> It drives me crazy when people who are functional members of society run around laughing about how they are "autistic".
A lot of us low-support-needs autistic people are functional members of society right up until we aren't (i.e., until we've been masking for too long while dealing with sensory stressors and One More Little Thing pushes us into the "screeching meltdown" or renders us temporarily nonverbal). And a lot of us have "normal" lives only in as much as you only see the normal parts.
It's kind of fair to divide things up by support level, but you then also have to understand that there are a lot of different support needs people have and they can look very different at the same "level".
A lot of us low-support-needs autistic people are functional members of society right up until we aren't (i.e., until we've been masking for too long while dealing with sensory stressors and One More Little Thing pushes us into the "screeching meltdown" or renders us temporarily nonverbal). And a lot of us have "normal" lives only in as much as you only see the normal parts.
It's kind of fair to divide things up by support level, but you then also have to understand that there are a lot of different support needs people have and they can look very different at the same "level".