Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I told a friend this afternoon about my recent revelation of being autistic. I've known her for years, and I thought she'd be supportive, but she wasn't at all. She questioned why I'd want to have a label. And she also said "well we are all on the spectrum to a degree". I felt she was being distant, and almost dismissive. I tried to explain how this revelation has been positive and is very freeing for me. Our phone conversation has upset me. And I wonder if it's time to move on from this friendship. This isn't the first time she upset me in recent months.
Has anyone else had this experience? I'd like to hear your views.
I don’t really tell many people, I’ve had the same response as you. The “we’re all a little bit autistic” thing is neurotypical people confusing human traits with autistic traits. All of us can experience a dislike of certain situations, textures or maybe something like noise. On their own they are just human traits, neurotypical people most probably don’t feel the severity of them in the way we can do. Some people think we are embarrassed when we tell them about our autism, some just have no understanding of autism and some think autistic people are only those with profound needs. Unfortunately along the way you will lose some people, I don’t take it personally, I just think I’m most probably better off without them. One thing a lot of autistic people do like is accuracy, someone making a generalised statement about autism does tend to annoy or invalidate us.This short video explains it better than I can and is obviously only one view of “ we’re all a little bit autistic “
youtube.com/.../Lrmy1-oQMVM