My parents are dead, and I always felt some shame and stigma because they felt it. In the 60's they might have been blamed too.
There is plenty of awareness about the A word in the country I live in, as I have waited for buses under placards drawing attention to it? 'The woman on the bus next to you may be autistic' etc.
I don't know how my GP would react if I raised it. She is more worried about my cough, and seems more interested in getting me to see a mammographer and getting a tube up a certain sunless regionin the appropriate out patient's to make sure there is no cancer. And I don't feel brave enough to do that even!
I saw my medical notes in the UK once by chance - glimpses of them. I was tentatively diagnosed as 'prepsychotic.' Lovely! And my mother did later say the shrink I was sent to was reminded that I lacked the instinctive social awareness most kids have. She said I spoke grammatically correct sentences, then as a toddler, regressed. That was put down to my jealousy over the birth of my brother. I just remember feeling expected to grow into being a child too quickly.
Socially I worry about not being accepted, and that getting too easily upset by certain things means I get seen as terminally flawed. Being foreign can be something to hide behind, but can also exacerbate the idea that here is a weirdo that might start going off the deep end.
Still don't know if or how it could help, and whether it wouldn't just mean being stigmatised of it ends up on my GP:s notes.
