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?
I'm sorry you had those negative reactions Ree.
I've only every told one person who I trusted, she immediately said 'you're definitely not autistic, I know because I've worked with autistic people'. She had worked in a care home for severely disabled people some years ago so I'm assuming she thinks autism = severely disabled. I haven't really spoken to her since. I was so shocked, she made me feel ashamed as if I had told a lie to get attention. I've not told anyone since and have decided that I'm not going to, it makes me very angry and sad that there is so much alleged 'awareness' now of autism but there is still so much prejudice and ignorance.
Actually, my family has similar view to autism. They see things as white or black. I didn't even tell them bec I'll get the same reaction "no way this is true, this is madness, you aren't severely disabled or disabled at all". I can't even trust them to be part of an assessment. My mom is the one who taught me how to mask tho..