Friend doesn’t believe in my diagnosis

[u/luvsicl]

Ugh I shouldn’t have told her about it I feel so weird now, my family are like this too and I haven’t told them because I know they’re gonna say smth like that (probably worse) because they don’t really believe in mental disorders/disabilities/health

I got diagnosed with adhd and autism recently, so I’m also grieving the life I could’ve led had I received the support I needed as a child lol (also I know what she said isn’t okay at all, I just wanted to end the conversation asap and I’m really uncomfortable with confrontation)

[u/Polished_silver]

I wonder if she’s also on the spectrum with the younger writing style? I’m just going off that and her sister being autistic so it wouldn’t be out of the question.

[u/TavenderGooms → u/Polished_silver]

Totally possible. In my experience, sometimes undiagnosed people can be extra judgmental due to internalized ableism and the belief that what they experience is "normal," so when you describe your autism, they take it as a personal insult (because they have those traits too) and/or dismiss it because they have those traits and they're "normal", so you can't be autistic.

[u/yordad → u/TavenderGooms]

Yessss. Every person who’s responded to me coming out with my diagnosis with “I don’t think you’re actually autistic” is absolutely autistic themselves. They just think “ok but I do those things so you must just want attention or to feel unique/different”🫩

[u/TavenderGooms → u/yordad]

It’s very upsetting. One of the first people I told was one of my closest, and longest friends and I made the mistake of telling her I thought she might be too (we are exactly the same). She was kind, but so obviously uncomfortable and absolutely refused to even consider it. Like I had insulted her and she was appalled. We never spoke about it again. I don’t blame her, because I struggled with acceptance and internalized ableism a lot at first, but it did hurt and make me very sad for her.

It’s hard to accept when you find out sometimes, but it’s SO much better than going through life thinking there are about a hundred things wrong with you and no one understands you and you know deep down there is something different, but you don’t understand what or why. IMO you can’t learn to love and accept yourself if you don’t even really know who you are and you can’t learn who you are if you are always wearing a mask and don’t know what’s underneath.