Fears about telling people I have aspergers.

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My biggest fear with telling people that I have Aspergers is the way they'll treat me afterwards. I want to tell people but I just know they wont treat me the same way afterwards. Right now only 3 people know and ive officially had it since 2009.

Can someone with experience tell me their story?

Yeah. When I was first tipped off about being Aspie I spent a week reeling and feeling that I could tell only one person besides the one who knew. After this week I had mentally processed it and started mentioning it to a few people. Surprise--- you know how many people could already tell, and were just not telling me to my face?? :-O So much for coming out!

I get treated the same whether I tell people or not. It hasn't made a huge difference for me.

What you have to ask yourself is, does this person need to know? Many of my friends and co-workers do not know I have it because, in my opinion, it's not relevant to them. I don't need them to treat me differently and they know the 'real' me, the me I act like naturally. I understand wanting to share this with someone you're close to, so just remember that if this person is a true friend, it won't matter a bit. If it does matter, then you don't have a true friend.

"If you were tell the class about it, they wouldn't be surprised" pretty much sums it up

I have to say I probably share the fear of telling other people about A/S. With the maturity levels of many people around me, I can safely assume that I'd get treated differently if I told people about it, but I agree with an above post in that, why should they know? I mean if I ever became involved with a woman, yeah I'd probably tell her, but there's no real need to let people know.

Throughout things like college or martial arts classes growing up, I didn't say a word about my A/S because I knew they'd be too ignorant to treat me the same way again, so I kept it in. There were one or two misunderstandings, but nothing too drastic. I guess there's two levels of closeness where it's comfortable, and uncomfortable to tell people and you'll just know when it's right to tell others. ^_^

Yeah if you tell people make sure you say Aspergers and not Autism because the 2 have a very different image in the publics eyes. AS is thought of as the eccentric but insanely smart scientist, or Abed from Community for example. While Autism is thought of as either being ret*d, or Rainman. AS has a much more positive stigma to it than Autism does.

It hasn't affected me negatively at all when it's come up or I've brought it up.

My co-workers, friends, and family have all done the, "She's really smart, and really weird." They don't try to piece it together any more than that. Most of them wouldn't understand how figuring things out for myself has had a huge effect on how I think things through a lot more carefully now. By that same logic, they wouldn't really notice a big difference in my personality either. I'm still me, just a more careful me.

I do not tell anyone I have AS anymore. My family knows and are cool with it. When I went to uni I told a couple of people but then stopped. I'll now only let people know if it is important for them to know. Personally I think it's my business and I do not want be judged based on having it.

I work on a "Don't ask, don't tell" basis. Yes I know it means (or meant even) something else, but it's true.

I will only tell people I have AS, if they ask. There has been only one exception, and that's only because a close friend wanted to gather information for a (now cancelled) documentary on Autism and AS. We're still close regardless, and as far as I know, she hasn't told anybody else.

Even then, she didn't realize, because I rarely display AS traits. That's most likely to do with my personality, and demeanor around other people anyway.

And when I have acted/displayed in an idiosyncratic manner, it is normally shrugged off as me being me. People don't tend to judge me anymore, as they've done what I did well before them...Grow up.

Yer - people are weird. You're friends with someone for over a year, and then you tell them about this condition you got, and they suddenly start treating you differently and forget that you're still the same person, whether they know you have a disability or not. I just think it's so absurd of NTs. Not all will treat me differently. Some might be more open-minded and understanding. But I think most will be freaked out. They will just look at one or two commonly known stereotypes of Autism and think that's me, and forget about all the times we spent together before where I was just my normal self and still will be my normal self after telling them about my condition.

I remember I told a man who fancied me that I had an ASD, and after that he completely stopped speaking to me and I didn't see him any more. That's what put me off telling friends about it. They might think, ''oh I don't want to be friends with somebody with a condition linked to Autism!'' Or if they do want to continue being friends with me, they might start talking to me like I'm a baby, and think that I am really sensitive to everything and keep warning me about something that might make a bit of a noise, and just make me feel like I'm ret*d. I don't want that either.

If you are not open about having AS, is it likely that you would ever let it accidently slip in an e-mail if you didn't want people to know?

For example: I asked a colleague out for a work social thing and she replied she couldn't make it because of an aspie meeting on the same evening. I think this must either have been a slip or she was just putting it out there because she felt she could trust me.

I suppose I should ask her, really, but I don't want to make a big deal about it.