Self-disclosure: Why does this keep happening to me?

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I've been experimenting with disclosure for years and this is actually a pattern I have noticed happening to me over and over again.

Whenever I don't disclose my diagnosis, people tend to talk to me a few times and then suddenly start ignoring me, block me off everywhere, and pretty much seem to pretend like they never knew me.

Whenever I do disclose my diagnosis, I tend to have a much higher than usual amount of people taking initiative in interacting with me. All of the career opportunities and experiences that were positive that I have had so far involved some sort of disclosure of my diagnosis.

I have been intentionally playing with disclosure and observing the results. This is most likely not a coincidence. I also did not know about this label before I was 18 years old. Looking back, my only two social relationships that most closely approximated friendships have been very strange in that I was never really included in the said people's social circles. A more recent friend was much better than the previous two, but she also pointed out that I was strange several times and thought that was just my cultural background (I'm also an immigrant). With these people, I typically felt highly uncomfortable and never fully included. Other than that, I was friendless, constantly excluded, and extremely fearful of any group-type activity. Now, I actually like group activities at times, but they are painful until I disclose and then people end up saying things like "you should have told us earlier" or "that explains everything". Now, I find that I get included a lot more often provided I do disclose.

I don't know whether the self-disclosure has helped me become comfortable with others or whether others have become more comfortable with me as a result of this knowledge, but my social outcomes have REALLY changed ever since I began disclosing. I have noticed that this is not the case for most other people here, so I have really started wondering why it's been so different for me. Maybe it has to do with how I disclose - I have read up a lot on optimal ways to do so and I always try my best to explain the details of how ASD affects me that are pertinent to my relationship with the person/people at hand.

Last edited by MathGirl on 24 Mar 2014, 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes I in my experience people treat me much better when they know.

This is really encouraging, like people maybe like you better as who you are, rather than having to pretend?

People tend to ignore me full stop, whether I tell them or not. It doesn't swing more either way.

I don't get it, because I'm not miserable, I'm not pestering people, I'm just not getting it. Think I just need to find better friends,

Every time I talk to friends they're like "Going for dinner now, see ya" Oh OK, you say that every time :/

Maybe when they don't know about you having ASD, they detect weirdness but don't know why, and that makes them more uncomfortable than knowing that you have ASD and the weirdness that they detect, they can attribute to ASD, and that makes them more comfortable around you.

What do you say that works, MathGirl?

Disclosing seems to have helped more than hurt in most circumstances in my experience.

@OP: I know that in the poll thread most of the people posting say no, but the poll is almost 2/3 yes so far so I'd imagine that your experience of it being relatively positive isn't all that strange or unusual.

@btbnnyr: I think that really nails it as the reason behind the phenomenon, good call!

Yeah, you probably need to find new friends. Perhaps someone who shares your interests and is eager to discuss them with you. There are plenty of accepting and interesting people out there, you just have to look hard for them sometimes.
Definitely. I was just very surprised that so many people on here have had bad disclosure experiences. I've had some, but the good I got and continue to get out of it by far outweighs the bad. I also don't purposefully try to come off as more NT because doing so tends to have huge emotional tolls on me. I feel that for people like me in this respect and for those who can't really process what's going on socially around them, disclosure is crucial.
I disclose in different ways in different situations. For example, I disclosed to entire seminar classes before in those introductions they do during the first class. With group work, in one situation, I said something like "you might have noticed something odd and awkward about me. This is because I have ASD." to everyone when we all got together to work on an assignment. With another group, I wrote a long email to my group members (this was a delayed disclosure; next time, I knew better and disclosed right away). I was struggling with severe anxiety that summer and had a meltdown over my grades (most of my anxiety is around evaluations). I also disclosed ASD and said this is why I might come off as distant and focused.

Because I've asked for a lot of feedback from others, I have a lot of awareness as to what might make me come off as different and am aware of whenever I do the behaviours that may be conceived as such. I think it's possible and important for anyone to become more self-aware this way and to be able to explain such behaviours when needed. However, my examples above are more general and you can hopefully try to do something similar.