"You don't look that autistic to me."

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Well........ I'm sure many of us have had to put up with people thinking that because we can be articulate and gifted in many areas, that this can conceal the complex difficulties we have in day to day life.

I know many of us have a hard time coping with the ignorance of those making assumptions about us. Areas such as Diagnosis, Work relations, relationships and entitlement to benefits can be a mine field for many of us.

I would be really pleased to hear from people about this issue of looking convincingly competent and others finding it hard to understand your limitations as a direct result.

I actually have it easy when it comes to disguising it, because i sort of fade into the background and don't talk much, so people ignore me/forget i exist. so never really do pick up on it simply because they both don't care and don't really want anything to do with me. im also very dyslexic, so the fact that aspergers does appear to come out in written projects like writing a story, ive been told i clearly don't understand how characters are supposed to act and it seems kind of robotic BUT its blamed on dyslexia so nobody picks up on that usually. so my strategy is just that i don't really talk to people, so they never really get the opportunity to pick up on anything, but id say its true that other aspie's can sort of "sense" it. As other people with it generally talk to me a lot and feel more comfortable around me then other people so i guess its not totally invisible, i also have the trick of looking at someones forehead or nose when talking, this apparently indistinguishable from eye contact, its a trick i learned very early on, even enough to fool my parents.

the main thing is lack of knowledge, many people in my area don't know anything about it so arn't really looking for it, like i said in another thread, the minute we did a class on equality and diversity and talked about aspergers, they all looked at me.