Published on 12, July, 2020
When someone does this, what's the word?
I can't get it into my head.
Anyway, I was with a family member recently and she said these things to me:
There's no way your sister is autistic (I believe that my sister is).
She doesn't show a single trait.
I described my sister's sensitivities and communication difficulties.
The family member said that she'd worked for 5 years with autistic children (dismissing my own knowledge).
She said that children are frequently misdiagnosed with autism when it's just trauma etc.
I said to her that in older women it manifests quite differently from children.
She patronised me by explaining bias when completing the questionnaires - I said I knew about this but autistic people are very unlikely to complete the questionnaire with answers that were going to lead to a diagnosis, simply because that's how are brains are wired - to be honest and accurate but I think she was basically saying that this is what I had done when I completed the RAADS-R as part of my diagnostic assessment.
She said back to me that autism is a lifelong condition - you don't suddenly develop it!
I said I know that and tried to explain about masking without hitting her.
I had to shut up because I was getting very annoyed.
It was quite clear she was telling me I'm not autistic either.
This is very much playing on my mind.
Do you have similar experiences and/or do you get 'imposter syndrome'?
I think it could be called "ableist", it's to deny someone's struggles and suggest their disability "isn't" (that's a term I heard used in a psychoeducation session to describe a similar scenario)
It's a massive trigger to anyone "high functioning" to be told they're not autistic or don't appear to be, because that term in itself isn't accurate, it sounds like a superpower , but the higher we "function" (appear to cope) the more stress we are bottling up and enduring resulting in a burnout.
Yes! Exactly the “not looking autistic” is a result of hard and exhausting work of the person affected. High functioning autism affects the person experiencing it highly, while others around - mildly. But many people have no idea about it. No empathy either.