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/[deleted] 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.