[cal668]

Today, I finally came out and told my group of friends that I have autism, and it feels great to finally have it out in the open.
I've spent the last several weeks stressing about how I was going to tell them and worrying about how they would react; I wrote and re-wrote long, detailed, drawn out confessions and pictured myself giving them this emotional speech about it, and the more I thought about it, the more stressful it became.
But today I was playing Cards Against Humanity with them, and one of the white cards happened to be "Mild autism." One of my friends made a comment about how they know some people with mild autism (I say that very loosely, I prefer to use the phrase "high-functioning" but right now I'm going by what the white card said) and I just happened to chime in, completely on a whim, "I have mild autism."
There was the slightest bit of pause before my friends asked "Wait, really?" and I just replied "Yeah." and we carried on with the game. That was it. I spent weeks stressing out about telling them, only to have it done completely painlessly in 2 seconds whilst playing a card game, with no adverse reactions or anything. Feels great

[englndm]

Thanks for telling your story. I just recently found out I wsa high-functioning and it has been a relief for me. I have told a few people and got similar reactions that you did. Good for you in letting it out in the open!!!

Originally Posted by cal668

Today, I finally came out and told my group of friends that I have autism, and it feels great to finally have it out in the open.
I've spent the last several weeks stressing about how I was going to tell them and worrying about how they would react; I wrote and re-wrote long, detailed, drawn out confessions and pictured myself giving them this emotional speech about it, and the more I thought about it, the more stressful it became.
But today I was playing Cards Against Humanity with them, and one of the white cards happened to be "Mild autism." One of my friends made a comment about how they know some people with mild autism (I say that very loosely, I prefer to use the phrase "high-functioning" but right now I'm going by what the white card said) and I just happened to chime in, completely on a whim, "I have mild autism."
There was the slightest bit of pause before my friends asked "Wait, really?" and I just replied "Yeah." and we carried on with the game. That was it. I spent weeks stressing out about telling them, only to have it done completely painlessly in 2 seconds whilst playing a card game, with no adverse reactions or anything. Feels great

[leejosepho]

Originally Posted by cal668

(...going by what the white card said) and I just happened to chime in, completely on a whim, "I have mild autism."
There was the slightest bit of pause before my friends asked "Wait, really?" and I just replied "Yeah." and we carried on with the game...
Feels great

Good deal. I sometimes add things like "Yeah, but I'm a good driver, definitely a good driver." (Rainman) Overall, I sometimes describe myself as a socially-challenged old man stuck somewhere between Rainman and Spock, and then add that my wife says I seldom make mistakes but they are big ones when I do. It seems to me that most people do not really care and were not even curious, so sometimes I question the actual value of saying much of anything at all.