Joined: 23 Feb 2008 Age: 70 Gender: Male Posts: 1,455 Location: AspinatorLand
10 Nov 2016, 12:52 pm
I personally don't think divulging is good. Most people don't have a clue about autism and they associate the word autism with retardation. I divulged to my co-workers at a place I had worked at for 16+ years that I had Aspergers and it proved to be one one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.
I don't hide it necessarily, but I rarely bring it up. When I've tried in the past it didn't go well. They either didn't believe me and thought I was using it as an excuse for something or they believed me and started seeing me as broken. Things I had been trusted with in the past were now seen as beyond my capabilities. My communication and creative skills were now suspect and I was only capable of handling repetitive or computational tasks.
What does seem to help is occasionally mentioning specific differences. I'll talk about how I'm an introvert and need time to myself to recharge even though I like people. If someone is touching me in a way I don't like I'll sometimes mention that I have this weird thing that causes what they're doing to be really distracting and painful in a way. Comparing it to fingernails on a chalkboard seems to work. They still don't fully understand but if you break it down into one simple thing they can easily adjust to it goes over a lot better than trying to dump this big nebulous autism bomb on them.
If it's someone you're close to and they seem open to unpacking everything, that's a different story.
10 Nov 2016, 12:45 pm
