Published on 12, July, 2020
Any one else who was diagnosed later in life feel embarrassed by having an ASD label? When I first found out I guess I was relieved. Then after telling a few acquaintances and getting various responses I decided to stop telling anyone for a while. Where as now it seems that everyone and his (her or whatever) wife are either diagnosed or looking to get diagnosed. So now I feel like if ever I share that I am ASD people will think oh, another one *rolleyes*. I guess part of it is also how people perceive autism too, as an example stimming. I only have very mild stims that I wouldn’t ever do in front of anyone else because of the embarrassment. But I wouldn’t want anyone to think I full on stim as shown in the recent Chris Packham episodes. It’s as if I feel like being autistic makes me less of a person.
This post is purely for discussion and not meant to offend anyone (which seems pretty easy to do these days).
No, I feel no embarrassment at being labelled autistic. Quite the opposite, before I realised I was autistic, and was subsequently diagnosed, I was hugely embarrassed by my inability to cope with the quirks, difficulties and limitations I had. I thought that other people had similar difficulties to me and I was just a very weak person in not being as able to deal with them as seamlessly as they apparently did. I now know that most other people do not have the problems I have, and they sail through all manner of social situations with no conscious effort whatsoever.
Rather than being a weak person, I am a remarkably strong autistic person. To the best of my abilities, I deal with problems on an everyday basis that would crush most neurotypicals, if they were to experience them the way I do.
Yes, people would regard us very differently if they understood the hurdles we deal with every day