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A question on how you disclose your diagnosis to people

Oakling

One thing I’m trying to get to grips with is notifying people of my diagnosis where I feel it is helpful to either party. My diagnosis is a fairly recent one, but having gone 30 years without the words to describe what I’d been experiencing, I’m quite keen to talk to people about it. I feel that by recognising my diagnosis and notifying others of it, it allows me to be more forgiving of myself when I find things tough and hopefully gives people a heads up where extra patience might be needed.

One of the things I was guilty of early on was over sharing, but now I wonder if I’m too vague when telling people (I’m working on the basis of if they are interested, they’ll ask questions). 

So I suppose my question is this, if you tell people, how do you go about disclosing a diagnosis?

I’d be interested in reading your responses. 

Thanks

  • i dont think i would, i never tell anyone anything anyway, id likely consider it private and keep it to myself. just like you wouldnt go telling everyone you have a anal check up and a doctors gonna shove his finger up your bum lol

  • in reply to Peter

    I admire your daring outfit choice!

    But I definitely take on your point about not making a huge deal out of things. My close family and friends already know me, so it just adds to their understanding of me. The question that is left is then to do with people I’m less close to, so that’s where the idea of being low key or somewhat selective potentially comes in.

  • in reply to Autimator

    Thanks for this.

    I certainly find myself asking if telling someone is needed. I did tell a few people that probably didn’t really need to know initially, but perhaps that’s a learning experience. I’m a little more selective now, but I also don’t want it to become something I worry too much about. 

  • in reply to Don

    Thanks for your response.

    Some of the questions that I’ve been asking myself around disclosure recently are things like:

    How much do I want this person to know about my assessment?

    What do I think there is to gain from them knowing? E.g. Will it further our friendship/ understanding of one another?

    Is it important for them to know or is it more for myself? 

    But as I said before, this is all pretty new in terms of conversation so I don’t know how useful any of this is. 

    I guess it’s just a bit of a learning curve initially.

  • Personally I like to walk into the room wearing a sexy chorus girl outfit with huge tail feathers on the back with the words "I'm autistic" printed on them. Serious I generally play it down unless I think it might cause an issue the person I'm telling may have to deal with later. And even then I play it down somewhat.

  • You don't need to tell anyone, unless you feel it might help explain yourself.  There are risks to being open about it, but can be benefits.  If you naturally want to tell people then you might blurt it out anyway.   

  • Great question and l am in a similar place to you with a very recent diagnosis. Unfortunately l can’t answer it in any capacity as l’ve been thinking about how to reveal this to friends. Any feed back would be very welcome.