Published on 12, July, 2020
I have came out to 4 people in my life about my autism so far. I have considered all of them as caring empathetic people. 2 of them were very nice, offering to listen to me since it's a lot of things in mind and lot of feelings. The other two had a reaction that surprised me. One said nothing but "thank you for sharing" and right after that asked me for a favor. It felt like this big reveal of mine ment nothing to them. The other one asked me "is it officially diagnosed?" And didn't respond to my answer only a day after writing a message "do you want to hang out?". I'm sad because of these reactions and I honestly don't know how to interpret them.. it felt like they don't care or understand how huge of a deal this is for me.. did anyone have similar experiences?
The freinds who understand autism have been great. The others have been sympathetic but have treated it as if it was bad news, which it isn't. In fact I wish I had seen your post before I told anyone. Perhaps better not to mention autism or autistic but just mention symptoms when you need to such as "I don't really like noisy and busy places".
Having said that, I have been surprised how many friends then tell me of close relatives who are autistic. I think the idea that only 2% of the population is autistic may be a severe underestimate.
I think the 2% isn't so accurate either based on my personal experience. I've known many people on the spectrum and heard of many more..