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Autism fakers

I used to know someone who blames his fat-shaming and racism on his OCD and supposed HFA. He was self-diagnosed.
 
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I've never seen it, but it wouldn't surprise me. Anything that is kind of new (or recently made aware of) becomes almost a trend.
 
I still have difficulty just imagining anyone who would want to perpetrate this type of falsehood.

What would motivate someone to do such a thing? I suppose scamming someone (in a criminal sense) to victimize other autistic people is the best I can think of.

But with human beings, anything is possible I suppose. Stay vigilant. :eek:
 
I feel that it is dangerous for people to fake a disability. This causes the knuckle draggers to assume that everyone is faking and start mouthing off on social media targeting someone who is genuinely disabled.

It is sort of like the story 'The boy who cried wolf'; the fakers are crying wolf. In time the genuine ones may not be believed.
 
Judge said:
I still have difficulty just imagining anyone who would want to perpetrate this type of falsehood.

What would motivate someone to do such a thing? I suppose scamming someone (in a criminal sense) to victimize other autistic people is the best I can think of.

But with human beings, anything is possible I suppose. Stay vigilant. :eek:
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Some people need to claim victimhood. For some, victimhood is a lifestyle choice. Sick people.
 
In RL no, but I think I may have online. In fact I thought there might have been one here recently. But I wasn't sure, and like so many they disappeared as quickly as they appeared.

In the case I mention above I suspected it wasn't a case of someone faking a disability but someone causing mischief, either out of active dislike of autistics (they are out there) or just trying to amuse themselves pulling off a hoax.
 
Tom said:
In the case I mention above I suspected it wasn't a case of someone faking a disability but someone causing mischief, either out of active dislike of autistics (they are out there) or just trying to amuse themselves pulling off a hoax.
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Indeed. Another aspect of trolling the Internet. -It happens.
 
I went to college with someone who told everyone he had autism along with pretty much every disability, and every mental health issue imaginable.
He wanted to play the victim by pretending to be every oppressed minority he could think of (not just with disabilities.)

The last time I saw him he said he had six months to live. That was four years ago and he’s still alive and lying to people.
He also scams people.

He was also one of the biggest bullies I’ve ever dealt with and I had to leave the school because of him.

I’m not the kind of person who hates people but I really despise this person and I don’t wish anything good on him.
 
I think the Quora thread you linked to is pretty informative on its own, plenty of good answers there.

I personally don't get it either, but after looking around the internet and a lot of social media I've found there are people willing to identify with something these days, even if it's not a reflection of their actual selves. I haven't met someone in real life who decided to deliberately fake being on the spectrum, but I'm still waiting. Maybe these people are fed up with dealing with the harsh realities of everyday life and decided to craft a persona as a way to handle it? Or something else?

People really are strange.
 
maycontainthunder said:
This causes the knuckle draggers to assume that everyone is faking and start mouthing off on social media targeting someone who is genuinely disabled.
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This actually happened to me :(
Not with autism, but with a different disability. Because I’m slightly more able-bodied than some people with this disability. But it’s not something I’m super comfortable going into detail about :pensive:
 
crewlucaa_ said:
This actually happened to me :(
Not with autism, but with a different disability. Because I’m slightly more able-bodied than some people with this disability. But it’s not something I’m super comfortable going into detail about :pensive:
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I'm sorry I triggered you Crewlucaa_. Do you want me to delete this part of my post?
 
Once I started becoming abusive towards a man who was in a sexual competition with his co-worker and was destroying his marriage with an affair and tried to blame his ethical failures on autism. I think it is the weak-willed that attempt to blame their failings on a neurology they do not possess.

I struggled mightily to find acceptance and see my Autism as explaining much of what I experienced, but I also understand that from my view today, I overcame a lot despite my neurology placing obstacles in my way.
 
1. Milder forms of autism are subjective enough and share traits with other mental health problems that it can be difficult to say with certainty what they are. I have personally not been diagnosed with it but at least one medical professional suggested the possibility after diagnosis, also I have very little trust in the competency of medical professionals in my country for any semi complex issues so I've avoided even trying to get a diagnosis as I feel it would be irrelevant.

In certain aspects of life I was able to function with relative normalcy, in many others not at all. On my personal assessment after many years of self assessment and reflection I do firmly believe I was born with at least a mild and/or adjacent disorder to autism. Could it then be said that I'd be faking the condition if claimed to have it, with all those caveats? if I am, at the very least I can say I'm not doing so knowingly. Considering myself to be at least autism adjacent is not exactly a source of pride, nor of shame for that matter, just an attempt to understand the strangeness of my self and life.

2. Beyond that, I'm tangentially aware of a trend in the disgusting amalgamation of monetized mental illness, otherwise called social media, where some people actively try to fake various mental or associated conditions for attention. I vaguely remember the case of someone that claimed to suffer from severe Tourette's syndrome, which I believe was the basis of their whole media presence, that was discovered to be a farce.

3. The age of the Internet 2.0 has had a bit of a swing effect on the issue of openness about mental illness, what was once utterly taboo, now its almost celebrated, at least amongst certain circles. For the shallow or immature claiming to have a whole collection of clinical mental illness can even be seen as a source of pride or attention and so, desperate for attention as they are, they do so.

4. There's probably a less malicious version of this effect, where a lot of children and teenagers going though relatively normal issues are constantly bombarded through social media and even their friends with all this talk about mental health issues and they may wrongly end up assuming that their relatively "normal" problems are actually a clinical condition.
 
maycontainthunder said:
I'm sorry I triggered you Crewlucaa_. Do you want me to delete this part of my post?
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You don’t have to delete it. No need to apologize :)
I wasn’t really triggered, more just sad that it happened and that it happens to others. I think it’s important to leave that post there so people can understand :)
 
I've seen people who thought they might have it, then at their assessment they were diagnosed with something else like social anxiety, rather than autism. In that case, they genuinely think they might be on the spectrum - not trying to fake it - and it's the clinician's call whether to give them a diagnosis or not. Maybe they have traits, but not sufficient to fulfill the requirements of a diagnosis. But I've never come across anyone to deliberately fake autism.
 
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