Are you openly autistic?

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I have heard this term a while back. Apparently, many autistics don't tell other people they are autistic. But, some people are more open about it.

I myself am quite open about my autism (my username here is my real first name and last initial). I have written papers about it in one of my college writing classes. I am also happy to tell people about my autism when the topic comes up.

The reaction? Usually, they figured it out already, though they don't say this (you can tell, because they don't seem shocked, and they believe me 100%). Usually, I don't have to tell people directly because my autistic traits are quite apparent. If they don't think I have autism, they think I have something. But, I have told a whole college class about my autism, and they were understanding. And the teacher was cool about it.

I feel that anyone inquiring should know about my autism, so they can accommodate accordingly. I find that people that are in the know are more accepting than people who aren't. And so, I might even go as far to say as people have a right to know about my autism.

Are you open about your autism? Or, do you not tell anyone?

Absolutely.

Very much so. I write for my college newspaper, and I've written a few articles on autism, specifically my experience living with it, why we should be hired for jobs, and the recent decision of the White House to "light it up blue," which disgusted me. And I'm very open to talking about it with people if they have any questions about it.

Yes. I do tell people that I'm autistic if it's pertinent to the conversation.

I would like to be, but I feel like a lot of people might use it against me. I sometimes tell people online who I don't know though. Most of them seem okay with it. If they weren't I wouldn't have to be around them or talk to them again.

I'm very openly autistic. If I like doing thing that are unique, I like to be open about my autism.

I tend to be pretty open about my autism. It's hard to hide the traits. Everyone in my office knows, and even the brand new person we just hired, I had spoken to her for maybe ten minutes, before the subject of conversation turned (I forget how) to neurodiversity. I figured this was a good time to tell her I was autistic, since we are going to be working closely together. Her response was, "Yeah, I did kind of wonder."

It's a good thing the people around me know about it, because I've had at least two meltdowns at work in the past month, and instead of getting weirded out or concerned by it, my friend was able to put me in a hold and calm me down, and my boss, who witnessed the most recent one, immediately started a conversation about finding me a safe place to go the next time I have an "episode", as she termed it. If they hadn't known about my autism, god knows what they would have thought was wrong with me. It could have turned out pretty badly.

In terms of face-to-face conversations, I seldom speak to anyone outside of those who are in my family. But when such situations do arise, I am quite open about being autistic as it's rather obvious that I am different somehow. My formal diagnosis is high-functioning autism, not Asperger's, and I suspect I only just meet the criteria as communication in any medium is absurdly difficult for me. I have to use scripting in situations that require an enquiry, and I exhibit little to no empathy at all.

A large part of me would like to be hospitalised as I am reaching the stage where I no longer believe I can offer anything to society. Unfortunately I always appear rather calm and placid, yet in reality I am utterly miserable.

I believe my inability to process sound in an orthodox fashion is one of my biggest challenges in life. I never seem to remember anything anyone ever says to me.

In real life it's pretty blatantly obvious.

Online wherever I'm always Ezra and pretty open about being autistic.

Nope. It would create more problems than it would solve in my life.

Yes, I am. Unless people know they've met/spoken to an autistic person who defies their preconceptions, they'll keep believing in those same preconceptions.

If it relevent in some way I have no problem with saying I am autistic even though I understand that often it has and will have negative consequences(usually infantilization) I am not go to impose my s**t on people purely because I am under the delusion I am going to enlighten them and they are going to accept difference on my say so. Usually that backfires making people more hostile to understanding and accepting autistic people.

Well, open is not synonymous with aggressive and pushy. If there's a way to bring it up in a conversation, I might mention it, but I'll not go out of my way to do it. I'm not preching the Gospel according to Sperg. What I meant is that people can go about their lives believing they've never met an autistic person because they haven't met Rainman or Sheldon Cooper, and I think that's a net negative for everyone involved.

I don't like telling anyone about having AS. I do feel ashamed of it. I keep thinking that if I tell people, they might define me as AS, and think that whatever I do is because I have AS. I also feel that people will expect me to rock backwards and forwards and do other autistic behaviours that I don't do.
But because I can mask my ASD, I can get away with not telling people. I just come across as eccentric.

I have to be open about it in certain situations, such as work or study, because my autism affects this. I also have to be open about it in some medical situations, because it affects this (I am partially insensitive to pain, for example).
I don't have any friends but if people are going to be having a more-than-passing interaction with me I will be open about it if I judge them receptive, by way of explaining why I am this way and that I'm not being rude.

No. I don't keep it from people it's relevant to, but it is not something I just casually tell people. I know they probably can tell something's up, I've not had any bad experiences with people knowing, but I still prefer to keep these things to myself.