"You Don't Look Autistic"

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i pass as normal as long i dont open my mouth/do tasks i just manage to do someting wrong if they are new to me

And you don't look like an idiot, I guess we were both fooled by apperiences.

When I told my dad I had been diagnosed with AS the first thing he asked was "When can you expect to feel better?"
My brother tried to explain to him later about the condition, how it affected me growing up but, now I'm diagnosed, I'm learning to feel happy with who I am etc. My dad appeared to listen but at the end of the conversation just said "Well, I can't understand it. He's always seemed fairly bright to me."

Thank God we ain't 'normal', eh?

Well screw your family! You sound absolutely wonderful. PM me sometime and talk X-Files all you want. One of my favorite subjects.

I suspect he was trying to be sarcastic.

I had a lady at a church lunch tell me I don't look autistic, I kind of like that

A professor once told me I don't look autistic. I replied "we all don't grunt and drool on ourselves you know". I said that because it showed that I fully understood the internal image she has of autistic people as being extremely low functioning and even Kanners are not usually that low functioning.

Ok, I see we're not alone in this. We just told our family about our son's diagnosis, and they treated us like we traitors. That we'd let him down by even going to a psychologist. It's almost unreal. I totally hear what you're saying.

I've had people tell me that I'm completely normal and they don't understand why they think I have AS or mental health problems. I have had other people mention AS before I do, or say I'm obviously abnormal. I think different people notice different things.

I find it funny that people say "You don't look Autistic". Autistic people don't look any different. They behave different. Perhaps they're getting confused and think it's some sort of physical thing?

(Please don't be offended by my use of the words normal and abnormal - I'm not saying abnormal is wrong)

You'll still miss those of us who were ABA'd out of anything our parents found even remotely off-putting to the Jr. League crowd, and who've subsequently beaten ourselves bloody through all kinds of communication seminars, video-taped presentation coaching etc.

Prior to last week, I'd "come out to" only one person other than doctors, the boss who sent me for dx etc. She insisted I was just acting out aggressions I wasn't even aware of. You know, b/c she'd attended a presentation on this when she was in ed school, and I didn't have any idea what AS really was.


Last week, I came out to someone, and his first response was, "then you must be really high functioning, because my ex worked with ASD kids, and most of them ..." I said it might look that way, but nobody sees what my apartment looks like, the hell of executive dysfunction etc. I liked his reply: "then I've got to say, you hide it extremely well." He didn't question at all that I really suffer.

Of course, there's no guarantee he won't use it against me at some point, but that kind of thing is human. I'm one of the few people I know who considers it a matter of honor to NOT throw past mistakes, confidences, inside knowledge etc. in someone's face when things go sour.

And those of us who have just learnt naturally how to look at people when they're talking to them and try not to make strange hand movements in public. My social skills are now quite good for an Aspie because I've just learnt them as I've got older.

I have noticed recently that when I am with people I'm comfortable with, I do a lot more things like walking on my toes, clapping, rocking or tapping. But I don't do it so much in public places because people laugh at me or give me strange looks or call me a 'ret*d' or a 'psycho' (both in Ouch!'s list of most offensive words to disabled people).

Some people can tell I'm an Aspie because I walk away from conversations when I shouldn't do, but mostly I am quite normal now although I was obviously Aspie when I was younger (no one diagnosed me though because they didn't want to 'label' me, and the school couldn't be bothered with taking AS into account and preferred to say I was a brat)

I like this thread because it's nice to see other people are annoyed when people say they're normal and it's not just me.

People around me knows nothing about AS, and think that autism is like Downs... so I believe that I pass as NT all the time. Oh yes... people knows that i am not "normal", that I do things in a different manner, that I am eccentric... maybe a bit weird. Most of then think that I just "like to be different" lol.
They can't understand why I will not do that stupid "psycologistical" exercises that one hug each other and have to interact a lot using their social skills... I hate it.

I was actually told one day by my mother that, while she was at work, someone saw a photo of me (must have been taken while i wasn't looking), and said I don't look autistic. I tried SOOOOO hard not to flip out. Granted, sometimes it is good to "blend in", but other times I want to stand out as far as possible from the crowd.

No one's ever said that to me... and I'm wondering if that's a good thing or a bad thing!

Yeah. You also have to tuck the polo shirt in.

Yeah - my entire life

Well, recently, my tutor (who was very well meaning in this circumstance) was saying to me that I was not obviously on the spectrum (unlike his other aspie students). He noted that I was a little bizarre (which is not an insult at my college), but my course is a magnet for weirdos anyway, so I don't really stand out that much. He obvious wasn't denying the seriousness of my disability, obviously.

I've had idiots say to me "You don't look like there's anything wrong with you!" and I'm all like "well, what am I supposed to look like?" or "oh, I didn't know you were an expert on autism". It's weird - just as there are many "self - diagnosed" aspies flooding the internets, there seems to be an equally staggering amount of self-taught psychologists out there as well.