Person first language examples and why to use them
I understand that not everyone practices person first language, but I personally find it to be preferable to making my illness equivalent to my personhood.
Ah, ok. Well I personally consider my autism central to who I am as a person, and wrapped up in every aspect of who I am. Its why I dont want a cure, because it would make me a fundamentally different person. A cure would be murder. So I don’t like detaching autism from myself like that. But I see what you mean, I at least understand where you’re coming from now.
I guess for me I see a difference between someone who “identifies as as spoonie” (which seems silly) and someone who uses spoon theory to describe their situation (which I think any disabled person can do).
I can see where each of you is coming from. I suppose the lesson is that the person ought to be the one deciding how much their identity is bound up with their condition? For example, many people develop mental illness later in life, so it feels more like an acute affliction rather than something they were born with.
I just want to jump back in and clear up something: I am not talking about autism. I don’t honestly feel that the term spoonie as it originally was developed applies to people with autism/autistics, I always understood it to be a measure of physical illness. (If you want to use it for your neurodiversity you are welcome to do so, but then you’re not who I’m talking about when I talk about spoonies.)
I am in constant physical pain. There is no social model for my disability. I am in agony.
Also yes 100% to your second paragraph, exactly that.
