Being outed as autistic

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I out myself left, right, and center, but I would still get angry if someone outed me without my permission. It just shows a lack of respect to me and is akin to gossiping.

Advice to the OP: if you don't think you're on the spectrum, then don't tell anyone, period. People are not to be trusted an once you tell something even to the most well-meaning person, there's always a danger that this information will get around.

I haven't told people in a long time because of that. Most of the people that know about my diagnosis found out through other people or through my files. Even though I don't think I'm autistic that information is still on my file and in some people's minds.

can you tell them that you were misdiagnosed and that you're not actually autistic? If you're very confident about the misdiagnosis, that is.

Outing me as being autistic is like outing me as being a boy or being fair skinned.
It is plainly obvious.

My mum outed me to other relatives but in a gradual way. She told them I was going to be evaluated and then eventually told them the diagnosis. I was angry at the time, I was 13. Actually, I screamed at her for talking about me behind my back , said I hated her and slammed my door. I didn't then and don't now actually hate my mum, I love her. I said it during my temper tantrum but didn't mean it. I was really angry about the diagnosis and it took me a long time to accept it.

Recently she has told a couple people at work about my diagnosis because one of them has a child who just got diagnosed with ASD and the other has a child with Fragile X. They were talking about their children so she mentioned that her daughter had ASD too and then answered questions about me and what I'm studying and doing. That didn't bother me at all. Now I tell a lot of people about my diagnosis myself. * It would bother me if she disclosed my diagnosis to someone I had to see and interact with regularly at this age but she knows not to do that. We have talked about it. It would also bother me if a friend disclosed my diagnosis without asking me.

What if you and the other person have different ideas about what should be a secret and what shouldn't? The girl clearly didn't consider the diagnosis something to keep secret since she disclosed her own. It would only be fair to consider this unforgivable if the girl had been clearly told that it was a secret.
if you want to keep something secret shouldn't it be your responsibility to explain to people you're telling that they shouldn't tell anyone?

I don't want to sound like I'm judging the OP, especially considering that she had other issues with the girl. I'm just making a general point about unforgivableness.

The difference between you and her is she appears to love your diagnosis. You hate it and don't accept it.

A fair reminder is she probably has poor social skills, and she would probably need you to confront her and inform her you want your autism to be kept private. We're all different on this, some of us are an open book, others are not, and there's no way of knowing unless we explicitally say so.

She does seem to seriously lack social tact. But then that's typical for even NT people. I guess I should be glad that my mom never accepted or even figured out what this autism thing is, or the whole world might know by now. I don't really mind, though. People can think whatever they think, doesn't change how I treat them and doesn't change who I am. Of course if I'm still young it might be a lot harder to ignore people's gossips and opinions.

If you really are autistic then your behavior would stand out anyway,and everyone would brand you as a sick wierd ret*d anyway.

So what difference does it make?

Are you afraid that they will all say "OH. you're NOT a sick wierd ret*d, you're autistic!" If anything-that would be an improvement. It certainly wouldnt be a disimprovement.

yes and autistic does not mean sick or ret*d. That's the whole point. Whatever "ret*d" means anyway... To me it's a very offensive term.

When I was in middle school I thought my behavior really stood out. I paced a lot in the hallway during breaks. I thought I looked like a "sick a weird ret*d" to everyone else.

I later found out that I was wrong. One person though I was a "snobby rich girl" and other people thought I was "cool." I was shocked because I had no friends.

Right now I don't do as much of that behavior as I used to. I also play hooky if I'm too tired to behave myself. I think most people don't notice me.

The people that do notice me probably think I'm shy and they might think I have ADHD. Most of my "bad behavior" just looks ADHDish anyways.

Never been outed, in fact I rarely paid attention to being an Aspie at all. I never told anybody or anything and I just passed it off as being shy and introverted.

Well, that's basically how I feel about it now. When I was diagnosed in middle school I thought that people knowing I was autistic would make them hate me even more/think I was weirder. I don't know why. That wouldn't have been possible anyway as I was already the school pariah and punching bag in middle school at the time and was called "sick" "weird" and "ret*d" incidentally though never all in one sentence. How much worse could they possibly have thought of me? How much worse could they treat me?

Also, I just used to hate my diagnosis and didn't want to think about or talk about it so I didn't want anyone else to talk about it either.

It actually did make a difference in elementary school. Before people knew about my diagnosis they just called me weird, annoying, geeky and a bunch of generic insults. After they found out about my diagnosis that teasing did not stop. They also started adding insults like ret*d and autistic.

^^^
I guess the other kids can just use it as more fodder for teasing/bullying. 12 year old girls are pure evil (the ones I went to school with anyway). Teasing wasn't the worst they did to me in middle school though, that was probably goading me into doing things that were humiliating and stupid because I was naive and believed they were my friends and wanted good things for me or giving me a "makeover" by smearing make-up all over my cheeks and forehead and then having the class look and laugh at me. I thought they really wanted to give me a makeover to help me fit in better. In elementary school kids were physically violent toward me too. So I'm not sure being called autistic would have been SO much worse. They already called me ret*d and said "run, forest, run" when they saw me running and the like.

Maybe in your case you hated your diagnosis because the kids teased you about it. I'm not sure why I hated mine when I knew there was something seriously wrong with me anyway.

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 03 Mar 2014, 12:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not for me. The majority of the kids at my school just hate me and think I'm weird.
I suspect that the majority of the teachers know as they should and because they have been taught about it.
The kids would just make even more fun out of me.