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?
It's a massive thing in an autistic person's life to be diagnosed but we forget that for others, we are still just who we are to them so it might not be much of a big deal and/or they dont want to say the wrong thing and/or they cant believe it. If they are true friends, they like us for who we are anyway. It's often understood to ourselves, how we are affected, but to others they don't really have much of an idea unless they have the lived experience themselves and/or they only know of the stereotypes. I think a lot of the time people just don't know what to say. And in this day and age, we can't blame them.
I have had varying responses from friends, family, colleagues and professionals. I have also found, not upon "coming out" to a friend about being autistic, but another health matter which they didn't have any patience or understanding for, that those who don't want to care are not worth being friends with in the first place. Which is hard, because often friendships are very hard to come by and we cherish them a lot so it does really hurt when people behave the way that they do.
C'est la vie.