Awkward conversations about Autism

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I'd like to hear your story if you've ever been placed in an awkward situation because of an ASD diagnosis.

Sometimes, I feel put in a very awkward situation. I work with children, some of whom have disabilities or are on the Autism spectrum. Once in a while, I will be put in a situation where other adults are talking about these children spectrum, and I feel as if I do not want to betray myself by saying too much about what I know of Autism.

This has happened before, in university, where some acquaintances would talk about someone whom they thought were on the spectrum, and I felt a bit as if they were hinting for me to tell them about it.

Does anyone else have any stories? I kinda want to feel not alone in it at the moment.

I was in a situation where I was around some adults who were talking about Jenny McCarthy. I told them that I hate Jenny McCarthy. One of the women asked me how I could be so full of hate. I told that woman that I don't wish to be cured of my autism. She said, "Think of all the little children who feel that there's something horribly wrong with them, who want to be fixed. I told her, "Think of all the little children who feel the way that I do and feel that their parents hate them, because of that they're being put through." She said, "That's different, because you're older."

That's pretty awkward. How can someone who does not have Autism claim to more about what Autistic people want?

PS I should change my post to include all awkward convos about Autism, I'd like to hear them

I was in a car once with two women - one of whom has a son with AS, the other who works in special education. They were having a conversation about autism spectrum disorders which in spite of their experience showed extreme ignorance of the reality of living with an ASD. To say it was awkward is an understatement - I wanted to disclose in order to challenge their perceptions but at the same time I didn't want to discuss it with them because of some things they had already said. In the end I just kept my mouth shut.

talking about autism or aspergers is not Awkward ware I live as it's a children's home for asd's the stuff know about it

Just yesterday I had to catch myself. I was at a job interview for an adult handicapped residential facility. The interviewer mentioned having autistic residents, and I almost went off about participating in an online autism community because I'm pretty sure I have aspergers. If I get hired, it's totally coming up at some point, though. I just want to get my foot in the door and prove my worth first.

I used to work with children. I was thinking of/ am sort-of still thinking of going into speech pathology and need a certain amount of hours volunteering with a speech path in order to get into the Master's program in order to become one. Therefore I was volunteering at the Speech and Stuttering institute last year. One of the children there (it was my job to play with the kids there) was about 5, had certain articulation problems but was very advanced cognitively and verbally , though delayed socially and emotionally. My supervisor started a conversation with me about him after he left , telling me that she thought he had autistic tendencies , since he seemed to be off "in his own little world" sometimes" , he would hum and not pay attention to us sometimes , and he had a repetitive word game he liked to play with me. She was telling me to try to work on social skills with him and get him to do other things besides the word game. The only reason I bonded with the child at all was because we BOTH loved this word game! My internal reaction to what she said was "I was like that as a child only much worse. You call that "being in his own world"...he interacts most of the time....he's pretty good". I said that I thought he was pretty good socially but had some autistic traits, But I did feel really awkward, and wondered if it was really obvious that I also perseverated on the word game and had "autistic tendencies". I didn't know how much to mention, what would be inappropriate etc. When I told this story to my mom she said I should have disclosed at that point, since I was worried about annoying my supervisor and co-workers with some of my AS traits I talked to myself while working (doing office duties ...not with the children) and not making small talk like the other volunteers did for example. I probably should have but I just felt really awkward and uncomfortable in that moment.