Whether and how to tell people
At various points in your later identification autism Journey, you’ll want or need to tell people that you’re Autistic (or think you might be). But how?
There are so many possible reactions, and you’ve heard of (or experienced) negative ones, and want to avoid those. But how?
In this workshop, I’ll offer three keys for approaching this so it is more likely to go well, along with some things to avoid (as much as possible) potential negative reactions, and several sample scripts to get you started with what to say.
We’ll cover telling family/friends/parents, as well as work/employer situations, and doctors.
And how to deal with rejection sensitivity when you don’t get the response you were hoping for.
This workshop is geared toward people who have figured out (or suspect) they are Autistic or AuDHD in their adult years, and is inclusive. The presenter is likewise AuDHD.
This is a recording of a workshop hosted by Heather Cook of Autism Chrysalis on 11 March, 2025.
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Here’s the full transcript
0:03
Alright. Welcome to this workshop on practical Tips for Disclosing Your Autism. My name is Heather Cook, and today is Tuesday, March 11, 2025. Let’s go ahead and get into it.
Okay, all right, so as we are together here, you are welcome to participate with your camera off or on. I do not mind your camera being off. You’re welcome to move around, fidget, stim, tic, doodle, look away, move around, eat—see to your own needs. There are a lot of ways to pay attention. It doesn’t have to be just sitting in a chair looking at the teacher like we were taught in school. Please take care of yourself.
And if you’re here live on Zoom, you can also turn the chat on or off. You can turn closed captions on or off. You can turn self-view off if you don’t want to see that little picture of yourself. And I do ask that you mute your microphone to reduce background noise for other people because a lot of people in the group do have auditory sensitivities.
00:01:14
Our plan for today
Okay, so the plan for today is we’re gonna do a little intro, which we’re doing right now, and then three keys to reducing your anxiety or stress when you’re disclosing that you’re autistic—how to decide whether or not to disclose, how to set yourself up for the best possible reactions from other people, and some sample scripts to get you started, geared towards family, friends, work, doctors, and other service providers.
And then a few tips on when it doesn’t go as well as you’d hoped—like how to deal with rejection sensitivity and all of the feelings that can come up with that, because that can be a lot. And then a few comments towards the end on when you are on the receiving end—when someone is telling you that they’re autistic—how you can be supportive.
This is both for people who are autistic and people who are disclosing to you, but also for allies and other people in your life. You can share this with them, and it might be helpful.
Okay, so that’s the general outline. I wanted to give you an idea of what to expect. I find that that reduces my stress—to know kind of what’s coming up. And by the way, I scheduled this for an hour and a half, but I think it’s going to be closer to two hours. But I chose not to cut the information because my goal is really to get good info out there.
And if you don’t have the time to stick around today, you can watch the recording. And if you are watching this on the recording, you can watch it in multiple parts. It’s okay to watch some and then come back for more later. But I figured you’d rather have the info than stick to an artificially created time constraint.
Is that okay with people? Okay.
00:03:04
This is not a sales pitch
And also, one more thing to reduce stress—this is not a sales pitch. That is not coming up. Don’t worry about that. I know how I react to free workshops and webinars and things like that—so many of them are disguised sales pitches. So I just want to let you know that you don’t have to be waiting on edge this whole time wondering when that’s coming. It’s not.
This is not a sales pitch for my coaching services or my burnout course or anything else that I offer. It’s just intended to be good info. I will include my contact info at the end for those who are interested and want to find out more from me, but that’s it.
So I hope that saying that upfront will lower your stress level and let you really take in the content, because that’s my whole goal right now—to get useful info out there. I put on these free workshops a couple of times a year, and I do ask for feedback so that I can make them better.
Here’s the link, and I’ll include that in the chat as well, and I’ll put it at the end.
So, one consistent piece of feedback that I’ve gotten has been, “Can I have the slides?” So I’m offering the slides for sale for $5 to supplement what it takes me to create this. It actually takes me a lot of time and energy and just hard cash to put this on. So I don’t think that that’s unreasonable.
But if you want to get them now and follow along, you can. I’ll put the link in the chat. https://payhip.com/b/ropZU Absolutely don’t have to. All the slides are going to be on the screen. And as promised, the full recording and transcript will be available for free forever.
Alright?
Okay. And just as a reminder, if people can keep their microphone on mute, that will just help with the sounds.
Okay, so a little bit about me so that you know the perspective that what I’m about to present is coming from. My name is Heather Cook, and I figured out that I’m autistic at 33, and I got an official diagnosis at 34. And that led to understanding so much more about myself—my sensory differences, figuring out that I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which explained decades of chronic pain and injuries.
It led me to figuring out a lot of my social issues and healing depression and anxiety and complex trauma. And later, I figured out that I’m also ADHD, and the combination of all of this—and a few other things—explained so many of the challenges that I’ve had in relating to people, with friends, struggles keeping jobs, repeated deep burnouts.
Telling people that I’m autistic brought up a lot of different reactions, which taught me a lot about myself and a lot about them. Sometimes it was painful. Sometimes it was a relief. And now, after years of healing those old wounds and working out my own shit, I help other people do that for themselves.
So I’m a Martha Beck Certified Master Coach and a Professional Certified Coach, and I particularly love working with adult-identified autistics and ADHDers to build an autism-positive life—a life that they truly love.
If you’re interested, you can find out more info about me and the ways that I do that at autismcrystallist.com.
00:06:29
3 Keys
Okay, I promised that this was going to be practical tips. But “practical tips” doesn’t mean just, “Do this and don’t say that.” So I’m going to start by offering some very concrete pieces of advice. But the most practical thing that I can offer you is a reality check, because conversations like this go so much better when you can deal with things the way that they are—not how you wish they were, and then get mad that they’re not that way.
It might be disappointing or aggravating, but it works better. Have you ever experienced that in your own life?
So I’m going to start with that reality check. Well, actually, three. There are three key things that will make this a lot more possible and a lot easier to get the best response. As well as decrease your anxiety and stress leading up to this conversation. And having lower stress or anxiety will help the conversation go better because your brain will be able to work better and come up with better things to say, and not default to whatever your stress reaction is.
Does that make sense?
7:49
Key 1: They need time to process
Okay, so here’s the first thing to keep in mind. It’s about what kind of reaction is reasonable to expect from the other person. Because when you tell someone that you’re autistic or that you think you might be, there’s a huge range of possible reactions to that. And of course, you’re hoping for a good reaction, a supportive or at least somewhat accepting reaction, or at the very least not whatever your worst-case scenario is. And we will talk about how to increase the chances of getting a better reaction. But first, let’s talk about what expectations are reasonable and also what expectations are fair to the other person.
Because here’s the thing, when you first came across something about autism and thought it might have something to do with you, at that moment, you didn’t have all of the information that you would eventually need to identify with this term that wasn’t downloaded all at once. It took some time, at the very least a few hours, if you went down the rabbit hole of research quickly and intensely, or it might have been a slow buildup over months or even years. But however quickly or slowly it happened, you pieced together more and more information over time.
And some of that new information led to new questions that you then went off and researched more, and you watched multiple videos, read lots of articles, took in different people, talking about their experiences, and matched their stories to your own life and your history. You thought through events from your past with this new perspective, and had lots of aha moments. You also came across people whose experiences didn’t match yours, and that led to doubts and questioning whether this is real or true for you, whether this is the answer after all, or if you need to keep looking.
Maybe you felt like an imposter. Maybe you can’t quite claim this identity if everything doesn’t match perfectly. Maybe you looked at other autistic people and didn’t see yourself, or you did, but in ways that are more subtle instead of obvious. Maybe you learned about masking and how inner experience can look very different from how that experience translates to what’s visible from the outside by others. Maybe you were really good at masking and managed to hide a lot of the things that bug you in this world, the things that drive you nuts or zap your energy so that you might not look typically autistic, whatever that means.
And even when you got to the point that you were pretty well convinced or absolutely certain, maybe you felt like you needed an official diagnosis to be sure, and maybe you got one or you didn’t for all sorts of reasons, but whether you did or didn’t, it was a long process with probably all sorts of thoughts and feelings tied up in it, some of them conflicting.
My point here is that you’ve had time to process this idea, to think it through, to review your life, to answer questions, to deal with the doubts, to see through the stereotypes. So what about that other person, the person that you’re disclosing to? They haven’t had that time or the information. They’re going to have questions, probably some of the same ones that you did, as well as different ones based upon whatever they know or don’t know about autism. They also need time to process this. It’s unfair to expect a perfectly affirming and supportive reaction from someone whose first encounter with this idea is whatever it is in their mind, especially if they don’t really know that much about autism, or if their perspective on autism isn’t up to date or accurate.
So if you present this new idea, the conclusion of extensive research and thinking and processing and questioning and doubting and finding answers and going through your whole life history, this long process of building up to this conclusion a little more at a time, and all they get is the conclusion, it’s unfair to expect them to react as if they’ve had all of that context. So it’s unfair to that person to expect them to give you their immediate and unwavering acceptance, instantaneous support, and to immediately offer accommodations. If that’s the reaction you get, you’re very lucky, and it can happen. It has happened. But I don’t think that you can expect or require that. It’s just not reasonable.
So your instant reaction wasn’t that either, even if it felt like a lightbulb moment, and if it was a big revelation, if it felt like things clicked. It didn’t all click at once. You still had to learn more and question things and figure stuff out and deal with doubts, and they need that time as well. So whatever they say, however they react, that’s just their first reaction. It’s not going to be their last reaction. Does this make sense?
13:12
Okay, I’m getting several yeses in the chat, by the way. It might be tempting to try and solve this problem by simply info-dumping everything that you’ve learned so that they have all of the info and the background and everything. But that doesn’t usually work in this type of situation, and I’ll get into why later on, when we’re talking about the conversation itself and what you can do instead that is still friendly to your autistic communication style. Okay?
13:46
Key 2: Their response is more about them
All right, so here’s the second thing: The conversation about disclosing that you’re autistic isn’t simply imparting information to another person. You’re asking someone to reevaluate and change their conception of who you are, and that’s likely to bring up a lot of stuff inside them—thoughts and feelings and potentially defense mechanisms. What’s going to come out of them is going to be based on everything that makes up who they are. You’re engaging with a completely different whole person who has their own personality, thought patterns, understanding of autism or lack thereof, their personal history, their defense mechanisms, and potentially a trauma history. They have their own conception of the world and an idea of who they think you are, and you might be challenging that by telling them this.
Depending on the person, you may know some of that history or a lot of that or none of that, but you’re never going to know completely and perfectly exactly what they’re thinking, feeling, or how you’re interpreting what you say. This isn’t your personal failing. This is simply the nature of communication between individuals who are two different people, even ones that you know well and who care about you, and for ones who don’t have that personal care about you or that don’t know you well, it’s going to be even more difficult to know what they’re taking away from the conversation, what they are or are not understanding, and what their reaction means. So, however they respond to you, it has a lot more to do with them than with you. Because whatever it is that you say, no matter what you say, it’s going to be filtered through everything that they think, that they know about, not only autism, but about you and the world.
Here’s another way to think about it: You’re not only talking to this person, but to all of their preconceived ideas, their whole lived experience, everything that they know or don’t know, everything that they’ve built up about you for however long they’ve known you—maybe your whole life—is all going into hearing whatever it is that you say, and they’ll be filtering your words through all of that.
And so, if they’re skeptical or obstinate or refuse to accept, that has a lot more to do with them—with their preconceived notions and their ideas of what autism is or isn’t, with what they think about you and what they think about themselves, especially if they’re related to you or if they raised you.
We’ll get into this more later, but one big question that they’re likely to have is: What does this mean for them? Or, what does this mean about them? And if they don’t like the first thoughts that come into their mind, it’s likely to bring up some defense mechanisms. And so, whatever they say or do at that point really has a lot more to do with how they’ve expressed stress in the past, not with what’s going on right now. It really isn’t only about you. Does this make sense?
17:30
So even if they are supportive, it still has a lot more to do with them than with you. It has to do with their experiences with other autistic people in the past, with knowing more about it, with being a more open and accepting person in general, with having experiences with other types of differences that might be stigmatized, or understanding that there are all sorts of people with all sorts of differences—maybe with their lived experience of being othered and having empathy for others who have gone through that.
So, in this conversation, you’re not going to be able to just create an accepting person if they’re not already likely to be accepting. You’re not going to be able to create a supportive person if they’re not already likely to be supportive. So, whatever they say, however they respond—whether they reject your conclusion or accept it, ask questions defensively or out of genuine curiosity, if they’re mean to you or welcome you to the club—however they react, it has a lot more to do with whatever’s going on inside them than with you or what you said.
Which also means that it’s not all on you. It’s not all your responsibility, and it’s not perfectly replicable either. You may get great responses from some people and think, I’ve got this cracked, it’s all good, and then you get a horrible response from somebody. That doesn’t mean much of anything about you. It means that you happened to get some really receptive people, and then someone who’s not.
How is this landing? Is this making sense?
19:15
Some agreement in the chat, okay.
Someone also asked: “The famous But you don’t look autistic moment—is that denial the first stage of grief?”
It could be, depending on the person. It could be a defense mechanism, or it could be the first stage of grief if they are open, at some level, to reevaluating their conception of you. That could be the beginning of it. It could be a number of things, but that’s one of them, potentially.
00:19:55
Key 3: There are no magic words
Okay, so here’s the third key. If how they respond has more to do with them than you, and every person is different—with a different history and different thoughts and all these different things that are going to be coming up—then there’s no perfect thing that you can say that will always make the conversation go well.
There is no magical combination of words that will get across exactly what you mean, only the things that you mean, and that cannot be misunderstood or misinterpreted. I’m sorry. I so wish that this were different, but I’m trying to be realistic and not sell you a bill of goods, telling you that there’s a perfect phrase or formula that you can use and that if it doesn’t work for you, it’s your fault and you didn’t do it right.
That’s not reality. That’s gaslighting.
The reality is that people are going to respond in different ways. So, there’s no one right thing that you can say for everyone. There are plenty of fairly reliable things to avoid saying that are likely to produce bad responses—like insulting the other person for not getting it right away or venting your frustration at them if they’re not immediately accepting. That’s not going to be helpful.
But there isn’t some perfect set of words that will guarantee a positive, accepting, and supportive response no matter who’s on the other end. And that’s not your fault.
So, if there is no key that will unlock a perfectly supportive response no matter what—because everything that you do or say will be filtered through another person’s entire history, and if they’re going to need time to do that, time to process what you say—then that changes the goal of the conversation.
It’s so tempting to want to be perfectly understood. We’ve been misinterpreted, been misunderstood so many times throughout our lives, and it’s been so painful that when you finally understand this critical part of who you are, it’s so tempting to want to be finally understood.
But to be perfectly understood and not at all misinterpreted is an impossible goal.
Let me just pause there for a moment and allow a moment for whatever feelings come up, because that might be really hard to hear. It might be worth spending some time later on sitting with this idea and processing it however you process hard things.
22:33
Okay, so back to this disclosure conversation.
A possible goal—something that is actually achievable—is conveying things in a reasonable manner, trying to help them understand, having patience for the fact that this is a new idea to them by remembering that you’ve had a lot longer to think about this.
You’ve been doing a lot of research, so you understand it a whole lot better than they do. So, whether you give them a few sentences or an info dump, they haven’t had the same time to process that you did, so they’re not going to have the same reactions that you do now, after having thought this through.
And even when they do have more time, they’re different people, so their reactions are going to be different than yours. So, you can’t control how they take it or what they do with that information afterward.
What you do have control over is how you present yourself. Are you reasonable, kind, truthful? Once you’ve fulfilled those criteria, however they react—the rest is on them.
If you are not mean or insulting or hurtful to them, you are not responsible for them being mean to you. They may be hurtful, but it’s not because of you. It’s because of whatever’s going on inside of them.
As long as you are reasonable, kind, and truthful, you are not responsible for how they act. It’s not all on you, and it can’t be, but those are things that you do have control over.
Okay, is this making sense?
And I saw a comment in the chat: It does make intellectual sense, but it’s hard to remember that sense when the moment gets emotionally charged.
Absolutely, and we’re going to get into this some more later on, but in this one short workshop, we can’t get into all of it.
But yeah, even just having that in mind can be a start.
Okay, so let’s talk about how to decide whether or not to disclose.
24:53
To tell or not to tell
So, let’s get into the key question of all of this: Should you tell people that you’re autistic?
You might be thinking of disclosing to your providers—like doctors or therapists—to your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, employer, supervisor, or manager, to your direct reports, the people who work for you.
And if you ask a bunch of people, they’re going to give you a bunch of different answers.
But there is no right answer.
There is no “should.” You don’t ever have to tell anyone. It’s always your choice. As a caveat to that, yes, there are some mandatory reporting requirements in some U.S. states and some countries. I’m not going to get into that whole tangent, but those mandatory reporting requirements are for diagnosticians. You are not required to disclose. You are not required to get a diagnosis.
Though, there are some potential benefits of getting a diagnosis or of disclosing whether or not you have a diagnosis. And I’m strongly in the camp that a self-diagnosis is valid. There are also potential drawbacks to telling people, which is why this question can be so thorny. We want the benefits without the disadvantages, but there’s going to be some of both.
So there’s this tension between wanting the benefits of disclosing—wanting the understanding, patience, acceptance, and potentially accommodations, for example—but you may have a history of things not going that way for you. So there’s a fear that that’s probably not what you’re going to get if you disclose. And we can get stuck in this loop for a really long time, just going in circles of anxiety. Does anyone relate to that?
26:40
So ultimately, it comes down to the hard truth that there is no right or wrong answer. There are only choices and results, and you get to decide which combination you’re more willing to live with. Some of the benefits or drawbacks are going to be more prominent in your particular case and with the particular people that you’re thinking about. And ultimately, it’s for you to decide which choices and which potential consequences you’re more willing to live with.
So let’s talk for a minute about what those potential benefits and drawbacks might be, so that you can get really clear on that before you try and decide what you want.
0:27:22
Potential benefits
The most common thing that people usually want is some basic human-to-human understanding—maybe some compassion—because sometimes people complain that you’re just not doing this, or you need to try harder, or “Why can’t you just—?” whatever it is. But if they understood why you do those things the way you do, why you are the way that you are, why you ask the kind of questions that you do, or think the way that you do, or why you don’t want to go out as much as they want to, or why you need a lot of alone time, or why it matters to you that the place is organized a particular way, or why you care how something’s done, or why you ask so many questions that they think are obvious, or why you can go on and on about a particular subject but don’t care about other things—whatever it is.
It might be nice to have an easier way to explain this kind of stuff. And some people will react with understanding and compassion and let you off the hook for certain expectations—that you be more like them or do things the way that they would do it.
When it goes well, it can be like, “Oh, that’s why they do that. That’s why this thing always bugs you. Okay, now I get it. I won’t get on your case about that anymore. That makes sense.”
The other incredibly common thing that people want tends to be some sort of accommodations, usually at work or at school—to have a justifiable reason that the other person will accept and acknowledge as valid for you to do things in a way that works better for you.
This might be a formal and official thing, like an IEP or a 504 plan at school, or an agreement documented and verified by your HR department. Or it could simply be a verbal agreement between you and your instructor, supervisor, or employer.
I’m tempted to go off on a tangent about what those accommodations might be and how to ask for them, but that would be opening up a whole other really big topic, and we just don’t have the time today. But I might do a whole other workshop on that if there’s enough interest—so let me know if you want that.
But accommodations can be a thing that you could get if people know that there’s a reason for them. It’d be great if you never had to justify beyond, “Hey, this would work better for me.” But some places or people do need this kind of reason to wrap their heads around it.
And along those lines, even beyond formal accommodations, they can simply be a reason that you can give to people for why you don’t want to do X, Y, or Z, instead of constantly feeling like you’re making excuses.
It can also be a way to start a conversation about autistic burnout—what it is, what you’re going through, and why it’s taking so long to recover. Why a few days off or a few weeks off just isn’t enough to get your energy and motivation back.
It can also increase the public’s awareness of a more accurate version of what autism actually looks like, beyond the stereotypes.
And if you have younger family members who are autistic, you could potentially be a resource for them—someone to talk to, someone to answer questions for their parents, or someone to help explain things they can’t yet put into words if the family knows that you’re autistic too. And it might also be a way to start a conversation with other family members who don’t yet realize they’re autistic, helping them begin to understand themselves better—if they’re open to the idea.
Also, if you want to work in an openly autistic field—maybe doing advocacy work or identifying yourself as autistic professionally so that others can relate—for example, if you’re a therapist and you want to work with other autistic or neurodivergent clients.
If you’re open with the people around you, then you don’t have to hide it or worry they’ll find out. And if you do work professionally in a service-type field, or if you’re self-employed or want to be, working with other autistic or neurodivergent clients might be a niche for you.
Like, I’m a life coach, but I specialize in working with other autistics and others on making an autistic-friendly life, getting out of autistic burnout—things that matter to us—which I’m really good at because I have this shared life experience and perspective. Things click better with me and my clients because of that similarity. Many people find that it’s easier to talk to me than to someone who’s not autistic. They don’t have to explain everything, because I just get it.
I’ve run across other autistics who produce podcasts and market to other autistics who want to make podcasts. Autistic website designers who want to work with other autistics to make websites. Autistic social media marketers who want to help other autistics with their social media. Autistic bodyworkers who are really great at doing that and are openly autistic at the same time. And some of their clients come to them specifically because they’re autistic—because they feel safer with them.
Your job doesn’t have to be about autism, but autistic potential clients might be drawn to work with someone who’s also openly autistic.
And I’ll throw this one in just for fun, because this one is the only tangible benefit that I got from any kind of government, corporate, or formal external entity of any kind—since I was too burned out to work at the time. Everything else I got, I created for myself.
So I took my diagnosis to the local National Park office and got a free pass to all U.S. national parks.
It’s called an access pass, and it’s free admission for life, at least in the U.S.
Okay, I’m going to stop there. There are undoubtedly other potential benefits, but these are the ones that I see coming up most often.
33:22
Potential drawbacks
Let’s look at some potential drawbacks, and I do want to emphasize that these are potential. Not everyone is going to experience all or any of these, and they don’t all have to be drawbacks. Depending on the situation, you might not even care. So it’s worth thinking about which of these might actually matter to you or apply in your situation.
And the most common fear that I hear is that once people know, they can’t unknow it. You can’t take it back. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Them knowing could produce some of the benefits we just talked about, but if it doesn’t go as well as you’re hoping—well, it could create difficulties, and some of those you might not want to deal with.
So another fear that I hear a lot is that it might add to any existing stigma that you already have from certain people who think of you as fussy or eccentric or weird or belligerent or controlling. Is this just going to be one more thing that they have to deal with in their mind? Or will they take it as you making excuses for stuff? If the person is prejudiced or has very little understanding of the variety of autism that might be described as low support needs or high masking and all they can think of is a stereotype of the non-speaking autistic kid or Rain Man, or if they’ve had other encounters with autistics that didn’t go well, if they had an autistic family member that they didn’t particularly like, or if an autistic kid took a lot of their parent’s attention—any of that history could affect how they treat you.
And you may not know any of that history before you disclose. Honestly, you might not even know that that’s what’s going on even after you disclose, even though it is affecting how they treat you. And they might treat you differently, but not in a good way.
An employer might pass you over for projects or opportunities or promotions. A professor might be condescending or have less patience with your questions. People may assume that you can’t deal with certain things and try to help out in ways or at times that you don’t want or need, while not being helpful when you do need it—but they think they’re being helpful. So when you ask for the thing that you do need, they can be like, “But I already went out of my way for you in this other area,” and that can create some tension and be frustrating for both of you.
Some people may infantilize you or start to treat you as if you’re less intelligent or incapable, even though nothing about you has actually changed. Or they might talk louder, as if you can’t hear them, even though autism has absolutely nothing to do with hearing. Or they might speak slower and use small words, because in some people’s minds, that’s what you do for someone who’s disabled—with absolutely no nuance.
This is why I think we need more representation by real people in front of them that they know, not just in the media, to promote more knowledge and understanding. But you don’t have to be the person who does that if you’re not up for it.
But on the other hand, people might raise their expectations of you and think that you must be a tech genius or a calendar-counting wizard or try to fit you into some other stereotype. And you might have to deal with stupid questions like if you’re really into trains or if you identify with Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory.
Sometimes these can come from people who you thought you knew well. And even if people are genuinely and sincerely curious, are seeking to understand, and are trying to be supportive and positive, they may ask more questions than you want to deal with, and they might expect you to explain more than you want to or than you have the energy for.
You may not want to share, have all of the answers for their questions, or be able to find words to put to things that you want to express. And you may feel pressure to explain more than you’re comfortable with.
And if one of the things that you’re hoping to get out of this is to have fewer conversations so that you don’t have to explain everything to everyone all the time, is this something that you’re actually likely to achieve with your particular people? Or are you just going to create a whole new category of conversations to have?
These conversations might lay the foundation for having fewer conversations later, but there might be more upfront.
38:23
How to decide
So depending on the people that you’re thinking of, some of these drawbacks may be more relevant to you than to other people, and some of the benefits may be more likely than to other people.
Here’s the thing that was really key for me when I was trying to figure out whether or not to tell certain people in my life. I went online and read lots of stories of people who had disclosed and had really bad experiences. But mostly, it’s the people who have had bad experiences who need to vent, and they’re the ones who rant about it. The ones who have good experiences don’t tend to go online and shout it to the world.
So there’s an inherent bias in the information that you’re going to come across. But I didn’t really realize that at the time, and I was really scared that it was going to go the way that it went for all of these other people that I was reading about. And I held myself back and built up a lot of anxiety about it.
And then when I did actually tell people, most of the time, it went better than I was expecting. It was a much easier conversation. Many of them were a lot more receptive and accepting than I was expecting, or at least not as bad as I was expecting, because I wasn’t really thinking about how this person that I knew and had a history with was going to react. I was thinking about how people would take it, and that was based upon what I had read from other people’s experiences—and those were about the people in their life, not the people in my life.
I’m not saying that yours isn’t going to go badly. I don’t know the people in your particular life, and those bad experiences do genuinely happen—otherwise, people wouldn’t be complaining about them online.
But my point at the moment is to try to separate what could happen in this range of all possible experiences from what is actually likely for this specific person or group that you’re thinking about disclosing to.
Does that make sense?
And that brings me to the bottom line of how you make the decision. I encourage you to get really clear on what it is that you’re trying to get out of letting them know. What’s the goal of disclosing to this person at this time?
And it may seem obvious, but so often, people tell me that they want understanding or accommodations. And yet, I would suggest that both of those are still pretty vague goals.
If you’re looking for understanding, is it because you actually want them to understand you? Or do you want to feel understood? Those are actually two separate things.
Okay, this might be hard to hear so feel free to ignore this: They might understand you pretty well or understand autism accurately, and you could still feel not understood. Because of what’s going on in your mind about it, because of your history, the way trauma has wired your brain, your sense of safety in the world, or your strong attachment to the painful thought that no one will ever understand me. If any of that’s going on for you, you’re not likely to feel understood no matter what they say or do, no matter how much they actually understand you. I’m not saying that everyone will. I’m just saying that is a possible scenario.
And just as a side note, one thing that I’ve been pleasantly surprised about my first cohort in my autistic burnout course is that there’s been a lot of support in the chat during the workshops. And one of the most common things people share with me is they finally feel like they’re not the only one. They feel less alone, they feel understood. And it’s been really healing for many of them.
And that’s been so wonderful for me to watch happening because I remember when I first encountered a supportive community myself. It was incredibly healing for me and it opened up a whole world for me. I got that, and these people going through my course are getting that from being around other autistics who have similar experiences. That’s how we finally felt understood. I didn’t get that so much from the non-autistic people in my life.
I felt like they understood me better, but it wasn’t that same kind of feeling understood. Does that distinction make sense?
42:59
Okay, so which is it that you’re looking for? If you’re looking for the feeling of being understood from up here, from someone with a similar lived experience, you’re more likely to find that in a place where you can get that kind of community support. If you’re looking for the kind of understanding that’s like, oh, that’s why he does that. Maybe I don’t have to get on his case as much for doing it a different way. That’s something different that’s actually possible to get from disclosing to others in your life, assuming that people in your life are likely to be receptive, and that’s another part of the equation.
So are you likely to get what you’re after from this particular person that you’re thinking about disclosing to? If you’re not likely to get it from them, it might be worth going somewhere else to fulfill that particular need, where it’s a stronger possibility.
43:58
I’m actually seeing a couple of people in the chat who are part of the burnout course saying, “1,000,000% accurate, such a warm sense of human community in the burnout course,” with a couple of hearts on that. Yeah, it is. It’s been really wonderful.
Okay, the other big thing that people often want but are pretty vague about is accommodations. I often hear people say to me that they want accommodations, and they hear that accommodations are possible at work or at school, and because they have a hard time with some aspects of work or school, they think this is going to be the thing that’ll make a big difference. And I want that. But I would ask again, what specific accommodations do you want? For what particular issues? Your employer or school aren’t going to be able to provide you with accommodations that they don’t know are possible, or for problems that they don’t know you’re having.
And I’m sorry to say this, but it really is up to you to figure out what you need, what might actually be helpful, and then to ask for that. That sucks. It’s more work for you, but they simply aren’t going to know what you need help with or what would be helpful.
Think about it this way. They weren’t able to design the system in the first place to meet your needs, so how are they going to be able to redesign it without you telling them what the issues are and what would be a better version?
This is part of what I’m thinking about getting into in a workshop on accommodation. So again, let me know if that’s something that would be of interest. I see a couple of people in the chat who have said that they want that.
When you have a clear idea of what accommodations you want to ask for, are you likely to get that kind of thing from disclosing to this particular person or organization that you’re thinking about disclosing to?
Or, for another quick example, if you’re thinking about disclosing to your doctors or other care providers so that you can explain things by saying, “It’s because I’m autistic,” is that something that they will understand accurately? Will they take away from that the meaning that you intend by it?
So whatever it is that you’re trying to get out of disclosing, get really clear on what that is, and then think through whether that’s likely to happen in these particular circumstances. And that might vary dramatically from person to person.
One family member might be very open and receptive, whereas another won’t hear anything about it. One coworker might be a great ally, whereas another is going to be insulting and dismissive.
Not all of your family or coworkers, or whatever group, are going to react in the same way. They’re all individuals. And even in a generally supportive group, there might be one unsupportive person, or in a generally unsupportive group, there might be one supportive person. It’s not an all-or-nothing. You don’t have to either disclose to everyone in your life or to no one. You can pick and choose to a large extent; you can disclose to certain doctors but not all of them, to some family members but not all of them—although I would not disclose to the gossipy ones if you don’t want them all to find out. You can disclose at work but not to family, or to family but not at work. It doesn’t have to be everyone or no one.
47:48
The conversation itself
Okay, so once you’ve decided who you’re going to tell, let’s talk about the conversation itself. How can you set yourself up for a better experience?
Don’t anticipate the conversation
Remember when I said earlier that when I was trying to figure out whether or not to tell people in my life, I read lots of stories of people who had bad experiences, and it increased my anxiety, and I held back a lot? But when I did disclose, mostly it wasn’t actually that bad.
The same is true about the conversation itself. It’s so tempting to think that we know how a conversation is going to go, and we think we know how they’re going to respond and what they’re going to say, and we have all these responses prepared.
But in my experience, I was rarely accurate in how I anticipated how the conversation was going to go. I was more accurate in predicting the people who were going to be at the extremes—those I thought were very likely to be supportive generally were so because those were the people I had a history with of being supportive in lots of different areas. And the people that I thought were likely to be dismissive or mean—that was also pretty accurate. Or I never found out for sure because I just didn’t tell them.
I still haven’t told them after years, but those people have a history of being judgmental or prejudiced in lots of different areas, so I had a pretty accurate basis for making that prediction. So the people at the extremes, I had a good basis for predicting. It was the people that I wasn’t sure of that I was often more surprised about, and these were often the people that I had the most anxiety about telling because I wasn’t sure. Interestingly, I wasn’t all that anxious about telling the people who were going to have the worst reactions because it wasn’t a serious consideration to do so. I didn’t absolutely have to tell them, so I didn’t. I let things go on just as they were, and I’m okay with that state of affairs.
So the people that I wasn’t really sure about, those were the ones that I was often surprised about—and often pleasantly surprised. More often than not, it went better than I was expecting. And I hear the same thing from a lot of other Autistics—that it went a whole lot better than they were expecting. And when it didn’t go well, I reminded myself that it wasn’t necessarily because of me.
So again, prepare for the conversation. Absolutely. Think about potential responses and how you might respond to those, but I’d invite you to leave open the possibility that you won’t be able to predict exactly how it’s going to go, and that’s okay. It’s not a personal failing. It’s an acknowledgment that you are two separate people—whole people—and how you react isn’t going to be the same way that they will react. How you think and what makes sense to you isn’t going to be how they think and what makes sense to them, but you’ll still get through it.
50:55
Social norms can work for you
So here’s why this matters. When you think that you’re sure how it’s going to go, or you’ve heard about how other people have had bad experiences, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s like when you need to call a company to resolve an issue, and you’re talking with their customer service rep, and you’re expecting them to be belligerent and to not believe you and to deny your request. You might have already gone through this whole long, horrible conversation in your head multiple times, and in your head, you’ve already been denied and given the runaround and passed off to multiple other people who are just as unhelpful, and you’re all worked up. But all those conversations actually only took place in your head.
But if, when you start the real conversation with this particular customer service rep, your starting point is at the end of these imaginary conversations, but their starting point is that they’ve never talked to you before and have no idea what’s going on or what the problem is, then they haven’t even had a chance to try and help yet. So if you start out being frustrated and aggressive and demanding or defensive, they’re likely to respond with exactly what you don’t want—by being belligerent and denying your request and being generally unhelpful.
But if you start the conversation with something like, “Hey, I’ve got this issue. Could you help me resolve it?” it doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to take care of it, but it starts off your interaction with them on a better note, so there’s a much higher chance that they’ll be helpful and take you seriously and work with you to resolve your issue. And even if they can’t give you what you need, it’s a better experience all around, and you still have the option of getting more aggressive later if you choose to.
It works the same way here. When I thought that someone wouldn’t believe me and would be dismissive, I was more likely to come across as tentative and unsure or defensive and aggressive, and then the people were more likely to doubt me and to doubt my conclusions or to respond with aggression themselves. But when I was just like, “Hey, this is what I figured out. Isn’t this interesting?” people were more likely to think about it, to take me seriously, and to maybe ask questions—or to at least keep their less socially acceptable thoughts to themselves and not make me deal with them. And this can be one of those times when social norms for what’s appropriate behavior can work in your favor. A lot of people who don’t have something nice to say will keep it to themselves, as long as you don’t first break the social norms by insulting or criticizing them.
This works better with people that you’re not related to, but in workplaces, doctors’ offices, schools, and other places where you’re dealing with the public, social norms can often work in your favor as long as you hold to them well enough that you’re considered to be reasonable and socially appropriate.
All right, let’s recap. At this point, you’ve separated other people’s stories of their disclosures from your own, and even though you’re preparing in your mind for a range of possible reactions, you’re staying open to the idea that you can’t know for sure how this particular person will react. And you’re starting the conversation fresh with this real person, not at the end of a whole long imaginary conversation in your head.
Now that you’re in the conversation, let’s talk about some ways that we can try to help people be more open to the idea—to stack the deck at least a little bit in your favor and to try and elicit a better response. Again, there are no magic words that are going to make that happen, but you can get strategic. And the next thing that I’m going to say is about being strategic—not manipulative and not masking, but strategic—and I’ll explain why.
00:54:52
This isn’t the time to info dump
This isn’t the time to info-dump all of your research and everything that you’ve learned about autism and masking and sensory stuff and autistic burnout, and everything that you’ve figured out about yourself, and all of the times in your life that this or that autistic trait influenced this or that situation. That isn’t helpful at first. And I recognize the irony in suggesting not to info-dump while I’m essentially info-dumping right now. But there’s a time and a place for it, and you can rewatch this thing as many times as you need to. It’ll be out there for free forever.
And there are times when it’s not helpful—like when you’re asking someone to accept big personal revelations, a large-scale change in the way they think about you. That’s not a situation where more info is necessarily going to help, at least not in the early stages. And here I’m mostly referring to personal relationships or long-term relationships. Even if it is at work, if you’ve known these people for a long time, impersonal new relationships—like going into the disability office at school to ask for accommodations or sharing with a new doctor—can be more transactional, but the basic concept still applies.
They still won’t want an info-dump of everything that that means for you. And especially for personal or long-term relationships, when you’re asking someone to fundamentally change how they’ve seen you for years, and it’s important for you to preserve a positive relationship with this person, at the beginning, they need a little bit of info and then time to process it. Then a little bit more, then time to process it.
Here’s why. Think about how you came to this conclusion. I mentioned earlier about how you first came across this idea, and then got interested, then did some research, then explored some more, then questions came up, and then you sought out answers.
Then more questions came up, and on and on. Each bit of info had its own time to process before you went on to the next bit of info. Sometimes there was a lot of info in a short time, but then maybe you went off researching for a while and had to just sit with it for days or weeks or months. Maybe you’ve been exploring this for a long time, or even if it’s only been a short while, it still wasn’t all just crammed down your throat at once, and they need the same time to process.
You might think that giving them all of the info is going to answer all of their questions or head off any potential doubts, or maybe you’re just so excited that you want to share it all. Maybe this is your love language. But what’s the goal here? What’s the goal of disclosing? Do you want them to understand you better? Then they need to have time to process the information in order to understand it and to understand you.
Is the goal to get accommodations? Then they’ll need to accept your conclusions before they’re willing to change anything for you, which means they need time to process the info in their own way to reach that conclusion for themselves.
Is your goal to feel less alone? Well, then they need to be on board with the idea for them to feel connected to you and for you to feel like you’re in this together. So they’ll need time to process. Always come back to—what’s the goal? And is that goal being served by overloading them to the point where they don’t want to talk about it? That’s not going to achieve your goal. It might take longer than you would like, but it’s more likely to actually achieve the goal.
Does this make sense?
58:50
I’m seeing some agreement that, yes, it makes sense, but also some “but, but info-dumping!” Yeah, I totally get that, and I try to remind myself—what’s the goal? So what I found helpful is to share some things, but not everything. You can info-dump later if they ask for it, if they want more information when they’re open to it. But to get open to it, they need a little bit of time to process at least the idea first.
So this isn’t masking because you’re not being fake, but you are responding to what they need in order to achieve your desired outcome. And if your desired outcome is more important to you, you can be absolutely authentic in the process while still recognizing that the other person needs some time to process a little info at a time—just like you did. And that’s being considerate.
So think about the one or two things that are the most important to get across first for this person. And for your experience of autism, what is this person likely to need to know to get over that hump, to begin the process? Start with telling them that. Then, if that’s the only thing they’re ever willing to hear on the subject, at least they’ve got the most important thing. And if they’ve got the most important thing, it increases the chances that they might be willing to hear more because their biggest question has been answered.
So again, this isn’t masking—it’s just acknowledging that this is a big topic that’s going to take time and repeated exposure to grapple with.
Does that feel manageable?
1:00:55
Lowering their defenses
Okay, and as you’re talking to them, just sharing the conclusions like, “I’m Autistic,” or, “You didn’t notice because it turns out I was heavily masking all these years.” “Oh, by the way, I have tons of sensory differences that I’ve been ignoring or hiding without even realizing it.” And, “Oh, but they haven’t been completely hidden—here’s how they showed up in this and that part of my life. And that’s why I’ve always done X or Y or Z, and this led to autistic burnout. And here’s what that is.”
That’s what I mean by conclusions—it’s the summary version, not the messy research-in-progress version. But when you do that, when you skip over the messy research and present everything as these neatly packaged data packets, that can make it difficult for some people to relate, understand, and accept your conclusions.
And when they can’t relate, their defenses are more likely to go up, especially if they’ve known you for a long time and you’re asking them to fundamentally change how they think about you.
So share with them some of your process—how you came to these conclusions. Don’t info-dump all of it, but it is helpful to mention that you’ve been doing a lot of research, that you’ve questioned this too, that you’ve had doubts, and that you weren’t sure about parts of it because not all of it fit what you thought about autism. But you figured out that you didn’t know as much about autism as you thought, and that you’ve been learning.
This will help you—and the topic—become more relatable, which will make it feel more approachable to them. And it’s less likely to raise their defenses if they can see that you’ve also had some of the same questions that they have, that you’ve gone through some of the process that you’re asking them to go through, and that they can see a light at the end of the tunnel—that there are answers coming, even if they don’t have them all at the moment.
For example, at the beginning of this workshop, I shared a preview of what I was going to cover. Did that help you feel a little bit better, knowing that some of your questions were likely to be answered—even if the info wasn’t there yet, even if you had to wait an hour or more for it? But you knew I was going to be addressing these things that were on your mind.
This is the same principle. Sharing at least a little of your process helps them relate to you and the info, so they don’t have to defend themselves or defend their image of you by insisting that they already know everything. And then they might be more willing to engage in the process.
1:03:39
Okay, how is this seeming? Does this seem manageable?
1:03:53
So, what do we do if there are no questions? What if a family member responds pretty much like, “Oh, okay,” and then they never ask anything about it again?
Well, then you don’t have to go through the work of explaining stuff. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re rejecting you or that they don’t care. We’re actually going to talk about this later. It could mean just that they’ve got a lot on their plate, or that it made sense to them and they’re okay with the situation. It could mean a variety of things.
Just because you want to talk about it doesn’t mean that they need to hear about it.
1:04:32
What you say is not what they hear
So even with all of this, even if you present it in the best possible way—no matter what you say, no matter how well you explain, no matter how carefully you put things or how relatable you are—what you are trying to get across is not going to be the exact same thing that will land in their heads.
Remember how I said earlier that people’s reactions have far less to do with the words that you say than how they interpret them?
This is maybe one of the hardest parts for a lot of us who have managed to not get identified until adulthood because we’ve been misunderstood and misinterpreted so many times that many of us have complex trauma around that. A common trauma response is to go well out of your way to say just the right thing in just the right way—to over-explain, to explain every possible variation and exception, why it’s not this, how I don’t mean that, and to think of every way they could possibly take it and have an answer for everything to avoid any possible misunderstanding of what you say—Is this at all familiar?
1:05:47
And even with all of the work that you put into this, you can still be surprised by how people take things. So often it feels like people’s responses come out of nowhere. So I want to let you know upfront that that’s going to happen again because what you say is not what people will hear. That’s not a personal failing. It’s not you not communicating well enough. It’s just that people are seeing things through the lens of their own history, knowledge, experiences, and their own traumas. They’re dealing with what might be uncomfortable information with whatever skills they have for handling uncomfortable emotions, which might not be very skillful or healthy at all. Their emotional maturity and emotional skill set is not your responsibility and not your fault.
If their unhealthy skill set in dealing with anything they don’t understand or don’t like happens to be a little too close to the reactions of certain people in your past, it can be especially triggering. I find that it’s helpful to know that in advance and to remind yourself that just because you’re being triggered, not all of it is coming from what’s going on now—some of it will be coming from your past. It doesn’t mean that it’s not real. It’s just something to be aware of so that you can help yourself work through whatever emotions are coming up on your end from their reaction. Remind yourself that as long as you are reasonable and kind, their reaction is not really about you—it’s about them.
So I’d like to offer a few examples of what they might be hearing when you say that you’re autistic so that it makes a little more sense what might be going on in their head. So it doesn’t feel as much like this is really about you—because it’s not.
By the way, I’ll be focusing on the negative ones because those are the ones you’re likely to ruminate on, doubt yourself over, or spiral about. But keep in mind that this is going to be a skewed representation. Plenty of people will be supportive and not have these reactions. It’s just that we don’t tend to dwell on those ones.
1:08:14
What they hear – Parents
Okay, so when you’re telling your parents, or really anyone who raised you, and you say, “I’m autistic,” if what they hear is, “I’m a bad mom” or “I’m a bad dad or parent” or “I messed up my kid” or “What did I do wrong?” or “They’re blaming me for all the troubles that they’ve had” or “They’re blaming me for not fitting in” or “It’s all my fault”—if that’s what they’re thinking, then their reaction is likely going to be defensive, dismissive, argumentative, disbelieving, or deflecting blame. Whether or not you’re actually blaming them in any way, that might be what they’re hearing, so that’s how they respond.
1:09:04
What they hear – Partner
So when you’re talking to your intimate partner or any close personal relationship, especially a long-term relationship, when you say, “I’m autistic,” if what they hear is, “That’s not who I married,” or “I didn’t sign up for this,” or “He’s changing on me,” or “How am I supposed to tell my mother?” or “Does this mean our relationship is over?” or “Has our whole life together been a lie?” or “Is she really trying to tell me something else? Is something bigger coming?”—then their reaction is likely going to be guarded, skeptical, discouraging, worried, dismissive, or argumentative, or they may avoid the topic.
1:09:51
What they hear – At work
When you’re talking to your employer, manager, supervisor, or others at work, including coworkers, when you say, “I’m autistic,” if what they hear is, “I’ve got enough on my plate; I don’t need this too,” or “I didn’t sign up for this,” or “Here it comes, they’re about to ask for some big exception that’s going to cost me a lot of work and headache,” then their reaction is likely going to be dismissive, minimizing, deflecting, pretending nothing happened or that it doesn’t matter, or citing policy. They might use shaming as a means of silencing you before you can say anything that would require them to do something.
They might try to head you off by citing examples of other employees who manage just fine, proving that autism isn’t an excuse for any kind of work issues or accommodations.
They might say something like, “I hope you aren’t going to ask for accommodations because you aren’t that autistic.” This is the reaction of a person who sees the potential for their life getting more difficult by something changing that they didn’t initiate, and they’re trying to avoid that by preemptively making you feel bad for even thinking about asking—so that you don’t. It’s a way for them to manage their own stress levels. And everybody’s stressed these days. It’s not actually about you.
How are these landing? Are these making sense?
1:11:31
What they hear – Doctors
When you’re talking to your doctors and other medical providers, therapists, or service professionals of any kind, really.
When you say: “I’m autistic.” IF ego gets in the way and what they hear is: “Who does she think she is, I’m the professional here. I went to medical school, she went to TikTok.” Or, “Not another one, everyone’s claiming they’re Autistic these days, it’s just a fad.” “Everyone’s challenging doctors these days. No one has respect for the profession anymore.”
Then their reaction is likely going to be dismissive, disbelieving, belittling, trying to talk you out of it, condescension. They might say something like, “I know autism; you’re not it.” Or, “Don’t trust everything you read online.” Or they might come across as if they’re willing to humor you, but don’t really believe you.
1:12:41
What they hear – Via stereotypes
The last two I want to go through are more general. What about when you’re talking to someone who only knows about autism through a very limited sample size of what autism looks like, usually a very stereotypical one?
When you say: “I’m autistic.” They’re going to compare you to their limited sample size, and if those doesn’t match up, they’re going to respond with confusion or disbelief.
Then their reaction is likely going to be the infamous, “You don’t look autistic.” Or, “My niece, friend’s kid, etc., is autistic, or I work with autistic people, and you’re nothing like them.”
Or they could take it in a very different, but equally unhelpful direction. I’ve heard, “My kid is autistic and you give me hope he can get better!” I hate that one.
1:13:35
What they hear – Familiarity
But if you’re talking with someone, and the examples you cite feel quite familiar, they’ll be comparing your descriptions to their life, and if they find a lot of overlap, if you’re talking about the same things they’ve dealt with and adapted to, justified, explained, or shamed themselves about for years, then their own negative self-talk is likely to come out.
Especially if they’re genetically related to you, or if they raised you, and they have stereotypical or stigmatized ideas of what autism is. They might be wondering, what that means about THEM. And they might not like that answer. So it might be easier to reject the possibility, so that they don’t have to think about it for themselves, in terms of their own selves, or other members of the family.
So when you say: “I’m autistic,” their reaction is likely going to be something along the lines of: “We all have a touch of the ’tism.” Or, “Everyone’s somewhere on the spectrum.” Or, “That’s just normal life. What’s the big deal?” “Don’t complain, that’s just how it is, get over it.” Or, “Don’t make excuses.”
By the way, this person might be Autistic themselves, and has likely been masking it heavily to fit in or get by. They may or may not be willing to discuss that at this point, or ever. That’s a whole different topic. How is this landing? Is this familiar?
Someone in the chat wrote: Yes, this all feels familiar. But how do you protect your job? Or how about disclosing to a prospective employer?
We’re actually going to talk about those later on. Not specifically about it in those terms, but what do you do if they don’t believe you, how to disclose, things like that.
1:16:04
What they hear – Other Autistics
But what if you’re talking with someone who is Autistic, and they know it? Ideally, we would want this to be a supportive exchange, and I think that most of the time it is, but I’ve heard of a lot of people having bad reactions from other Autistics. I even get that sometimes, because when I’m not stressed, I don’t look like what most people expect. When I’m stressed, that’s a whole different story. But I’ve fixed up enough of my life that I’m not stressed very much anymore.
I think that disparaging reactions from other Autistics comes from a place of feeling threatened, for a few different reasons. When I had first figured out I was autistic, in those first few months, I was talking it through with my mom, and she was reviewing her own life, and my dad, and it made complete sense to her that my dad was obviously also Autistic. He had passed away by then, so we couldn’t talk to him about it. But while I intellectually saw it all, and everyone had always said to me, “you’re just like your dad,” there was a part of me that didn’t like it every time she brought up that my dad might be Autistic because X or Y or Z.
Because a part of me finally had an explanation for so many things in my life, and for once it wasn’t a bad explanation, it wasn’t me being broken or wrong or incompetent or whatever, and it was like that part of me needed to protect this truth, that I’m Autistic. And in protecting it, no one else could share that truth. It couldn’t apply to anyone else. Even though obviously I knew lots of other people are Autistic. But someone else in my family was too close; it felt dangerous. And, I wanted to be special. In a good way.
I got over that after a few months and now I really like that my dad and I share that, and I can see it very easily in several other family members now. And now I have no problem with it whatsoever. Genuinely. Because I don’t see it as a threat anymore. I’m comfortable enough with myself and my own truth, that no one else’s truth, no one else’s reactions, no one else saying whatever to me, can shake that anymore. And no matter how many other people share this identity of autism, it doesn’t take away anything from me. I’m actually happy to see how widespread it really is. It’s nice to have more people like me in the world.
Isn’t this what most of us have wanted our whole lives, to be normal? What if autism is normal?
Anyway, I bring this up because if you share with another Autistic, that you’re autistic, and IF they react badly, it may be because it’s bringing up some really big emotions for them, a challenge or a threat, or a fear that so many people are self-diagnosing these days, that no one is going to be believed anymore, like it’s diluting their truth for more people to self-identify, or even to get official diagnoses.
So when you say: “I’m autistic,” IF what they hear is, “People won’t believe me anymore.” Or, “You’re taking away from everything I’ve fought so hard for.” Or, “More people claiming this is diluting this.” Or, “It means I won’t be special anymore.” Or, “You don’t seem anything like me so it can’t be true.”
Then their reaction MIGHT be something along the lines of: “Stop lying.” “You’re a fake.” “I’m Autistic, I know what I’m talking about.” “You’re stealing from other Autistics.” I’ve heard those and worse online.
Before I leave the section, I just want to reinforce that these are all painful thoughts, and fears, they’re not truth. And again, they’re not about you. They’re about what’s going on inside the other person.
Okay, how is this landing? Were any of those reactions familiar?
Someone shared that they get asked “Where did you get your diagnosis? I hate getting that response.” Yeah, that’s another one you might get from other autistics, professionals, all kinds of people. As if that’s a way to challenge the validity of it.
And by the way, I hope not all of these are familiar from personal experience. I hope that you haven’t dealt with that many negative responses.
1:20:56
Sample scripts to get you started
Before we move on and get to some sample scripts, I just want to reiterate that I’ve been highlighting the negative reactions, because those are the ones that you’re more likely to ruminate on, but there are a lot of people in all of these categories, who will respond warmly, supportively, enthusiastically, with welcome or congratulations or interest. But for the sake of time, I’m going to move on, okay?
Now let’s get into what you could actually say. You don’t have to use my words, these are just examples, but I generally find it helpful to have something to start with. That you can then modify and adapt to your own style. Or at least use as inspiration. Starting from scratch, coming up with something new entirely on your own, especially with a topic as important as this, can be intimidating.
I’m much better at doing that now, though it’s still intimidating sometimes, but it really stressed me out for most of my life. So I hope it helps to have something to start with.
I’ve broken this into four different categories, some general ways to introduce the idea of having this conversation, and then some scripts for family and friends, and other personal relationships, some for work, and some for doctors and other service providers. But depending on your relationship with each of these individuals, you might pick from any of these categories. They’re not that rigid. They’re just things that I’ve geared towards a stereotype of a certain relationship, which may or may not fit your actual relationship with the real people in your life.
And again, modify these to suit you, your style, your people, your words. Make them yours. This is just inspiration. I’m actually seeing in the chat that a lot of people had better reactions to disclosing autism. See, it’s possible, good reactions do happen.
1:23:04
Scripts – Setting up the conversation
Let’s start with a few ways to introduce that you’d like to have a conversation, before you get into the topic itself.
These are conversation openers. Because you don’t have to do it all at once. Remember, this isn’t an info dump. Sometimes just introducing the idea that you want to have a conversation, and that’s it, is best. Then they can mentally prepare for the idea of it, and later you can have the actual conversation itself. So it doesn’t feel like it’s coming out of nowhere.
So here’s some scripts to do that.
“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. It’s nothing bad, but it is important, that I’ve been thinking about for a while. When would be a good time for you, when we aren’t likely to be interrupted? Because this really matters to me.”
“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. I know this is going to be awkward, and I’m nervous about that, but it’s really important to me. Can you try to hear me out?“ Sometimes bringing up the nervousness or fear or whatever upfront can help to reduce some of it. And then they might be a little more empathetic and respond better.
“You know how people have always called me weird? Well, I think I finally know why.”
“You know how you’ve have always said, I’m just like dad? Well, there’s something I’ve been figuring out lately, and I think I have an explanation for both of us.”
“So I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of research again. No surprise there. And I’ve found something interesting I’d like to share with you.”
“You know how I’ve always struggled with X, well, I think I’ve figured out why this is so hard for me. I’d like to run it by you.”
1:25:00
Scripts – Family and friends
So here are a few scripts that I’ve geared towards personal relationships, especially towards family and friends. Keep in mind that with old relationships, they think they know you, so there might be varying degrees of accuracy. But it’s always going to require them to change how they think about you, and they weren’t planning on doing that, this is unexpected to them, and change that is unexpected and not necessarily wanted, can be difficult for people to wrap their heads around.
A lot of autistics have difficulty with change, other people do too. Especially when it’s not personally initiated. As you’ve been researching, you’ve been looking into this because you want to. It’s your choice. And it’s deeply personal to you.
To the other person, this is being done TO them. Not in a mean way, not in a bad way, but it’s still not them initiating it. So being sensitive to that can help them to be open to the idea, and eventually to accepting it.
Here are some scripts to do that.
“Remember that time when you said “some insightful thing about me,” and at the time we just shrugged it off? Well, I’ve been thinking about that. It turns out I’m not the only one. I’ve been looking online, and I’ve actually found a lot of other people are like this/do this, too. And it’s been really nice to have an explanation. And maybe some hope. Is this something you’d be open to talking about?”
Here’s another one.
“I read/heard/saw this thing recently about this person who did/is like/said x, and that actually felt way too familiar. It got me thinking. That person said that they’re Autistic, and at first that didn’t make sense to me, because all the Autistic people I’ve ever seen have been like x/y/z (and bring up the thing that the person you’re talking to is likely to think of when they think of autism), but that one thing kept bugging me. And the more I looked into it, the more things seem to fit. In really interesting ways. And the more I learn about autism, the more I’m seeing that it really is a spectrum. There’s a huge range, and not everyone is like x/y/z. And long story short, I think I might be Autistic too. If at some point, you want to get into the longer story, I’d love to talk about it with you. But right now I just want to let you know that this is something that I’m looking into and I’m trying to figure this out. And so far, it’s been really interesting and I think this is going to be helpful.”
For new relationships, when you’re just starting to get to know someone, and they don’t have that long history with you, but you want them to know this important thing about you, you can choose when to disclose.
Sometimes I’ll slip it into the conversation fairly early on, even in our first meeting. I’ll look for a chance to say something like, “well, I’m Autistic, so…”
As in, we’re talking about our hobbies, and I might say, “well, I’m Autistic, so I get really into one interest at a time and get kind of obsessed with it for a while, and then move onto the next obsession. Lately I’ve been really into painting with oil pastels, but it used to be astronomy. Ask me anything about space; seriously, I can probably give you an answer.”
Or something like, “yeah, a lot of Autistics, like me, are really good with/struggle with things like that.”
As in, we’re making plans for when to meet, and I might say, “Just to let you know upfront, I really do want to get together, but I’ve also been struggling with autistic burnout, and I don’t always have as much energy as I think I will when I make plans. So if I cancel last minute, it has nothing to do with you, or with me changing my mind, I’m just wiped out that day. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but like a lot of Autistics, I have a strong sense of what’s fair, and I want to do right by people, so I think it’s only fair to let you know it might. And if you need to cancel last minute, I’m OK with that too.”
And then, after I’ve slipped it into the conversation, I’ll just continue the conversation as if that was a totally normal thing to reveal about myself, acting as if it’s as normal as saying that I like cats, or that I don’t eat dairy, or that I used to teach high school German. It’s just another fact about me. And sometimes those facts provoke a question or two, and I’ll answer as if that’s also the most normal thing in the world.
And I’ve found that when I treat it as completely normal, and maybe interesting, but not shock-worthy, usually the other person takes that cue and responds in kind.
And if I never hear from them again, well, at least I haven’t wasted a whole lot of time building a relationship that was never going to work. Letting them know upfront means that if this is a dealbreaker for them, then I don’t have to waste my time and get my hopes up about a new friend or potential relationship where this was always going to end up making things come crashing down later.
But if they keep talking to me, and I do hear from them again, then I know that it’s not a dealbreaker, and we have a chance to make a real meaningful relationship, and I won’t feel pressure to mask it, or hide that I’m Autistic, or wonder for months or years if this is going to be “a thing,” or be anxious about them finding out because of how they MIGHT react.
Does that make sense?
Someone asked earlier about how to disclosing autism in a job interview, and this might be the way to do it. Just sort of slip it in, like “because I’m autistic, I work in this particular way, or this thing really helps me at work to do my job better”. And if they want to talk about it more, they can. It just doesn’t have to be a big deal.
But here’s the deal. Making a big deal out of it right upfront also isn’t a great plan. As I said, I generally will slip in into the conversation, and if they have questions, I’ll answer one or two, but I don’t try to get into it much more than that, giving other examples, or sharing more info, unless they’re the one asking for that. At least not yet.
Because my goal at the moment isn’t to be an advocate for autism, it’s to build a relationship. And for that, it’s important for them to also get to know other parts of me and for the relationship to grow. And the more they’re invested in it, the easier it will be for them to accept other things that I might choose to reveal later.
But I want them to at least know that this is part of who I am. Because it’s a very important part of who I am, and how I think, and how I operate, and the way I go about things, and things that I don’t want to do, or to engage in, and I want to be able to talk about that stuff openly, and honestly, not hiding it or using euphemisms for everything, for who knows how long.
That’s been my choice. I’ve chosen to be very open, but it’s taken me a long time to get here. I was very selective for a long time—and I’m still selective, but since I’m open publicly about this, if anyone wants to look me up, they’re gonna find out. But my point is, that I’ve had time, years, to get used to being more and more open about it. It wasn’t instantaneous.
1:33:32
Scripts – Work
Here are some scripts for work, and other more transactional relationships.
“I’d like to share something with you that I’ve been figuring out about myself, and I think it will help me to do my job better, but might take a little bit of getting used to before it gets better.”
“I’ve been figuring out why I’m both really good at certain things, but also really struggle with other things. Things that some people find easy and obvious. But on the other hand, I can come up with solutions to issues that drive other people nuts, but to me, those seem easy and obvious. Is this something I’d be open to talking about?”
“I’ll save you all the personal revelations I’ve been going through. The bottom line is that I think my brain is wired in a different way. A way that some people describe as autism, or they used to call it Aspergers. (And ADHD, at the same time. It turns out that a lot of people are wired for both.)
And that’s explained to me why I (could solve problem x for the company, and got a lot of praise for that), but also why I (don’t get sarcasm/ask questions that other people think are obvious so they think I’m joking, but I’m not, I really just want the information/ sometimes come across as rude in emails, even when I really don’t mean to/ whatever issue has come up in your job.).
It also makes sense to me why (x part of the job) is so draining, because (reason) takes a lot of energy out of me. Because it’s not how I’m wired. I can do it, but it’s extra mental load.
Is this making any sense? I don’t always know if I’m communicating well, so I’d love to hear your initial thoughts at this point.”
By the way, even though I’m presenting this as if it is a large chunk of text, you don’t necessarily have to say it all at once. Allow for interruptions, questions, them adding stuff in, or even for the conversation going in a different direction than what you had planned. But you could still keep in mind the general idea of what you plan to say, even if it morphs in real time.
You could also put this in an email if you want it to be all your words in one go, without the chance for it to go in a different direction than you had expected.
Here’s something you might want to add, or you could use it in another context.
“I just want to reassure you that I’m not trying to get out of anything, but I think this is gonna help us both understand me better. And it’ll help us work together better.”
If you intend to ask for accommodations, you could also add:
“And if there’s a couple of small tweaks that we could make to some of the things that I’m doing, that would make it easier for me, and still get the job done, or maybe even do the job better, would you be open to that? I have a couple of ideas. I’m hoping this will make it easier for you as well, cause you won’t have to deal with me being as drained all the time. I when I’m not drained, I can think better and work better and I’m easier to get along with. 🙂 Just like anyone else. Anyway, we can talk about that later if you like.”
So these are general script ideas, tailor them to your specific situations.
1:37:27
Scripts – Doctors
With doctors or therapists or other kind of service providers that need to know some personal info about you, but who don’t need to get into all the personal history, and they probably don’t have much time in the appointment either.
Okay, psychotherapists might want the personal history and will have time, but I’m thinking of physical therapists, some psychologists, if the appointment is just about medications, body workers, acupuncturists, other professions like that.
So you’re gonna need to get to the point quickly, but still have it come off well. Here are a few samples.
If you’re talking about different treatment options.
“Have you read anything about how Autistics respond to that option? Since I’m Autistic, mainstream treatments don’t always work as well for me.”
Or if you’re trying to communicate better with them.
“I have a few questions about that. I’m Autistic, and I love info. I really appreciate people being direct and blunt with me. Can I be super direct with you, too?”
They’re likely to answer yes to that, because it’s the socially acceptable response, but that is not a queue for you to be even more direct than you usually would be. It’s probably OK to be as direct as you normally would be with a neurotypical. But for them, that IS going to seem super direct and blunt. Unless you think your doctor is also autistic, in which case you might be able to be autistic-ly direct.
Or if you’re trying to describe your symptoms.
You list symptom x, y, and z, and then add, “but there could be a lot more going on that I’m not aware of. I have a really high pain threshold because I’m Autistic, so sometimes I feel things extremely sensitively, and I’m hyper-aware of what’s going on in my body, and some things I can barely tell what’s going on/ what I need.” Again, customize this to your particular need.
If they recommend setting alarms, but that doesn’t work for you, or a particular med, that you’ve already tried and it doesn’t work.
“I know that works for a lot of people, and I have tried it, but my brain is wired differently. I’m Autistic, and that means that I need different strategies/meds that work better for me.”
OK, to be fair, I know the whole, “I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work for me,” conversation doesn’t usually go well for trying to get them to suggest a different strategy, because they don’t know another strategy, so they’re just going to turn it around on you as if you didn’t try it hard enough. But the point of this conversation is to introduce the idea that you’re Autistic, and for that, it can be effective.
Here’s one more. This was the one that I used to my therapist.
“I’ve figured it out! I know what’s wrong with me! There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m Autistic!”
Actually, that’s what I was PLANNING on saying. In real life, what happened was that I walked into her office, sat down on her couch, and said, “I’ve figured it out! I know what’s wrong with me!” And she promptly responded,
“You’re Autistic.”
That took the wind out of me. I was flabbergasted. I was like, “You knew? How long have you known? Why didn’t you tell me!?”
I was actually really mad at her for a while about that. To be fair, I don’t think that she knew for very long, I think she had figured it out fairly recently herself.
Anyway, OK, I hope that these scripts will be helpful to at least get you started.
1:41:19
When it doesn’t go well
OK, no matter how much you prepare for this, no matter how ready you think you are, no matter how open you think they are, sometimes it’s not going to go the way you had hoped.
Sometimes it’s might even be painful. Sometimes in ways that might surprise you. And when that happens, how do you deal with it?
1:41:46
How you react to how they react
OK, so when they react in a way that’s dismissive or discouraging, or minimizing, or disbelieving, or superior, like they know better and you’re full of shit, it can bring up a lot of big feelings.
And it can also trigger painful associations from the past when other people, at other times, and in completely different circumstances, reacted in similar ways.
And it’s important to remember that both of those are going on. Right now this is genuinely painful, and part of the pain you’re experiencing is not about what’s going on now, it’s from the past. From unhealed wounds.
Does that at all ring true with you?
But because there has been a lot of being misunderstood and disbelieved and rejected and ignored, and whatnot, there’s some tenderness around this. And probably some fear, some anxiety.
So I invite you to be gentle with yourself, and compassionate with yourself going into the conversation, and with whatever happens as a result of that.
Here’s the deal. Even though this may bring up your rejection sensitivity, most of the time, what they’re rejecting isn’t actually you. They may be rejecting this idea because it’s brought up something inside of them that they don’t like, or it’s a challenge to the way they see you or the world, or they might be rejecting their own painful thoughts about what that means about them, or they might be rejecting applying the stereotype in their mind to you, or they might be rejecting a new source of perceived stress in their life from an unexpected change, a change that they didn’t initiate, or something. But it’s about what’s going on in them.
And it’s easier for a lot of people to push off any or all of that onto you, than to really deal with it. Because a lot of people don’t have healthy skills for dealing with difficult or complex emotions, confusion, or unwanted changes.
Someone asked: What is rejection sensitivity?
It’s being especially sensitive to any potential rejection. Any chance that this might be going wrong. You can look up rejection sensitivity dysphoria online to see the most extreme version of it. People can experience intense anger, fear, or anxiety when they believe they’re being rejected. Even in situations where that might not actually be occurring.
So just like I said earlier that how they react has a lot more to do with them than you, this is the epitome of that. What they’re rejecting is more about what’s going on in their mind, than you.
And just like you can’t come up with some magic words to say exactly the right thing, you’re not gonna be able to completely determine what’s going on in their mind, how there thinking about whatever it is that you say. Even if you say the most reasonable, positive, perfect thing in the world, they could still react badly to it.
And, likewise, how you react to their reaction, as long as they’re not being blatantly abusive, also has more to do with you, than with them. It has more to do with your past history with rejection than with what’s going on right now in the moment, even though what’s going on right now feels like it’s all about this. Only some of it is about this. Some of it is also about past stuff.
For example, someone might actually be trying to be supportive, but because they don’t respond with exactly what you had in mind as unequivocal, overwhelming, welcoming support, compared to what you were hoping for, or expecting, it might feel like rejection, but that’s not what was intended. And that’s because of what was going on inside you, not because of what they objectively said, or didn’t say.
Does this make sense? At least intellectually? I know it’s harder in practice.
So for now, at least keep in mind that there’s a difference between them rejecting YOU and rejecting an idea, or a fear, or what they perceive as a potential source of stress, or a change in their life. And change can signal danger for many people, especially when they didn’t invite it, when they didn’t initiate it.
You got to pursue this willingly, of your own volition. For them, it’s being handed to them. And that might be unwelcome. Even if the information is neutral or positive.
OK, let’s talk a little bit about putting that into practice.
1:41:46
Dealing with rejection sensitivity
So there’s two things going on. The events that happened in the past, probably many, many times, that created a sensitivity to other people’s rejection, or any signs of potential rejection. And there’s what’s actually happening now.
But what’s happening now is being filtered through that lens of all those past events, and a built-up fear of that happening again.
Which means that whatever they actually say or do, there’s a part of your brain that is looking out for, that is hyper-aware of, any potential slights, any potential for getting hurt again.
And that part of your brain is likely to interpret things in the most damaging way possible. Because it’s trying to protect you from getting hurt, so it’s trying to seek out, and find, and identify, and highlight, ANY potential dangers. But that means that it’s also going to see some things as dangerous that may not be intended in that way. It’s going to interpret what’s happening through the lens of, “Could this be dangerous?” “Could this be a threat to my safety?” “Could this be a sign that they will hurt me?” “Could this be an early warning sign that our relationship is going bad?”
Does that make sense?
So, for example, if you’re having this conversation and the other person pauses for a while, that part of you that’s looking out for signs of rejection might go down the train of thought of, “What are they thinking? What are they thinking about me? Are they judging me? Are they thinking I’m full of shit? Oh God, I made a terrible mistake. I never should’ve said anything. This is gonna be bad. I should leave. I need to get out of here.”
And then, even if they ask an objectively reasonable question, it’s so easy to interpret it as them doubting you, they don’t believe you, they think that you’re full of shit. And that’s really hard to come back from. No matter how much they reassure you, it’s likely not going to have much effect. Because it’s so easy to think that that’s just them following social norms, that’s just the thing that they’re supposed to say, they’re just being nice, but they don’t really mean it. But that was all generated by how you interpreted a pause. A specific lack of information coming at you.
Is this at all familiar?
But you also don’t have to interpret anyone who’s quiet or thoughtful as internally critiquing you without saying it aloud. They might be genuinely thoughtful. Or they might be critiquing or judgmental. But they might also be honestly considering what you’re saying, and thinking through the implications of that, and there might be no malicious intent whatsoever.
And sometimes people will say things that come across as pathologizing or patronizing or condescending, like using words like “disorder,” or “oh, that’s what’s wrong with you,” or, “see, I always knew you were weird.” Or asking things like, “so what’s the treatment for this?” Or, “how do you fix it?” or “how do you get better?”
But so often they aren’t TRYING to be mean or insulting, they just don’t have other language. Because they haven’t been exposed to the neurodiversity movement, or to a positive representation of autism as a valid difference. They’ve only heard it talked about in those words; that’s what they’ve been exposed to, so they don’t have vocabulary to talk about it in a less judgmental way yet.
And keeping that in mind can help reduce the pain around it. Remembering a time when you didn’t have any better language than they have now. Because there was a time in your life when you weren’t exposed to a positive representation of autism or neurodiversity, either. You had to learn. You’re further along in that journey now, but they aren’t yet. This might be their very first exposure to the idea.
And that can also reduce some of the pain, when that part of you that’s trying to protect you, is noticing all of these small and big signals of potential danger in your relationship. Maybe it’s not actually danger, but an opportunity to educate and make a new ally.
And even if they do say things that are objectively mean, and they have absolutely no interest in learning or being supportive, and even if they refuse to believe you, remember that as long as you weren’t objectively mean or inappropriate to start with, then it has absolutely nothing to do with you. It’s about what’s going on inside them. They’re not rejecting you, as a person, they’re rejecting whatever this has brought up inside of them. Maybe this is triggering their sensitivity to potential danger in whatever form it presents in their life, because of their history.
1:53:30
Detaching from the outcome
But knowing that intellectually and really feeling it deep inside are two very different things. It takes a lot of inner work to get to a point where people can say really nasty things to you, and you really, truly deeply believe with everything in your being, that it isn’t about you. I’ll admit that I’m not always there, either. But I know that it’s possible. And I’ve gotten far enough along that path that it just doesn’t affect me very much anymore. Sometimes it does. But not nearly as much as it used to.
OK, I’m debating about how much to say about this, because I have so much to say, but I’m also trying to be mindful of the time. And I’ll just mention briefly that I go a lot more in depth into HOW to do this in both my anti-anxiety course and my autistic burnout recovery course, in slightly different ways in each. But I still want to say something about it right now.
Okay, for me, a lot of this came from working through my own self-judgment. Because, before I figured out that I’m Autistic, I was really hard on myself about a lot of things that I struggled with. About the repeated burnouts. About having a hard time dealing with things that other people considered normal parts of ordinary life. About not being able to do as much as other people. Even when I objectively didn’t have as much on my plate, I still struggled more than a lot of people that I saw around me. And I was confused by things that other people found easy like telling whether someone’s being sarcastic or not, are they really joking or are they just trying to downplay that they’re being mean? What the frick is teasing?? I hate teasing. Getting together with friends after a workday? I mean, who has the energy for that? Putting away dishes? All the sounds of clinking silverware and plates, ugh! All these things that other people seemed to find normal, I struggled with, and I was really hard on myself about that.
And then I had this explanation. And it was like, “Oh, there’s a reason for that. It’s called autism, and intense sensory differences, and autistic burnout,” and all of a sudden, I felt so much relief, that it wasn’t that I’m fundamentally broken, but that I’m just wired in a different way and the world isn’t set up to automatically accommodate that, so I’m spending so much energy trying to function in a world that is physically intense and energy draining for me, and I wanted so badly for other people to understand that too, so that they would let me off the hook and not get on my case and wouldn’t be judgmental about how they saw me, and stop making little “comments” about things that I did or didn’t do.
But it wasn’t until I completely let MYSELF off the hook, that anything really changed. Because that initial sense of relief of, “oh there’s an explanation,” is an important first step, but it isn’t the same thing as actually letting go of that self-judgment.
And I realized that it was because I was judging myself so much that I really deeply wanted, thought that I needed, other people to understand. That’s why I was so hell-bent on telling certain people, and for them to understand. And why I was so hurt when they didn’t care as much as I did.
But once I worked through my inner shit, and let go of a lot of my own self-judgment, other people’s understanding just wasn’t as important to me anymore.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. It became more important in some ways, as a means of advocacy, because I wanted to use the privilege that I have to pave the way for others. But it was less important for me at a personal level, it wasn’t about my own ego, or self-worth, or my happiness anymore.
And I realized that other people’s reactions to me, other people’s opinions of me, do not need to determine my happiness. That is my choice.
So now people can be really mean and insulting to me, objectively mean, and it just doesn’t affect me in the same way as it used to. I won’t say it doesn’t affect me at all, it’s no fun to go through, but now I look at them and I see someone who’s hurt and who’s going through a lot in their own life, and I truly know that it’s not about me. It’s about what’s going on inside them.
So I want to bring this back to, what is the goal of telling them? Is part of it so that you don’t feel as judged? I’m wondering if there’s some self-judgment going on inside you? Have you been hard on yourself for the things that you’ve struggled with? I don’t know if that’s true for you. I only know it was for me.
So, to wrap this up, whatever happens, other people will react however they react, but if you let that determine your happiness, you’re going to be buffeted by every random person’s whims and moods and their histories and the lens through which they’re processing everything.
But if your goal isn’t to get a particular outcome, but to share something of yourself so it’s easier to work with you, or live with you, or whatever, because there’s more understanding, that’s a goal that’s more manageable.
But even that is, to some extent, relying upon external inputs for your own happiness. Is there a way for you to say the thing you want to say, and not be attached to the outcome? For you to do your part, and be OK with whatever the outcome is?
Even if someone reacts very negatively, laughs at you or calls you names, or shuts you down, or completely dismisses you, or invalidates everything you said, or argues with you, or refuses to believe you, can you let that be about them and not about you?
OK, that was a lot, and some heavy stuff there. We’ve just got one short section left, and then we’ll be done for today.
So what about when someone is disclosing to you? How can you be supportive, respectful, considerate, a good ally?
1:59:58
When you’re on the receiving end
When we disclose that we’re autistic to someone, or ADHD, or AuDHD, or neurodivergent, it’s a vulnerable self-revelation. We’re taking a risk. Of being misunderstood, yet again. Of being hurt, or dismissed, ridiculed, or not believed. Of facing discrimination or prejudice. Sometimes it’s so subtle that the other person doesn’t even realize they’re doing it, but it still has an impact. It still hurts.
But we do it because we’re hoping desperately that it will go well, that you’ll be open to discussing it, to thinking about it, to considering what we have to say, and, best-case scenario, hoping that you’ll believe us. That you’ll realize that we haven’t made this statement lightly, that we’ve done extensive research, a ton of soul-searching, and we have a very strong basis for why we say it.
So please start there. Assume we know what we’re talking about.
Yes, you’re likely to have questions, you’ll need to review it in your mind, compare it to what you already think you know about autism, you may even have doubts, that’s all perfectly fine. We went through that too, but please keep it to yourself. Wondering aloud to us isn’t supportive.
Also, learn some more about it, even a little, but please do it on your own time. It IS OK to ask them to explain some more, but it’s also OK if they don’t want to. Often the person disclosing to you has done a huge amount of emotional labor getting ready for this conversation; please be mindful of that and don’t expect them to also want to fill in all of your gaps in knowledge.
Please do learn more, on your own time, and don’t expect us to provide everything you need to know, but if the person has a particular book or article that they want you to read, that is a good explanation for their particular experience, please do read it. If it’s a whole book, and you genuinely don’t have the time, ask them if there’s a part that is the most important. At least read a chapter or so. You can get the audiobook and listen in a car.
And if you’re also Autistic and someone tells you that they are, and it doesn’t ring true for you, or brings up big emotions, remember that someone else saying that they’re Autistic, doesn’t take away from you being autistic, or your experience with autism. It’s not a challenge or a competition. And there’s not only so many autism diagnoses to go around. It doesn’t negate or minimize your truth when others also identify as Autistic.
And as to what to say, what reactions are respectful and supportive? Here’s what is helpful.
2:02:41
Sample scripts for when you’re on the receiving end
Here are a few things that you could say, that would be respectful, and/or supportive, to varying degrees.
As before, these are just starter scripts, to give you ideas, make them your own, customize them to how you would actually say stuff and what fits in your situation. And of course to what feels genuinely true for you.
“Wow, hunh, okay. I’m just thinking through what that means. Actually, I’m realizing now that I don’t actually know all that much about autism. Would you mind sharing with me a little more of what that means for you?”
“I’m so glad you felt comfortable sharing that with me. Thank you for telling me.”
“Huh, that’s so interesting. You know, that kind of makes sense in some ways. I’ll need to think about this some more.”
“I’d love to learn more. I don’t have a lot of time/capacity right now, but is there an article that I could read that would help me understand a little better?”
“Is there something that I could do, or read, to learn more about what this means to you?”
2:03:47
Closing thoughts
OK, I hope that this has been helpful. It’s just an overview, but I hope it’s enough to get you started.
And I want to end with this thought. Back to the theme that how they take it has more to do with them than with you, and their reactions do not need to determine your happiness, this is something that I came to after a lot of healing old wounds around being misunderstood and othered throughout my life. “What other people think of me is none of my business.”
How I live my life is my business. How I treat others is my responsibility. But how they take it, how they see me, how they react to me, is all through the lens of their life. That’s on them.
I cannot magically or manipulatively, absolutely control how other people see me. Nor would I want to, honestly. When I think through what that would actually look like. I don’t want to be like that. And it’s not entirely possible anyway.
What is my responsibility is being kind, truthful and respectful. Beyond that, what other people think of me is really not on me. It may affect me. And I can deal with that. But it’s still not up to me.
2:05:02
Feedback form
OK, thank you very much for sticking through this today, either live or on the recording. And remember, the recording will be available so that you can watch and rewatch parts, even small bits here and there. You don’t need to take us all in, in one chunk. It’s a lot to take in.
I would also appreciate some feedback. I’ll put the link to the feedback form in the chat and in the video description for the recording.
I really do read every single comment, so you’re not wasting your time. I do care. It doesn’t determine my happiness, but it does help me make these workshops better.
2:05:34
Ways you can contact me
And if you’re interested in more of my content, I have a lot of free videos on YouTube and on my website, a ton of free articles, and more go out every other week in my newsletter, as well as some paid content, some courses, other workshops, and I’ll be creating more soon. So here’s how you can contact me, and I’ll put these links in the video description as well.
Thank you for joining me!
I hope you got something useful out of this, have a neurowonderful day!
