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Everyone's a little bit autistic...

Joe

At the moment this expression really annoys me, together with "we're all on the spectrum". I don't know if everyone is or I just happen to know a lot of people that are.  I can't suddenly tell if someone is autistic due to my own diagnosis.   I'm fairly newly diagnosed and didn't say anything until I was, because I wasn't sure if people would believe me. 

This expression really bugs me as I feel like it's people not listening to or belittling my lived experience.  I want to challenge it but I don't know how other just cutting people off giving me negative energy, any ideas?

  • in reply to Roy

    I find "my head gets a bit busy at times too" to be particularly frustrating. When everything you hear is turned into video images, the constant conversations with yourself, and automatically running multiple scenarios at the same time. Add in a song, analysing what youre saying to others and what tbeyre saying to you, whilst going over previous conversations to fact check. And of course thinking about what you need to be doing as well as what you are doing. My head feels more than a little busy. I wish there was a way to just make it stop.

  • in reply to Roy

    Ah, if only I could show people what it's like to live inside my head Joy

    I would settle for being able to articulate it though. Every time I try, it falls flat and I feel completely deflated. I just can't stop myself from trying, I really would like to be understood *sigh*

  • See also:

    "Well, I've always been a little bit psychic..."

    Translation: 'I'm special, and interesting.'

  • in reply to Deleted User

    I came across something this weekend which said about 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent. I don't know if it's true but if so,  we actually might have things in common with more people than we think. For me, though,  there's always been a feeling inside...."my experience of the world is different to yours" with regards to most people. It's also a question of how different you FEEL among others. (No matter how much you look like you might fit in).

  • I had the same response from someone recently, I had got to know the person quite well, I don’t normally share anything about me with the muggles. I got the exact response you mentioned, I really wanted to actually slap him, obviously I wouldn’t. The final remark was the,” you don’t look autistic.” There seems to be this view at the moment, autism is trendy and some sort of excuse for different behaviour. I would love them to live inside my head for just one day, it isn’t trendy, some days it’s a living hell.

  • Everyone probably is a bit in different ways. Human experience is a spectrum. However, do these factors cause everyone problems? Probably not. And the problems or difficulties that are there may come from a different source. I think people saying this comes from a place of trying to be empathetic but it often comes across as undermining the autistic experience. I like to use the cake analogy. You might have some eggs and butter but that does not make a cake.

  • ... yes i’ve had that said to me more than once and it makes me feel bad about myself... ie why can’t I cope? But i don’t think it’s true.

    my manager at work said ‘oh but everyone is a little autistic’ when i told him about my diagnosis... I don’t think it comes from an unkind place but rather from people just not understanding about being autistic. I don’t like that phrase though as it somewhat diminishes our differences and struggles...

  • in reply to Autonomistic

    Thank you  I just actually laughed for the first time in days

  • Those are the top answers to the question "how to make an autistic person angry in 6 words or less?" Angry