I was diagnosed autistic, but my parents never told me. My father outright denied the diagnoses, my mother educated herself about it, and played games with me designed to help me... the main one I remember was the "eye to eye" game, where we'd rub noses and look into each others' eyes. We'd wobble our faces around and make silly noises. She also taught me the "mirror" game, where I had to imitate her body language, without being too obvious about it. Then she got a book on human body language, and we used to play games to see if the other person could guess what we were thinking... if I sat with my legs away from her she knew I was being cross and wanted to leave, etc. Finally she taught me how to look as though I was looking at someone, by looking at the bridge of their nose.

When I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder the psychiatrist told me I also had autistic characteristics which also caused me problems. It was at this point that my Dad told me about the autism. I think he thought it was a less stigmatising diagnoses than anything with a schizo label. However, he still thinks there's nothing "really" wrong with me, and encourages me to pull myself together.