Autism camouflaging and late diagnosis

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My medical record; I can almost guarantee people who have it on their record get treated differently by people who have access to that record (doctors, employers etc.), more than people who don't, I don't want to give anyone a reason to talk down to me because it's intolerable (I've ranted about this in other threads). It's the same with other 'stigmatizing mental disorder' labels such as Borderline Personality Disorder; I've spoke to some of these people online and they all say therapists in the medical field talk to them like they cannot understand speech, and they regret getting a formal diagnosis.

When I was younger I just got this small card that basically said I had some "mild unspecified learning disability" that gave me extra time on tests, I basically got help without ever needing the label slapped on my record.

Don't want to derail the thread, I'm just saying. I did make another thread called "are there any upsides to getting diagnosed?" elsewhere in the forum, and many people weighed up the pros and cons of it. Some of the responses confirmed my original suspicion that the label could be harmful in the future.



Actually you do have a point here, males on the spectrum are easier to find than females who sort of just remain off the radar. I've also noticed most of the people on this forum who have been bullied tend to be male (?), although I could just be overgeneralizing.

None of the people who've talked down to me or spoken to me like I'm a child have known my diagnosis (well, excluding other people with autism - no idea what's up with that). The people who know I have ASD will speak to me like I'm my age because they know it's just social communication (etc.) that's impaired, not intellectual development, whereas some people who don't know will (I take it) assume I'm intellectually impaired. So the "difference" for me is good because they treat me as if there is no difference.

I see what you mean, but when an average NT person finds out you have Autism, they sort of automatically think you are intellectually impaired anyway, just because the NT population doesn't really know what Autism is.

I've yet to have that happen. Are the people who know not average (how, if that's the case?), am I beating the odds here, or what?

Well I guess I am overgeneralizing as usual... I guess I'm just going off online peer reports and videos.

For example, I saw this one video where this severely autistic guy with normal IQ was being taken to a group home, and the women in the video would not stop talking to him like he couldn't understand speech. I also recall another video where some other autistic guy was in class, and the teacher kept calling him out over him condition to try to humiliate him, then he got in on camera and she was fired. Other online peer reports seem to confirm that a lot of the NT population think we're, well, mentally disabled or something.

Also, when these same people have no idea that where on the spectrum, we're likely to be treat differently due to our "traits" like monotone speech, sensory processing issues etc. I can remember one time at the bus stop; I walked past this group of kids my age and they noticed I was squinting at the sunlight, then one of them said to another "I would let him past" in a condescending tone, as if I was some chump who couldn't navigate him way to the bus lol.

Ever considered that people are more likely to post about mistreatment than being treated normally? "Today nothing of interest happened" vs "today someone spoke to me like I was a child". You don't remember each person that treated you normally, and if you do, you don't post it. It's like reading the news of another country and being like "wow it must be awful there, all I ever see is bad news" - the average stuff just isn't reported.

I'll take your point, I suppose it does sort of run through a confirmation bias.

I don't have a diagnosis yet (I'm 31, still waiting for an appointment with a psychiatrist who is actually specialised in adult ASD, after 1.5 years of therapy for anxiety and depression with other professionals that couldn't do much about ASD traits), and I couldn't agree more with this. There are just so many things that would have made sense to me and to those around me should I have known that I was wired differently and not just actively trying to be a nuisance or annoying. My self-esteem has suffered horridly from trying to accommodate to what others expected of me, and failing miserably at it; feeling as if I was never good enough, etc.

I've always been good at mimicking it seems; also have a sister who is just 20 months older than me and performs much better in almost every aspect of life, so I could learn a lot as a kid from her. I've always been weird but not the clinically-relevant weird. I would rather watch my sister play with dolls as if I was watching a movie than play with dolls myself. I enjoyed opening electronic toys up to see how they were inside, rather than play with them. I was shy and didn't talk much in school, but had two, later on three close friends. I did well in school and in high school even though the teachers would tell my mother that I was "highly intelligent but lazy". No reason for concern as my issues were very internal and not disruptive (except when I would drive my mother insane by repeatedly and quickly pushing and releasing the different colours in this https://cdna.4imprint.com/prod/700/378771.jpg - better than crack - or saying the same sentence over and over... which was just interpreted as trying to be annoying). It's only been later on, in my early twenties and now early thirties that I've gone to therapy for anxiety, and have been in the system.

I've always known there was something off with me but there is that mix of trying to downplay it (it could be worse, right?), trying not to complain, and avoiding being in the spotlight that can prevent someone from venturing into solving the question of what is wrong with me.