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Lived experience, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024
Rikki said disclosure meant choosing between discrimination and being infantilised
In short
At the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, Rikki, a panellist who uses a cane, said they disclose first because they will be judged either way. Another panellist holds back until the end.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
Rikki, a panellist at the 2024 Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Melbourne, described disclosure as a choice between two bad outcomes. Rikki introduces themselves first as disabled, as autistic and as having a physical disability, and does so as one of the first things they tell people. Rikki explained why. “The first option is I don’t disclose and I get discriminated against anyway. Or the second option is I do disclose and I get infantilised.” Faced with that, Rikki said, they would take the option in which they felt empowered, and in which they made the choice themselves and did not feel they had to hide. People picked out the autistic traits anyway, Rikki said, whether or not they were told.
Rikki tied the point to the difference between apparent and non apparent disability. The reaction is very different, Rikki said, when they use their cane and when they do not.
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Sources the story draws on
- "People might understand me better": Diagnostic disclosure experiences of autistic individuals in the workplace (opens in a new tab), Autism in Adulthood (A. M. Romualdez, B. Heasman, Z. Walker, J. Davies and A. Remington); UCL Discovery record
- Extending the Minority Stress Model to Understand Mental Health Problems Experienced by the Autistic Population (opens in a new tab), Society and Mental Health, vol. 10(1), pp. 20 to 34 (Monique Botha and David M. Frost); record on the University of Stirling research hub
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