I tend to keep my diagnosis a secret. (Yeah, this is the Internet, but few people on the Internet actually know me in real life, sooo...)
I can count on one hand the number of people I know that I've told about my Aspergers. And every one of those people has said the same thing.
"Really? I never would have known! You don't look like you have that."
I used to laugh because I thought, Hey I must be pretty good to pass off as normal. Then I started to realize that most Aspies don't look very different on the outside.
It's the Inside that looks like a grand palace caught in a dystopian thunderstorm.
Aspergers isn't a set diagnosis. It's a long, mishmashed list of idiosyncrasies and "disorders." I guess it's like a buffet where God decided to give some Aspies certain quirks that other Aspies don't have.
So having some quirks and not others has helped me to "fit in." Along with the fact that my parents were determined to not let me rot in my bedroom watching Netflix because I couldn't live in the Outside world. And I'm glad they have had that determination.
(Not judging anyone, but this was a bit surprising...) I read a book about an Aspie teen who was older than me at the time, and he was still having meltdowns in public. (If you don't know what an Aspie meltdown is, it ain't a pretty sight. It's a billion times worse than a tantrum, and it's not a naughty kid in want of attention.) I was a bit shocked because here I am, a younger Aspie, and I can control my meltdowns better than he could?
You can bet that made me even prouder of my parents' determination.
So when people look confused and say "I never would have known," I think about all the years before when everyone could tell I was different. When they could see the storm inside and out. When I couldn't control all the frustration in my Aspie world.
And then I laugh because I've somehow accidentally fooled them all. They can't see the world that's locked Inside.
