Published on 12, July, 2020
I have literally felt exhausted over the last few years due to pressure put on me to conform and "fix" my behavioural aspects that don't conform to those of a NT person. It seems that people either know very little about autism or just don't recognise it within me. Whatever the case, I find that my quirky, somewhat abnormal behavioural traits are not tolerated and are seen as really undesirable, but the worst part is that they're seen to be my own fault.
Everyone, it seems, believes that any slightly aggressive or abrupt utterances from me are due to "unresolved conflict" from the past. I actually have done a lot of work on myself and have had years of therapy, but I think there comes a point where I need to be accepted for who I am. Does anyone else have this problem?
I'm not trying to make excuses. We all need to work at our weaknesses and on improving ourselves, and I have worked hard at mine, but I feel it's hard enough being different and having to manage all my emotions and sensitivities without having people blaming me for them on top of this.
A NT people may need to get out of a crowd due to some traumatic experience they'd had in the past, but when someone with autism needs to get out of a crowd, they just need to get out because they feel crowded in and claustrophobic. An autistic person's need for space isn't to my mind something that needs to be corrected, or even can be, it's just a fact that they will feel that way. I'm sure there are many more examples, but this is the first one that comes to mind. Agreed, we can work on our anxiety perhaps. but I really object to having to conform to the norms of NT people just because they don't understand us.
I felt that this image got right to the heart of some of the responses I've had from NT friends/family i.e. they idea that they're being 'generous' in offering to make the effort to close the current gap... when the truth is I'm 'slowly bleeding to death' from the effort required to get to where I am and they don't see that...
This is yet another reason why masking is bad in the long run...
Good spot... Her is NT (Neurotypical) and Him is NA (Neuroatypial) which I prefer to Neurodiverse... as I see typical/atypical as better descriptors of examples within a diverse population.
(I posted about this in another thread https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/15720/i-m-not-nd-i-m-na)
Original Prankster said:"Now that YOU know this is behaviour that's 'hard-wired' into me and I've been exhausting myself trying to 'push water uphill', what are YOU going to do to so that I don't have to contort myself to fit in your little pre-made boxes?"
OMG i love this, i need to accept this and stop hoping for a "fix"
I rarely nod my head or rock forward, what I’d Do is when sitting down I clap my knees together consistently or tap my heels on the floor.
if I’m standing up I’ll just click my fingers or something.
Greetings to Prankster (...I still think of You as "Neekby", though!)
...I keep seeing this Thread popping up.
...I am surprised/disappointed that not a one person has voted up this picture, though. Maybe because it literally "cuts to the bone" or something... or persons have taken a dislike to the UpVote-Button due to recent events...?
There is a punctuation error upon the picture, however. The "Him" is an NA. The "Her" is an NT and then an NA.
...What does NA mean? NT = Neurotypical, NA = Not Austistic...?
Yes, I'd agree with that. Then they just add insult to injury by causing you even more pain... I'm sure there must be a way to change their thinking, but I don't know what it is at the moment.
I think a major problem of pretending to be someone your not is that when you tell someone who you actually are (in this case autistic) they don’t believe you.
I stick around with another kid who has ASD so I don’t have to hide my traits as much. It’s a lose, lose situation really deciding whether to hide your traits because you either hide them and it tears you up inside while you forget who you are or you let your traits out and certain people hate you because of your traits leading to more emotional discomfort.
I second that. I spent years trying to "push through it", be strong and fight against the desire to run away from crowds, the panic induced by 100 people making noise all at once and my crazy brain trying to process the whole lot simultaneously, the exhaustion from trying to be normal (whatever that is supposed to be), and in the end it made me pretty ill. Will is right, you might manage it for a while, then you will burn out.
Be kind to yourself, you know who you are and sometimes it's best just to be you!
That's quite funny because I do the opposite. I really overdo all of the head nodding and "umm"ing. I just realised that's what people expect. I also make too much eye contact because I can't regulate it as such...
I think that maybe the problem with therapists is that, again, they often just expect us to be like NT's, so rather than reading things within how they should be read for autistic people, they read them as though we were NT's and the conclusions they draw are invariably wrong! It's really tricky because they're the ones who've trained as therapists, not us.
Thanks Will! I'm a great believer of us being who we are :))
No matter how many people want you to mask your traits just don’t do it. When I tried to do it I had autistic burnout and shutdowns. Trying to hide it may work for a short period of time but for me it began to kill me inside and Tear me up. It’s not worth the pain.
I just hang around with my Aspergers friend as I can release most of my true personality in front of him.
I think I understand what you mean.
Something that's annoyed me a lot of times is therapists or counselors, and other people too, jumping to wrong and unhelpful conclusions about me based on how I communicate differently.
I don't nod my head much compared to most people, I find it physically exhausting to do. A lot of people nod their heads a lot, it's normal I suppose to very animated when communicating, and I also am quieter than most people, again it seems to take more energy for me to verbalise than other people.
So even if I make eye contact people can get irritated with me because I'm not nodding my head constantly or going "mmm" every second sentence they utter! Which strikes me as very difficult to do anyway because, as it takes so much physical effort for me to do, it's not automatic and requires brain focus too, which then means I am listening less to the conversation.
This kind of illustrates it... my mental image is more of the NA pulling against a bungee cord though.
I may have to draw something
We can't be 'fixed' and we don't need to be... because we're not 'broken' - we're just 'atypical' not 'typical'... our differences should be understood and valued.
This has been my biggest struggle since diagnosis...
"So now you know what the problem is, what are you going to do to fix it?"
You know what... how about...
"Now that YOU know this is behaviour that's 'hard-wired' into me and I've been exhausting myself trying to 'push water uphill', what are YOU going to do to so that I don't have to contort myself to fit in your little pre-made boxes?"