How do I tell my friends about my (possible) autism?

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Puppywings
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29 Oct 2016, 12:58 am

As the title says. I tried approaching my best friend about it once, but she insisted forcefully that it wasn't true. Then punched me. I haven't tried again with her or anyone else besides my family, who needed to know.
Does anyone have any advice for that?



Shahunshah
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29 Oct 2016, 1:04 am

Getting diagnosed might be good before you tell your friends about autism. In the case for if it isn't true you don't want to be stuck with a bad label.



ArielsSong
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29 Oct 2016, 1:26 am

I agree with Shahunshah. I wouldn't make moves to be telling people, before you've been diagnosed.

Being punched for it? Well, that's extreme.



Rachel184
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29 Oct 2016, 5:57 am

I've had experiences with telling friends after a long time of keeping my diagnosis from them. So far, they've all been positive, but it's still hard. I'm with the others in that you would probably be better off waiting until you have an official diagnosis. I'm trying to figure out why your friend would punch you for something like that? I know it can be hard, but I wonder if they're really that good a friend if they won't accept you and/or take violent action against you.

Best of luck,
Rachel



Puppywings
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30 Oct 2016, 12:37 am

Thank you!

I am getting officially assessed in ten days, so after that, I'll know.

As for why my friend punched me... she's like that. Not in the face or anything really harmful. Just in the arm. I'm used to it by now, because that's what she does when she wants me to shut up about something and I won't. I really don't think it's bad. She's my best friend, and she's nearly always nice to me. I think she only punched me because she really, really didn't want to believe I wasn't "normal".



Shahunshah
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30 Oct 2016, 12:59 am

Well none of us are really normal at the end of the day, Punching people in the arm just goes to show that.



Puppywings
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30 Oct 2016, 1:27 am

Yeah. All my friends are a bit weird.

(I'm going to use their internet nicknames here)
Simber: Kind of violent at times, bothered by loud noises, very cat-like, and has these random times where she gets really happy and giggly and weird. But she's an amazing friend. She actually understands me, so she's the first friend to have done so.

Thingy: She doesn't... really... care... about personal boundaries. She doesn't seem to notice if she's being rude or hurting someone's feelings. She's creative, smart, funny, and generally a good friend, but she cries over random little things and it annoys me to death. Plus she is relentless if she wants something. Nevertheless, everyone in our school likes her because of her friendliness.

Nebula: I'm fairly sure she's autistic. She has a brother who's autistic, so it's more possible. She shuts down when things aren't going well for her. By shuts down, I mean closes her eyes, curls in a ball, and tunes out the world. I could spend forever listing the observations.
She and I aren't as close. But she's part of UnderClan.

TheVortex: She's intensely obsessed with drawing and gender identity. She's also really odd, in a way I can't describe.

Memo: He is officially diagnosed as autistic. He is, for some reason, disliked by many people, but I for one enjoy his company. He's random, funny, helpful, and nice. I don't get why it's so hard for people to see that. We share a lot of opinions, although we disagree on Undertale and Spanish class.

UnicornTamer: She's just the most random, most funny, most perfect person you could ever imagine. She's the one that makes our whole group go from "those weird kids" to "those slightly funny weird kids".

All my friends are "odd". I've never done well with the "normal" kids. And even with this group, I still feel like the outsider looking in, watching them have fun, but knowing if I join them, I'll probably ruin it.

Oops. Ranted again.



Shahunshah
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30 Oct 2016, 1:38 am

Hey it seems really cool that you have friends like that. I am sure sometime in the future you could probably tell about your autism diagnosis and they would be just fine with it.

You also seem to be good at analyzing people I wonder because of that if you were the one who figured out you may have autism?



Puppywings
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30 Oct 2016, 10:42 am

@Shahunshah

Yup.