Coming out of the closet

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What if - you're at work. You've gradually become conscious of aspergers, over a few years, and as that happens you've realised that more than half the people you work with are similarly afflicted in one respect or another. Or quite a few, in some cases.

Does keeping quiet about it still look as good? After all, you've only another decade or two in the workforce, and they can't sack you. What's crippling is that they won't promote you, or listen to you. Just go on ignoring the facts and keep that treadmill running.

When a small state has big employment in the public sector, and quite a lot of that is locked into "locked ward" situations where pools of the state's autistics are hyptonised into maintaining status quos, and other groups have inflated opinions of their management ability for running the deal; where that situation supports remote outposts from several big global suppliers, with their own trains of dependants. Vast amounts of public money are being flushed down those multinational toilets. Still keep quiet?

When I have mentioned to friends and family that I believe I am an Aspie, the usual reactions seems to be something like either a lack of interest or uncertainty about what I am talking about. My mother, who is generally supportive, seems convinced that my father is very much an Aspie and yet seems to dismiss the idea that I might be. My friends don't seem to find it an interesting topic for discussion and the people at work seem even less interested.

I guess why I might mention it to the people I care about is that I would like to be understood. I would hope that people would realized that the fact that I live alone and don't date should not be regarded as evidence that I am a loser, but simply a aspect of who I am.

I had hoped that people would see me in a more complex light if they understood this detail about me. I suspect they would, but I think there is also the problem that people get a bit dulled to the disease or syndrome or condition of the week and so tune it out.

I no longer refer to Asperger's syndrome, but instead try to provide a clear discription of my behavioral quirks to friends. They seem a bit more receptive when I describe concrete behavior that they can see in me rather than when I talk of Aspergers like I was reading from the diagnostic and statistical manual.

Lol.... I like the T shirt idea.

What should be printed on it?

How about in small text "If you are close enough to read this you are freaking the wearer out".

The few NTs I've "come out" to have been either dismissive or, more often, just given me a blank and incurious stare.