Is autism awareness affecting us?

[carbon12]

I've been thinking that, as autism awareness is growing considerably because of movies and info. in general, many of us may be affected. I mean this in a way of comparing the advantages and disadvantages this movement has.

+ You can get your treatment easier. Prevent tantrums or misunderstandings. Empathize with others.
-But if you want to start a life over, you can't, because people identify some of your quirks with a condition, discriminating immediately. You can't control what they know when they already know a bit or everything. You get your diagnosis without even asking for it.
The problem here is that, as not every human wants to learn all the symptoms of autism and the fact that we are all different, many of us are just tagged, with no proof, preventing us to choose our own destiny, preventing us to choose, at times.
I guess that this also affects NT's, as many companies and projects prefer to hire certain attitudes or conditions, making some aspies and NT's more or less prompt to get a job in certain job areas if they expose their psychological analysis.
Is this in fact affecting us?

 

[Progster]

In the country where I live, there is very little autism awareness. I have been diagnosed with Asperger's, and very few people have even heard of that. With or without autism awareness and awareness of my diagnosis, people are going to notice that I'm different to them and label me and judge me. If I'm not labelled 'Asperger's' or 'autistic', then they'll find some other label for me, such as 'weird' or 'socially inept' or 'moody and erratic' and 'obsessive' and 'loner' and these labels are not all pleasant. At least, if people are aware of my diagnosis and what it means, they have some explanation for me being the way I am and might be more accepting and less negative towards me. I'm afraid to tell people of my diagnosis, but this is mainly due to the ignorance and stigma that is unfortunately still attached to an autism diagnosis where I live. If there were more awareness and less stigmatisation, I'd be more open about my diagnosis.

 

[Aspieistj]

I can't wait until the general public is as well aware of Autism as they are with Down Syndrome.

 

[RidingDutchman]

I can't wait until the general public is as well aware of Autism as they are with Down Syndrome.

People just think they know what Down syndrome is. The happy-go-lucky ones that can work a bit and are shown on tv all the time are just a small amount, those really are the highest functioning ones. I worked with people with Down's syndrome and a big proportion of them aren't even able to talk or properly communicate in other ways.

Another danger of "awareness" is that people are aware of a stereotype. Over here in the Netherlands autism awareness is pretty big, many people know what it is. The result of this is that people often tell me I don't have autism because I can properly function and stuff like that.

A side note, we can't expect everybody to know and be aware of every possible syndrome or disease other people might have. This would mean everybody would have to go to school just to learn all that. Personally I think it's a big part the responsibility of a person with, let's say autism, or the family/relatives/etc to make people aware of what (s)he has and what to expect or how to respond

 

[Jimbo]

Here in the U.S. it seems like people know more about in than 20 years ago, but its usually only people who are trying to figure out their child's behavior that are aware of it.

After I figured out I was aspie I have had to explain it to the few people I have told. My stepmother was familiar with it because she was a teacher and one of my stepbrothers is on the spectrum.