MadgePickles

"We refuse to learn it and adapt to it at our peril"

See that's the entire whole encompassing point of this post. We are literally "in peril" either way. We are all sick, literally burnt out exhausted from all the adapting and masking we are doing every gad dang freaking day to these arbitrary stupid social protocols that serve no purpose. I'm ready to stop. I'm ready to call it out and ask society to change itself for once. ND are literally killing ourselves to fit in and it barely ever works anyway! Accommodations are for everyone, meaning everyone benefits. Just accepting that this is how it is is fucking bullshit. How about NT have some personal fucking growth and acknowledge that they have not given half a shit about how much ND people have contributed to society while being shat on CONSTANTLY for being socially different.

Our brains work differently. It's equivalent to being from a different culture and speaking a different language. Many NT can learn to accept this and adapt their own behavior out of respect for this other person. It's far past time we stop looking at Neurodivergence as a disorder to be suppressed, and instead as a different way of being that is just as valid and that society needs to accept, truly, and adapt to accommodate our needs.

If you are asking this question you haven't read enough of the responses to this post. Consider refraining from commenting until you have read more and listened and reflected on the experiences of others different from yourself.

For me, fine would be my preferred generic response to these questions because that's generally how I actually am.

To me, good means actively happy. But generally speaking I'm more neutral. If there's nothing that has made me actively happy at that moment, and I'm also not actively annoyed or upset about something, then I'm just existing, neutral.

But people tend to question you when you do that. "Fine? Not good? What's wrong?🤔🥺" Which is annoying because I thought we were playing the game where you ask a question you don't want the answer to... But they want you to answer in very specific socially acceptable ways and fine is apparently negative to NT.

My favorite response is in Russian. Im Not Russian and don't even know if this is actually culturally accurate but being taught Russian in America we learned: "как дела?" (Kak Dela?- how goes it?) "нормальный" (normal'nyy - Normal¯⁠\⁠_⁠(~⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯)

This comment gets under my skin because in this community for autistic folks we have heard this kind of thinking our e-n-t-i-r-e lives and NT never ever ever ever understand just how much effort it takes for us to mask in order to fit in with their arbitrary ass rules that we consider hella dumb. I long for the day when a NT person comes into communities of autistic people and says, "wow, you know what, all this you're saying makes a lot of sense and this social protocol IS hella dumb and doesn't actually serve any valid purpose and I'm with you! I'm going to help out and join the movement to making society more accommodating to different brains preferred way to be, instead of assuming like everyone always does that the way society is is by definition the right and only way it should and could be." How about calls for personal growth that aren't ableist and full of unexplored privilege and ignorance about what masking actually does to us. Because I'll tell you right now that it is 100,000% devastating and the fact that many of us are keeping it together enough to survive is FUCKING MIRACULOUS and we honestly deserve monetary awards and rest and a fucking break.

So much this!

Yes, it is genetic. If you are a woman, that makes a lot of sense as the diagnostic criteria is only now starting to catch girls more frequently, even though it's still very flawed. Girls (and non-white people) are missed because the diagnostic criteria was developed studying young white boys exclusively. It turns out symptoms of autism are very variable and girls are much more likely to mask their symptoms and fly under the radar as just shy or quirky.

Here's Kate Kahle on why autism is missed in girls https://youtu.be/UI6kObHls-4

Here's a YouTube channel from a mom who was late diagnosed after her child was diagnosed https://youtu.be/zoXmrGtybts

Autism Instagram talking about how the older generations of their families are all full of autism and just don't know it https://www.instagram.com/p/CvMwpDNxiPL/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct1VlsMxrSn/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://www.instagram.com/p/CmFFZuDMjXJ/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Scientific paper on heritability of autism "heritability was estimated to be 83%, suggesting that genetic factors may explain most of the risk for ASD. " https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5818813/

Haha how is this so universal. Definitely have used these scripts.

There's a couple different issues at hand here. There's the social protocol being stupid and annoying part which is what I think you're referring to. I don't analyze my day like that with a stranger like a retail worker, or anyone at work. I know the social protocol. I just think it's a dumb game and I don't want to play.

Then there's another aspect which I was thinking about when I wrote the above comment. I was thinking about how even with dear friends, even with my partner who truly want to know how I am, I personally get tired of the question. And maybe that's unreasonable of me, and I know they mean it out of kindness and love. But it can feel formulaic, like ok are you just initiating a conversation and therefore don't need the full answer or are you really truly asking? Because when I know someone cares about me and wants to know that's when I feel like I need to run the above algorithm.

But chances are when people ask me how I am, honestly I'm probably dissociating right now in order to not be overcome by how exhausted and burnt out I am just trying to survive. So a. I don't really know how I am most of the time unless im in the middle of an emotional experience. And b. I don't really want to go and pull all those emotions up and relive them in order to analyze the words to summarize and describe them. That honestly makes me feel worse.

So what I wish I could figure out how to communicate to my loved ones is that I will tell you what I want you to know when it occurs to me to say it. And if you want to connect with me and talk to me, why don't you just tell me what's on your mind? What are you feeling if you have any feelings, or what are you doing? Or what's your current interest? Literally anything. I always want to hear from you and listen to what you've got to say and let the conversation grow from that. Because that's how I approach conversation. I just start talking to you about whatever it is I'm thinking about. If I just feel the urge to connect with someone I haven't spoken to in awhile, I'll usually say something like "thinking of you, hope you're well" because that's literally what's happening to me right now.

For me when I'm asked how are you? It feels as much pressure as a phone call. Like, please don't call me! It's such an imposition demanding attention immediately. I much prefer text so I can think about, draft and edit my response, and respond when I'm ready on my own time. So same with how are you? Like maybe I don't want to think about that right now. Maybe it's painful to think about how I am. Maybe I'm not ok but I'm just a saran wrap covering of keeping it together. So talking about it directly is too risky. But I want to talk to you.

Anyway, I can go on and on so I'm going to stop treating this like betterhelp. Hope some of that helped explain why I said what I said although I'm betting probably not. I think something you might have missed was that the post was intended for discussion among those who feel similarly, and really not asking for help. Because there is no help. It's just the way it is. We understand the social protocol, we just would prefer it to be different and find the whole charade to be one of the hundreds of daily ways we feel othered by society, showing us we don't fit in, which is often very unnerving and/or frustrating. And when you are feeling those things every day in every interaction with people, it's a cumulative effect. Ok I'm stopping for real

Agreed, I always love when I get to work with construction guys because they are some of the realest people I get to meet.

that's the point of the post. ND folks tend to be bothered by this phenomenon. It's not that we don't already understand what you're saying. Many have commented here saying what you've just said, and like, yeah 100% and that's the issue. We get that it's a cultural norm that no one actually wants a real answer to.

But autistic folks have a brain that is wired to take things at face value. We take things literally. We struggle to ignore the literal meanings of words and feel compelled to respond with our true response to that literal interpretation. We don't want to live constantly replacing the literal meaning of words with the NT meaning. This post is one example of the seemingly constant game of NT society that does not mean the words that they say. We are tired! Say what you mean! And stop treating us like we don't get it. We fucking get it. And we think it's fucking stupid and don't want to play.

Sorry. This post keeps getting me in trouble bc I get riled up. I'm not yelling at * you * I'm just yelling to the sky with my fist shaking in the air.

I apologize for my previous comment. It felt like you might be trolling and refusing to listen to explanations given to you by saying the same thing

We all know what to say. Since you didn't understand anything I just said I'm tapping out. Please don't comment in here again until you've taken more time to read and listen and observe.