A few days ago, I found myself reading a showbiz article about a celebrity who had recently been diagnosed as autistic. She isn’t hugely famous, and I wasn’t massively interested in the fact that she had been papped looking “trim” in yoga sweatpants. Nevertheless, out of loyalty to all things autie I ploughed through the article and gamely on into the comments section. Amongst the sadly usual mix of complete denial that this person is autistic “because she doesn’t look it” and various “handy hints and tips” for curing autism, was a comment from a lady who described herself as “slightly autistic”. This immediately got me thinking: can one actually be “slightly autistic”? Is “slight autism” a thing?
Before I even begin expounding my own theories on this, I should point out that your opinion may be massively dependent upon whether you are actually autistic or not. Nowhere is the schism between autism and allism more deftly shown than when a neurotypical person blithely says “well, we’re all a bit autistic, aren’t we?” Now, I personally would answer “erm, actually we aren’t,” through gritted teeth, and plenty of other autistic people I know would heartily do the same. “They’re a bit autistic, aren’t they?” A girl from university days used to say, with a twinkle in her eye, about a socially awkward group of mutual acquaintances. Even before my diagnosis, something about her blithely patronising tone used to make my blood boil. So, lets focus on my musings as an autistic person, rather than the musings of those who aren’t.
My impulse answer to “can someone legitimately be slightly autistic?” would be a no. Firstly, this is because of what autism is, which is a major neurological difference. I always try to bring autism back to that neurology when trying to explain something about it to other people, even if it bemuses and bewilders them. However you describe your autism, however the psychiatric system or wider culture you are in describes it, the nuts and bolts of autism are the fact that your brain works differently to other people’s. We still have our individual tastes and preferences, just like neurotypical people, but the mechanics of what we do and why are different. Either your brain works that way or it doesn’t. Therefore, however we express our autism doesn’t make it more or less.
If we look at the markers for what would make a person “more” or “less” autistic, are they anything to do with autism? Sure, I am verbal most of the time, I can mask my repetitive behaviour and can live independently. But I would argue that this doesn’t make me less autistic. I still have those repetitive thoughts and behaviours, struggle with daily activities and am selectively mute. But read any comments section in any newspaper under any article about autism, and watch the self-righteous indignation flow from people who think that us late diagnosed auties who have managed (often barely) to cope into adulthood bear no resemblance to “properly autistic” people, meaning those who can’t care for themselves, express themselves verbally, or do anything other than be wholly subsumed by their autism. If we diagnosed autism on the criteria of being unable to function without care and being unable to speak, then many, many people would have an autism diagnosis who weren’t autistic at all. As much as some autistic people need more help than others, an autism diagnosis is centred around how your brain works, not how much help you need. An autistic person who needs constant care is just that. I am an autistic person who doesn’t need constant care – but I am still autistic.
But am I as autistic? Autism is well known for being a spectrum. When I was diagnosed, I was told that I was autistic, and there were no other labels attached to me. Had I been diagnosed ten years ago, I wouldn’t have even been called autistic, I would have been told that I had Asperger’s. High and low functioning autism were talked about for a long time by professionals, although those terms are not popular within the autistic community itself. Now, people are beginning to talk about mild and profound autism, or autistics with high and low support needs. There does seem to be a penchant for sub-categorising autism, and this in turn seems to lend weight to the opinion that some people are more autistic than others.
I remember being relieved at being told that I was “just” autistic: no qualifications, no other names or euphemisms. I was autistic, just like everybody else with autism, whether they were like me on the surface or not. To me, just having a diagnosis of autism, keeping it as a single category, creates a cohesive community and forced very different people from all walks of life and all parts of the world to remember that we had something in common: autism. Dividing autism up can seem like drawing lines in the sand, particularly as the understanding of autism as a spectrum is increasingly applied to individuals as well as autism as a whole. I would have Asperger’s, or be “high functioning” under those further categories. But what about those days when I am non-verbal and in the middle of a shutdown, when I can barely move? If someone can be slightly autistic, are they slightly autistic all the time, or does their autism increase?
Being verbal most of the time means that I have a voice, and I use it to describe my experiences of being autistic. But I am very aware that there are other autistic people whose voices never get heard. If I was “slightly autistic”, these unheard voices would probably be “very autistic” by comparison. For someone who is in care with no possibility of ever living alone, who cannot speak and experiences constant meltdowns where they lose control of their own body, would I seem only “slightly autistic” to them? Very possibly. Perhaps some of them would consider it ludicrous that I was labelled autistic at all. Given that neuroscience is a young science, and there is so much we still don’t know about autism, is it possible that there are neurological and neurochemical differences within the spectrum that could justify sub-categorisation? Maybe. But, at the moment, people with autism have neurological similarities regardless of how their autism presents itself.
Ultimately, concerning yourself with “how” autistic you are or someone else is takes a practical view of diagnosis. If you feel that a person shouldn’t just be autistic, that there should be some extra semantic marker that denote what a person needs, how they function, how much help they should get, then you are probably looking at diagnosis as something primarily practical. Of course, autistic people should have their needs assessed and provided for, but, like it or not, diagnosis also exists for diagnosis’ sake. Why can’t we just tell people that we are autistic without having to qualify how much or how little, especially as our needs differ so greatly from person to person, and within people too?
Maybe one day in the future, there will be some sort of semantic evolution that allows us to qualify a diagnosis of autism. It will take into account the myriad of individual differences, and do it in a way that is not offensive to any sector of the autistic community. Maybe we just haven’t found the right words. But until that day, I am going to tell people that I am autistic and leave it at that. I don’t think that I need to qualify how much or how little.
