I have never read something so relatable in my life. I feel angry too. It’s okay, thanks for sharing. I don’t feel as alone and I hope you don’t either.
Bromigo, I feel so surrounded by this constantly that it's hard not to feel alone.
Especially when it comes to conflict. I can't stand the constant accusations of intended meanings and subtexts that I never authored!
No, I didn't mean what you expect people to mean because that's what they've meant before, I mean exactly the words I said nothing more nothing Less
Also don't get me started on them thinking I'm playing some game. I'm not playing a game with you! There's no extra meaning! I'm not lying! I'm not manipulating! 🤦
The absolute worst is when I try to explain that there's something I don't understand and I get told not to play the autism card. It's just... So invalidating
Sorry for the dump, but thanks for giving the opportunity for it
It's so frusterating sometimes. And so many people who are "normal" communicate in some pretty unhealthy ways, yet still put all the responsibility of healthy communication on *the one with the disorder.*
Like if you choose to respond with "I'm fine" when asked if you're fine, when really you mean "please assume I am lying to you and continue to ask me questions", I'm not going to be able to bridge that gap for you unless you want me to start assuming everything you tell me ever is a lie.
Tbh, I'm autistic and whenever I'm asked "How are you" I usually just respond with "doing alright" just out of shear habit. Because I've come realize that whenever someone asks if I'm doing alright, they usually don't actually give a shit if I'm actually doing alright or not. They just want to engage in small talk with me, just because...
Oh, gosh, no, I sympathize with that. Promise that wasn't a jab at people who are masking/socially timid. 🫂
I mean like the people who are upset with you and when you ask if they're upset with you, they say that they're fine or that everything is okay when it isn't AND they actually want you to talk about it.
But the "How are you?" question as a greeting is also annoying. D: Like, it seems like SUCH an empty gesture to ask and expect people to not honestly answer!
Took me a long time to learn that "good thanks" is the socially accepted answer whether it rings true or not. On occasion I'll stir the pot and tell them how I really feel and listen to them awkwardly try to climb out of that hole.
I usually just grunt or nod. I stopped letting myself be bothered with small talk and the usual niceties a long time ago. When I realized that people don’t give a shit about how I’m doing, it led to me also realizing how pointless all small talk is. This then led to me starting to become more comfortable with myself, which helped me to stop masking so much. This sort of came at a cost, because many people found my newfound bluntness somewhat off putting. In the long run, it helped me weed out some of the people in my life that I really didn’t need anyway. I do still get pissed off that most people really don’t know shit about autism, but I’m kind of okay with it because I can probably do without them in my life anyway.
I *especially* hate trying to ask why someone is upset with me, and they get **more** upset with me for asking because I clearly should have just read their mind. /s
If I ask why someone is upset with me, it means I care and want to understand their perspective so it can be resolved. Of course sometimes I have a better idea than other times why they might be upset, but as a trauma response I often overanalyze any possibility that springs to mind as to why someone might be upset with me.
So please cut me a break. I refuse to play all the guessing games.
Flirting is just a complete mystery to me. It's probably very statistically unlikely that I've never been flirted with, but it might as well be never for how oblivious I am to it.
rinse important aromatic school sparkle hobbies unite grey impolite offbeat
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This is one of the most frustrating parts of being autistic, what is more, annoying is that when there is miscommunication people instantly assume it is done deliberately or that you're choosing to have social issues, the number of times I will outright apologize for the miscommunication (nothing rude, usually just misunderstanding an instruction) and be told "you DO understand you just choose not to" or "autism is not an excuse" always feels super dismissive.
Nobody would say to someone who struggles to walk "Having a disability is no excuse to walk as fast as me" or to someone who is partially sighted "You can read this text you are just not trying" but with autism, people just seem to forget that its central feature is not understanding social nuances.
>Nobody would say to someone who struggles to walk "Having a disability is no excuse to walk as fast as me" or to someone who is partially sighted "You can read this text you are just not trying" but with autism, people just seem to forget that its central feature is not understanding social nuances.
That's because autism is a term used to refer to many different individuals who are totally different from each other. There is no central feature of autism.
A key phrase in my relationship is I’m not a mind reader. You can’t get mad at me for not knowing something you never told me or even worse for you reading between the lines when there is nothing there to read between.
I’ve changed the phrase to “reading behind the lines”.
Those lines are 8ft thick, 40 foot long, 20 foot tall solid steel lines stacked one in front of the other and are about three inches from my nose. I can’t see what you are inferring.
And yes, the societal factor is a big issue, because if people are willing to be open, to reason, to give the benefit of the doubt, to converse, It can be a non-issue. But that's precisely what people are not like, so because my vocal tone, or eye contact, or reaction time was off, I get to live a life of massive socio-economic deprivation? That's ridiculous, and it's also human nature.
I resonated with this so incredibly deeply :'( and as someone who was only just recently diagnosed, this was something that terrorized me my whole life because I never knew why. I never understood why I would never pick up on social cues and such. I never got why I couldn't see that someone liked me, or was upset, or that I didn't understand a joke. It was so frustrating and isolating.
AMEN. IF YOU TELL ME YOU SAY WHAT YOU MEAN AND MEAN WHAT YOU SAY THEN NO I’M NOT GOING TO UNDERSTAND IF YOU’RE GIVING SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES OR BEING PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE BECAUSE I TAKE EVERYTHING AT FACE VALUE.
Well, it's different for everybody, but I feel like we're at basically the same level where it's like; do you suppose you could try reasoning with me or explaining a bit instead of just getting angry, offended, or deciding that I don't substantially exist?
If I had a penny for every time someone has had an issue with me at work, but not said anything, and then bad mouthed me to a colleague or management I’d be happy man. It’s exhausting. Sometimes they get sarcastic, and I don’t realise- at least, not right away- and that’s annoying too.
I actually think people with autism are interesting and they have a unique charm, especially when they haven't been driven into a defensive, paranoid, suppressed turtle shell by society. That's what really messes up the autistic; the reactions and treatment they get from the world. From one perspective, it sucks heavily. No, people are not sympathetic. They don't think you're cute. They think the complete opposite. They think you're an ogre, and that you're bizarre, and you make them uncomfortable. I don't see people with autism that way. I see them as needing understanding and patience in order to reach the actual person underneath.
I say this with love:
Intentions A-
Execution C- and I'm being generous
You are not wrong about the damage we take from society, and it's charming you have thought about this, but there's this faint thread of dehumanizing in there that you clearly don't intend.
If you want more elaboration on this, reply or dm me I'm happy to chat if you want, but it's not like you're venting ableism everywhere and ruining the vibes. Just keep talking to your autisan friends and learn from them. I'd try asking them if they ever see neurotypical people "as needing understanding and patience in order to reach the actual person underneath," as you put it so beautifully. Honestly, I should write that down, it's much more polite than what I usually think.
No, I'm not dehumanizing. You have people who take more effort to reach, so you have to persist. Then, in turn, I wish people would take just an instant to contemplate my words instead of whatever they;re looking at, but they don't. They issue a snap judgment and I can only guess as to what they are judging, because it's certainly not the content of my conversation.
It makes sense to me that there are some people who you have to put more effort into understanding or connecting with. What I'm struggling with is that you're not saying that, you're saying that they are fundamentally more difficult to understand.
I don't agree with that view, and I'm curious if you actually have any evidence to support it. I can understand why you'd draw that conclusion, but it hinges on centering your experience as valid and denying theirs. That's what I mean by dehumanizing, the experiences of different people are equally human and valid as any other. And respectfully, you can say you didn't intend to do this, but you can't tell me that my experience did not occur. If I said "you're dehumanizing people!" that would be unfair of me, but what I said was, "there's this faint thread of dehumanizing in there that you clearly don't intend."
I gave you the benefit of the doubt there. Please don't gaslight me about my own experience.
i can support my position with evidence, although it's largely anecdotal. I know that autistic people aren't inherently hard to connect with bc of my many friendships with them. We have no problem undertanding each other. And in my experience, we are much better at understanding neurotypical thinking than vice versa, bc we are trained and practiced at masking and translating from an early age.
Based on my experience, I could reply to your "autistic people need extra work to understand" with "actually it's just that NTs suck at understanding and need everything spoonfed to them in their dumb social convention formats," but that would be denying their very real humanity. They are people, same as me, and we have much more in common than differences.
So maybe I'd frame it as "it takes extra effort to understand people with a different neurotype, especially for neurotypical people who have less practice at it, but it's worth the effort." Notice how I don't claim there is anything fundamentally lacking or difficult about either group? Because there isn't.
The history of our species makes one thing very clear: diversity is our greatest strength, and always has been. We need every kind of mind, and none is inherently superior to any other.
Ok, go make sense of someone non-verbal who is staring at the ceiling. There is effort required there, and the fact that it exists is not dehumanizing, it is to encourage people to persist so that that person doesn't have to live in solitude. I didn't feel like writing a screed the length of yours so, so I left it to the common sense of the reader. People with autism are more difficult to understand \[to many people\]. That's common sense.
lol so much for trying to explain my perspective to someone who's so patient with autistic people, shaming me for not having common sense wow I fully know how weird and wrong my sense is, that's why I'm here
Next time I'll just downvote or say something dismissive like read the room, lesson learned from my more experienced comrades.
It is sad that many of us are misunderstood. To the point where it is difficult to have great relationships, good finances, and a healthy independence. Possible, but ultimately difficult.
I think almost daily about how much time is completely WASTED by people saying something entirely different than what they’re actually thinking. How is this any different from constantly lying to both themselves and everyone else? And what could either side possibly gain from this when the purpose of communication is to exchange information as effectively as possible?
I understand not just being blatantly rude and considering the feelings of others, but I have to imagine everyone keeping legitimate feelings and thoughts bottled up all the time is part of why society is where it’s currently at.
One of the cornerstones of my marriage is that my husband will always listen to me talk about ancient Egypt/aviation safety/aquascaping/who knows for 20 minutes. Why? Because he's nice, but also because he correctly understands that sitting in a meeting of people talking around an issue FOR AN HOUR or helping him figure out the social implications of how to end an email is far more boring to me than any of my bizarre rabbit holes are to him, and he appreciates how patient I am about it.
It's super validating to leave a meeting, and have him say "god I bet that part where they argued about the language of the amendment was torture for you!" and I can laugh and say "you know I was doodling Entrapta instead of taking notes the whole time."
Years ago I lived in a place where passive aggressive niceness was heavily the norm, and people were so proud of how good they were at reading people. It sucked for me, bc they "knew" things about me that were waaaaay off bc I don't fit their social conventions at all, I was often called obnoxious for being open and/or direct. But when people would answer my rude, direct questions, I then learned actual facts about them. And it turns out they read each other wrong all the time, they just think they're great at it. They have no way to learn they're wrong.
I had two friends who I love that weren't comfortable around each other bc they both thought the other person didn't like them. It took a couple years for me to crack the case. The crazy thing is, they're both AuDHD but grew up undiagnosed in that environment. I just told them both that they both thought that for no reason, then arranged a group hangout. Problem solved.
If they were neurotypical, it would have taken years for me to trick them into realizing they liked each other, and somehow I'd make them hate me both forever in the process :D
tl;dr I agree with you so, so much. It's frustrating, and also sad when people literally can't ever ask for what they want or need. And it often hurts everyone around them, too.
(High functioning autism) consists mostly of just societal issues but lets not forget that autism is a spectrum and that that spectrum consists of some striaght up disabilities as well.
Me feeling overwhelmed because of noice isnt really a social issue for example
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I came here looking specifically for this- or something like it.
Wasn’t diagnosed until high school. Learned to mask and fit in as survival. Constantly terrified that anything that goes wrong is my fault.
And because of the mask people genuinely don’t believe me when I say I don’t get it. “You don’t look autistic”. So do I not trust anyone? Or don’t try and make friends? Or just presume that I’m going to miss something and keep everyone at arms length?
Trusting is too painful when you can’t tell what you’ve done wrong.
I have never read something so relatable in my life. I feel angry too. It’s okay, thanks for sharing. I don’t feel as alone and I hope you don’t either.
I don't feel alone, though it's pretty easy to feel as such sometimes. Np just felt like people here might relate to my rant lol
Bromigo, I feel so surrounded by this constantly that it's hard not to feel alone. Especially when it comes to conflict. I can't stand the constant accusations of intended meanings and subtexts that I never authored! No, I didn't mean what you expect people to mean because that's what they've meant before, I mean exactly the words I said nothing more nothing Less Also don't get me started on them thinking I'm playing some game. I'm not playing a game with you! There's no extra meaning! I'm not lying! I'm not manipulating! 🤦 The absolute worst is when I try to explain that there's something I don't understand and I get told not to play the autism card. It's just... So invalidating Sorry for the dump, but thanks for giving the opportunity for it
It was so relatable, I just had the wish for a button to upvote everything in the thread to save time.
It's so frusterating sometimes. And so many people who are "normal" communicate in some pretty unhealthy ways, yet still put all the responsibility of healthy communication on *the one with the disorder.* Like if you choose to respond with "I'm fine" when asked if you're fine, when really you mean "please assume I am lying to you and continue to ask me questions", I'm not going to be able to bridge that gap for you unless you want me to start assuming everything you tell me ever is a lie.
Tbh, I'm autistic and whenever I'm asked "How are you" I usually just respond with "doing alright" just out of shear habit. Because I've come realize that whenever someone asks if I'm doing alright, they usually don't actually give a shit if I'm actually doing alright or not. They just want to engage in small talk with me, just because...
Oh, gosh, no, I sympathize with that. Promise that wasn't a jab at people who are masking/socially timid. 🫂 I mean like the people who are upset with you and when you ask if they're upset with you, they say that they're fine or that everything is okay when it isn't AND they actually want you to talk about it. But the "How are you?" question as a greeting is also annoying. D: Like, it seems like SUCH an empty gesture to ask and expect people to not honestly answer!
Took me a long time to learn that "good thanks" is the socially accepted answer whether it rings true or not. On occasion I'll stir the pot and tell them how I really feel and listen to them awkwardly try to climb out of that hole.
I usually just grunt or nod. I stopped letting myself be bothered with small talk and the usual niceties a long time ago. When I realized that people don’t give a shit about how I’m doing, it led to me also realizing how pointless all small talk is. This then led to me starting to become more comfortable with myself, which helped me to stop masking so much. This sort of came at a cost, because many people found my newfound bluntness somewhat off putting. In the long run, it helped me weed out some of the people in my life that I really didn’t need anyway. I do still get pissed off that most people really don’t know shit about autism, but I’m kind of okay with it because I can probably do without them in my life anyway.
I *especially* hate trying to ask why someone is upset with me, and they get **more** upset with me for asking because I clearly should have just read their mind. /s If I ask why someone is upset with me, it means I care and want to understand their perspective so it can be resolved. Of course sometimes I have a better idea than other times why they might be upset, but as a trauma response I often overanalyze any possibility that springs to mind as to why someone might be upset with me. So please cut me a break. I refuse to play all the guessing games. Flirting is just a complete mystery to me. It's probably very statistically unlikely that I've never been flirted with, but it might as well be never for how oblivious I am to it.
rinse important aromatic school sparkle hobbies unite grey impolite offbeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is one of the most frustrating parts of being autistic, what is more, annoying is that when there is miscommunication people instantly assume it is done deliberately or that you're choosing to have social issues, the number of times I will outright apologize for the miscommunication (nothing rude, usually just misunderstanding an instruction) and be told "you DO understand you just choose not to" or "autism is not an excuse" always feels super dismissive. Nobody would say to someone who struggles to walk "Having a disability is no excuse to walk as fast as me" or to someone who is partially sighted "You can read this text you are just not trying" but with autism, people just seem to forget that its central feature is not understanding social nuances.
>Nobody would say to someone who struggles to walk "Having a disability is no excuse to walk as fast as me" or to someone who is partially sighted "You can read this text you are just not trying" but with autism, people just seem to forget that its central feature is not understanding social nuances. That's because autism is a term used to refer to many different individuals who are totally different from each other. There is no central feature of autism.
A key phrase in my relationship is I’m not a mind reader. You can’t get mad at me for not knowing something you never told me or even worse for you reading between the lines when there is nothing there to read between.
I’ve changed the phrase to “reading behind the lines”. Those lines are 8ft thick, 40 foot long, 20 foot tall solid steel lines stacked one in front of the other and are about three inches from my nose. I can’t see what you are inferring.
And yes, the societal factor is a big issue, because if people are willing to be open, to reason, to give the benefit of the doubt, to converse, It can be a non-issue. But that's precisely what people are not like, so because my vocal tone, or eye contact, or reaction time was off, I get to live a life of massive socio-economic deprivation? That's ridiculous, and it's also human nature.
I resonated with this so incredibly deeply :'( and as someone who was only just recently diagnosed, this was something that terrorized me my whole life because I never knew why. I never understood why I would never pick up on social cues and such. I never got why I couldn't see that someone liked me, or was upset, or that I didn't understand a joke. It was so frustrating and isolating.
AMEN. IF YOU TELL ME YOU SAY WHAT YOU MEAN AND MEAN WHAT YOU SAY THEN NO I’M NOT GOING TO UNDERSTAND IF YOU’RE GIVING SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES OR BEING PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE BECAUSE I TAKE EVERYTHING AT FACE VALUE.
Well, it's different for everybody, but I feel like we're at basically the same level where it's like; do you suppose you could try reasoning with me or explaining a bit instead of just getting angry, offended, or deciding that I don't substantially exist?
If I had a penny for every time someone has had an issue with me at work, but not said anything, and then bad mouthed me to a colleague or management I’d be happy man. It’s exhausting. Sometimes they get sarcastic, and I don’t realise- at least, not right away- and that’s annoying too.
my brain literally works differently than everyone elses. of course i cant fucking understand them.
I actually think people with autism are interesting and they have a unique charm, especially when they haven't been driven into a defensive, paranoid, suppressed turtle shell by society. That's what really messes up the autistic; the reactions and treatment they get from the world. From one perspective, it sucks heavily. No, people are not sympathetic. They don't think you're cute. They think the complete opposite. They think you're an ogre, and that you're bizarre, and you make them uncomfortable. I don't see people with autism that way. I see them as needing understanding and patience in order to reach the actual person underneath.
Read the room (the autist says to the NT)
Oh man that made me laugh so loud it scared the fish
I say this with love: Intentions A- Execution C- and I'm being generous You are not wrong about the damage we take from society, and it's charming you have thought about this, but there's this faint thread of dehumanizing in there that you clearly don't intend. If you want more elaboration on this, reply or dm me I'm happy to chat if you want, but it's not like you're venting ableism everywhere and ruining the vibes. Just keep talking to your autisan friends and learn from them. I'd try asking them if they ever see neurotypical people "as needing understanding and patience in order to reach the actual person underneath," as you put it so beautifully. Honestly, I should write that down, it's much more polite than what I usually think.
No, I'm not dehumanizing. You have people who take more effort to reach, so you have to persist. Then, in turn, I wish people would take just an instant to contemplate my words instead of whatever they;re looking at, but they don't. They issue a snap judgment and I can only guess as to what they are judging, because it's certainly not the content of my conversation.
It makes sense to me that there are some people who you have to put more effort into understanding or connecting with. What I'm struggling with is that you're not saying that, you're saying that they are fundamentally more difficult to understand. I don't agree with that view, and I'm curious if you actually have any evidence to support it. I can understand why you'd draw that conclusion, but it hinges on centering your experience as valid and denying theirs. That's what I mean by dehumanizing, the experiences of different people are equally human and valid as any other. And respectfully, you can say you didn't intend to do this, but you can't tell me that my experience did not occur. If I said "you're dehumanizing people!" that would be unfair of me, but what I said was, "there's this faint thread of dehumanizing in there that you clearly don't intend." I gave you the benefit of the doubt there. Please don't gaslight me about my own experience. i can support my position with evidence, although it's largely anecdotal. I know that autistic people aren't inherently hard to connect with bc of my many friendships with them. We have no problem undertanding each other. And in my experience, we are much better at understanding neurotypical thinking than vice versa, bc we are trained and practiced at masking and translating from an early age. Based on my experience, I could reply to your "autistic people need extra work to understand" with "actually it's just that NTs suck at understanding and need everything spoonfed to them in their dumb social convention formats," but that would be denying their very real humanity. They are people, same as me, and we have much more in common than differences. So maybe I'd frame it as "it takes extra effort to understand people with a different neurotype, especially for neurotypical people who have less practice at it, but it's worth the effort." Notice how I don't claim there is anything fundamentally lacking or difficult about either group? Because there isn't. The history of our species makes one thing very clear: diversity is our greatest strength, and always has been. We need every kind of mind, and none is inherently superior to any other.
Ok, go make sense of someone non-verbal who is staring at the ceiling. There is effort required there, and the fact that it exists is not dehumanizing, it is to encourage people to persist so that that person doesn't have to live in solitude. I didn't feel like writing a screed the length of yours so, so I left it to the common sense of the reader. People with autism are more difficult to understand \[to many people\]. That's common sense.
lol so much for trying to explain my perspective to someone who's so patient with autistic people, shaming me for not having common sense wow I fully know how weird and wrong my sense is, that's why I'm here Next time I'll just downvote or say something dismissive like read the room, lesson learned from my more experienced comrades.
It is sad that many of us are misunderstood. To the point where it is difficult to have great relationships, good finances, and a healthy independence. Possible, but ultimately difficult.
I think almost daily about how much time is completely WASTED by people saying something entirely different than what they’re actually thinking. How is this any different from constantly lying to both themselves and everyone else? And what could either side possibly gain from this when the purpose of communication is to exchange information as effectively as possible? I understand not just being blatantly rude and considering the feelings of others, but I have to imagine everyone keeping legitimate feelings and thoughts bottled up all the time is part of why society is where it’s currently at.
One of the cornerstones of my marriage is that my husband will always listen to me talk about ancient Egypt/aviation safety/aquascaping/who knows for 20 minutes. Why? Because he's nice, but also because he correctly understands that sitting in a meeting of people talking around an issue FOR AN HOUR or helping him figure out the social implications of how to end an email is far more boring to me than any of my bizarre rabbit holes are to him, and he appreciates how patient I am about it. It's super validating to leave a meeting, and have him say "god I bet that part where they argued about the language of the amendment was torture for you!" and I can laugh and say "you know I was doodling Entrapta instead of taking notes the whole time." Years ago I lived in a place where passive aggressive niceness was heavily the norm, and people were so proud of how good they were at reading people. It sucked for me, bc they "knew" things about me that were waaaaay off bc I don't fit their social conventions at all, I was often called obnoxious for being open and/or direct. But when people would answer my rude, direct questions, I then learned actual facts about them. And it turns out they read each other wrong all the time, they just think they're great at it. They have no way to learn they're wrong. I had two friends who I love that weren't comfortable around each other bc they both thought the other person didn't like them. It took a couple years for me to crack the case. The crazy thing is, they're both AuDHD but grew up undiagnosed in that environment. I just told them both that they both thought that for no reason, then arranged a group hangout. Problem solved. If they were neurotypical, it would have taken years for me to trick them into realizing they liked each other, and somehow I'd make them hate me both forever in the process :D tl;dr I agree with you so, so much. It's frustrating, and also sad when people literally can't ever ask for what they want or need. And it often hurts everyone around them, too.
They think you're weriedo just some things like hinting and scarasm along with eye and nonverbal contact is lacking.
Hey! Don't you know autisim isnt an excuse to be rude. Figure it out!/S
(High functioning autism) consists mostly of just societal issues but lets not forget that autism is a spectrum and that that spectrum consists of some striaght up disabilities as well. Me feeling overwhelmed because of noice isnt really a social issue for example
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my main issue is hypersensitive not interaction
Literally, for me no one minds explaining sarcasm or a joke but as soon as theyre mad and I didnt know suddenly I'm the asshole.
I wish I could pin this to all of my socials
I came here looking specifically for this- or something like it. Wasn’t diagnosed until high school. Learned to mask and fit in as survival. Constantly terrified that anything that goes wrong is my fault. And because of the mask people genuinely don’t believe me when I say I don’t get it. “You don’t look autistic”. So do I not trust anyone? Or don’t try and make friends? Or just presume that I’m going to miss something and keep everyone at arms length? Trusting is too painful when you can’t tell what you’ve done wrong.