Side effects from general public knowing asperger?

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Does public knowledge of characteristics that makes it easier to spot aspergers and knowledge of how persons aspergers works have the side effect that it is or will be used to tailored exploitation of this or autism etc.. groups?
Considering how this group is treated in general, I start to wonder if there could be some serious side effects from the general public having knowledge of this?

I'd be more concerned about misinformation that perpetuates stereotypes and encourages discrimination than accurate information that promotes understanding. How can we expect people to accept and accommodate us without knowing who we are or what we need?
In my experience people who do things that hurt us usually do so at least partially out of ignorance.

Of course bad information should be quashed instantly. But knowledge is power and it can be misused.

Could you give me an example?

1. I am all for the public becoming better educated on this and other disorders.

2. However, on a personal level, due to the fact that people do tend to be discriminatory in regards to people who are different, I prefer to keep my own Asperger's Syndrome on a need to know basis. I already have enough problems with other people without adding a specific name to my condition, for them to focus on.

If the general public gets good at identifying and thus single out people with aspergers, autism, etc. It can be used to refuse work, be ridiculed or excluded in (desired) social events.
It's also easier to make it more effective if there is a name for it. Which can then be communicated with other people.

An example is classmates on another forum that tried to get help to figure out if a person in the class was an aspie. If they succeed that could be used to bully. And bully with knowledge on weak sides of how such people work.

I don't think too many people know what to look for yet. To the best of my knowlege no one has ever suspected that I have Asperger's (except my older sister after learning of her son's Asperger's).

However I have been labeled as Shy (true), Rude (never on purpose but I supposed I might come accross that way), Selfish (see rude), Defensive (true), Stubborn/Inflexible (sometimes...)

Save yourselves.

Promote the idea that Asperger's syndrome/HFA, ADD/ADHD, and similar "disorders" are luxury syndromes-- not "real" mental illnesses at all, but things made up by a society that has the luxury of whining about every problem and judging every difference as a deficit in need of treatment.

It's not exactly true...

...but it's not exactly a lie, either...

...and I've seen the alternative. I didn't like it. Neither will you.

Yup. I have had this happen to me. Not that someone figured it out, but that I was fool enough to disclose in the hope of creating understanding, balancing each other's weaknesses and working together.

You can't have understanding without information, right?? You can't blame someone for handling you badly if you don't give them the operating instructions. Logical. Right??

Wrong. What I did, was hand a bully the keys for how best to harm and manipulate me. Me, my relatives, anyone she cared to try f*****g with (which was everyone who didn't take her side).

And I STILL hear people talk about what a wonderful person she is, such a fine upstanding Christian, keeps such a lovely home, what horrible things I must have done to turn her against me. You know what I do now?? Nod and hang my head. Better yet, avoid whole towns-- make that whole parts of counties.

It keeps me out of trouble. Because, just like the childhood bullies, she's better at telling lies than I am at presenting the truth. She's big and I'm little. She's strong and I'm weak. She's right and I'm wrong, and there's nothing I can do about it.

"They're out to get you, they're out to get you." It seems... paranoid. Sometimes-- more often I think as we get older and outgrow that shit-- it is paranoid.

Sometimes, it's not.

And we'd be the last ones to be able to differentiate when it is and when it isn't. To judge the people that never quite left middle-school tactics behind.

Until it's too late. Until it's come down to a contest of perceptions-- which the socially adept f**ktard will usually win.

Better safe than sorry.

Before autism was well known I was called gay by the kids at school.

Except that idea does a lot of damage to people like me who have those diagnoses and need real help.

People regularly treat me like I don't actually having any real problems. People, both on here and in person, regularly are very dismissive of what I need to go through constantly, the help I actually do need, and what my life is like. No. I am disabled. I don't care that you're not, promoting the idea that its just a luxury diagnosis will do damage to people.

Go ahead and make statements about yourself if you want. Don't make statements about me and the other autistic people who's situation is closer to mine. I have to do the opposite regularly to have a chance of being treated like anything that might not be subhuman.

I've seen the alternative as well. It's far better than this (for me).

Yup-- Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

If it's real, I can't be allowed to simply exist, can neither have the difficulties that I have and be OK or be permitted to be as "able" as I am.

If it's not real, you can't have help.

Either way you cut it, we all get reviled and treated like s**t.

I suppose it doesn't matter, and we're better off with the idea that we're all grizzling idiots, sociopaths, oversized 6-year-olds. But GOD, do I ever resent it. Every time I have to take someone along to speak for me, when the only thing keeping me from speaking for myself is the BS in other peoples' heads.

At least I can walk away from those people. And HOPE they don't come after me. Most of the time, they don't. It's just that, when they do, they have the power to destroy my life. And will use it, simply because I defy what they think I should be.

If you blame me for getting bitter about that-- Sorry for your situation, but come live it sometime. Have things you've fought to learn to do taken from you simply because someone who doesn't even know you has decided you can't possibly do that. Spend your life being told that you shouldn't bother, that you're too stupid to teach, that your achievements must have been due to the efforts of others and that others' failures must be all your fault. Live with the knowledge that, because of a label, you are in effect someone's property.

Then again, no matter what you call it, anyone who's different in this damn society is automatically less, label notwithstanding. Guess the grass is always greener in the other guy's cage. You're right-- it's more important to be able to get help.

No sarcasm has been employed.

I do live it.

I live with the fact that people will accuse me of being abusive because of the fact that I happen to have meltdowns. I live with the fact that they take that to the point of actively pushing me out of the only decent sized social group I've felt like I've belonged to (while still not having much in the way of friends), in my life.

I live with being told that the best I can hope for is working in the back room of a bookstore because I'm not good enough for a retail job and can't possibly work a career - ignoring that I do have a bachelor's degree and graduated early with a double major.

I live with people treating me like I'm a little kid, telling me how I should not be allowed to go out in public on my own.

I live with professionals being paid to help me treating me like I must be mentally ret*d because I'm going to work with them at all.

I live with being treated subhuman by people who once treated me as a friend.

Every day I face ableism on both sides - people telling me that I must be able to do more, how I'm lazy, how its all my fault; and people telling me that I must not be able to do anything, how I must have only gotten here because of others doing work for me, how I'm not worth a thing.

And what it comes down to for me is that if people treat the diagnosis as a "real" thing, I'm treated subhuman, but have help available - things that let me improve my quality of life for myself. I'm given the option to show people what I'm capable of at times, and at other times I am treated like I'm not worth the effort to pay attention. I still don't get a job, but disability payments are an option, allowing my parents to at least be able to retire without worrying about needing to take care of me.

And when people treat the diagnosis as only a luxury, I'm still treated subhuman. But in this case I'm on my own in trying to improve my life, and people will also treat me worse for thinking that I might have real problems when my diagnosis label is one that is clearly just a luxury.

If its real, I can't be allowed to simply exist. If its not real, I can't be allowed to simply exist and am not allowed to get help either.

No. I've lived both sides. I live both sides constantly. I don't have a choice about that (at least, unless I at some point find a way to escape into living away from people, cut off my internet access, and am completely self sufficient (with help only by people who won't do the ableism because I can't do it on my own)).

For me, its far better for people to not be actively trying to reinforce the stereotype that Asperger's is only a luxury diagnosis that is only being socially different.

Like I said, if you want to say things like that specified for yourself, go ahead. I have no reason to say that you're different than how you are. That is not me and I've seen myself deal with more problems specifically because of that.

@Tuttle, What hinders you from getting work with bachelor's degree and a double major?
Should be possible to hide the AS diagnosis.

OK-- point conceded, and stupid, pissed-off, bitter advice retracted. I'm wrong. You're right.

You're right. I've suspected for a couple of months now that you've probably got your head on straighter than I do; I think you've just proved that I'm right (about that anyway).

What were your majors in?? They say academia is one haven Aspies have created for ourselves. Might give it a shot...

...like you haven't thought of that...

...and, I've been given the same advice. I thought really hard about it, and breezed through a BA in English before I realized that living in the culture of academia day in and day out made me want to scream, "Ain't y'all got no SENSE?!?!" and start banging their highly-educated heads off the Sacred Walls of Knowledge.

A Hillbilly Goes to University: A Tragic Comedy in Two Acts.

Well, if you ever want to go the self-reliant survival farm route, I'm recruiting. Each according to their ability. It's a nice fantasy-- about the only one I have left.

Just need to find someone whose "ability" includes business contracts, legalese, and dealing with society at large.

I think its time for a dose of autism supremacy.