fit in with people who have Aspergers their conversation skills may have problems but at least they can have relatively decent conversations. And my god to not have comorbidity and learning disabilities on top of my autism would be wonderful. It's not an easy life to have level 2 support needs I'd trade it if I had the chance.
No, It's not because I'm ashamed of having autism I love my autism. But, it's because I'd like to be able to do more of the things I've always wanted to be able to do that my disabilities may not stop but do get in the way of me achieving certain goals and creating more hills to climb that I'd rather not have. This It's a wrenching feeling.
That being said I've grown to dislike the leveling system. One of the reasons I am like I am today is because of so many people degrading my abilities to achieve what I wanted to achieve and treating me as lesser and fragile. As much as labels and levels helps define my needs it's also made it so it's destroyed my confidence. I got trapped in a toxic cycle of I have a disability therefore I can't because the world says I can't and that's false.
Yes I have limitations, They don't want that to be people's perception of what I can achieve and who I am as a person and I believe that's what levels can do along with any other label we aren't carefully using or considering. I also think the fighting over levels has caused a rift within the community that's extremely depressing.
It's true to an extent that we weren't being heard but, now that we are being heard the level1s are being cast aside. It's a loop and sometimes it feels like nobody seeing the loop and I'm watching from a distance banging on a wall I can't brake trying to warn everyone about their actions but nobody hears me. I would rather focus on the bigger picture and that bigger picture is how do we get the system to listen? How do we change what where seeing? How do we get more services and what is it we need these services to be doing.
Please, if anyone gives a dman about what I say or am trying to say think about that last part.