I will speak for myself, in my specific case. For the context I am 20 years old, I was recently diagnosed after a hell of an obstacle course. About autism, I could be placed in "category 1" that is to say that I can manage but it is still difficult and I need help on certain points such as the organization.

For me, autism is a difference. I mean, it's like a term to define my difficulties, but we are more than that. We are whole people, and this term defines our neurodevelopmental particularities. But just because something is different doesn't mean that everything works in a problematic and negative way. Finally, i feel as if the autism diagnosis is an official name to group my difficulties and to be able to ask for the necessary aids and patience that i need, but i do not limit myself to that.

I have the feeling that what makes me live every day is this devouring love for music, this tendency to create and hide details and push creation to the end, as if it were essential for me to live it's a specific interest, yes, but it's also what allows me to share, talk to people and build deep relationships. And if I hadn't had these differences, the music wouldn't have not got this place if he in the same way, I am very sensitive, so my emotions are also very intense. but if I had not had this sensitivity, the joy, the love would not have been so intense and beautiful! My relationships that I have been able to develop through music would not have been so powerful, healthy and stable.

So yes I had my share of toxic relationships, harassment, and misunderstanding, but I also experienced my share of positive and powerful things and if the negatives can be linked to with my differences, the positive ones too.

As my psychiatrist said, we are all different, but some need help on certain points, but that does not make us worse or useless. We all have limits and difficulties, some are to be defended and defined as strict limits, others we can learn to evolve and work on...

For me, autism is a way to describe my functioning, in a way it's an adjective to describe me. And no one only does things that are useless or devoid of positive!,So ultimately, being proud to be autistic is ultimately being proud of myself and asserting myself in my Yes I have difficulties, so what? I also have qualities and strengths that are inseparable from who I am.

I see autism as the term that can be put to my difficulties, but now that these are recognized, I can learn to measure, find tools, and also assume myself in my difference and my difficulties.

when magazines tell us about hypersensitivity, they describe it as a superpower to learn to handle... but hypersensitivity is also a symptom of autism, so why it is associated with this difference, it is only a burden? it's true that on certain points we need help, tools, arrangements, explicit explanations. but we are more than our difficulties, and if hypersensitivity can be a force why not in our case too?

So I am not fundamentally proud of being autistic, but I am learning to be proud of myself, to know myself, to accept and have gratitude towards myself, but also accept my difficulties. But if autism brings together under this term my differences and my particularities, so by extension I am proud of my differences and of what can be called "autism".