Interesting experience last night -I have a question

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I went to an event last night, it was wonderful. I learned how to make some crafts which I really loved. A couple of the people there had super loud voices which was hard for me but other than than that it was really fun. They were all really nice and the crafts I learned were beautiful. There was one lady there though who has two HFA kids and one of her kids was with her. The kid was super nice and sweet and I really liked her. She also had her other kid with her who is NT and she is a wonderful cute, sweet kid as well. The Aspie girl seemed very similar to me where we fit into the environment very well and were just very normal in every way. Both kids were super well behaved and really adorable.

But the mom, who was one of the ladies with a super loud voice, talked a lot about her Aspie kids and their therapy animals and some of the challenges they had and stuff like that and it made me feel a little uncomfortable. I don't really know why I was uncomfortable. I guess it might have been because she was talking so much about it. When I was learning to make one of the crafts I mentioned that I wanted to make a stim toy for myself. She picked up on that and made a comment about how she knew what that meant. It felt like she was basking in the fact that she knew that word. That made me feel kind of weird as well so I did not say anything.

Then close to the end of the night we were all talking and when a particular subject came up I made a comment about how my senses are affected because I am Autistic, it was appropriate to say it in the topic of conversation, and the people in the room are all very cool and fine with Autism. But when I said that the lady with the Autistic kids looked at me and said, "I never knew you were Autistic." I felt really weird when she said that because we had only met that night. How could she have ever known that I was or wasn't anything if we had only just met? So I did not understand why she would say that.

In that particular setting and circumstance I was very similar to her own Autistic daughter, basically we were just working on our crafts and spoke in the conversations when we felt we had something to say. I rocked discreetly for a few minutes at one point and kind of stared at patterns in the room which I liked and I know that some of my speech was a little young and at one point I left the room and worked in a quieter room because the loud voices were overwhelming me and I looked at people's mouths rather than their eyes. But the Aspie daughter was in the room with everyone the whole time sitting in her chair working on her craft. She did not rock or stim in any way that I could notice and I only heard her speak a couple of times but it was only when the conversation was appropriate for her to contribute to because most of the conversation was just adult chit chat and even I did not participate too much in that. And when the daughter did speak, she jumped right in just like a normal young teenager would. So it just felt weird that the mom might expect me to be different to make it obvious that I was Autistic in that setting. Her daughter wasn't making it "obvious" so I don't know why she might think I would be. So I did not understand why she would have said that she never knew that I was Autistic. And maybe, like a true Aspie, I am just over thinking this but my main concern is that I might have done something wrong by being thrown off and not knowing what to say and just ignoring that statement and ignoring what she said about knowing what stim toys are.

I did not know how to respond so I just didn't say anything. After she said that she had never known I was Autistic she said to the whole group but specifically to me that two of her kids were. I said, "I know, you have been talking about them all day." I hope I wasn't rude. I really wasn't trying to be. It just did not make logical sense to me about what she said. She was talking about her Autistic kids and their issues all day. How would she think that I did not know that she had two Autistic kids when she was talking about them so much to everyone? It was not making sense to me that she had to mention it to me then. I was just confused. I really hope I was not rude because I was not trying to be.

All I can say is: people are like that sometimes.

She seemed proud to have been "hip" to autism.

If the lady didn't react badly to your statement about her talking about her kids all day, then it wasn't rude. You were just making an observation.

Thanks Kraftie. I always feel a little insecure when something like that happens.

Well I'm terrible at interpreting motives, but she seems to be a bit of a drama queen, and enjoys the attention of constantly talking about her autistic kids (in front of them, which shows she doesn't actually care about their social needs!) And how could she possibly notice anything about you, if she'd spent the whole time talking about herself?

If pointing that out to her was rude, well... maybe she needed to hear what other people were too polite to say.

[EDIT:] Or maybe I'm reading this completely wrong (that's been known to happen too!)

I agree with the above, that the mother likes the attention of being "in the know". Perhaps she also feels that by sharing, some of her burden lifts off her shoulders, or something. Also, I believe that when she was talking loud for anyone to hear at the end and told you (while everyone were listening) that her kids were HFA, she really wasn't telling just you, but everyone, under the guise of telling you. So she kind of made sure everyone knew. Did you understand what I meant?

Another interpretation is that the mother wasn't aware that you had actually been listening to what she'd been saying - if you hadn't really been talking to her or been looking at her while she was talking.

Most likely the previous posters are right, though.

There are some really ok moms out there who still can't shut up about their kids' private stuff. They just think everybody's as interested in their kids as they are, and are as nice about it.

I know, I get totally hung up on social experiences like this one and analyze endlessly, when I really don't understand.

If she's got two autistic kids she probably understands that you meant exactly what you said and no more.