Being outed as autistic

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Have you ever been outed as autistic without your permission? It's happened to me twice and it sucked.

The first time was through family friends. My mom told her close family friends about my diagnosis to help them understand me. Somehow that information spread to the kids.

There was this one kid who was obsessed with telling everyone he meets that I'm autistic. Years after I thought he was over his obsession I found out from my sister that he told someone else.

Joke was on him because the guy he tried to tell didn't know enough English to know what "autistic" even meant. He thought that he said I was an artist.

The other person who outed me was an Aspie girl. We met at a social skills group and we had a few things in common.

I mostly hung out with her because no one else in the group would and the other people in the group were boring or annoying. She was a bit boring and annoying as well, but she had some interesting things to say. She was still in the process of being diagnosed, so she was quite obsessed and excited about her diagnosis.

At school she started a book club. I decided to join because I wanted to support her and see if I could get back into reading. The only people who went to the meeting was me, her and some other girl.

She decided to disclose her diagnosis during the meeting. I thought it was a stupid idea to disclose it that soon. After that she disclosed my diagnosis!

I wanted to slap her so badly, but I didn't because that would make me look like a stereotypical special ed student. After that I told her to never disclose anyone's diagnosis without their permission again and I stopped talking to her afterwards.

After that meeting the other girl she seemed to pay more attention. It seemed like she kind of wanted to be friends with me. She seemed like a cool girl otherwise, but I didn't want to make friends with people who knew about my diagnosis. Maybe I would have made friends with her if she didn't know about my diagnosis.

I still cry about this today.

Why wouldn't you want to be friends with people who knew about your diagnosis? Wouldn't it make it easier for them to understand the way you behave?

As for being outed, my mom's outed me to a lot of people; my relatives, her friends at work, my sister's boyfriend, I'm not sure why it's so important for her that everyone she knows be aware of my autism. It's even more uncomfortable because I'm not officially diagnosed yet (almost, but not quite). I don't really mind her telling people, seeing as I want to get the word on the disorder out to make people more aware of it, but I wish she'd stop doing it in front of me. Two weeks ago my sister's boyfriend came over for dinner for the first time, and I evidently said something "autistic" and my mom jumped right in with, "She has no filter because of Asperger's." I was very uncomfortable with that, because it made it sound like I was mentally deficient or something, plus the kid is 16 so he probably doesn't even know what AS is anyway.

Actually, no. In my exprience people that disregard or not know about my diagnosis tend to understand me better. Most people that know about my diagnosis get confused about my behavior. When people know about my diagnosis all my behaviors are framed incorrectly. I don't even think my diagnosis was valid to begin with, but that's another topic.

My mother used to talk about myself and my brother (visually impaired) to acquaintances. I always got the impression she liked the sympathy she got and the chance to vent, but I always shamefully averted my eyes from the complete stranger who knew why the other children didn't like me and people stared on my bad days.

Sorry you've experienced the same thing. It's cruel to take away someone's ability to disclose their struggles and differences on their own terms, to decide who, when, what, why, and how.

My mom outed me to all our relatives and I am sure she outed me to our neighbors too and I know she has told people at her work. I don't know if she still does it because I am an adult now. My husband outed me to his family and to his brother's ex girlfriend because she is still in his life because they have a kid together.

You don't even need to use the label to explain behaviors. My brothers used to just say to their friends when I would say something wrong "That's just *League Girl" and tell them to get over it.

I purposely kept my wife away from my parents before we got married, my mom over the phone told my mother in law I was ret*d and she hoped I was behaving myself and being a good boy. My mother in law was so confused she assumed my mother must be insane. She asked me if my mom was all there because she was talking about like I was five years old.

My wife did go oh that is why she called you ret*d when I explained to her how I was as a kid years later, my mom just won't let it go BUT she also insists there is nothing wrong with me! But I am ret*d.

You have to allow people to make mistakes. You have been around here long enough to know the girl that outed you does not have the filter or social skills to know that she should not have done that. You were correct to firmly tell her that it was wrong but not talking to her again was wrong in my view.

As for the parents that out people, that is horrible and they should know better.

There was other reasons I stopped talking to her. She talked way too much about her Asperger's and deafness. I also got extremely annoyed at her rigid thinking. Her outing me was just the last straw.

Yes. I was the last in my immediate family to know about my diagnosis, and then my c**t of a stepmother went and told all her friends too, just matter of factly like there was nothing wrong with it at all and that it was her information to share as she pleased. She was always a horrible gossip and spilled everything anyone told her to anyone else who would listen though, so I'll never forgive my dad for telling her in the first place. It never got out at school though, if it had I would've been dead for close to a decade by now.

Not necessarily. They're just as likely to act shifty and feel like they're walking on eggshells around you, for fear of provoking you or something.

Plus it seems like the OP is a teenager, or at least was a teenager when all this went down. Teenagers (typical teenagers at least) are f*****g animals and will happily seize any opportunity they get to exclude and ridicule their peers. Outing someone as autistic at that age is like throwing them to the wolves. What the OP's mother and her friends did was pathetic and showed a horrific lack of understanding/empathy/common sense/you name it. I don't blame the girl in the second story as much because she apparently just didn't know better. Unfortunate.

I understand

I'm very open about all of my diagnoses so no one really has the opportunity to out me.

Tourettes I can't really hide at all, so people know that there's something there and I have coprolalia so if they know even a little bit about tourettes they know I have tourettes (even though coprolalia is a rare symptom).

Once I've mentioned that I don't really see any point of not explaining my other stuff. I wouldn't disclose other peoples diagnoses without their permission though. It should be a personal choice. It's a choice that is unfortunately taken from a lot of children, especially when you're in special ed.

I just keep it a secret and I have only ever told 1 person about it.
Though the possibility of this happening does scare me.

I'm so sorry you had to experience that, DevilKisses! That sucks!

Thankfully I have never had that happen to me. If it were to happen, I would not wish to hang with those who now knew, and I would never forgive the person who said it. That's my thing to share and my alone.

I disagree. That kind of mistake is unforgivable. You shut up about other people's secrets. It's that simple.
I have written people off over one mistake. There are things I won't forgive, forget or move past. If anyone outed me that would be one of them. Laughing at my grief is another.

For these kind of reasons I tell no one.

True, if someone does tell people your secret rather it's your condition or something embarrassing, how do you know they won't share other things about you so how can you trust them?

I get some people don't have a filter so they don't know what they should keep to themselves so it's better if you tell them to not tell anyone else about this so they know that topic is off limits to other people. They aren't doing it to be mean or trying to embarrass you or gossip because they do not know they should keep that to themselves. So rule of thumb is about these people is if you don't want everyone to know about it, don't share it with them or tell them to not tell anyone else about it.

Only onceby my mother who told some nurses and a doctor (not a psychiatrist) at the hospital. I asked her not to do that again and she hasn't ever since.
I told very few people IRL about Asperger's and it's better they never tell anyone without my permission because they told me some secrets of their and I'm gonna tell someone if they say I have AS around.