I used to be really bothered about whether someone would have misconceptions or false assumptions about me when I disclosed to them I had a diagnosis of Autism or Asperger’s. Today, I don’t care anymore. If someone makes a false assumption about me when I tell them I have a diagnosis, I don’t care. The people who look deeply at another person, will look at me as a unique person, and not as a person with a diagnosis. The people who make assumptions about me, based on a diagnosis of Autism or Aspergers, those are the people who need to know someone like me with that diagnosis, as that relationship to someone like me, will challenge their conception of what a person with a diagnosis is and is not.
I used to worry about whether or not to tell someone I had a diagnosis of Autism/Aspergers, because I felt like people would write me off, or not want to bother with me, or would treat me in a condescending way if they knew about my diagnosis. But now I just have the attitude that I can tell someone I have Autism/Aspergers, but that is just to help someone know some issues I have, but there is a whole lot more to me than that. And when more people get to know more people with a specific diagnosis, or any diagnosis, the more people will get used to the fact that people have certain issues, and diagnoses can help us understand each other and how we can relate to and be helpful to each other, without the diagnoses being the end all be all of everything.
People have things they don’t know, things they don’t understand, and they make mistakes when trying to perceive other people in a correct way. A diagnosis is just one tool in helping us understand each other and how we can live, play, and work together. Diagnostic criteria at this point, and probably for a while, are still a work in progress. The real matter at hand is people, and knowing each other as people, unique and unrepeatable as each of us are. The question is not about what is this person’s diagnosis, but who is this person I am getting to know?
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