"You don't have autism because I met someone w/ autism once"

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I wanted the full title of this thread to be "You don't have autism because I met someone with autism once and they didn't remind me of you."

Anyway, has anyone else been fortunate enough to have encountered this magnificent turd of a sentiment from someone who thinks that once you've met one autistic person, you've met them all, therefore anyone else who claims to be autistic isn't?

Somebody literally told me that the psychologist who diagnosed me was wrong. He said I "just" have dyslexia. Because his children are autistic and they will never go anywhere in life.

Nice. Real nice. I can tell he's an awesome parent.

I once told someone that I'm autistic, only to hear, "Oh. Really? I would've never guessed. I have a cousin who's autistic.". I haven't told many people that I'm autistic for this very reason. I've decided at that time that I will not tell anyone unless I need to.

for this reason, I procrastinated even on telling myself that I have autism.

A few months ago I could easily be one of these guys...you all prove me wrong though...

Part of the reason I don't tell people about it, general public is in general very ignorant of autism

I've only told three people, and one of them said "You don't have it, you don't act like Rainman."

Another didn't necessarily deny me but she did say in a confused manner: ".....but you have empathy...." just because in my middle age I now can feel sorry for someone's problems and I had comforted her over some bad news she got.

There is an awful lot of complete misunderstandings about what autism is, the range of the spectrum, or even that so-called high functioning autism exists. People with a more severe relative or friend will tell a high functioning person they can't have autism because they are verbal and not under 24/7 care.

People who have only heard a few stereotypes say you can't have it if you've developed any form of what they think is empathy -- the "no empathy" thing is a big area of misapprehensions.

There are so many misunderstandings, that a person who walks and talks and can pass for someone who gets by in life, while others will NEVER know the struggles of that person, might as well just never disclose it. I just don't bother trying to tell anyone now. There's too much to explain.

About 2 years ago a frenemy was all "I know people with autism, you totally don't have autism" ugh. Then I said I was diagnosed by the NAS and she shut up lol.

All the above is caused by the fact that most people don't see autism as a "spectrum." They see it as a monolithic entry with definite symptoms--about identical to the notion of autism pre-1994.

Yea ... I heard that one before.

These people are all ignorant, stereotypical and wrong. They obviously have no knowledge whatsoever of autism as a spectrum. People who feel they know autism severely limit the potential of people on the spectrum. I wasn't formally diagnosed with Asperger's, but I had a teacher who thought I would never learn anything. She was wrong.

This will go on until there is some better diagnostic tool for autism, or it's split into several different autisms. Hell, there are even autistic people who doubt other autistic people's diagnosis, because these other autistics are different from them.

It's very difficult to find any defining feature of autism. The whole point seems to be that it is a bundle of behaviors and problems that are badly understood and that no-one knows the cause of.

I think that this is probably one of the reasons I wasn't diagnosed until I was seventeen, and even that was because I pushed for it. My cousin is autistic, and isn't much like me, and so my parents just assumed that if I was autistic, I'd be more like him. It wasn't until I started researching it on my own that I really understood how the whole spectrum thing really worked.

Around a year ago, I realised that I was autistic. After spending 10 days reading solidly on the subject, I finally plucked up the courage to phone an old friend and ask for her opinion.

After laughing and sneering at me for a bit, she said that I couldn't be autistic because there was an autistic person in her office and I was nothing like her.

I've just got my formal diagnosis. I'm going to visit her in January. It's going to be an interesting conversation.

My area is extremely backwards in regards to this sort of thing. I know another woman who in my inexpert opinion is pretty clearly autistic as well, but nobody (including her) would accept this unless we were more like the Rain Man example, as mentioned above