What you described first is called label avoidance- you don’t want the label of nutter so you avoided clinical eyes. I don’t blame you, because then when we do get diagnosed, we often engage in what is called self-stigma, which is basically blaming yourself, like false consciousness (blaming yourself for being poor) but instead thinking that you could somehow snap out of it (just like thinking if you worked harder you wouldn’t be poor).
Then comes public stigma, which is the most often pretty negative and just bad way people view is (people trying to keep your coming out suppressed) and well that is the real kicker. The general public does think misinformed things about us. They often think we are unstable and unpredictable, and that we are a little subhuman because we are so flawed. It’s rife with information from news such as “mentally ill college student shoots a dozen people” while they don’t mention people like you or me “mentally ill college student finishes final exam in 25 minutes and makes a 94 and then ooes to workout and take his medicine as he should” yeah
Then there is structural stigma which is how these conceptions of us are ingrained in society and have been like burning “possessed” people and isolating the “nutcases” in the “nuthouse” because that’s how the collective deals with such abominations.
There are a few ways to fight it, and I take the high road. I broadcast my condition because I make it look like it might even be good “mouse is practically a genius” and “mouse is an exercise nut and can kick your ass with one leg but he chooses to pursue academia instead” and “I wish I could perform like him” when I do things like sit in the front and answer all questions correctly, stuff like that. When I am taking a piss after a class and some dude from the class says he barely passed and I report making a 103. See? It’s like “yeah I am mentally ill and also good at what I do. See, I’m not that crazy.”
I also am doing something that is very very rare. I do well in academia and intend on making changes from within the system and already have a very strong thesis underway which is for care providers, caregivers and professionals, addressing a method to smooth interactions with mentally ill patients. It’s designed to test a number of hypotheses, mainly “this must be more effective for these types of metal patients than these other mental patients” based on a distinction that pretty much everyone makes which is something along the lines of “is this genetic or all in their head? Is this patient doing this or is this happening to them?” We tend to categorize mental patients in this manner, and I am calling it out in a professional manner.
So there are many ways to take the stigma problem, but that is what I do about it. It is without a doubt that hardest path, but is it really hard for me, someone who requires intellectual stimulation to feel okay? No, it’s just right for me, I am good at what I find interesting, and I have some established skills as a student and a researcher. Here comes the aspergers. If it is interesting, I can and will and do in fact do it obsessively and well in a suspiciously short amount of time.
So maybe read this
http://www.stigmaandempowerment.org/images/stories/COMING_OUT_PROUD_manual_revised_for_SOLIDARITY.pdf
Which is the good stuff written by the leading experts. It’s a manual for how to do what you asked. I read it last week after the fact of doing what it proposes- I guess I just am inclined to reason my way through stigma like these professors did.
I want to be an anti-stigma advocate someday lol jk, but I would like to do something about it here in Portugal.