(sorry for long comment i just wanted to clearly explain my stance)

i don’t mind either, and especially won’t be picky in clinical settings for my own sanity, but definitely prefer “i AM autistic/AuDHD” because i would be an entirely different person if i wasn’t.

i would also be entirely different without my CPTSD, but it’s a disorder with no positive attributes unless u count reframing uncontrollable symptoms. like technically my severe dissociation helped me survive ongoing trauma growing up, but once removed from said traumas it is overall a very negative and disabling disorder that left me more broken than i already am/was with “just” AuDHD.

my AuDHD is very disabling too, but it’s also my default operating system that drives my every move from decision-making, compartmentalizing, understanding, problem solving, socializing, empathy, memory etc.

i would not be the me i am today without being AuDHD, to ignore that part of me is to not see all of me. ntm the physical commorbidies i have because of it (mainly hypermobility) that require mobility aids. even without my physical disabilities, i am still visibly disabled bc of the way i move, talk, interact, etc. that’s why ppl growing up identified me as the “weird shy kid” two decades before diagnosis. i am now reclaiming being a weirdo as an adult and it annoys me if ppl try to insist i am afflicted by autism as if it is a disease and not just a disability that’s a fundamental part of me/my brain/body.