To understand that Autism is NOT a mental illness?

[Oxfordblue]

Just that really, someone posted that autism is a mental illness.
I understand autism to be a different way of thinking/perceiving etc. Not an illness that one may or may not recover from

(My daughter is waiting for an assessment for autism & I would hate her to feel that she 'has a mental illness' & actually find that statement so disempowering. The world needs people to think differently, to challenge ideas that maybe set in stone & blur the idea that one size fits all.)

Do you have an autism diagnosis @boredandtired ?

@Boredandtired I’m not the authority, never claimed to be. I think you’ll find that was you.

You were the one who dismissed what I had to say based on your years of experience.

You didn’t say that you were, but in context it would be odd if you were but hadn’t no? So it’s a fair assumption to make based on that that you’re not.

You quite clearly haven’t RTFT, not properly at least, and are making sweeping statements.

Where am I doing that please? Specifically?

I’m not.

Oh for fucks sake one more time, I mentioned my dx and my childrens’ dx because YOU dismissed what I said based on your “years of experience”.

Am I writing in English? I’m starting to wonder.

What really pisses me off is when people define others by their label. Person first

What really pisses me off is people telling me how to define my identity.

I am autustic, i am female, i am a red head, i am irish.

These things define me, they are massively who i am.

I am not a person with autism i dont chose to pick up my autism when i chose not to have it its always there. My autism defines me as much as being female does.

To tell me that im a person with autism is ignoring a the thing that makes me the person i am, my autism! You say person first, but actually your the one seeing my condition not the person i am. You want to minamise my condition, i don't it defines everything i do, how i speak, how i react, how i understand things.

So you want person first, see the person not try and label most of what makes them who theh are with the "with autism"

I can understand you sodding and for what it’s worth the can't imagine that for a full 36 years you knew you were on the spectrum. You've no idea if I am or not, I talked about particular experiences. rhetorical ambiguity from bored is getting right on my wick now.

i dont think arguing amongst ourselves really helps, i can only speak about my child and how it affects him and other people can only speak about how it affects themselves and or their children

Again, when have I said I know it all? Specifically? I haven’t, so you can pack that shite in for a start.

I don’t want to engage with someone so wilfully and deliberately ignorant and arrogant so this is the end of our frustrating interaction.

But do yourself and your child a favour and try to understand that you don’t know it all because of experience. We all learn every day.

@x2boys well quite, so why is it that I’m the only one being attacked for it? Because I don’t see bored telling anyone else about their lives?

Battleax thank you

I said it was not my opinion but was born from my experiences, which I don't deem to be any more important than anyone else's more that

bored

On certain points, such as preferred terms my viewpoint as a person with autism carries more weight than my long (knackering, red tape riven, frustrating) experience as parent, carer and advocate for my children with autism.

Sorry if you don’t like that but it’s true.

If you want to speak as a person with autism, you’ll have to come and say that you have autism.

If you don’t have autism, then stop insisting that you might.

Insunuating^ that you might.

@ThistleAmore.... Get where you're coming from! Thank God we're all individuals!

I was told it’s a gray area
It’s a personality disorder

my viewpoint as a person with autism carries more weight

Would you tell someone with depression, or cancer, or diabetes that their carer knew more about it than they did? Or think that the person diagnosed knew how they felt about their own condition?

(Not meant aggressively, I just don’t know how to write it any other way)

It’s a personality disorder

No it isn’t.

zzzzz I think it because, autism is immutable and thus an identity of sorts. Or at the very least, I think you have to claim it to be at peace with it and be happy. And nobody else can do that for us. I can’t do it for my children either.

I can encourage them towards a positive self image, and positivity towards their diagnosis, but it’s essentially about self image and inner sense of self.

Equally, I understand that other autistic people might arrive at a different conclusion about terms to mine, but ultimately any autistic person able to form a view speaks with greater authority on the subject.

And I don’t denigrate the parenting or caring role at all in saying that, because I’ve fought as many tribunals, hunted down as many turkey dinosaurs, cut out as many labels and tackled as much bullying as the next parent of an autistic child and I know how very hard it is.

But this is about identity and self image, and all carers are ultimately at one remove from that.

I was told it’s a gray area
It’s a personality disorder

ODFOD

Would you tell someone with depression, or cancer, or diabetes that their carer knew more about it than they did? Or think that the person diagnosed knew how they felt about their own condition?

Exactly what I’m getting at.

(With the caveat that not all people with autism can conceptualise or communicate their thoughts. But parents/carers are still parents/carers and not necessarily people with autism themselves.)