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> the label has no value in-itself

Yes. And, as you have eloquently said in your other comments in this thread, the label CAN (not DOES but CAN) readily become value-NEGATIVE, if it becomes in itself an object of fixation that draws time and emotional energy away from the basic, brass-tacks work of living life as best as one can, whatever that has to look like for each individual.

It is an obvious error to pretend that this does not or cannot happen—an error no more and no less obvious than to pretend that it must or always happens.

I too experience many of these things, and I have been called autistic by numerous people independently, but in that tongue-in-cheek manner of our generation that has watered it down a lot. I'm nothing even close to the people on Love on the Spectrum, or the kids in grade school that were essentially in special ed.

I think yeah the language has gotten very ambiguous and the "spectrum" is so wide and ill-defined that we need more and better words, but, I do also feel like it isn't just everyone's shared experience. I do feel like there are a lot of people who don't really experience these things, that aren't stuck in a constant self-conscious hyper-analysis and reflection loop, and are able to just kind of go with the flow a bit more (which is not to say that they don't have troubles or anxieties).

Edit: I will also note that I did have a similar reaction to you to this game. I didn't even go past the intro because I felt like I knew what it was. I would call this something like autism-lite, and it probably is pretty widespread, particularly in HN-like circles. It does feel a little bit confusing and even offensive to compare it to "capital A autism," an actual disability, but that's where our lexicon is right now.

> I think yeah the language has gotten very ambiguous and the "spectrum" is so wide and ill-defined that we need more and better words, but, I do also feel like it isn't just everyone's shared experience.

We used to have other words. Asperger's used to be a separate condition but was merged into one diagnosis. I wonder if there was a reason the experts who study this decided to go with fewer words?

Have you tried adding additional adjectives? That's usually what I do when the word I want is too general, and isn't as specific as I want to be.

There's some controversy around Asperger too, which made the name problematic anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger

I don't really talk about it, I don't go around telling people I'm autistic, whatever it is is minor enough that I'm able to mask easily, if anything I casually reference "my ADD."

I sometimes jokingly refer to "my spectrum," but I think that word is not great either because it implies a linear gradation, when I think it's a higher dimensional space like a personality star chart.

In the DSM-5, they merged several conditions into one diagnosis called Autism Spectrum Disorder. At the same time, they defined ASD as having levels 1, 2, and 3. Those levels are defined by how much support the individual needs. Level 1 is "requiring support", level 2 is "requiring substantial support", and level 3 is "requiring very substantial support". Asperger's diagnosis would generally correspond with Level 1 ASD.

That doesn't really help with the social side of describing it though.

There's a small problem with the definition of "requires support", because growing up, I was smart enough, and good enough at masking, that I never "required support." Arguably, I still probably don't. But once I grew up, and started to look for ways to improve my mental health. My life very quickly shifted from, surviving ok-ish. To thriving and improving.

So many people insist that it doesn't count unless you're completely or meaningfully incapacitated. But that's stupid place to put the bar.

I think it's because it did kind of used to mean that. It described people that couldn't mask, couldn't totally function in society, couldn't have the kind of job depicted in the Autism Simulator. It's been expanded officially and colloquially which may not have been the right direction with the terminology. I think the DSM and the approach of trying to follow and fit in with more concretely diagnosable medical conditions may be considered harmful and too rigid.

For more mild and gray-area cases, it's really more akin to personality and it should be about understanding the particular combination of traits or symptoms of an individual. I wouldn't be officially diagnosed with OCD, or depression, or BPD, or maybe even ADD, but I can relate to all of those on some level and I feel like learning about them helps me understand myself better (with a grain of salt just like any health thing). It doesn't make me go around telling people I'm disabled and how they need to accommodate or support me, that's just narcissism.

> I think it's because it did kind of used to mean that. It described people that couldn't mask, couldn't totally function in society, couldn't have the kind of job depicted in the Autism Simulator.

If you mean "Autism", that might be true. But I don't think "Asperger's" meant that. So we might have taken a step backwards there.

"Requires support" does not mean you are completely incapacitated without that support, nor does it mean you will always require the same support. If your life shifted from surviving ok-ish to thriving and improving when you found tools to help yourself, to me that sounds like you were meaningfully incapacitated before.

There are many conditions that a key point of diagnosis is impact to your life, and that's a conversation to have with the practitioner doing the diagnosis. It's a starting point not a bar, unfortunately nuance gets lost a lot once it's talked about in the social sphere/used as common parlance.

"Spectrum", by definition, covers all the range of behaviours, both those that society deems to be a disorder and those that it deems not.

I think that what this game tries to convey is that these challenges, while perhaps universally present, have a distinct and punishing effect for a subset of people. I think that it takes an interesting approach at communicating that even someone who might seem to be functioning “effectively” could be essentially living their life on a knife’s edge of dueling energy/masking mechanics.

If your response to the game is to argue about the usefulness/value of the autism label, and to insinuate that it normalizes some kind of “bandwagon” effect, rather than feeling empathy that a colleague sitting next to you might be in mortal fear of what happens if their “energy bar” dips beyond their control - then perhaps we need more of this type of experience and conversation, rather than less.

I agree that autism has become a label for the "shared experiences of things", and that people often derive their identity from the label to an unhealthy and unproductive degree.

However, I strongly disagree that the only use of the label is for developing personal coping skills. I shared your mindset for most of my life, having seen the negative effects of basing one's identity around it, but in the past couple years I've come to see the utility of the autism label and accept it for myself.

Its function (in the modern sense) is to be a tag for shared experiences, that's not a side effect. A sizeable portion of the population shares a similar grouping of frustrations with -- and difficulties functioning in -- society at large. It would be great if direct communication, respect for sensory processing issues, acceptance of stimming and other unusual behaviors, etc. etc. were widespread without the need for a special label, but society at large is slow to change; if the label is the catalyst needed for us to be more accepting of those different than us, so be it.

The typical reaction from a non-ND person to seeing [non-disruptive] autistic behaviors is one of fear or light disgust; however, give that same person a box to put those behaviors in and they understand how to look past them, and see you as a human. That's my experience, anyway. The loudest champions of autism often have a different perspective, one more based around identity; I see issues with that for the same reasons you describe, but nonetheless the label as a whole still carries utility on a societal level too.

I have asthma. The last time I had an asthma attack that was severe enough that it could have become fatal was when I was 8 at my friend's house with a few cats(*).

But, everyone gets short of breath some times. Everyone wakes up with the feeling of a congested chest occasionally. Everybody is limited in the exercises they can do by their lung capacity and exercise tolerance.

But because after working very diligently, by your logic, I don't have asthma. Because I can run, and rock climb, and do all the life stuff that I wanna do.

Except that logic is fucking stupid! Because when I got covid a few years back, I was using my rescue inhaler constantly because I could feel my lungs starting to close up, felt just like the asthma attacks I would get when I was younger. But because I learned to use the techniques and habits I built up when growing up, and I made sure it never progressed far enough towards an attack that needed medical intervention. I don't have asthma, right? I should have thrown away my inhaler years ago because I was never using it?

The culture of treating mental health by different rules, from outwardly physical health, is fucking stupid, and I can't wait for that meme to die!

And it's especially egregious when people use that meme to then weaponize it to exclude people from the groups with shared experiences, weaknesses, skills, and needs.

If you really feel the need to be exclusive, and tell other people that their experience is invalid, and demand that they preform their rock bottom for you, before you'll believe them. Might I suggest instead of telling other people that the way they describe their life is wrong, instead try adding the prefix subclinical. As in my asthma (through work and effort), is subclinical.

E.g. instead of being an asshole who says "that doesn't count as austism" you can say "most people who claim to be autistic are lucky subclinical". Then you still get to invalidate the experiences of others, But you do so in a way that's slightly less hostile and gaslighting.

(*): Does the time I was sick count as an attack? Had I ignored those symptoms, would it have gotten worse, would I have needed to visit the hospital? Would you still try to tell me that this is different because I was also sick, so everything else doesn't matter?

Fellow asthmatic here:

>I should have thrown away my inhaler years ago because I was never using it?

Inhalers expire after a year, so yes, you should have, and you should have gotten a new one. I only learned this after getting a fresh one at the start of COVID because I hadn't had one in several years. Pretty sure growing up I had the same inhaler for like 8 years, so obviously it still works OK after a year, just relaying what my doctor told me 5 years ago.

This is good advice!

Thankfully the expiration on mine was still good when I needed it. I try to keep mine refreshed every few years or so. It kinda feels bad throwing a barely used one away, but I never regret that when I actually pull it out to use it

> And it's especially egregious when people use that meme to then weaponize it to exclude people from the groups with shared experiences, weaknesses, skills, and needs.

> If you really feel the need to be exclusive, and tell other people that their experience is invalid, and demand that they preform their rock bottom for you, before you'll believe them. Might I suggest instead of telling other people that the way they describe their life is wrong, instead try adding the prefix subclinical. As in my asthma (through work and effort), is subclinical.

The fact that people have started applying social-justice-y terminology ("gatekeeping," "weaponize," "shared experiences," etc) to medical diagnosis is a clear sign we've gone too far. "You can't question my diagnosis because it's part of my identity! Stop gatekeeping me!"

Please. "Austism" is not a settled category and it's okay to argue about boundaries. The irony here is that autistic as an adjective means "unfeeling" e.g. "He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings". When sorting out the definition of autism (and similar conditions), we should be a little more autistic.

> it's okay to argue about boundaries

Yes, if you have something to add - something more substantive than just a snotty dismissal of the autistic experience rooted in the superficial observation that everyone occasionally experiences the "same" things.

> The irony here is that autistic as an adjective means "unfeeling"

The real irony here is your insistence that you have something to add to this discussion while leading with a decades-old myth that people with autism don't feel emotions.

> The fact that people have started applying social-justice-y terminology ("gatekeeping," "weaponize," "shared experiences," etc) to medical diagnosis is a clear sign we've gone too far. "You can't question my diagnosis because it's part of my identity! Stop gatekeeping me!"

But at least you've found a way you can feel superior to both groups right?

It's not social justice, it's just basic fairness. I've never been called weak or out of shape when I couldn't keep up with my friends when running. People are happy to adjust their expectations when I share that I have asthma, so it's harder than it might look. But I have been called lazy because I was unable to start on a task because I didn't have enough dopamine. Tell someone you have ADHD and many will suggest just making a list, or ask, "have you tried eating gluten free?" Before going on to explain they think in's over diagnosed. Please, tell me my asthma is over diagnosed, or my conversation and treatment plan with wy physician is inappropriate?

It's stupid that we blame people for admitting that things are harder than they expect. And telling someone they "don't seem autistic" or "don't look like you have asthma" are equally fucked up, but as a perfect case example, this thread. So many people are gladly willing to minimize and discount someone's description about mental health, but not lung health.

That is all I'm objecting to.

> Please. "Austism" is not a settled category and it's okay to argue about boundaries. The irony here is that autistic as an adjective means "unfeeling" e.g. "He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings". When sorting out the definition of autism (and similar conditions), we should be a little more autistic.

There's a bit of room between what I'm suggesting, and what you're replying to. I'm actually thinking we should be a little bit less autistic, because clinging too tightly to the literal written definition of individual words, limits the flexibility required for reasonable communication.

What I said was; it's inappropriate for anyone to tell somebody else that the way that they describe their experience is wrong.

but what I believe you're objecting to is; anybody can be autistic if they want to.

Which is not what I said.

the two phrases "I have very mild case of autism" and " I identify with a lot of the symptomology of autism and find that it's community and its skills and techniques to be very effective and beneficial in my life" should be treated as equivalent phrases. if you tell somebody that they're wrong to say either you are the asshole. You are rejecting their description of their life. You may disagree if they qualify for a medical diagnosis of autism. But unless someone claims that, your just arguing against a straw man that you created. (rhetorical you)

> The fact that people have started applying social-justice-y terminology ("gatekeeping," "weaponize," "shared experiences," etc) to medical diagnosis is a clear sign we've gone too far.

Standing up for people that you see being mistreated, insulted, or disrespected isn't "social-justice-y" it's basic human dignity and compassion.

The way you choose to disagree shows how much respect you have for other people. I don't agree with you is very different from, you're wrong to think that or say that. Every single person should object when they see someone punching down.

Completely agree. On the autism spectrum, I'm almost certainly very low. But going through the simulator felt like... yeah this all sucks but is very much in the realm of things that I experience and feel on any given day. It didn't feel enlightening, it felt deeply familiar.

It's definitely the case that some people have a much larger magnitude of experience or persistence of experience. And for some, it's at levels that do make functioning in society quite difficult or impossible.

And yet, I think the point you are quite rightly making is that many people who are decidedly low on the spectrum are now adopting the identity of autism as a way to explain why life is hard.

I don't know why people feel inclined to adopt the label. I don't care that they do, they can call themselves whatever they want. But I do wonder if there are more productive ways of perceiving yourself, if you are indeed very much capable of functioning in society.

Is this confirmation bias?

Do you think Autistics are a small group so you're finding a way to argue that?

Why do you care if a person you think has minor struggles labels themselves autistic?