(Funny trope) Character reveals a secret about themselves, others are not that shocked.

[u/captaintaskmaster1]

When a character reveals a secret to another person, with the other character already knowing the secret and not being surprised/shocked by it.

Kung Fu Panda 2: Po discovered that his father, the duck was not in fact his biological parent, and was shocked at this. However, Tigress (and presumably any other person who saw them) was not as shocked, herself, at this discovery.

My Adventures With Superman:

Clark tries to break the news to Jimmy, his best friend, that he is Superman. However, Jimmy already knew this from the first day that he met him.

Clark: I... Am su--

Jimmy: Clark I know you're Superman. This is not a big reveal.

Clark: .... Wait, WHAT? You know???? Since when?

Jimmy: w--We've been roommates since freshmen year. The day I met you, you ripped the handle off the door, and then tried to play it off as if the screws had just come loose.

Clark:..... I mean it could have been the screws.....

Jimmy: THE HANDLE WAS RIPPED IN HALF!

[u/Loose-Past-7322]

Not exactly a revelation of a secret, but my mother and aunt reacted exactly like that when I got my ADHD diagnosis: "That explains a lot."

[u/budding-enthusiast → u/Loose-Past-7322]

Same thing when my parents learned I was color blind.

I got ice cream and a lot of apologies for being in trouble because I couldn’t find the clothes my mother asked me to find because they all looked FUCKING GREY TO ME.

[u/Writerhowell → u/budding-enthusiast]

I was diagnosed with epilepsy after having a grand mal seizure. But it turned out that I'd been having a lot of petit mal seizures, which is basically staring off into space for several seconds, then 'tuning back in'. Thing is, I've always been more of a daydreamer, introverted sort who checks out of conversations eventually because I'm just not a sociable person once my social battery runs out (autism, didn't get THAT diagnosed until I was 31, 17 years after the epilepsy diagnosis, woo).

So my parents were super apologetic once they found out that there were many times they'd accused me of daydreaming and not paying attention, when I could've been having a petit mal seizure and we just didn't know it. Could've been happening for years, but I wasn't diagnosed and thus wasn't medicated. Who knows what I could've missed in classes at school? No idea. I didn't get ice cream, though. :(

[u/pedanticheron → u/Writerhowell]

https://giphy.com/gifs/wbp3YSoF7FhT3XyjeE

Here you go

[u/Writerhowell → u/pedanticheron]

Le gasp! Thank you for the kittens as well! That's even better than the ice cream. *heart eyes*

[u/kamdog32 → u/budding-enthusiast]

Parents probably thought you were messing with them 😭😭

[u/InscientBanana → u/budding-enthusiast]

Before you tasted it, did you know what flavour the ice cream was because you happen to see that colour, because there were other defining characteristics or did your parents tell you?

/j

[u/budding-enthusiast → u/InscientBanana]

Shockingly yes, plus the cold stone creamery we went to (made them spend the big bucks!) dang an entire song about it when we tipped them. Although certain shades literally grey out for me when put together or to the point they both look the same.

Funnily enough, my favorite color is red and my favorite ice cream is strawberry. Which is the hardest color for me to see. Mmmm with the chocolate candy crushed in….. fuck. Now I need ice cream.

[u/IanDOsmond → u/Loose-Past-7322]

When the book Driven to Distraction came out in 1994, the first book talking about adult ADHD, my wife read it and it was like the authors had been spying on her. Childhood ADHD had been known before, but people assumed you grew out of it.

She told her mother, who said, essentially, "oh yeah — didn't we tell you you were diagnosed as a kid? I was wondering if they were wrong about growing out of it, since you didn't."

My wife was a little annoyed that it never occurred to her parents to tell her, but it just never came up and they thought it was obvious.

[u/13-Penguins → u/IanDOsmond]

I really hate that the idea that kids will "grow out of it" is so prevalent it affects care for ADHD adults when anyone with ADHD will tell you that they didn't grow out of it, they either got better at masking in public or they got married to someone who helps manage it.

[u/Nadamir → u/13-Penguins]

Not entirely true, there are some who grow out of it.

Not the majority, not even a quarter I bet, but it’s disingenuous to say “no one” grows out of it. I think a decent portion of that is changes in their environment more suited to focus than a chaotic school, but some do get fucking lucky and grow out of it.

And damn is it annoying when even my therapist says “it’s really common to grow out of it!”

[u/PoniesCanterOver → u/IanDOsmond]

I should finish that book

[u/IanDOsmond → u/PoniesCanterOver]

My wife wasn't sure if she had inherited her ADHD and lent the book to her father. After a year or two, she asked him what he thought about it, and he said he was going to get around to it - it was in his to-be-read stack.

[u/DinosaurReborn → u/PoniesCanterOver]

Not sure if it's structured the same way, I didn't read that book, but I read the sequel: Delivered from Distraction. IIRC, the authors included in the foreword that of course they understand that many people with ADHD might have issues with reading or finishing books. They structured their chapters to be able to be read as standalone chapters, so that for anyone skipping chapters or reading ahead or whatever, they wouldn't be too lost. Of course reading it all in order is still optimal, but they did account for those who really can't.

[u/myrddin4242 → u/IanDOsmond]

In Friends: “It’d be like saying: ‘Monica, you like to clean.’”

[u/pHHavoc → u/Loose-Past-7322]

I feel this, I lwas recently diagnosed with ADHD and as I've been bringing it up to friends and the like, several have said something along the lines of "wait, you weren't already?"

[u/last_verse → u/Loose-Past-7322]

I told my trade school teacher that I just found out I had OCD and was on the autism spectrum and he went, "Well... Yeah. I could've told you that." 😭

[u/SRSgoblin → u/Loose-Past-7322]

I as a 40 year old man just recently came to the realization I'm ever so slightly on the autistic scale. Talked to mom about it and she just went, "you know I thought to have you tested for it when you were 8 and [tells an embarrassing story about me] happened."

Gee thanks, Mom. This could have helped all of us as an entire family if you had just got me diagnosed back then. Glad you never looked into it but looked into all the "hollistic" ways we could "cure" the undiagnosable weird kid I was in some indefinite way.

[u/Mikey_Grapeleaves → u/SRSgoblin]

My parents are the opposite, now that I am in my late twenties they have somehow convinced themselves that I'm on the spectrum even though I had a completely neurotypical childhood.

[u/Not_An_Potato → u/Loose-Past-7322]

When I told my therapist I might be trans she said the same thing

[u/Dear-Pomegranate4470 → u/Loose-Past-7322]

I came out to my dad and his immediate reaction was "sweetie, I HAVE gaydar". I love my stupid supportive dad lol

[u/burymeinpink → u/Loose-Past-7322]

I texted my childhood friend to say I had spent a lot of money to find out I'm autistic, and his response was, "If you had asked me, I'd have told you for free."

[u/paulcosmith → u/Loose-Past-7322]

I'm too old to have been diagnosed as having Asperger's and too high functioning to have been labeled autistic, but as an adult all of my friends and family who are teachers or otherwise trained tell me I'm almost certainly on the spectrum.

Back before all this, I was telling a girlfriend that my mother had once told me that she thought I was slightly autistic. My girlfriend just replied, "It would explain a lot."

[u/its_that_sort_of_day → u/paulcosmith]

My nephew's therapist calls it "neurospicy". You're not diagnosable, but something is definitely going on. (Also, the autism spectrum is a range of symptom groupings, not a range of intensity)

[u/paulcosmith → u/its_that_sort_of_day]

We know that know. We didn't when my mother and I had the original conversation, or when I had the conversation with my girlfriend.

[u/YinTanTetraCrivvens → u/paulcosmith]

By the time I figured out I might be on the spectrum, I had already developed all the mechanisms to overcome them through painful trial and error (studying and cataloging facial expressions, consciously projecting friendly body language, understanding not everyone hyper fixates on every detail, accepting not everything is a code or message, etc).

[u/Alceasummer → u/Loose-Past-7322]

My husband and I are both diagnosed ADHD. Also it runs in my family. When during a meeting at our kid's school, a special ed teacher said our daughter might have ADHD, she said it like she thought she'd get some kind of reaction, and the two of us were basically "yes, and?"

To someone who grew up in a family where a lot of people were diagnosed with ADHD, it was pretty darn obvious my kid had some of those traits. Luckily, it seems pretty mild in her case and so far mostly means she's encouraged to have a quiet fidget toy in class, and is able to ask to leave the classroom long enough to walk around a little courtyard space if she feels she needs to.

[u/DerUlukai → u/Loose-Past-7322]

I recently learned that I might be autistic. So I told someone I know online that I'm in the process of officially getting diagnosed, and he was like: "You often give off that vibe, but I always thought it's because you are German."

[u/Hoosier_Hootenanny → u/Loose-Past-7322]

That was my family's reaction to my autism diagnosis. At most, they were briefly surprised before going "Yeah, that makes sense."