Pre-Diagnosis types: Do people you grew up with ..?

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I sometimes think it would be best if Aspies and Auties in each area buy real estate next to each other and form our own societies since we don't fit in NT society. There would definitely be strengh in numbers and each others obsessions could help out the other's deficiencies.

I told one person, who was friend at university and who has an AS son. She was perfectly understanding and, I believe, may have had already guessed my autism.

Apart from her, I have yet to tell anyone from my youth. If I did, perhaps they might suddenly go 'Ohhhhh so that's what was "right"' with you.

Actually, the possibility that I may have AS was first put to me by a few family friends and work colleagues (I don't attend many work or family functions because I can't stand noise and crowds and I can't sustain a topic-less conversation for very long etc).

I am trying to decide whether at the age of 29, it is worth the time and expense obtaining a formal diagnosis.

I've had no contact with those I grew up with.

I've not told family because I'm concerned about how they would regard me afterward.

They might reject my declaration and deny my condition.

They might start treating me like a "special needs" person even though I can care for myself.

It's a hard choice, because a lot of intimacy issues between myself and my family would be resolved if they understood why I'm so distant.

I told a few of my friends, and got a dismissive response quite quickly. They just said "oh, you don't have that", or "nothing is wrong with you", "you just have social anxiety is all", etc. They would come up with other things that didn't sound so "unhelpable" if that makes sense.

fiddlerpianist: No two Aspies are alike, and no two present their AS in excactly the same way.

I told one of my cousins a few months ago and she stopped talking to me. It's only made me laugh, I mean what kind of a garbage family I have that they have such a reaction to a hereditary condition - it's not like I chose it, and I inherited it from HER grandmother, whom she always claimed to love so much.

I wish there were competitions for having the worst family, I'd win a lot of money.

i don't really maintain enough contact with the people i grew up with (at school and in my former neighborhood) to warrant going through the trouble of contacting them just to let them know.

one sister accepted the diagnosis (i was diagnosed earlier this summer) at face value and she recognized that it made sense. the other sister freaked out when she heard the word "autism" but subsequently calmed down and has also seemingly accepted it now. my brother-in-law had no issue with it.

as for friends: one best friend who is a psychology major and had actually studied AS said that he began to suspect some time ago that i might have it. the other best friend took it strangely. he didn't seem interested at all except in my concurrent dyscalculia diagnosis which he refused to accept the validity of.

strangely some people who barely know me, like friends of my sister, take issue with the diagnosis. they're "up in arms" about me getting a second diagnosis. they don't seem to realize that a second diagnosis is unnecessary if you fully agree with the first.

I've told the following people in my life:

A: the three other members of my band
B: The parents of 3 students who take piano (two of the children have ADHD and one is autistic) and an adult student with ADHD
C: My siblings (parents both dead)

I get the best response from the students (or their parents) who see me as in sympathy with their issues; the band begrudgingly modifies the format of rehearsals to stop wasting 30 minutes of each 2.5 hour rehearsal on smalltalk and schmoozing (they feel ashamed to admit they prefer the social games thing to actually learning songs, but of course this truth is MY fault!)

My family, well... one of my nieces is a psych tech so she insists I get the real, costly diagnosis, even though when I took the online tests and saw the posts here on WP I just KNEW it described me and it was like a weight was lifted. They don't want to think it could happen in THEIR family, even though my dead nephew used to bang his head on the wall and could not learn to pronounce R's until about 8 years of age - his brother is in MAJOR denial - he's a he-man "bring yourself up with your bootstraps" kind of person.

As I see it we on the spectrum are actually the strong ones - the NT's couldn't take this "fate" we share.