How My Views On Autism Functioning Labels Have Evolved And Why

A lot of things are often very poorly explained.

I thought this stack of rocks would be a nice way to visually represent the social hierarchy of functioning labels. Photo by Edvard Alexander Rølvaag on Unsplash

If you are not a Medium member, you can read this story for free here.

The beginning

During the years when many people in my life started suspecting I was autistic and all the way through when I first got formally diagnosed, I was a hardcore aspie supremacist. I thought I either simply belonged to a different stratum of autistic people or was simply weird and not autistic after all. In fact, there was a period of time where I vehemently denied the possibility of being autistic and got defensive with anyone who suggested I could be. Former autistic classmates from my K-12 years and eventually, my ex, who lived in a heartbreaking hellscape of couch surfing, SSI, and restraining orders came to mind whenever I thought about autism. I have gone back and forth on wishing I could have been diagnosed with “Asperger’s”.

Surely, I couldn’t be like that kid I went to middle school with who had violent meltdowns every time another kid broke one of the teacher’s rules and expressly refused any kind of invitation to socialize at lunch, no matter how explicit. I couldn’t possibly be like that boy at my elementary school who walked out onto the playground every single day and walked in…