In recent years, there have been conflict with identifying persons that are autistic. While I thought being autistic was once a clinical derogatory term, I have allowed myself to accept it for that and not see it as something that I carry with me instead of what I am.

There has been much debate and definition across many camps within the autistic community over the past few years. I personally have called myself in later years as being autistic. However, for many years, I did not always see myself that way. Growing up, I had not related myself to being autistic mainly because I was not made aware of it being a spectrum disorder until I had in-home services at the age of thirteen.

When I was bestowed the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome sometime months later after seeing one of the experts behind that diagnosis, I had often related myself to that or autism spectrum disorder rather than autistic, because I did not feel as the same as the profound community at the time.

Eventually with the evolution of the DSM-V in 2013, Asperger’s became an outdated term. As such, I had related it in not being successful in me getting what I had needed because it meant that I had to fight harder to prove my challenges. It was not something that many were educated about and there was no uncomplicated way to prove that it was challenging for me, yet it was the reason why I was who I was, and it did not allow me to see myself in the way that other autistic people were.

Eventually, through the evolution of my platforms, I allowed myself to not only accept my own autism, but the fact that I was indeed autistic and that I too had challenges that considered me under an intellectual disability diagnosis. Despite my ability to articulate in the way that I do, there are many challenges that I bestow and as such I need supports for them, this also allowed me to embrace my disability as invisible as it is.

The unique thing about the way my parents saw me all along was that I was autistic. That was because they were fighting for supports that I could not see and eventually had to learn the hard way through trial and error. Allowing myself to understand and see that has made me see that there is value in what I needed to see in myself and who I really am.

The way that one sees autism is in the eyes of the beholder. There is no one way to view autism or being autistic, the way that you see it is up to you and there should be no judgment for that in the way that you choose to call it, but always respect the way that the person likes to identify their challenges. That is what matters most, is making them satisfied.