I’d been seeing therapists and psychologists for 3 years. They determined that I am likely autistic. I told my family this. They tried to get me to check myself in to a long term mental care facility in the middle of no where.

I got all my stuff, put it in my car, stayed at a motel… only to find my brother stalking me in his car. He showed up within 50 feet of me 3 or 4 times, … hilariously he is a person who never wears baseball caps, but he seemed to have gotten one so that he I guess would be incognito.

Every time I saw him I smiled and waved, and he panicked and fled.

I eventually realized he had enabled Google’s parental mode on, apparently allowable because he removed me as an authorized user on the T Mobile plan, and was thus the only ‘parent’?

I managed to disable nearly all of the extraneous bs google forces into android by installing f droid, then the neo store, them various stuff that allowed me to sort of pseudo root the phone by either totally deactivating and uninstalling every bit of google software or replacing other parts with open source software.

When I had completed this process, within 45 seconds, my whole phone plan was cancelled, data stopped working nearly immediately after i uninstalled the last bit of the parental control bullshit. So… only person who could have done this is my brother. Further, he never again appeared anywhere near me after I disabled the parental control.

I went to T Mobile and explained what was going on, and their customer service would not allow me to remove my phone number from the family plan. I had T Mobile agents at different locations actually screaming at /other/ T Mobile Agents they had to call on their store phone, livid that there was no recourse for me. Later, a T Mobile employee told me /to call the police on T Mobile/.

So yeah that phone number was tied into all my 2FA, so I lost access to nearly every online account I’ve ever had, including banking!

So I have now been homeless for some months, had my car stolen, been physically beaten multiple times, managed to get held hostage, starved and beaten for 5 days! Got away from that by reverse psychology-ing a fentanyl addict mad man who believed he came from an alternate universe…

Yeah. So all that is from me telling my family, “Hey, the doctors at the best medical organization in the state think I am Autistic!”.

PS I am only alive because I qualify for SSDI.

Currently moving across the country via Greyhounds and motels.

Typing this on a crap phone from a grocery store, my phone with all my contact numbers was stolen in a mugging.

Cest La Vie I guess.

I will hopefully be able to connect with social services, but that may be hampered by the fact that I do not have my drivers license, lost it in a mugging. I was able to start the process of replacing it… but not actually receive it, as I caught covid, for the second time, and didnt have the money to bus one direction toward the license, and then the other direction toward a motel I could afford. I do have the temp lisense they printed out when I made to to the DMV, but it is expired… so … yeah.

Do I know anyone at my destination? No. My entire family told me I was crazy, extended family decided to make my homelessness into some new reason to gas light guilt trip and demand unreasonable things of me: Just get a job! What, your hands are broken, and your whole resume/career is tech oriented? Time for more guilt tripping! Also, go to the mental institution!

(Yeah my hands work /now/, I was able to cobble together splints out of random garbage basically, should probably get actual medical attention, oh wait, tried the ER multiple times and they were too busy.)

For some perspective… my brother believes the shadow people are real, that everyone has auras you can see if you do this technique with your eyes (basically he is looking at momentary afterimages when you blink fast), and he has a history of hard drug use.

My father is a QTard who thinks that Tom Hanks’ son kills eats and rapes babies for their adrenochrome, oh and he manufactures firearms in a way that he took pride in explaining to me is untraceable. He is in his 60s and thinks that when the apocalypse happens, his C PaP machine needing, heart stint having overweight ass is going to fight off the … communist crime zombies? He doesnt really make much sense a lot of the time. Oh almost forgot he has had enough DUIs that he had to use an interlock device for nearly a decade. Oh and he is just openly racist and anti semitic /but he is just joking, of course/.

My mother has the emotional maturity of an 8 year old and nearly always just does/says/thinks whatever my dad tells her to, when she isnt posting live laugh love pics on facebook.

My grandma screamed at me when I showed up saying that I always make everything about me, likely drunk. Ironically, my dad is a fucked up alcoholic because his dad was a fucked up alcoholic that my grandma divorced. My dad hates my grandma because she hates him because he tried to have a relationship with my grandpa and he is a no good drunk. So… yeah now my grandma is a drunk too.

One of my uncles fucked off and didnt talk to any of the rest of the family for decades because theyre all insane.

Another uncle only ever called me to complain about my grandma, or to try to steal my social security number. He has a history of identify theft and credit card fraud, and also is a lousy drunk who lived with my grandma until he waa in his 50s, when he drunkenly pulled a gun on a neighbor and I think basically probably still has an arrest warrant out on him for that, as he fled very quickly, as in /beforw the police arrived/.

Finally my aunt is a prescription drug abuser who divorced her husband /while he was dying from cancer/, … she basically has dementia, and is also a massive like nightmare level hoarder.

Meanwhile I have two bachelors degrees and no criminal record whatsoever, was making 80k as a data analyst when this all started. Ok, unless you count being evicted during everything as a crime… not sure if its a crime, misdemeanor, or counts as its own category?

All of my friends that I asked for help from during this either didnt respond, thought I was delusional, told me my situation was too much for them to handle right now, or argued with me about how my family cant be that bad.

So, in a way, I am kind of /glad/ I dont know anyone where I am going.

These findings highlight ways in which disclosure is complex and doubled edged. Attention to decreasing stigma and negative stereotypes may decrease individualistic strategy use and increase autism social identification. This is important and may in time, support disclosure of an autism diagnosis, which is linked to making a better first impression (Sasson & Morrison, 2019), a greater chance of being employed (Ohl et al., 2017), access to accommodations (Lindsay et al., 2021) and challenging the way others view autism (Botha et al., 2022). Facilitating the development of positive autistic identity and reducing stigma around autism are two ways in which this may be possible. A social identity approach highlights the continued need for increased awareness and understanding of what it means to be autistic in all areas of society, including in the four settings examined in this study. Autistic people cannot do this work alone, therefore supportive advocates and allies are vital. Methods to reduce stigma around autism could include creating autism friendly spaces, positive media representation, greater education around autism for both the public and professionals, and a cultural shift towards fostering inclusivity and understanding neurodiversity (Turnock et al., 2022).

I think that this study makes a strong argument for why our efforts in this community to reduce stigma around being autistic and to accept each other in here are important.

While disclosing I generally prefer to talk of “mental condition/trouble” and list some symptoms than say autism. It also let me “choose” on what I want ppls to adapt

I tell people I have some mental quirks. If they seem interested, I’ll tell them more