Family friend who works with Autistics can't believe I'm AS

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Although I have not talked with her, a long time family friend who works with autistic children cannot believe that I have AS. She told her husband to tell me that she said I make eye contact so I can't be an aspie. I'm sitting here thinking, "how can I NOT be an aspie?". Just about every post about AS makes sense (I hate that word) I can relate to. Yes, I have been an excellent actor my whole life but now that I'm older (36) I feel that I don't want to pretend anymore and if I want to slide around on my wood floors and make chicken noises or make up words, I WILL!! ! I have tried to act semi-normal my whole life and I just can't do it anymore and if just because she didn't see it because I've been acting, it doesn't make her less of a professional, it makes me a great actor, right?

Most people who work with autistic children have a very skewed view of the spectrum as they only care for those who are severly affected. Don't worry about it.

Thank you.

What Ganondox said.

Also, a lot of parents and others who deal with autistic children compare an autistic adult's ability to function to an autistic child's ability to function.

I often hear about how I'm so incredibly "capable" and what all I can do (during a conversation, such as eye-contact compared to how this or that autistic child can't do all that (and how that makes them to severely affected!) and that the parents don't seem to expect that their child could learn to do what I do at age 24 - needless to say, I was much more autistic (or how they like to call it, much more "severe") when I was the same age as their children! It's incredibly annoying to have to listen to people saying stuff like that.

So, seriously, comparing an adult (young or old) the way they are today to an autistic 7yo, 10yo or 13yo child who has grown up in an autism-friendly environment that isn't nearly as challenging (and as unforgiving) as that of someone who did not have the diagnosis since early on is utter nonsense.

I have never understood why people compare one persons' situation with another. Especially when it's a spectrum disorder

Whilst I like to plan what I'm doing, routines don't bother me like that. That doesn't make me any less un-Autistic as a friend of mine.

My mom was in denial for years, and she worked with autistic children in special ed.

Chances are, if she saw those same autistic kids as adults, or talked to their mainstreamed autistic peers, she'd still say "nope, not autistic", because for her, autism means something that's severe and obvious at first glance.

So, somehow, I think maybe her experience with profoundly autistic kids (these kids were in a self-contained classroom and on one-on-one instruction) gave her an incorrect view of the spectrum. Only about maybe one in twenty autistics needs that kind of intensive education. Most of us can be mainstreamed, or mainstreamed with aides, and those kids she almost never saw.

I guess I'm lucky that my brother is an Aspie / HFA. This has meant that my parents have never denied / claimed that I probably have it too.