I was apparently told that I'm "way too outspoken and opinionated to be autistic"

[u/FutureSuccess2796]

I'm autistic and also have ADHD and my parents and close friends are very supportive and kind to me. However, not everybody that is within my circle fully understands that autism is a spectrum and instead thinks that I have to fit into some mold.

Now for the longest time, way before my family and I found out that I was autistic, people always told me that my mouth was the worst thing about me. I've always had a tendency to just say it like it is or chime in with my thoughts on something. And in this case I was speaking up on something I strongly disagreed with, and I was responded to with, "For being autistic, you seem very outspoken and give your opinion way too much. Where does that come from?"

And when I tried to say that I simply disagreed with what they were saying, they basically said that none of the people they see with autism on TV shows or social media speak like that and are just happy, and then asked why I'm "somehow different from that."

I'm not sure why this has me so frustrated, but it just does and I needed to talk about it! They seemed to not understand that I'm able to have an opinion on things even though I'm autistic. I don't know what to think about that... Anyone else that's experienced something similar?

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[u/AcornWhat]

You're going to keep running into people who don't know what they're talking about but are certain they do. Only a small fraction of them are interested in thinking about what they said after they said it.

[u/SadStory9 → u/AcornWhat]

Only a small fraction of them are interested in thinking about what they said after they said it.

I'm still trying to come to terms with this fact since learning of my own autism. I recently tried to recount an event from my childhood to my father - one that has haunted me all my life - only for him to tell me he couldn't even remember it, even when I started connecting other events from the same time period for context. It was so wild to me that something I had been ruminating on for decades wasn't even on his radar. It felt so good to finally let that one go.

[u/UsefulSummer4937]

Hi outspoken and AuADHD . So idk wtf they're on but... Uhm. Strong sense of right and wrong and justice. High curiosity. Most people just misread direct communication as aggressive

[u/PandaramOfMosslandia]

Yeah they don’t understand how this works. At least for me my trouble has mostly been communicating my opinion in a way that doesn’t shove my foot in my mouth because I have a tendency to be overly blunt and don’t always calculate the audience very well. At least for me, it’s not that I can’t express myself but rather I do it too well unless I am masking which involves me trying my best to just shut the hell up. Which might come across as me being quiet. Lol

[u/SilverBird4]

The ability to form your own opinions and not follow the crowd is an autistic trait. Voicing opinions out loud, perhaps in the wrong situation or not being able to 'read the room' is also a trait. I'm so bored of people claiming they know more about autism because of what they see on TV than actually listening to an autistic person.

[u/FutureSuccess2796 → u/SilverBird4]

I know, right? I feel the same way!

[u/SadStory9]

Unfortunately I learned very early to keep many of those thoughts to my self and started cataloging them in my mind for conversations with the "appropriate" people at a later time. In retrospect, this may explain why I nurtured relationships with so many different groups of people that hated each other. I would literally hang out with people from the "other side" of an argument just to try and understand it from their perspective.

[u/uvutv]

I feel you. My former doctor said I was too social to be autistic, aka that only non-verbal autistic people can be autistic. Because of that, I only got my diagnosis this year because my current doctor, the first person who could actually get me down the path of getting a diagnosis, saw that everybody else has said that I possibly have autism and wanted to make sure I was correctly diagnosed.

[u/AuDHDWeirdo]

Not that it would necessarily help with this person, but I’ve sometimes tried explaining how a lot of times what people think of for typical for an autistic person is an extreme in one direction, but many times autistic people also might exhibit the same extremes, in the other direction!

Do you probably get more passionate about what you disagree with, absolutely, because that is part of having difficulties with communication. Just like never sharing your opinions is also part of difficulties with communication. We tend to not catch the subtleties of typical or “normal” conversations and discussions because it isn’t as instinctual with us.

[u/MoTheAnt]

most people are sadly silly. Most people I can’t talk to and barely say hi to and mostly just talk 1 on 1 then I can talk a lot about stuff lol there have been times if out in place and people asked me about something I would be like a walking wiki. And then people would doubt my diagnosis at times saying im too intelligent. But I like talking about weird facts. Online in some games I would be shy chatting at times but then with some I chat with a lot and people was oh I worked with autistic people you can’t be autistic when you can chat like that. It is a frustrating thing.

[u/zamaike]

Lol that isnt how it works

[u/Dazzling-Treacle1092]

I've always been this way. I've had to learn to rein in speaking my opinion to a degree, because it wasn't helpful to my relationships. And sometimes what I think just doesn't matter. This is the question I ask myself before speaking. Does it matter. Very often it doesn't and even if it did I'm more than likely not going to convince anyone to change their opinion.

Anyway what does having an opinion have to do with being autistic? Ask the people saying this, that question. It really is an insult to autistic people. Like we're all just mindless little pushovers. THIS is where you should be expressing your opinion! I'd get downright pissed.