People lying about having autism

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I think the perception that there's a bunch of fakers out there does more harm to us than their actual numbers.

For a lot of people, the fakers are people who don't look autistic or who aren't like (non-verbal) cousin Merle.

I agree with that too.

My daughter "doesn't look autistic" and nor does she look like she's crippled with Lupus and Epilepsy. People have accused her of faking it, including her own dad ffs when he sued her in court and said she and her doctors were all lying. Part of his rational was that she "doesn't look autistic", that she could walk and talk and speak, and that she could make mist on a mirror by breathing. He compared her to cousin Merle and Rainman, and even cited the numbers of people who fake being autistic because they think it's cute on social media.

Try living with my #actuallyautistic daughter for a day and you'll know just how wrong he was.

^^^^This is quite well understood by me.^^^^^^

Irony...younger sister totally non- verbal and on the quiet side (obviously . Aswell.)

And she appeared extremely NT looking .. even pretty ..Looking .. And people continually expected her to understand a respond to them.. to the point of even abusing her .

The ones I have are Bose.. with like the neck thing. Spent probably an hour in a airport store staring at the potential purchase. A few years back. Was surprised they were close to retail. The lady asked if I needed help told her I was just weighing which one was best for what I was after due to the price point and such. She told me to not tell anyone but when I was ready to let her know and I could use her employee discount. I got like 50% off. I was so freaking happy and they have held up extremely well over my travels. Decided to wear em picking up my girls from their school had to tweak the amount of noise cancelation a bit but did help a bit. Was having trouble internally with wearing headphones while talking to others though. Mine aren't as directional. Kinda nukes all other sounds. But I can adjust it.

I am currently going through the formal diagnosis process, it is not a fun activity.

I ask myself the question of why would anyone want to have autism, I was in conversation with autist who I have known professionally for decades. The "side effects" of this person's autism has messed up their life greatly, it has greatly reduced the level of pleasure in their life. Reflecting on it, during the assessment process, it is clear to be that autism has reduced the pleasure in my life at times. I suspect that the effects of autism on my ability to function socially has been the source of intense distress and sadness in my life.

Imagine spending hours with a stranger (the psychologist) talking with them about ever detail of your life including things which you do not feel comfortable sharing with another person during an interview about your clinical history. The intelligence test was not so bad, it is hard to dislike an activity which is highly strucutred and involves things which you are good at. Then I was not so keen on the meeting with the psychiatrist, that was a rather short meeting but not fun. I was somewhat ammused when the psychiatrist told me in the intelligence test that I had been testing close to genuis level on some things (well maybe there is something I am good at). Imagine then going to see a psychologist to have an interview to decide if you meet the diagnostic criteria, where you get questioned again about the very worst aspects of your existance for two hours and then the psychologist tells you that they are not finished with you and that you need another two hour session.

I have found that the only thing which blots out the stress associated with the assessment is a total attention task, one of these has been chatting via a real time text system with the other autist. I saw an interesting comment made by the other person. One of my special interests changed into a profession, and at times has been something which I have channeled for good into something useful. It was something which I was able to use to my advantage in my professional life and this thing also benifited some of the other people I had dealings with professionally. The person I know commented that having a special ability or special interest is all well and good, but having autism is not great fun.

I know that it might be "trendy" in some parts of society to have a label or a condition. But I can not see why a person would want to put in the effort to fake autism to try to fit in here on wrong planet or in one of the other small populations of autistic people. I am sure that we have had a few shorted lived visits by trolls here on wrong planet but I very much doubt if a NT person would want to put in the effort to fake autism to try to fit in here.

Consider the effort required to fit in, a person would need to read a lot about autism to avoid being a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype of autism, they could also need to spend a lot of time researching a topic to create a "special interest". This could well be similar in effort to getting a university degree level education on a topic.

^^^^
This

In certain social media spaces, fakers get the positive attention they seek. When they enter the real world they will also get attention, but not the type they seek. They will have to deal with the same cynicism and doubt actual autistic people face as well as stigmas over autistic traits. Once they realize their mistake they will go back to their NT selves and their transgression will be forgotten about. We do not have that option.

Yes. Since autism is an 'invisible handicap' anyone can fake it by ...just claiming they have it.

You dont hafta walk around with a cast on one of your two healthy legs.

So if you're sly enough about it you could get the perks of having the handicap without having the actual handicaps of having the handicap.

You might get attention and pity, and an excuse for things like failure to get job promotions, or an excuse for being a rude jerk.

Up votes this posting ...! ^^^^^......

If you find noise cancelling headphones to be useful, you should definitely utilize them. Don't bother with what other people think in this regard or whether they think you are rude - they probably don't understand autism so it is pointless being cognizant of their opinions in this regard.

If they do understand the reason you are wearing them without you having to explain, then they won't mind you are wearing them.

That an employee gave a staff discount to a person (yourself) who presumably is not staff is really going out on a limb. That kind of thing can lose a person their job.

Oh well, at least you got some discounted headphones.

Strongly agree with the post of ASPartOfMe.

I will also comment that "what does a autistic person look like", it is interesting that the British chemist Thomas Welton compained that as a gay man he is more accepted by scientists than he is as a scientist in the LGBT community. He compained about how someone who meet him socially told him that he did not look like a scientist when he wrote an article comparing the experience of openly living with the two things which define his identity.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... ntist-lgbt

I find it "interesting" and offensive that people think that autsitic people all look the same, maybe will will have to explain it but we do not come from a factory somewhere on the outskirts of some moderate sized city.

I also strongly hold the view that we have never made the choice to be autistic, it is the way that we were born. Some of us can pass as NT so we have the choice of do we hide in plain sight. The only problem is that it is very hard to fake being NT, my wife is of the view that I am unable to completely fake NTness. She says that most people on meeting me can tell that something is up, but people like psychologists and other autists can spot me with ease.