Do you feel like you get patronized a lot due to your autism

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I never tell anyone about my condition, but often times I find people take on an almost older sibling or older parent role when dealing with me. I don't really get it. Often times its women doing it, with really not much of an age difference. It doesn't always happen, but its happened quite a lot.

I do not how a habit of telling people, but when someone I know told someone it was like the teacher thought it meant "slightly ret*d", "almost deaf" or both. She started speaking really loud, while staring and having overly clear gesticulation. I'm sure she meant it well but it was like she was trying to provoke sensory overload and making the person feel stupid at the same time.

Yes i notice this with myself . I am an adult and i think people think they need to control the situation for me , or they think i dont understand whats going on....im not stupid..

I stopped telling people when I noticed I was being treated like I was less than them. Now I get quite hostile towards anyone using a condescending attitude with me. Too many years of others making decisions about me behind closed doors.

Its actually a huge secret for me. I never tell anyone about my condition in real life, because I fear exactly that happening. Like I could see why someone might bring it up with the hopes of getting someone to understand them better, but they won't. It happens to me even when I don't tell anyone. Maybe its my demeanor, in how I sometimes look like I have low self esteem from being soft spoken. Its some kind of subconscious trigger to some people to treat me like I'm a younger brother or something. I think I just need to work on being more assertive in my tone maybe.

It's been a while since the last post on here, but as I was going to start a similar thread, I'll just share my own experience of the problem on here. My AS is also a huge secret, and YET I get partonized A LOT. I am a little bit overweight and probaly not good looking, and my family told me often that was why people felt I was younger than I truly am or looked like I "didn't know my way about" (and yeah, I know, my family doesn't sound nice with this comment. They're not.). Yet I then met not very good looking, really overweight girls who had loads of friends and boyfriends and were not being talked to in a patronizing way. I would be the kind of person to always try and be as functional as possible, even if that means working against my AS in some ways, so I always end up taking on challenging projects or jobs that somewhat expose me. I am starting my own businness, I am qualified enough to do so, I have enough money to materially start out (buying the things I need for the businness etc), I always dress professionally when I go to work, in terms of getting help from others in this venture, I took legal advice, acounting advice, health advice etc, you name it I did it. Yet quite a few people still manage to talk to me like I just finished primary school. Those who get the amounts of work I am putting in the project express great astonishment at how much I seem to achieve. I am 30 years old, I spent 10 years in university where I was a straight A student, and no one seems to think I am even a shy person. So surely SOMETHING is making people patronize me, sometimes to the point it is almost bullying? I think it might be that they perceive AS without being able to put their finger on it, and they react negatively to the lack of interpresonal skills I hide as best as I can?

Sort of, but not intentionally - when my sister has mentioned my possible AS to others, she makes it sound like I'm more......."special needs" than I actually am, thus giving people the wrong impression of me.

I don't ever tell people about my AS so I have no problem. Back in high school, I was under estimated and teachers were trying to limit what I could do. Even one student told me I should talk to the state of Montana because of my autism so I can see if I can still drive.

YES!! ! Im born with this crap and i'll die with it!

If you allow somebody to take the alpha/dominant role to your beta/submissive, it will happen. If you influence them to think you're the alpha, HEY, guess what?

Now, obviously it's a lot more complicated than that, but lately something tells me that I've got it straightened out.

People have picked up unknowingly on my AS since forever, but just as in your case, it's worst when I try to hide it.

Also...the girls you mentioned before have friends and boyfriends because, in their own mind (and thus in their audience's mind) they are actually pretty. ACTUALLY being pretty helps too, but hey, if you want to bring out what's good about the way you look, you'll shock yourself. I did, and I know.

Tired and ranting a bit so, PM me anybody if they want some happy-hardcore life advice

For me, almost excessively so. Once I received my diagnosis, I went from the "gifted" kid to the "damaged" one. That one stung the pride quite a bit. A lot of people don't realize I can be a lot more aware than they think. Sometimes I can be, anyway.

When people live their lives feeling like a part of society, rather than separated from it, they have a long slog until they are even capable of empathizing with anybody who's unable to fit in.

Don't try to hide it, but don't go about flaunting it either. Hiding it means you aren't being confident, and flaunting it brings about all sorts of other issues. Just be proud and confident in yourself and leave it for them to be all confused about it.