How public are you about your Autism?

verity

Since you have become aware of you Autism, how willing are you to mention this to others? Who do you mention it to? Close family, extended family, close friends, general friends, explorers, General Practice doctors, specialist clinicians, civil servants, police, etc?

Do you mention it causally or under specific circumstances?

How has this changed over time? Are you more or less like to mention it?

What reasons do you attribute to these answers, and how strongly do you feel about it?

Hylian

I've told my friends about it. I don't hide my autism, but I try to not mention it IRL unless I really get to know someone, or have to disclose it for some reason. That's partly due to the fact that I don't have a diagnosis yet and don't want to have to explain that.

Amity

verity said:

How willing are you to mention this to others?

 

Who do you mention it to? Close family, extended family, close friends, general friends, explorers, General Practice doctors, specialist clinicians, civil servants, police, etc?

Do you mention it causally or under specific circumstances?

How has this changed over time? Are you more or less like to mention it?

What reasons do you attribute to these answers, and how strongly do you feel about it?

Im quite reluctant to mention my ASD, to anyone really.

Close family, friends, therapists  and General Practitioners.

I only mention Autism under specific circumstances, like in a medical situation, or if the family member is generally trustworthy and it would help our relationship.

As time has passed I'm more comfortable mentioning it, though Im not sure that means I am more likely to communicate about being Autistic.

Reasons... late diagnosis meant that I had been labelled and categorised by lay people in particular.

I guess that process taught me about human nature and bias, what seems to be essentially discrimination towards people deemed as "other".

It feels as though this bias will exist among the majority of people regardless of the knowledge about me being Autistic.

Its not just lay people either, a GP told me that my private diagnosis was not likely to be accurate and that if I provided her with a copy she would shred it after reading, as this would be safer than keeping it on file.

Other GPs have responded with an 'oh thats interesting, I wouldn't have thought you were'  and never mentioned it again.

When I told a  counsellor about my Aspergers diagnosis he cautioned me about the opportunists that exist in private assessment, I shared the report anyway, hoping it would help him understand me better, but he responded to reading it by telling me about all the evidence he had found in the report to support his position...

I could go on.

Bender

Only on a need-to-know basis, so it's close family and a few friends. I never made any effort to "hide" it, but if it's not relevant in some way to the relationship or a specific situation, I see no reason to mention it.