PersonFirstLanguage

I do a lot of advocacy work and I'm also on the schizophrenia spectrum. One of the things the organizations I work with and myself fight for is person-first language, meaning "she has schizophrenia" instead of "she's schizophrenic." I see myself as so much more than my disorder, it's just a small part of me, not my identity. I'm a person, not an illness. But I've come across some people who do define themselves as their disorder (schizophrenic/depressive/etc ) . For those of you who do, why? Absolutely no judgement, I just want to understand the other point of view.

Like the Deaf community, the majority of Autistic adults prefer #IdentityFirstLanguage. Autism cannot be removed from who I am and have the same person standing there, all my expo of the world, sensory and social, were processed by my Autistic brain to build the person I am today.

It is likely we will have computer chips that people with cognitive disabilities may choose to use to add more memory of processing ability in the next few decades.  But assisting them in information acquisition would not involve a fundamental change in personality.

I am not willing to change who I am simply to fit in with Neurotypical people who largely obsess about topics that I usually find uninteresting, at best.
#PersonFirstLanguage

As I don't care for anything icky, I removed it from the appellation.
#PersonFirstLanguage #labeling #branding#naming #self-identification

I am a parent and I say my son is Autistic. Many have corrected me. But I have notice #actuallyautistic say it the way I do. Personally, I think saying person with autism makes it sound like it is a disease and I look at it as my son's personality trait.il Also, I cannot ask his opinion because he has not yet found his voice (ASL/IPad/Words). Thoughts? #ASD #Autism