I don't know how to answer "what's it like". I always feel misunderstood. I could ask you "what's it like to not be autistic (or have autism)", but I won't expect you to have an answer to that either. Please don't think I am trying to dismiss your question, this is something I spent a lot of time thinking about. I know there are some wonderful videos on youtube on this subject. Don't ignore the professional view though, we are only on the autism spectrum because we posses the traits that define it.

As for the terminology, *I* think referring to a single person as "a person with autism" is needlessly verbose. Some people prefer "autistic" as it is part of their identity, some people don't, some people think that autistic is an insult, some people think that person with autism implies that it isn't really part of them like "a person with cancer".