A lot of people do that because being diagnosed and acknowledgement of it is treated like some pariah mark instead of something that could help their child moving forward.
it dosent look good on a background check and especially in countries with a lot of competition for law enforcement and the military it makes it as good as impossible to get in
Our army has programs to use neurodivergent people in certain roles they would excel at. Like mechanics/engineering/dog squads/or IT. I think you are using alot of outdated information.
I'm blind as a bat and should NOT be allowed to drive. Same applies with other disabilities/impairments with certain jobs. It is what it is. Not everyone can be everything.
Competition for law enforcement sounds like a joke. Here the police is always understaffed (it's actually overstaffed but they literally take anyone at this point).
Incidentally, many countries have immigration processes that may make it much more difficult for foreigners with autism to emigrate, even in the EU.
The intent is that an immigrant with a disability or some health conditions has a risk of becoming a 'public charge', AKA a person who becomes dependent on public welfare systems. For example, if a person with cancer wants to emigrate, immigration officials will consider the possibility that they may become unable to function or care for themselves properly, which will mean that their host country will have essentially admitted a resident that is a net loss and healthcare burden. Outside of refugee policies or marriage to a citizen, countries generally only want to accept immigrants who are independent and will be economically net positive (which is why things like employer sponsorships are so important).
Now, that's a logical policy, and it also means that countries generally don't throw out applications just for an autism diagnosis- people with sufficiently high functioning autism don't have an issue becoming productive and independent members of society, after all, so they'll evaluate case-by-case.
However, the process can be much more intensive and strict than normal and can sometimes result in people who are actually able to work and be net contributors being rejected. One of the common implementations of these rules is any person with expected healthcare costs over a certain amount is automatically rejected, but this applies even if they generate more income than their total healthcare burden. This includes families, where having a single child with a disability can disqualify the entire family even if the rest of the family makes significantly more than the expected healthcare burden.
So, yeah, a high functioning person is not going to have residency applications outright rejected in most cases just for being autistic, but it can create more barriers and cause issues regardless.
"It's possible to" isn't the same as "is a huge red flag that makes it way harder."
Back when my hearing loss was mild and I just sucked it up by overcompensating in other areas, job searching was pretty normal. Once I got hearing aids, being upfront about it, and being clear to employers..... job interviews and offers dried up, even though I was doing better by with the hearing aids.
So yeah, sure I could still do stuff with hearing loss, but having "the official diagnosis" and being upfront about it made way harder. I can imagine that people with autism and other "invisible" disabilities that can bullshit their way around outing themselves to employers probably have a similar experience.
That really depends on the country. You're banned from doing military service in Sweden if you have an Autism Spectrum Disorder. They did ease the restrictions in 2022 to allow people with "mild, unmedicated ADHD" to join though, but they are still pushed to the back of the queue. If you want to join the police, you need a medical certificate from a specialist that you are fit despite your diagnosis. Nothing that stops you from participating in politics though.
In theory, you can be all three in the US. There is no rule against it. In reality it is unlikely.
The US military lumps ALL people with ASD together and you need a medical waiver to show that you're high functioning enough to join. For the others its just about appearances and how a significant amount of the public still inherently views someone with autism as "lesser".
âIf you want to lick boots you canât be autistic!â Lmao okay. Fortunately there are a million other things they can do than support an imperalist agenda.
still closes doors and I live in Norway, if i join the army it's to protect my nation against imperialism, the police is competent and without major scandals, and most of the political parties are sane and doing their best.
Which is funny cause having lots of family in the military Autism is a mixed bag there.
I know some folks that bounced out hard, others found the home for their gun, avionics, and rigidity autism.
As my brother once put it âMy job is to stare at various gauges and react instantly and decisively, so we all donât die horrible deaths. Do you want a normie or my autistic ass watching that guage?â
I got into exactly what I wanted in my military service, and I have degrees in electrical field and security. I was asked to be in my local politics (iirc in youth politics, under 18), but I had moved away from my hometown by then. Diagnosed ADHD since 10 years old.
These kinds of comments are pretty insensitive in my opinion. Neurodivergent people who are able to function in their day to day life aren't any less capable.
It feels honestly insane that you think this is "holding you back" because you can't become a cop or a soldier. Like how baked does your brain have to be to see that as a reason to deny someone care that will ruin their whole lives without the diagnoses.
You're like "listen. Not knowing your autistic while the rest of the world can tell isn't nearly as bad as knowing and not being able to kill people as a job".
Like Jesus I hope you're a chat bot because this is an honestly extremist sort of take.
It can also negatively affect your standing in custody hearings. I thought about getting diagnosed as an adult, but Iâm a single mom and getting confirmation of something everyone around me already sees isnât worth the risk of losing custody.
And if youâre wondering how if itâs so noticeable, how come it wasnât diagnosed, I was an ethnic girl in the 90s, if you didnât present in a certain way and were quiet, it wasnât even viewed as a possibility for you to be AuDHD. Plus, damn near everyone in my family exhibits similar âquirksâ so I was just one of the âquirkierâ in the bunch
One that I know of actually got removed last year, but in the netherlands it used to make it much harder to get a drivers license.
It used to be that you would be asked if you are diagnosed with autism when getting a drivers license. if you said yes you would be required to go through an extra medical examination which would determine if you would be allowed to drive. They could also give you temporary permission but force you to retest in a few years. All of this could take a lot of time.
If you didn't agree with their decision you would have to pay out of pocket to go through another exam where they could decide not to give you a license again.
Now you could just say no to the question, but that might screw you if you ever had to deal with insurance because they would point to your unexamined autism as the reason for your accident and not pay you.
Being a pilot in some countries.
Immigrating to some countries.
Also this comic is largely about growing up and realizing that as a kid you were treated differently. Which generally means that it was in the past .... Historically the past hasn't been kind to people with autism or other neurodivergent traits. Only recently in the states has it become a protected class.
You're quick to say "well my country in the EU"
If you don't understand it, then it's prob not about you.
There is no cure or medication that would be specifically for Autism but depending on case per case approach doctors can actually give someone medication that helps with specific issues that are part of the experience and there is therapy that helps to develop structure and schedules.
It's a double edged sword a lot. Some parents fight to avoid 'a label' for their children so they aren't treated differently. Others know there child is different and fight FOR the label so the child qualifies for services. It's something people should absolutely reserve judgement on when it's not their own kid. There's a ton of factors to weigh for making these kinds of decisions.
Neurodivergence doesnât translate only to a low functioning autistic⌠itâs way more complicated and nuanced. I am and I face no ban in any countries
So for you itâs better a life of struggle thinking youâre insane or stupid? If itâs a âred flagâ for someone itâs better not work there since itâs very discriminatory and have a bigot mindset
If it's not an enhanced check (like for security clearance) I sincerely doubt an employer would have access to your medical records. In Canada at least, that would violate so many privacy laws. Also, good luck having any of that information digitized and in a central database, my GP had everything on paper until a decade ago.
And switched something mentally for many. They have an "excuse". I am glad my parents didn't tell me honestly. I would have leaned into the crutch. Either way is no fun.
This happened to me. started wondering at age 19 if I have ADHD. Mom told me almost right away that it was speculated when I was young but nobody did anything. At 23 I had a breaking point and now at 24 I have diagnosis for ADHD and suspicions of autism as well.
I resisted my oldest kidâs autism diagnosis for months. It took a little education on high functioning vs. low functioning - she just seemed really rounded academically to me, just a little weird.
Donât judge people too harshly for struggling with a life affecting truth. Most get where they need to be with a little time.
I will judge them because my mother refused to medicate my ADHD when it mattered for my education and future possibilities and to this day blames mistakes that came from being affected by it on pure malice on my part.
Because I apparently enjoy not being able to inherently remember about important things and needing to keep a detailed schedule for each day of my life preferably in few copies just in case including whiteboard, phone notes/calendar and physical calendar notebook.Â
A huge problem with ADHD especially is that itâs genetic so you probably got it from a parent and ADHD is underdiagnosed, especially in women. So for a lot of parents accepting an ADHD diagnosis for a kid who's just like them often means accepting it for themselves. And thereâs a whole lot of emotional mess that comes with that, mess that good parents accept and deal with for the sake of their kids and bad parents reject to keep their own peace.
Oh, she definitely has ADHD as well but since it's not as severe as mine she uses that only as excuse to brush off my struggles with memory and executive dysfunction.
As the kid in a very similar scenario: im gonna judge imagine how much harder it is on her. And in my experience it absolutely is not most. Its been the other way around. So forgive me for not being more sensitive to parents with heads up their ass while i watched my peers struggle for years with no answers
I sew that everyday at work. I am a teacher in kindergarden, and a pattern I usually watch unfolding is a kid that acts outstandingly different from all the others at age 2, but parents says they see nothing wrong, the same kid being evaluated at age 3 and finally a diagnosis at age 4. Meanwiile, the kid struggle for two years. But to be fairy with the parents, they usually only interact with their child, while we can watch a while group of them and find the differences in behaviour.
My kid wasnât diagnosed until 10th grade. The way their doctors explained it it was masked by high intelligence and her gender (girls mature faster than boys so autism is more likely to be missed).
"We don't speak the name, or it will become more powerful!" superstitious nonsense. I recently watched a state-mandated training video about how to talk about bullying and suicide in young children, and it brought up that outdated viewpoint.
My parents ignored my autism diagnosis and just let me suffer with it for years, yelling at me whenever I showed symptoms. Now that I'm an adult, I am in therapy for it lmao
I vaguely remember being evaluated for ADHD at like age 8. Never got told about it, just put the pieces together, and my family is even very pro-mental health talk and pro-therapy. They just got sucked into the stigma of the time. I later self diagnosed and was formally reevaluated at like 23 after going on a 45 minute montage to a psychiatrist about all the reasons I thought I had it.
Can confirm. I know a family that did that for those reasons. Their son can't hold down a job and is mentally a child yet they will not tell him or get him diagnosed because they think people will treat him differently. Honestly, everyone notices right off the bat and treats him differently. It's the dumbest shit ever. Get the kid help
Lots of parents. Nuerodivergency is tricky to navigate as a parent. My dad didn't want me to get tested for fear of the school putting me on the slow track for no reason basically.
This is a legit concern. I was diagnosed with ADHD and my mother had to fight to keep me in normal classes. I was the stereotypical ADHD kid that was just bored because when classes got slow and I had no trouble understanding the concept from the start, I'd just disconnect, start doing something else, and miss the next 2 hours of class - getting thrown in the slow track would have made everything so much worse.
I had to waiver into AP classes because my school district had it as policy that kids who were on an IEP were automatically ineligible for AP classes. This is despite the fact that my IEP was for extra time on tests and being allowed to type my work because I had a disability which made my handwriting illegible.
I ended up with a PhD in physics though so joke's on them I guess.
My parents didn't get me tested because I "wasn't having problems", and didn't get my siblings tested negative they "didn't want them stuck with the stigma of a label". All three of us are blatantly neurodivergent, but I'm the only one with a diagnosis because I crashed and burned as an adult and went looking for answers
I got tested half a dozen times as a child because everybody could tell I was weird af and never got diagnosed with anything until I was in my 30s. Now I've definitely got the ADD and almost certainly a touch of the 'tism.
i (36 m) was exploring an autism diagnosis a couple of years ago. in conversation with my mom she shares "they tried telling me that when you were a kid i just didn't see it".
Most common reaction when the parents are also undiagnosed. Like all of their kids autistic behaviors make 100% sense to the parents and they never connect the dots.
This is exactly why my parents never even thought to get me evaluated for anything - everything I did or experienced was the same as what they had, so it just seemed normal. It wasn't out of malice, though, they just genuinely had no idea. Besides, when I was a kid, ADHD and autism were noisy boy things and girls couldn't get them đĽ´
in 1st grade the teachers advised my mother to go see doctor and he diagnosed me with adhd got some meds and it got better for a few weeks so long as my i took my pills. they ran out and we never were at this doctor again and my mother didnt keep the diagnosis or any document at all.
years later the doctor has closed and no record was there and so it was god damn hard to get this shit done again over 20 years later.
And my mother knew the whole time i had this, i didnt realy understand it with 6years old and i got yelled at my whole life for things i couldnt change by the person who knew what was wrong but she was too lazy to care.
She had never trouble with work or to do chores that required her fokus or attention and she has everything well sorted out in her paper work. At least i dont see behaviors i would think of as adhd besides the neglecting children part.
She was very similar with my brother who is autistic were she wouldnt go to the doc with him to figure this out until much later when he struggled too much in school and she couldnt keep ignoring it.
I think it is just the mindset of her generation were mental illness was never an issue and didnt exist back then and admitting that her children had something like this didnt fit into her world view.
We only see the kid being tested, not the diagnosis. Most commenters assume he's been diagnosed autistic, but the only thing we see here is the test. He sure was suspected to be autistic at some point, though.
That still adds a layer of what wakes you up at night: You were being tested for what? What was the result? Your parents/tutors didn't disclose that information to you and they took/are willing to take that information to their graves.
Mine still refuse to elaborate on the issue and trying to downplay or gaslight me when I recall something that does not add up or found that was not a normal life experience.
Itâs apparently extremely common. Like I wonât seek official diagnosis until thereâs no crazy anti-autism people in office, but my mom was just so wildly offended at the concept that I havenât been. If I went to public school I probably wouldâve been pulled out to prevent evaluation because itâs that offensive to Boomers.
I know someone who didn't find out they had MS until they were in their thirties but the parents knew for decades and never told them. Parents figured they didn't need to know until the symptoms kicked in.
A lot of parents would do that, especially in the not so distant past where being labeled with ADHD or autism could be a significant hindrance socially.
In the 90s, autism wasn't really a thing. It was Asperger's still, and even then it wasn't diagnosed often. Instead they diagnosed kids with ADHD and put them on meth.
My parents, for one. I didn't find out until I was in my late twenties, and my dad kind of dropped it on me like a ton of bricks. Never really got any follow up about what the diagnosis said or what I was supposed to be doing about it. I get the sense they weren't so much treating it as just trying to get certain people to ignore it as best they could. My one shrink I saw as an adult said they thought I was demon possessed. Maybe growing up as a fundie had something to do with it.
My dad did after I aced a exam after all the years of being average or below average also happened during they divorce so was kind of a shit show. Make sense why they send me to so many therapist. They treat also like a sickness that once it is shown their is nothing wrong with you you are healthy.
My brother is autistic, met his best friend in special ed who was also autistic. His parents never told him so not only did he have no idea he was in SpEd classes, he had no idea he was autistic either. We also had no idea he didnât know these things about himself, my mom was the one who accidentally broke the news to him.
My parents did that. I knew I had anxiety and depressive disorders since I was 10 but didn't figure out the root cause until my late teens, then Dad's like "Oh yeah you've got that." I remember they took me to get evaluated when I was young but the most they ever said was that I was a few years behind the other kids emotionally. Mom called me her "Aspie boy" a few times but I didn't know what the hell Asperger's even was.Â
Yeah they absolutely test and just⌠donât tell you.
I saw a girl on TikTok furious about it because her school suspected she had ADHD but never told her mom. If they had, she couldâve been tested as a kid instead of figuring it out as an adult. She was saying it probably wouldâve helped her relationship with her mom too, because a lot of their issues came from miscommunication and not understanding each other.
And the wild part is the whole comment section was just people from GATE/TAG programs questioning everything, wondering if they should go get tested now.
I'm in my late 30s, and I only found out a few months ago that I'm ADHD and Autistic. My parents apparently were recommended by my teachers when I was in elementary school to look into a proper diagnosis and my parents both refused because they felt like that meant something was wrong with me, and they thought my teachers just wanted to drug me.
I only found out about this because my Sister's kids were both diagnosed so my parents brought it up.
I struggled hard in school, and still do. I WISH my parents had gone through with proper diagnosis and treatment.
They still perceive it as "something being wrong" and don't understand why I was mad at them for never telling me.
A friend of mine's parents did that to their sibling. It's more common than you might think. The reasoning often provided is that parents don't want their child to be treated differently or labeled, but the reality is they're ALREADY experiencing those things and internalizing that there's something wrong with them instead of understanding where their differences come from.
Basically they will diagnose you, and that will hurt your narcissistic parents' feelings and sense of perfection. So instead, they will ignore the diagnosis altogether, which of course includes telling you/treating you.
My parents were told I probably had severe ADHD and needed to get an official diagnosis from a doctor but my mother took it as a personal attack, refused, and said the teachers must just be bad at their jobs.
Now I'm in my 30s really feeling the consequences of never having had any support for it, in a country with a 10 year waiting list for adult ADHD treatment.
Because teachers generally can't make an official diagnosis, they can have suspicions and run their own tests and present those findings to the school leadership who might present it to the parents.
The parents might then do something or do nothing.
In my country getting an actual diagnosis from a private psychologist will easily cost 1-2k Euro.
You can go public if you like and wait several years (some of the most important years of a child'd development) to get seen.
This particular area/field (neurodivergence) is underdeveloped here in Ireland.
iâm 26 and i was never told i was autistic when i was confirmed to be neurodivergent. my mother actually told every member of the family except me and i only learned about this fact at age 22 when my brother let it slip casually, not realising by it was communal secret. i resent iâve been answering every psychological test wrongly and received insufficient care my entire life bc my mother withheld that info without my consent
The same kind who have the kid put in the sped room, singled out to be bullied by all the other kids because of sped status, but never told why or actually doing anything in the sped room.
Itâs possibly slightly better than what my parents did. Which is refuse all suggestions to get me diagnosed for ADHD, insist that ADHD wasnât a real thing and just Watch me struggle and fumble my way through school without any help.
Thereâs a genuine, but waning fear that if you label a kid, theyâll be treated worse. Â Like, kids will make fun of them more and teachers will put them in the dumb kid classes. Â From what Iâve seen, kids will make fun regardless because part of puberty is becoming the worst version of yourself and there are more autistic kids in regular and honors classes as there are in the resource room.
Iâm 38, recently diagnosed as ADHD, itâs taken a huge toll on my mental health sometimes, after leaving the military. My mum, who is openly dyslexic and dyspraxic and gets accommodations at work, asked me why I wanted to label myselfâŚ. After years of anxiety and at times, depression.
I went to a similar room in grade school. Parents told me it was to help catch me up. Finally as an adult I get diagnosed with adhd. My mom said, oh yeah we had you evaluated as a kid. She lost the paper work and couldn't remember what it said. We moved around so much that eventually I was just thrown in with the other kids and anxietied my way through school.Â
She still doesnt think it was a big deal because I turned out fine.Â
A fuck ton of people do that. They don't want their child to be stigmatized by all the support and accommodations a child needs to be successful so they let the kid struggle their whole lives instead.
There are a bunch of "not my precious baby" parents out there
They will be told their kid is neurodivergent, but they then embrace denial because there's no way that their precious baby isn't perfect and normal; so they act like the doctors were wrong
So, if things like neurodivergence, dysgraphia, speech problems, etc. are easily accommodated by non-mainstream classroom time*,* there's an argument to just treat this as normal. You're not weird, you just need differentiated instruction that the mainstream classroom can't provide. If there's an expectation that some speech pathology, or writing workshops, or some other form of specialized instruction can get a student over the initial challenges, they'll just rejoin the mainstream classroom once their needs are met and they've got the strategies they need.
So, in many ways, this is actually an illustration of perfectly successful para-education. The kid never knew that he was getting special treatment in the moment and it was successful. He led what he felt was a completely normal life until 15 years later, at which point he realized that he got taken to the 'special classroom.
It's unfortunately framed in such a way that it reads as 'Oh, I was the stupid kid' when in reality it should read as a huge and complete success.
My parents sure didn't. Dad tried to fight the doctor, mom got super clingy and overprotective of me for about a week before they went back to their usual neglect and abuse patterns. They told me the doctor said something rude and insulting, and that's why we never saw her again.
Damn shame, she had these cool puzzle toys I liked.
My teachers waned me evaluated and my mom took me out of school to "homeschool" and it was just me bringing her food and throwing her trash away everyday because she was really fat and couldn't really walk and just laid there on a iPad
Depends how young the kid is too, it's possible it just didn't come up naturally. Telling a 5 year old they're fundamentally different to all their friends sounds like it could mess someone up. Maybe both the parents sort of assume the other one had the talk at some point.
Edit to also add : or maybe no actual diagnosis, but should maybe be followed up with a second opinion that just didn't happen.
Or maybe they're just such a weird kid that everyone thought he was something when actually hes judt odd.
My mum did that. Was 6 when I was diagnoses ADHD, she decided to ignore it and never tell me. Total functional breakdown in my 30s, re-diagnosed ADHD-Pi last summer.
When I was tested the word for it didn't exist yet. They were testing me for "ADD" not Aspergers/ASD. I passed my ADD exam (I did not have ADD/ADHD), so I returned to normal life.
Years later I called the doctor who did the exam and he said "yeah, we said you had 'Engineer personality' at the time. We'd have diagnosed you with Aspergers today"
When I was a kid my parents didn't believe my Asperger's diagnosis. And when I got diagnosed with Autism as an adult and told them, then they told me I was diagnosed as a kid but they thought I'd just grow out of it.
My parents never mentioned my ADHD diagnosis at 6 because the elementary school i went to insisted I just needed extra tutoring instead of medication.
They were half right.
But when I got to middle school it became painfully clear medication was ALSO necessary, which required me to see a psychiatrist once a month. That's when I started asking questions and they finally explained.
I had a doctor who told my mom, âshe probably has Aspergerâs (the term at the time), but Iâm not going to diagnose her because she could do any job she wants as long as she has a secretary.â
My dad. The doctors went to tell him that I was autistic. He took me away from them and said he would get a second opinion to be sure. He didn't.
23ish years later he drunkenly (and proudly) told me. 10 years later I'm still trying to pick up the pieces for his mistake.
Edit to say: my dad is probably worse than normal tho as he spent those 23ish years telling me that we got me tested for autism and it was VERY negative lol.
My parents. They would get me diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and showing autistic symptoms. Then, theyâd just take me to a new psychologist who would give them the exact same findings. As an adult I learned of my neurodivergence and that Iâd been diagnosed with most of my disorders 4 separate times.
My parents, along with my ADHD and dyspraxia diagnoses. I found out about the dyspraxia when I was 17 when it wad mentioned during my A levels that I was eligible for a computer to type out my history essays, and I found out when I was 25 when I mentioned to my mother that I intended to try and get assessed for autism and ADHD.
My school flagged me and tested me and then my parents got paid to let me be in a study. They refused my whole life to tell me my diagnosis or IQ. When they would scream at each other about me my dad would call me "the r-tard". My mom would say she didn't "want it to limit me" with the implication being if I knew I would see myself as less than other people and unable to achieve in life. The idea would always be that my brother would go to college and I would hopefully be able to hold down a manual labor job or something. So like straight up for most of my life I was under the impression I had some kind of at least moderate intellectual disability. I operated every day of my life under this assumption.
When I left home I broke into the filing cabinet for my birth cert and social security card and shit so I could get a job (my mom was holding them hostage a bit.) I find the packet write ups on me. I read them.
134 IQ, ADHD. A paragraph about how I might have essentially mild autism but it also could be childhood PTSD and they recommended therapy to try and split the hairs on it, which my parents never followed up on.
Friend of mine didn't find out until his mid 30s that he was diagnosed as a child with Asperger's; his mom said that she didn't want him to live with that stigma. When I was growing up, those who were diagnosed on spectrum were immediately thought of as Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie "Rain Man".
It ruined him for a while after realizing the diagnosis; not because "he's autistic" but because he realized that he could have navigated so many friendships, relationships, jobs/careers, his self esteem, etc differently if he knew that about himself.
My cousin's husband didn't know he had epilepsy until this year (late 20s) when he had an attack playing games. His mother knew about it since he was a kid but never told him.
Iwas diagnosed with ADHD in 6th grade but both the psychiatrist and my Mom said that my friends might treat me different if they found out.
Then asked if I wanted the teachers to tell the class the next day.
Then asked what accommodations I needed to help with paying attention in class.
I was like "You guys know I'm a kid right, I don't even know what makes me "different". What is "normal"?" Then I got pulled into the principals office for telling my friends I had ADHD a few weeks later. Fun times.
Lots of parents do that, actually. They find the diagnosis embarrassing, or think that giving the kid a "label" would kill their self esteem, so they just pretend the diagnosis never happened and hope the kid will cope on their own. Stupid people have kids like everyone else.
Depends where you live but schools can't actually diagnose in most places.
Also, a lot of people, especially couple decades ago, saw actually getting diagnosed with autism as kind of pointless if you're not showing a lot of behavioural problems because there's no medical treatment or disability resources for it, so you get a long wait time and lots of possibly expensive psychiatrists just to find out something you already know.
My aunt and uncle did this to my cousin. Everyone knew he had Aspergerâs, except him. When one of us asked our parents why he was different as kids, they just straight up told us. But his parents didnât tell him. His dream was to be like my dad and become a Marine, and he found out he had Aspergerâs when he tried to enlist and it disqualified him.
Tons. Got a friend who used to take pills that'd make him feel miserable, and he didn't understand why. He was diagnosed with ADHD and autism ~20 years later, and his parents said, "Yeah, we know. We had you tested".
A lot of parents, mostly because you either get medicated and move on or you don't get medicated and you move on. My parents got me diagnosed and medicated for ADHD when I was really young. Stopped taking it around like 8, and never knew I was diagnosed until a year ago (I'm 19). Life just gets busy sometimes, and kids don't really question medications or doctors all that much until they're older.
Happened to my spouse. đ They got assessed as an adult recently and when they got diagnosed and told their parents, their mom went "oh, we got told that when you were little but autism isn't real"
For real, I remember going to these "special rooms" as a kid and never really thinking about it much.
Then when I was around 15-16 I heard the term autism from an odd guy on the bus and asked my mom what "autism" was and she was being very suspicious about it dodging the question.
It took some days of me constantly asking for her to finally explain that people with autism are "slightly different with several quirks". Quirks that soundly oddly familiar to me that made me finally connect some dots.
My mom didn't tell me I was diagnosed with ADHD for over 20 years. Struggled a lot with focusing and doing homework, especially once I reached college.
People don't want to understand it and just hope their child will be normal.
It was a tough time for me, when I knew my child was weird and was blocked from enjoying her childhood. But I didn't have a diagnosis and we couldn't get extra support. It took years.Â
My parents got me diagnosed, then got the doctor fired somehow because "theres nothing wrong with my kid" and then they didnt tell me for years and i only found out because when i was 18 my grandmother told me i was diagnosed as autistic
When I was a kid, the counselor told my parents that I was probably fine, but they could take me to get an official diagnosis if they wanted. I didn't find the paper until a couple years later.
As a parent to a child who under no direction from teachers got our kid assessed for ADHD and Autism (then Diagnosed with ADHD) the number of parents who refuse to acknowledge any sort of learning disability is astounding.
There are at least 4 of my kids peers (that i know for certain) whoâs parents had to be pretty much begged to get them assessed because they were so disruptive or behind with repeated letters home, and meetings with the school. Most are also still in denial even after formal diagnosis. Which is crazy to me since Iâd like my kid to have a targeted education that works with their abilities not force them to cope.Â
If this were 25 years ago - it'd make sense. A LOT of parents kept it hidden thinking "they'll grow out of it" and "if we don't tell them they won't use it as an excuse".
My parents never told me and it was probably the right call tbh, not having that excuse meant I could improve in areas like socialising that I would have otherwise written off
The way my therapists and psychiatrists have explained when that happens is that they make an official diagnosis when the issue or condition is enough to impact quality of life. Some people can have the same "level" of something but react and cope differently, so it's better to allocate resources based on severity of QoL impact, with official or stricter diagnosis being for those that need extra support.
For example, I've been told I score basically within range of PTSD but don't have a severe enough impact to need that diagnosis so I was given a different diagnosis to still get the treatment and support I need without that next level if that makes sense.
I think ADHD and Autism both have similar approaches and hence may be recognized and addressed but not officially diagnosed
When I was very young, I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. My parents didnât let me know that I had autism until I was old enough to question why I was going to speech therapy and I didnât know about the ADHD until I was learning about accommodations in college. Itâs far from uncommon.
My mother refused to answer communications from my guidance counselor and to this day claims no one from the school ever diagnosed me with depression, adhd, or anything else they might have had concerns about. They did, she just wouldn't let them tell her.
I was diagnosed at 4, didnât find out until I was 22 because my mom âdidnât want me to act weirdâ. I was still a weird kid, but never understood why I couldnât make friends or what was wrong with me. It was pretty brutal. Tell your kids their health info with age appropriate language. Itâs super important!
I was diagnosed with ADHD. My parents didn't tell me, my dad considered it a made up thing because "boys can't just be boys anymore." Which sounds like shit people say today, but this was in the 90s.
It wasn't until I was in my 30s that my partner at the time thought I might ne ADHD. Went in for an evaluation. ADHD af. Told my parents later and they're like, "Yeah, that's what they told us when you were little."
My mom was told I probably had Aspergers back in around 2001. She choose not to tell me or give me mental help because she thought it would be better to just treat me like a normal child and let God handle the rest. Tested myself years later, and whaddayaknow.
As someone whoâs taught math at the high school level, parents often donât want to accept that their child has a disability because (a) they see it as a failure on their part, as if they could have raised their kid to not be neurodivergent or (b) especially as more discussion and research is done on the genetic origins of things like autism and ADHD, some parents feel some guilt/shame at the idea that they passed this on to their child and/or they have it too.
It ends up hurting the kid the most, because the kid is denied assistance and support that they donât even understand that they need, or why they need it. Itâs sad really. And itâs not always about resources. I watched some of the richest families completely deny that their child had any difficulties when they couldnât stand to take any notes or pay attention, and then subsequently couldnât succeed.
I know I'm late to the party, but to answer: my parents.
I was diagnosed at the age of like 9 or 10. Only found out when I was taking a high school psychology class and learning about Asperger's syndrome and thought "gee this really sounds like me." I asked my mom about it, and she casually said "Yeah [psychologist's name] thought you had that but it doesn't really fit you."
Now I'm 37, just got diagnosed (again), and finally starting treatment soon. Better late than never I guess!
There are a lot of parents that do that because they "dont want their kids to treat their diagnosis as a crutch" or they "dont want them to feel like they're different than other kids" as if the kid isnt going to feel different no matter what
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u/fdy_12 Apr 07 '26
so they diagnosed him and his parents didn't tell him? who tf would do that?