Mental illness doesn't mean "crazy person", there's a huge number of such cases, and half the population or more is affected by one or more (20% on any given year).
There's nothing insulting or damaging to call someone as mentally ill (except for types who think it means "crazy person" or some such).
In fact, there shouldn't be anything insulting or damaging about being bodily ill as well!
The bottom lime is that autism is associated with certain impairments that affect our mental states (on the spectrum, have a close relative with another mental illness). It's not some X-men like new state of being that people should aspire too, but it's something we should respect, try to heal if we can, and learn to live with and support.
Actually autism is officially described and classified in the DSM-5 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of _Mental Disorders_.
The rest of ad hominem, I will ignore. For one, I find the language insulting to people with mental health issues (even if one considers autistic people to not be among them), as if they're lesser people.
E.g. "They are going to wonder if I am a danger to them, and in turn, that mentality is going to cause direct harm and danger to me and other people on the spectrum." -- because people with mental illnesses are necessarily of "danger" to others?
>They are going to wonder if I’m going to exhibit symptoms of mental illnesses since I am autistic.
Well, they will be right to wonder it.
Even for the mental illness issues that you would agree to qualify as such (from depression to OCD), are commonly associated with autism, much more so than in the general population.
If you want to call Autism a “mental disorder” you would be correct to call it that, as it is a neurodevelopmental disorder and cognitive disability. It is not however a mental illness. The DSM V classifies a lot of different disorders, some of which are mental illnesses and some of which are not. Conflating that something being defined in the DSM V also classifies it as a mental illness when the writers of the DSM V were very careful not to use that language, shows the very misunderstanding which I am trying very hard to show you (and failing) at best, and intentionally misleading on your part at worst.
My objections are due to the societal biases that others hold against mentally ill people. My problem with calling Autism a mental illness is twofold. 1. It is factually and scientifically incorrect. Full stop. End of story. This should be enough for you, but whatever. 2. When you call Autism a mental illness you take a group of people who struggle and suffer and loop them in with another group of people that struggle suffer. Autism has enough social stigma attached to it already. When you apply more social stigma to it by attaching other labels to it, you are actively causing more harm than good.
It would be one thing to offend based on a factual argument, but you have neither facts nor a moral/ethical argument on your side. There is no reason for one to call Autism a mental illness other than a factual misunderstanding of Autism. To cling to that ignorance and claim superiority is both arrogant and egotistical. It lacks any semblance of empathy whatsoever.
Also, "disorder" is a more neutral word than "illness". Strictly speaking, it just means something is abnormal, not necessarily dysfunctional.
It's not; there's actually a medical difference between "mental illness" and "disability".
I had to be taught that but outside of that, most people who didn't spend too much time with me then think I am smarter than average and are willing to rely on me for help with some stuff. I am proud because Asperger's is related to how one's brain is wired if I was embarrassed or considered Asperger's to be defective it would take a toll on my mental health because then I would be thinking of myself of a defective thing and defective things are usually thought of as something that should be thrown out.
And sometimes the inability to see that the objective world that exists is not the same objective world that we see. Due to how the brain interprets sensory information from the objective world.
An example taken from your own text:
The reason that you are not supposed to tell a fat person that they are fat is cause by saying you are fat you are essentially pointing to that persons irrational behavior(eating to much).
The fat person does not want to think about their own overweight, it will lead to them start thinking about their own irrationality. Something that will then cause them to feel that they are a failed person, causing negative emotions.
Reality can be analyzed in many dimensions.
Anyway, it appears to be only a matter of time until there is a "provable" test for autism. See, for example: https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
There are also observable (via fMRI) differences in the brains of people on the spectrum: http://time.com/3614487/fmri-autism-diagnosis/
Autism is the ADD/ADHD of the 'oughts. Overly diagnosed (come on, 1:55, really?), misunderstood (is the creepy guy who stares too much and never says anything a freak or is he autistic?), and often times used like a crutch by those who both want an easy out and/or don't want to take responsibility for their actions (oh, I have mild Aspberger syndrome and your offending me).
The notion of a "spectrum" is ludicrous too, how ever can we lump in someone who's a bit slow yet fully independent with someone like the above poster who's 8/10 year olds can't go potty on their own? This is a disservice to people on both ends of that "spectrum."