I wish I could tell my co worker that she's autistic

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I started this job a year ago and the person who trained me is almost definitely on the spectrum but doesn't realize it (I know she doesn't realize it because at one point she told me something she has trouble with and I mentioned that my partner, who's autistic, experiences the same thing- and she said "in my case I'm not autistic, it's just a personality trait" or something along those lines)

I'm not a psychologist but she has all the obvious signs, she's one of those "textbook" examples.

But it isn't my place to bring it up, and for all I know she has no interest in putting a label on it.

Sounds like you're talking about my sister. She's def. ND, and our mother was ASD for damn sure.

She still might know she has it but is excellent as pretending she doesn't know anything about it, because she's in denial or is embarrassed about it. I'm excellent at pretending I have never heard of it. Nobody's ever actually pointed it out to me, but they have mentioned it when talking about a relative of their's who has it or something and I can act clueless about it.

That makes sense, I hadn't thought about that. I had assumed that if she knew my partner was autistic (although I didn't tell her that I am too) then she would have no reason to think I'd respond negatively about her being autistic. But maybe she just doesn't like people at work to know, or people in general

I'm always kind of excited when I find another ND person out and about. She's the only person at work I like talking to

I know everyone is different, but I sure wish someone had told me 40 years ago that I had HFA traits. Even a thoughtful anonymous note would have made such a wonderful difference in my life. I was miserable and dispirited, as I kept unknowingly pi**ing people off, getting laid off at work, and my career never took off, and I have always been alone. Worse, I constantly kicked myself for all my failures. I read countless psych books, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, never realizing that I couldn't read people, much less read between the lines. Consider: People like me crave information, so we know how to proceed better and more efficiently. Also consider just how difficult it is to see oneself objectively, to be able to pinpoint what's wrong.

I probably shouldn't say this but prior to about the 1980s, Autistic was a VERY narrow spectrum as far as people were concerned. I bet most people on this site would NOT fit it. You can take that as a compliment, BTW! Alex Plank certainly wouldn't! I wouldn't. I looked at early descriptions of AS, and realized that WAS me! Alex was diagnosed officially. He started this site, BTW.

And I am not putting ANYONE down. Some people seem to have a great deficit somewhere and as great a BENEFIT somewhere else. With AS, it seems most of that deficit is generally with what they call mirroring. It seems relatively minor academically, etc... but it interferes with relationships. That is the one major problem all autistics have in common. Of course there are other things, but they are mostly mix and match. The DSM actually has like 3 groups, and it says things like they have 2 or more symptoms from this group, etc... and some might actually be because of the deficit.

Anyway, my point is that the person may take the idea of being autistic as an insult, and may not be happy to know that a talent she has is because of a deficit ELSEWHERE.