I hate autism awareness

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At least I hate the state of it right now. More and more people are openly autistic. That means people with milder and milder symptoms are being asked if they're autistic. My sister is a studious introvert with mild ADHD traits. She's been asked if she's autistic a few times. Now that I'm purposely not disclosing my diagnosis, I've been asked about autism twice.

When I was younger several mental health professionals doubted my diagnosis. Someone with a high functioning autistic brother didn't even know about my diagnosis despite me being in the same special ed class as him. Now lay people ask if I'm autistic. I don't think my autistic traits are more noticeable now. I actually think they've been reduced since I've gotten older. I think this is related to more autism awareness.

One person thought I was autistic because I was similar to a student who was openly autistic. He just seemed like a cool and knowledgeable guitar player. He didn't come across as autistic at all. He was a bit awkward, but it was the cute kind of awkward. Not the autistic kind.

The other person thought I was autistic because she has autistic family members and she teaches a lot of special ed students. When I asked her why she thought I was autistic, she said it's because of the way I talk. I do talk a bit too articulately. In the past it made me come across as smart, now it makes me come across as autistic.

Being an adult female no longer protects you from coming across as autistic. Maybe when I'm a real adult(job and living alone) I'll get more protection again. I've also thought about being more openly queer. Maybe people will focus on my queerness more than any autistic traits. So far queer females aren't stereotyped as autistic by the general population.

Gosh, I wish I had the cute kind of awkward rather than the autistic kind. Ah well.

I think that if everyone on the planet knew how to recognise where their assumptions about life were stealing the air from autistics, it'd be a better place. Y'know?

What you hate is inaccurate autism awareness. Most people are clueless that autism goes beyound social awkwardness and "no empathy".

I get what you are saying. And I think the problem is when something gains attention,(legitimately or otherwise) it will attract more interest. This interest generates more interest, like an internet meme circulating around internet forums, and before you know it everyone is on the bandwagon shouting "yee haw!!" While this is merely just how information tends to propagate, the bandwagon effect truly becomes fallacious when people use it as an excuse to say that an issue is important or that the circulating opinion must be correct. The lack of specialist knowledge in a crowd is one of the main factors that allows stereotypes to be passed on like a virus. Eventually they are accepted as common knowledge and/or conventional wisdom. The problem with common knowledge is that most of the time it is associated with the fallacy argumentum ad populum (Latin: "appeal to the people"). This fallacy essentially warns against assuming that just because everyone believes something is true, it is true. Conventional wisdom is also not necessarily true. Conventional wisdom is additionally often an obstacle to the acceptance of newly acquired information and to introducing new theories and explanations. This sometimes results in the absurd denial of the new information by persons who strongly hold an outdated (conventional) view.

What we need is autism acceptance. We need to tell people to not light it up blue, not wear puzzle-patterned ribbons, and not believe a single word Autism $peaks says.

No one had ever suspected I'm autistic. They seem to assume I'm a socially awkward, weird nerd, or an immature, naive, not-so-bright person. It really depends on how long they've spoken to me. After several minutes most realize that I'm not stupid.

I hardly ever hear about autism in adults.

That's a possibility. Or maybe there is just more awareness of high-functioning ASD in adults there.

I guess I'm glad it's not so well-known around here. It would get annoying with all the people deciding that someone they know has it, based on something meaningless, or if they started referring to anything that is a supposedly autistic trait as autistic. Just like what happened with OCD. People go around saying "I'm so OCD" just because they have a weird habit or two.

Just out of curiosity DevilKisses, what is it about autism that makes you ashamed to be seen as having the label?

Wow she is talking about autism being over-diagnosed and people aren't freaking out and attacking her. Yet. Maybe they are still asleep.

You know when people are asking if, or claiming that, completely fictional characters in books, movies and TV are autistic, it's being over-diagnosed. Even cartoon characters get diagnosed as having autism.

And then of course lots of famous people who were never diagnosed, get diagnosed having autism anyways. DaVinci, Mozart, Edison, Socrates, Buddha, Jesus....whoever.

Anecdotal. Sensationalized. Trivialized.

If you're autistic, you're autistic. You can't escape being who you are. If people recognize you as such, and you don't like it, probably the best you can do is fake being NT.

I can't fake it very well for long, but some can. You can probably do it, but many people have commented on how stressful passing for NT has been for them. I know that it really wears me out.