Published on 12, July, 2020
I got my aspergers diagnosis in January this year aged 38. I have had the same group of girl friends since I was 18 (from university) and I feel ready to tell them. Partly to help to explain some of my behaviour over the years and partly as a "thanks" for sticking around and putting up with me!
I think they will be surprised. At my assessment /diagnosis the psychologist said I was one of the best 'maskers' he'd ever seen.
Up until now I've only told my family (including inlaws) and one work colleague who is probably my closest friend since we spend so much time together. They were all surprised. My husband is the only person who wasnt at all surprised!
Sometimes I think they are only surprised because I don't look or behave (outwardly) like what they perceive as a "typical" autistic person!
Don't think I can face doing it in person (there's 8 of us) so I'm going to post it in a private group we have.
Up until now I've only told my family and my work colleague who is probably my closest friend since we spend so much time together.
Can anybody give me any advice or share their experience?
Any help much appreciated
STOP!!!
This revelation only exists in your mind. This is big news for you but your friends have known and completely accepted you your whole life so dropping this on them might upset the dynamic.
They are likely to re-evaluate you based on you telling them - they will possibly picture you as Rain Man and they might suddenly see you as faulty or even untrustworthy.
Learn more about yourself and your autism and how it actually affects you so in future, if the opportunity comes up, casually mention it.
The standard response is "Everyone is a bit autistic" or "you don't look autistic" so you need to have thought out your measured response to that.
For example, in my case, my Aspergers manifests itself mostly in not being able to deal with unpredictability or stress - at all - and it makes my personality lumpy if I;m under pressure - but way, way more than a normal person.
How does your autism affect you? How could you explain it to a normal person in a way they would 'get it'?
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I've already had both of these responses fro my family. Along with "you are high functioning, so that means u must be able to cope really well, so you must only be a wee bit autistic" and my dad asked me what medication I needed to take!
Since I began my journey to my diagnosis (over a year ago) I've spent a lot of time learning about autism, and particularly which parts of my life I struggle with. I had to do this to aid myself with my assessment. I've spent lots of time over the last year being quite introspective (probably really for the first time ever)
For myself, it's unexpected change that is particularly unsettling. I'm not great when my routine changes. It causes anxiety and sometimes meltdowns. I don't love social situations but realise that sometimes they are an important part of life. I've become excellent at masking so pass (most days) as NT but it can, at times, be very draining. The recuperation time needed is what people don't see/realise.
I'm very high functioning too - I mask very well in the right environment - and like you, it's unpredictability / changes that cause issues.
I need time to reprocess what the change means before I can comfortably move forward - and if I'm forced to go forward, I can't cope. That unpredictability also includes being lied to - that person becomes unpredictable so I can't interface to them.
I'd think you'd be better off mentioning it in passing - something like "The gp says I have all the signs of being autistic - what do you think?" You might be surprised - most of my friends said it made sense and just accepted it.
If I'm perfectly honest only my husband really knows the 'real me'... Not even my family
Yeah - they can't grasp just how much the issues affect us - and we tend to be on best performance while socialising so they never get to see the huge toll it takes and just how burned out we are afterwards. It's a scaling problem - things that are little bumps in the roads for them are enormous mountains for us - and the better we mask, the less they realise what's really going on.