Yes, I don't find the "functioning' label to be helpful in my life. My autism helps make me very good at some things and very bad at others. I don't talk about my autism a lot, but I try to talk about it when it's relevant, like it is now because I just read your article.

It's weird, because I write for a living, and I apparently do it fairly well sometimes, and people I've never met tell me they figure I can't be autistic or if I am I must be very "high functioning."

I don't even know how to answer that, because it's not how anything works. People who are actually close to me know I'm autistic. Or at least when I tell them, they're not surprised.

My closest friends know I experience challenges in life and that sometimes I feel very frustrated. (And sometimes I feel very joyful.) Those friends, both autistic and neurotypical, remain my friends because they don't heap me with expectations. They're happy to let me be me... however functioning that is.