You Don’t Have To Call Me Darlin, Darlin

I was reading something on one of the forums in an online autism community recently, I don’t even remember which one now, and there was a really great discussion going on. With opinions being shared and respected, other points-of-view actually being considered, people disagreeing in a respectful way and offering rational, well thought-out arguments for their differing opinions. It was indeed a rare and beautiful thing to behold!

And then someone took offense to the term “autistic” being applied to people with autism and it was all downhill from there. It wasn’t the first time that I’ve heard that argument, said argument being that it should be person first, disability second. So the correct way of saying it would be a person with autism, not an autistic person. That autism shouldn’t define a person and that there is more to a person than just autism.

I can see the point there. And I agree that it has some validity…to a point. After all, if a person has cancer, we don’t refer to them as canceristic. (I keep wanting to type canceriffic there, which would give a completely different vibe, no?) But I think that for people like Jake who are profoundly affected by autism, it’s quite reasonable to refer to them as autistic. Autism affects every part of Jake’s life. I’ve been thinking about this for nearly a week now and I honestly cannot come up with a single aspect of his life that is not touched by autism. So I use “autistic” to describe Jake not as a disability, but as more of a personality trait. He’s autisteriffic!

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