Stereotypes people thought you'd have (autism)

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When you told people that you had autism spectrum disorder, did they ask you if you had (insert stereotype about autism)? Did they treat you differently? Very few people know I have ASD (family, certain therapists), so no stereotypes here for me.

They've thought I hit myself/bang my head a lot/self-mutilate, am a masochist, and can't love (and the last one was also an aspie guy ).

That's an interesting stereotype. I wonder what people at my school would think if they knew I had HFA.

I can't talk about it, right now.

I told some friends and their mom at dinner once that i had AS
They immediatly thought "are you good with dates?!?!?!"
I replied not really.
they said "ohh but youve talked so much about specific days down to the date"
Well those days were a bit important in my life so remembering the date seemed adequate.
"no its just you're good with dates"

Girls on my softball team thought I had the memory like Rain Man and thought I could count cards. I told them "My memory isn't that good."


Yeah people have told me I am good with dates because I can remember when certain things happened in a certain month or year. I often correct my mother when she gets her dates or years wrong or ages. But that doesn't mean I am going to remember every single date like a savant.

I had the opposite happen, once.

I was working in a job where almost everyone was, somehow, a biology or psychology major. One guy, a pre-med student whose girlfriend's younger brother has Asperger's, responded by reciting the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria by rote. It made my day.

I haven't had a chance for any of this to really come up yet, although I have one friend halfway across the US who says that she'd be able to tell whether or not I have AS just by being around me for more than 30 minutes based on her one other friend who also has AS.

I'm coming at this backwards...

I've grown up as a extremely social awkward NT without friends (well apart from my NT wife!)
We have an ASD child and both my wife and I have no family history of autism in our entire respective extended families.

After doing online AS tests I have come to the logical conclusion that I am AS (my wife is fairly NT)as this seems I'm the likely genetic route for my daughter's ASD.

I now think back what stereotypes people had of me....just a few
- he mumbles - doesn't talk properly
- he seems to seek self stimulation, not interested in social interaction
- he's awfully shy!
- Doesn't he ever clean his room!
- doesn't he ever buy new clothes?
- Class roars with laughter as I wet myself giving a speech (in primary school)
- class roars as I wet myself because I'm too timid to ask teachers to go the toilet during class
- he becomes really hyper when he talks to girls!
- he scratches his feet and legs all the time and seems to enjoy it...
- he doesn't listen just talks without listening to others!
- that boy has a severe case of restless leg syndrome -
- he grabbed my pen without asking permission (one of my ex -high school teachers)
- funny how he likes to jump up and down while flapping his hands (pre-primary school)
- how come all the friends you ever had were loners or losers (a tricky question from my wife to be)

Of course this could just be a self-fulfilling prophecy......

I've had people telling me online they could tell I have AS just by how I was talking because I was saying things lot of people wouldn't normally say or me taking things literal or missing their humor or sarcasm or making "rude" comments.

So, we're all masochists now? Never heard that one before...

Anyway, when people find out I'm on the spectrum, they seem to either be surprised because their knowledge of autism consists purely of the movie Rain Man - and those are the people who come out with the stupid stereotypes - or they'll actually know about the autism spectrum, so they won't be surprised at all because they'd have seen my Aspie traits ages ago anyway.

I've been lucky, because I seem to know a fair few people in the latter group, so I haven't heard too many stupid stereotypes as a result.

I have heard someone in one of my classes say that someone in a younger year who's very smart academically "must be autistic", which I thought was quite good as far as stereotypes go TBH

If I may take a stab at explaining how this may have come about...

A surprisingly large number of people have masochistic tendencies. It's one of the most common fetishes in the world. But of course, no one wants to admit to having it, and many people assume (regardless of whether they have it or not) that it is an exceedingly rare, niche thing. So if you took a random sample of autistic people and came out with, say, 30% masochists, you might assume there's a strong tendency for autistics to be masochistic...But in truth, that's probably very similar to the percentages for the normal population.

Makes sense. In fact, I have a little theory about people and kink in general...

A lot of people think you have to be weird to be into kinky stuff, but that makes no sense (as you say, they just don't like admitting it's as common as it is). I think it's more likely that, if a "normal" person becomes fascinated by it, they'll refuse to look far into it, because they're used to being normal and conforming. They're scared of things which society sees as "weird".

Aspies, nerds, and and any other group which society sees as odd won't have this issue since they'll be used to being called weird. They've been outside the social norm for their whole lives anyway! So they'll be more likely to admit to it and have some fun with it.

Just a thought.

I've gotten that, too. I know a few AS people online from my mom's site and every single one of them told me they could tell I had it long before I mentioned anything concerning Autism. I've even had people that turned out to be teachers and things of the like that work with AS children ask if I was on the spectrum.

Funny, I'm still not completely convinced I have it.

So far, no negative stereotypes when I bring it up, though. Most people I know in real life seem to be too clueless to be aware of the negative stereotypes.

You two are probably over-thinking this. Lots of people only ever know of one or two Autistic children, and often times these children engage in self harm (whether intentionally or not). Most people tend to look at these 1-2 extreme examples (because they stand out to them) and apply it across the board. I've also found most people don't really understand what the word 'masochist' means. They think all self harming is masochistic in nature.

Thus... all Autistics must be masochists.

You see pretty much the same lumping when it comes to Tourettes. Those with the vocal tics stand out the most, so it's what people see/associate with the disorder.

I actually think that the stereotypes of autism are probably reinforced much more by the way autism is shown in the news and on awareness campaigns. The extreme cases they show are actually rather rare; or they will show extreme parts of typical cases with the implication that this is how this person always behaves.

For example, if you videotaped me during a shutdown, you would assume that I need someone with me at all times just for safety's sake. You might assume I can communicate only with difficulty or not at all, and will certainly think that I am not capable of complex thought. If you videotaped me during a shutdown, you'd get entirely the wrong impression of what my life is like when I'm not shut down.

But that's exactly what they do for many of these news articles. An autistic child happily building a lego castle and chattering about dinosaur names is not dramatic; an autistic child screaming in overload during a complex-looking therapy session is much more "newsworthy". But in fact it's the first scenario that's more common, both in terms of how autism expresses itself and in terms of how we tend to spend our days. And even when they have a "positive" portrayal of an autistic person, it's always flavored with the idea that this person's reasonably happy life is unusual, exceptional, and noteworthy.

Unfortunately, it's those extreme stereotypes, not the realistic view, that get viewers to stop channel-surfing, get people to donate money, and sell books, newspapers, and magazines. Until we can get the word out about what autism is really like, the media will take advantage of the public's ignorance.