Hi, I'm Nicole, and I'm autistic, and I'm also an autistic advocate. And for those who aren't familiar with me, I have a diagnosis of autism level 1 for both of the categories, so social communication and restrictive repetitive behaviors.

And yesterday, I posted a comment somewhere where I referred to myself as level 1 autistic, and someone replied saying that a lot of autistic people have a huge issue with the levels, and then made it seem like the reason I refer to myself as level 1 is so that I can make myself seem or feel better than other autistic people.

And I want to take a few minutes to talk about this, because I personally feel that the level designations are extremely important.

So I'm going to start with this. My version of autism makes it so that when I walk down the street, I look just like everyone else. You wouldn't know that I'm autistic just by looking at me.

Now, I have said this on my social media before, and then, of course, there are people coming and saying, Oh, I can tell you're autistic. Okay, so the people who are very familiar with high masking, level 1 autism, those people probably can tell, but the average person walking down the street, seeing me cross their path, would not be able to tell I'm autistic.

In fact, a lot of people that I've told have been shocked when I tell them I'm autistic, and some people, not very well-intentioned people, even question whether or not I am, in fact, autistic.

The thing is that my version of autism can be masked. My version of autism allows me to move through the world in a way where I can hide it. You know, not always. I have a harder time masking in some situations than others, but I can mask my autism.

Now here's the thing. There are people that have much higher support needs than I do that cannot mask, and their lives are, in fact, much more challenging than mine is. And they require a ton more support than I do.

That's what the levels mean. And who am I to minimize that and act like there is no difference?

The saying, if you meet one autistic person, you've met one autistic person, or the concept of every autistic person is different, I think misses the entire point of autism awareness and getting people to really truly understand what autism is.

Because yes, every autistic person is different. However, within autism, there are different levels of needs.

And my level of needs, by definition, from my diagnosis, is that I have needs that require support, but not as much as someone who is a level 2 person who requires substantial support, and not as much as a person who has a level 3 designation who requires very substantial support.

These are extreme differences in the way we exist in the world.

And I find it extremely frustrating when other level 1 autistic people come into online autism awareness spaces and try to remove that very important distinction. We are not the same.

We might have the same underlying brain wiring that makes us have similar reasons for our struggles, but the level in which we need help and assistance is significantly different.

And if we try to remove the ability for us to even talk about that, we are hurting the people who need the substantial and very substantial support.

So I personally feel that it is extremely important for those designations to exist.

And there are people who claim that the levels have to do with functioning. Now, once upon a time, that may have been the case, but it's not now.

This is not about a person's ability to function in the world from a utilitarian perspective, from the perspective of, can they contribute to the workforce? Can they be a productive member of society to a certain standard?

We're not talking about that.

We're talking about a person needing support in order to exist in the world. Period. End of story.

It isn't about how much they "contribute" to the world. It's about their ability to exist.

So when I refer to myself as level one autistic, I'm not trying to make myself better than anyone else. What I'm saying is that there is, in fact, a difference in the support that I need versus the support someone who's level two needs versus the support someone who's a level 3 needs, that's number one.

And number two, the way we show up in the world is different.

I can exist in the world and mask and appear "normal." I'm able to hide my autism. But someone who's a level 3 autistic person usually can't. There might be some who can, usually can't. It's usually very evident.

So us acting like we're all the same, we all have the same diagnosis, let's just remove the levels, erases the people who have substantially more needs and show up visibly autistic... from the equation of autism awareness.

And I have a big problem with that.

So, I believe we need autism awareness within each of these levels.

I believe that as a level 1 autistic person, I can provide insight into the level 1 autistic experience. And that's what I do.

I don't usually talk about the level 2 or level 3 autistic experience because I just don't have personal insight into that.

I try to amplify voices of people who have higher support needs when I can. When I see content on social media, I try to amplify that content.

But I don't speak about it on a regular basis because it's hard for me to really explain it from the internal experience.

But I do believe this is a very important aspect of autism awareness.

And I personally find it extremely troubling that there are so many level one autistic people that want to erase the ability for the world at large, for people in general, to understand that there are different needs within the autism spectrum.

That's a problem.

So, I will continue to refer to myself as level one autistic, and I will continue to talk about the internal experience of someone who has level one autism.

And I will continue to try and amplify level two and level three autistic voices wherever I see them.

And I hope that this video helped explain and clarify why we need this type of language in order for people to understand autism, in order for non-autistic people to understand autism, and therefore be able to accept autism.

You cannot reach acceptance without first reaching an understanding of it and awareness of it. Then you move to acceptance.

Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox.

Feel free to comment below and let me know what you think. I suspect there will be some loud voices in the comments telling me how wrong I am, but I sincerely hope that I did a decent job articulating why I personally feel this way.