Please share the reactions of your family and friends

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I love hearing the reactions of family and friends when they are told of a diagnosis of Aspergers or HFA. Most NT's don't have a clue, and it is an opportunity to teach. Please share your experiences for the benefit of us all. What did they say/do upon being told, how did they react? What questions did they have? How did you respond back? What would you have done differently during the disclosure? Do you regret it?

Them: "You? I didn't know that!!"

Me: "Ain't it kinda freakin' obvious??"

Them: "Now that you mention it..."

This is usually in response to yet another one of my cousins telling me that they've just been diagnosed with ADHD, and explaining it to me.

Which, not coincidentally, explains a lot about the dumbass s**t they did when we were growing up.

We actually had a good laugh, sitting around the fire Saturday night, talking about "Squirrel! moments" and "Borat moments" and laughing at each other. Wish we could have done that when we were kids. It would have saved us all a lot of trouble and me a metric s**t ton of pain.

My mother denies that I'm "autistic." She believes I have a "mild case" of Asperger's.

Her conception of "autism" is the pre 1980s conception of it.

I can't really remember what they thought when it first happened. I was eight. I can remember stuff from when I was eight, I can even remember the test but I can't remember specifically how they reacted. They already thought I was a bit strange so I think it wouldn't have surprised me. How have they reacted since? Some of my relatives are nice, some not so nice.

My grandfather is nice about it but slightly patronizing. One of my aunts thinks me being on weflare is the sole cause of Australia's economic problems. Since she's an accountant I'd expect her to know more about economics than that. Another of my aunts is more supportive and has some basic knowledge of ASD. She has a masters in psychology but doesn't have a practice. Another of my aunts finds me a great source of amusement. She's not mean but she's always waiting for me to say something strange.

My mother just sort of accepts it. She doesn't have anything to say on the matter, she's just used to it. She still treats me like a child though. She doesn't expect much of me. My father expects too much. He's has long been disappointed in me but he's not as rude as he used to be. I think with his own failings he hoped to live through my success, if I had been successful that is. He doesn't quite get it. He doesn't get that just because I was a precocious child that doesn't mean I'm a genius as an adult. No matter how hard I try I can't explain that to him. The rest of my family just sort of accepts me. They live their lives and they try not to comment on how I don't really have a life.

Most of my friends are aspies so they don't really find it too surprising. At school I was amongst NTs and some of them weren't so nice but I think the bullying I experienced was relatively mild compared to what others have gone through. If I could just be nine again. I had a distinction saying I was top of the class and I was elected class president twice. By the time I was in high school I was failing in every subject and some girl accused me of not having any friends. I found it very frustrating because I knew she was wrong but I couldn't prove it to her. I wasn't very close to anyone at school. I'd hang out with a few but none of those were in the class I shared with this girl. My real friends went to other schools and that's why I'm still friends with them today. I didn't lose contact with them when school ended because I didn't know them from school in the first place. Also this girl had her boyfriend beat me up for some reason. I'm not really sure how this benefited them.

I know the OP said family and friends but since I've already covered how my enemies reacted I'll also add that as a child some of the psychologists I saw were extremely patronizing. It was as if they didn't know the difference between aspergers and low functioning autism.

Last edited by RetroGamer87 on 07 Jul 2014, 10:28 am, edited 2 times in total.

My core family is pretty small (Just my stepdad, two brothers and sister). I've only told my sister and she just said that she still loved me and accepted me the way I am. Nothing really changed. Honestly, I think that since I have been weird my whole life, my sister did not really think that there may be a specific reason why, or even a name for my weirdness... I just was who I was... so when I told her, she did not really need to have a name for why I am the way I am, she just accepts me for who I am. I have not told my older brother because he would be the same way as my sister. My younger brother, however, I think would try to use it against me... this is the person who said that after our mother OD's that I bet I wish I had forgiven her when she was still alive. That may have hurt when I was religious (more than 10 years ago). He is very childish and likes to use people's traits, flaws and mistakes against them. So no, I will never tell him.

Grandma: "No you don't."

Me: "Um, actually, yes I do."

Grandma: "There is NOTHING wrong with you! You're WONDERFUL!!"

Me: "Thanks. Dunno about 'wonderful,' but I like me, too. Notwithstanding..."

Proceed in this manner for a while.

Grandma: "There must be a lot of people with it, then."

Me: "About three percent of the population. That means that, statistically, you probably know five or six people with it. Just at church."

Grandma: "There's this one little girl... She's really sweet..."


Daddy: "Is it degenerative?"

Me: "Nope."

Daddy: "OK. That's good then."

Me: *sigh*

I was 19, and really seriously hoping for someone I could, you know, TALK TO ABOUT IT. We could talk about ANYTHING, but I came to the conclusion that that was one thing I was NOT going to talk about, lest he figure out that he had it, too.


MIL: "You're kind of like Sheldon, right?"

Me: "Sort of, I guess. I hope I'm less annoying than that, though."

MIL: "You are. Most of the time."

Me: "Cool."

Family
It was my siblings who staged the intervention that led to my diagnosis.

When I was being assessed my mother kept on trivializing it but when she saw I was happy with the diagnoses she accepted it. Now I am always getting reminders to smile or look people in the eye because if I don't "people will think you are rude".

My dad researched it and thinks he has it, I agree.

Years ago a cousin who I don't see very often told my brother that he thought I had Aspergers. At the time my brother understand very little about Aspergers.

Friends? What friends?

That pretty much explains my mother to a T. She didn't react to me telling her about autism; I reacted to her telling me about it. She had known from when I was very young that there was something different about me, but didn't know what did and didn't constitute normal developmental behaviour for a child born premature (I was a 26 weeker). She didn't tell me she had suspected autism since I was nine, until I was seventeen, and I refused to listen for almost a year. After that, I did my own research, my father's reaction to which was, "Really? I used to do that stuff all the time as a kid!" I think I found out where my autism came from

I've told two friends, one of whom thought I was just highly sensitive because he "knew autistic kids" and I didn't have a problem with physical contact. My other friend really didn't say much, she just sort of took it in stride, and it comes up every once in a while when we have discussions about psychology, but it was pretty much the same reaction as if I had told her my hair was actually brown, and I'd just dyed it blonde.

Come to think of it, my mother probably found out about it a few minutes before I did. They probably told her first. Even after they told me I wasn't old enough to understand the ramifications. I'm sure she suspected for years before. A year earlier she took me to another psychologist who misdiagnosed me as ADD. They thought the cure for this was to put me on Phentermine, a powerful stimulant normally used for weight loss. Maybe that can calm down ADD sufferers but since I didn't have ADD it just made me about ten times as hyper as I had been before. I just hope that when they treat aspie kids nowadays they know what they're doing better than they did 20 years ago.

Shock then awe...

Well, when my parents had heard the news, they immediately cast me into the outer void, where I am now destined to wander the nether-realms forever. Personally I think they were a bit too dramatic.

Klowglas:

I have never told anyone in my family of origin. I have no contact with most of them. I pretty much ended relationships with them about 5 years ago after my dad died.

My family didn't really make a bog deal out of it. They treated me just as they always had, except they are a little more sensitive now to hypersensitivity and social issues. I think they are more curious than they let on though; just don't want to ask too many questions.

i haven't told anyone in my family that doesn't know it yet (so anyone other than my parents and sister)
but i have a feeling that they won't believe me. i doubt they know what it is. also when i was diagnosed at four my parents disagreed with it. apparently they were asked to exaggerate my symptoms to get me treatment and the assessors spoke no spanish, and spanish was my parents dominant language at the time. the language barrier means they might have gotten some vital details wrong.

anyway, as for my friends, i think they will not be surprised. they probably already know. a friend of mine said "half the school knows" when i told her about it. i have no idea how.

if you gotta tell family your autistic, consider yourself lucky. if I said "i'm autistic" to any relative, they would look at me like I just said "i have a nose". like well duh