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Positives and negstives of disclosing.. can anyone share their reasons for and against being open about your diagnosis?

Ellie1984

I know I ultimately need to make this decision for myself but I just can't make my mind up. I'm feeling very alone because I haven't told anyone my diagnosis but at the same time i'm really worried about people's reactions so it might be easier to just keep it to myself. I'm obsessing over disclosing in work and who to tell. I work in education so a field in which people should be fairly well informed about autism. Part of me feels it could help to explain things I struggle with but part of me worries it would change things /peoples view of me and its easier just to keep things as they are. I work in a supportive workplace and my boss has helped me a lot in the past so my hestance around it isn't due to an unhelpful or unsupportive work environment. Just not sure if it's necessary to disclose. 

Parents

  • I can only really repeat what others have said, in the past I have steered a conversation into something like an autism program I’ve watched. I then see how people react. I would imagine an education environment would be quite supportive, normally there would be someone who works with the neurodivergent pupils, it might be worth having a chat with them, you obviously may not work in that sort of environment. 

    Don’t expect too much from family, my own mother still can’t say the words autistic or autism, the sentence rarely used is, “with what you have.” Family think they know you, they only really know what you’re allowed them to see, that’s not usually much.
    I haven’t really told many people as I work alone, I’ve got to the age where I don’t really care what others think. You will lose some people along the way, I then think they weren’t worth having.

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  • I can only really repeat what others have said, in the past I have steered a conversation into something like an autism program I’ve watched. I then see how people react. I would imagine an education environment would be quite supportive, normally there would be someone who works with the neurodivergent pupils, it might be worth having a chat with them, you obviously may not work in that sort of environment. 

    Don’t expect too much from family, my own mother still can’t say the words autistic or autism, the sentence rarely used is, “with what you have.” Family think they know you, they only really know what you’re allowed them to see, that’s not usually much.
    I haven’t really told many people as I work alone, I’ve got to the age where I don’t really care what others think. You will lose some people along the way, I then think they weren’t worth having.

Children
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