You dont look like you have autism... take 1001

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So I went to my eye doctor who said my eyes have not changed much. I told him about the autism when he asked about any other medical problems. He said, "you look so personable, not rigid and distant. You dont look like you have autism. I would have guessed you worked for a politian (sp)"

I just told him that I come a long way since I was a child. I didnt go into the detail that I could not understand much of what others said until I was in middle school (a hell of a time to come out of my bubble...I tell ya) I had years of social skills training...even though my therapist said it would not do any good because I would just be a trained monkey. Nearly everything I learned about being "personable" I had to be taught. While I am thankful for the complements, I feel that comments like You dont look autistic, totally disregard my struggle that got me here from the child that understood very little of what ppl said and banging my head on the floor in meltdowns then crying harder cause it hurt.

I come a long way.

I hate stereotypes and lack of information of adults with ASD's

Jojo

Agree. I am very tired of the judgements. Everyone thinks that they are a specialist. I will never understand the mentality behind telling you that they don't think that you are autistic. That assumes that you must have some shame in being autistic, that you will be reassured by being told that you don't.

AHHHH!

You know...

I hate that statement too. With a passion.

I bet that might be why I get pretty cranked whenever I see posts about research attempting to find ways of identifying Autistics by means of facial features. I think they subconsciously remind me of people who say things like this.

Maybe I am somewhat prejudiced against the idea that there could be something about our physical features that could be found to identify us. This might be the reason for it.

Not sure really...

When I first meet people they don't think I am autistic at all because sometimes I am able to make eye contact and also talk. I am able to have a real conversation with people and even enjoy talking to others. Like you I basically had to be trained how to get this far and also I had a miracle by getting a dog that helped me almost come out of autism. Before the dog when people met me there was no doubt that I had autism and moderately so. It wasn't just Asperger's Syndrome that I had, I had classic autism instead. Now once people get to know me more, they see the autism but only then. With my autism now its more Asperger's Syndrome rather than classic autism. Same with my dad. In fact in some ways my dad is more autistic than me! When I tell people that I have autism for the most part they are shocked because they say, "there is no way that you have autism." Some doctors even said this until they got to know me more.

Think how much WE understand autism. Like, plenty but also plenty not. Imagine how much a typical nonautistic understands it. There is no way I'd mention it except as a mindf**k.