Overhearing people talk about your autism....

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Remember, I'm undiagnosed, but I overheard this yesterday...

Lady that lives in my building:

"That girl knows so much about birds, but she just looks at me, doesn't say hi or anything when I go by, like she's trapped in a bird cage"

Other lady:

"Autism will do that to ya"

Help me make sense of this.... bird cage

The sense of it I make:
You do appear autistic. You probably act autistic. You likely are autistic.
Does anyone claim you not being autistic?
Why aren't you pursuing a diagnosis? By your posts, you seem ASD lvl2.

Why don't you go up and talk to these ladies?

It's good to do that---so that you could be "humanized" according to these ladies.

The ladies are applying reasoning that is similar to the "Duck Test", which Wikipedia defines as: "The duck test is a form of abductive reasoning. This is its usual expression: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject's habitual characteristics."

The only person that ever said I wasn't autistic is my current psychatrist that went as far as telling me not to go to therapists that thought I was.
Also I have a new friend that is diagnosed autistic along with other things that goes to same doctor and the doctor tried to tell her University of Michigan diagnosed her wrong....

Why would a psychatrist tell people they are not autistic?

I called around and potentially found a psychologist that takes my insurance but they told me there is a waitlist.

For various reasons. There are no pills nor any other treatments to prescribe for autism and this is why my psychiatrist doesn't officially diagnose me with it - though he supports it as a key to my self-understanding.
Psychiatrists, as all other people, are prone to different biases. I have dealt with one who seemingly believed every serious mental illnes was some kind of schizophrenia. He harmed me.
Telling you not to go to your therapist seems a red flag for me. Isolation is never good.


Sign up for the waitlist. What do you have to lose?

I brought this up with my caseworker who basically told me that it wouldn't make a difference if I was diagnosed... Oh and I was highly intelligent and most people would wish for that.

Ehhh

Oh, I should add the caseworker said they think I have autism because of the "way I act" and it was rude of my neighbors to ask/say things about it in the first place.

The women probably recognize autistic traits in your interactions, or lack thereof, and your special interest in birds. They are also probably attributing our deficiencies in social communication to our strong focus on our special interests; as if your strong interest in birds is a "cage" that prevents you from looking outside of that to interact with others.

Unless the psychiatrist thoroughly tested and diagnosed other conditions explaining your traits, they are probably just acting on their own biases about what autism is (that is, falsely believing only children, only males, or only the male presentation is autistic). And I agree: warning you to not seek a second opinion is a red flag. I recommend finding another psychiatrist.

Any clinician worth his/her salt will not discourage you from seeking a second opinion.

It is insensitve that people talk about you and don't think that you might pick up on it. We may be different but that doesn't mean we don't understand.

At work, I've heard people talking about off things about me when they've thought I wasn't listening. Also, on public transport and in other situations. I have a temptation to tell them off, but I dislike drama and conflict, and I know it will just increase the negative stereotypes and misconceptions people have about Autism, and make them think worse of me, so I pretend I don't hear.

I've heard this idea presented before from an NT perspective: that people on the spectrum are somehow "trapped" inside themselves. I think this is in some part projecting, since it sounds like you didn't talk to them because you didn't want to, not because you felt like you couldn't.

I overhear my family talk negatively about my autism sometimes. When I do something they don’t like, they blame my behavior on that.

It’s annoying.

There’s nothing wrong with being your own person and doing things a little differently than others.

Different isn’t “less than” which most of such comments seem to imply.

Perhaps you are more out of the birdcage than they are because you don’t feel confined to fulfilling societal expectations.

People talk about my autism in front of me or where I can easily overhear. I don't care.

Yeah, this! I don't mind it when they like their way of doing something more than my way, but what I do mind is the "you have this condition so of course your way is worse" -thing. They literally sometimes say when I don't understand something that it's because I'm ill and thus won't even bother to try and explain... maybe I should flip it over and start saying when they don't understand something "you're normal, you can't understand these things."

The only answers I ever found with a psych were from psychs that had serious knowledge of autism or have it themselves. I lucked out big time. My PsyD has autism and at every turn in conversation, could advise on the simplest details that a PsyD in standard psycholgy may miss and/or misdiagnose. An example is how anyone with ASD may not have much contact with others or friends for varying reasons (laregly, it is who we are). However, outside the ASD knowledge base, it could appear to standard psychology as some variant of anti-social disorder or something else wrongly due to the lack of explanation in autistic development and behaviors. In the above example (interpersonal contact), it's the motivation that defines the difference; 2 completely different diagnoses could potentially be extracted from one seemingly minor detail. This slight nuance -if missed- could take a different route toward abnormal psychology descriptors.

The only advice I could give is go to a doctor that has any level of ASD themselves and see what takes place. If a heart surgeon (medical expert) was to perform a ACL reconstruction (requiring medical expertise but not the same type) the outcome will be different than if an Orthopaedic surgeon carried it out. A blessed 2020 to all.