Considering Weaponizing my Autism

These were great critiques!  I really appreciate them.  

The outcome of this experience was learning.  It helped to write down my thoughts, share them, read your validation and suggestions, write up a letter, post it for review, and receive critique.  The process helped me understand my feelings toward the experience and adjust for future similar experiences.  Coming out of a 2-year abusive relationship left me trying to make sense of a reality I had disconnected from to survive.  I think I'm still suffering from the consequences of all of the gaslighting, so I have considerable self-doubt.  Pair that with slow processing speed over social interactions, and I get what you guys saw in this post.  There lies the true lesson of this experience.  I need to continue working on my confidence, become more aware of social interactions and their implied meaning so that I can address them quicker with proper responses that would result in the outcomes I desire: equality, reciprocity, and mutuality (shout out to Dr. Shaler!).  I appreciate all of the help I received from your contributions!

I'm going to save this matter in my head for when I think a moment to address it naturally comes up since I think too much time has past to address it in a manner that gives the outcomes I would like.  However, I will not forget it.  It's still there.  Should to appropriate moment lend itself to address it, I will bring it up confidently and respectfully, summarizing my experience and how I felt about it.  Yet overall, I'm happy with how I have addressed it thus far.  Rather than haphazardly reacting emotionally, I stopped everything, attempted some introspection through writing, sought support from a supportive community, and tried to make sense of it as best as possible.  Every moment is an opportunity in a new disguise

It's a good first attempt but it needs to be about half the length. Neurotypicals can lack attention span. She's very likely to 'skim read' that letter and not get what you are talking about.

Some points

• Often the more you labour that you are being respectful the less respectful people feel you actually are.
• Try and express your 3 main points in one or 2 paragraphs at the start before elaborating. A kind of 'pre summery' of what you will say.
• I would say your 3 main points are:
  1. On 3 different occasions she asked for input on masking in autism which you offered and she seemed to ignore you.
  2. When she ignored you she did so in a dismissive way with out acknowledging your voice or explaining why she didn't need / want your input.
  3. You would like her to explain exactly why she thinks your point of view is not a needed contribution to the conversation around masking.
• There is no need to write whole sentences explaining that your memory is imperfect or that you are stating things from your point of view. You can meaning preface sentences with expressions like "as well as I can remember" or "from my point of view." The same thing probably applies to being respectful.

Yes, I totally got that vibe from her.  It also felt like she was in over her head with the topic and was anxious about presenting to an audience that could potentially discover her imposter syndrome.  The quotes she was looking for would be distracting to the audience and helpful to seem like she cares a lot and is deeply involved in the autistic community, so it would give a believable false presentation of expertise on the matter.

omg, all of this could have been avoided if she solely would have acknowledged my existence .  In the group meeting, she could have said, "Thank you for that.  That was insightful." or "Thank you for being open to an interview, [my name]." or even replied to my email with, "No thank you.  I have what I need for the presentation."  Instead, she ignored me 3 times after asking for help.

I feel so validated by you guys! 

I rather incrementally elevate the issue to give her the opportunity to acknowledge and address the matter.  After all and while I really doubt it, I may have completely misinterpreted the situation, or she could have just made a mistake.  I make mistakes too and appreciate the opportunity to correct them when appropriate.  I want to see how she reacts to my initial attempt to resolved the matter.  Below, I posted a draft email that I am considering to email to her and the group facilitator.  If you like, please review it and tell me what you think.

Alright, my people.  My initial idea was to bring it up with the group facilitator (not the rude guest) at the next meeting, but I'm open to the advice to write an email directly to the guest, who is an ASD Specialist (case manager) in the same autism support organization.  Below is a draft.  I'm laughing at her needing to read all that and address my concerns.  It's so autistic lol.  But seriously, the point isn't to be vindictive.  They are valid concerns, and after seeking considerable therapy for abusive relationships, one thing I learned is to not let anyone be dismissive or rude without pointing it out because that's how manipulative people slowly push boundaries, so I'm actually following through on the skills I learned during post-narcissistic abuse recovery therapy.  In a sense, this letter is a long-winded way of saying, "No," which is the main lesson we learn in recovery when we have a history of being abused.  Actually, just writing the letter without  even sending it has already been helpful to my emotional state and self-esteem.  I'm proud of myself 

The email:

Hello [her name],

Intro
I am writing because I would like to understand my experience of last week’s [Autistic Adult Group] meeting. I would first like to share my appreciation for your concern and work to help the general population understand autistic people better. It means a lot to me that there are people working hard to help autistic and neurotypical people relate, which ultimately helps everyone involved. I also appreciate that you came to our group to collect information directly from us rather than seeking the information second-hand. Secondly, I want to be clear that I am attempting to be as respectful as possible with this email. I mean no animosity nor critique. I solely want to understand to get a better sense of how I perceive and navigate social interactions as I have just recently (three months ago) learned ago that I am autistic. To address this, I will only state facts, my personal internal experience, ask a few questions, and open it up for discussion. So, I hope that we can take this opportunity to help each other out since this email could provide information on how at least one autistic person perceives social interactions.

Facts
At the group meeting, you asked us for experiences with masking. I shared my experience, and felt dismissed because you didn’t really engage in my comments nor asked to elaborate. The focus of the group was on other group members, asking them specifically by name to elaborate. This portion of the group lasted for about 30 mins, in which I was able to contribute a unique perspective for maybe 1 min max. You also asked for interviews so that you could obtain direct quotes from us for your presentation. I was excited to provide input in a dyadic setting allowing me to freely share without interruptions or distractions that are not available in a group setting. At this point, I posted in the chat that I would be happy to be interviewed. You did not accept nor decline my offer. Finally, you gave out your email so that we could contact you to share our interest in an interview because your enthusiasm for hearing our experiences exceeded the group setting’s limitations. I emailed you sharing that I would like to be interviewed to discuss masking. I did not receive a response to this email as well. Thus, from my experience, someone asked me for support with their work three times, yet despite three attempts to engage in the request, my attempts were dismissed. I would like to acknowledge that sometimes my episodic memory can be incorrect as I become anxious in social settings, especially when meeting new people. If I stated anything above that was incorrect, please let me know how you remember it so that we could work with the same facts.

Personal Experience
I felt dismissed due to the lack of acknowledgment for my attempts to support your work and a matter that is deeply important to me during a setting established specifically to support said matter. In my experience, formalities in professional settings encourage individuals to acknowledge and respond to offers for support, especially when they are requested. I want to specifically point out that I am referring to the acknowledgment of an offer, not the acceptance of an offer. I believe that it is entirely within norms to decline an offer. In fact, I believe it is a healthy boundary if someone declines an offer they do not wish to accept.  A simple, "No, thank you.  I have what I need." would be appreciated.  As a side note, I congratulate people when they place a boundary with me because not only does it help the relationship, but I’m also proud of them for establishing their limits.  I love when people say, "No." Moving on, I also understand that individuals that want to support another person’s work would feel seen and respected if their attempts are acknowledged. Accordingly, if someone's prompted offer to help goes unacknowledged, they feel unseen and inconsequential. If you believe I am misunderstanding professional formalities or how people generally react to being acknowledged, please let me know.

Furthermore, being autistic has lead to a lot of social difficulties in my life, to include being dismissed, blamed and accused of intentions that were completely incorrect. As such, I have experienced significant hardships, so this topic is of deep interest to me, which affects me even more so that if we would have been discussing something less significant to me and the group as a whole. Overall, the experience has left me confused wondering if I did/said something insulting or if the forum is a safe place to be openly autistic. Lastly, it has affected my attitude towards the group and organization as a whole to the point that after sharing my experience and intentions with a friend (“I tried to participate, but it didn’t really seem like anyone was interested. I was just there.”), they had to convince me to continue attending the regular forum. At the same time, I have had a great experience with my ASD specialist, [my ASD specialist’s name], thus far, so I’m hopeful that this whole thing is just a misunderstanding that you could warmly clarify.

Questions
As stated above, I would like to better understand the experience to ensure that I am not misinterpreting what occurred, so I have a few questions:

1) Did I say or do anything that was offensive or rude which would cause someone to avoid engaging with me? If I did, given the setting and purpose of the group, I expect that a person whose role is to help autistic individuals would bring attention to it so that the autistic person could address it, improve their social interactions, and have the ability to contribute to the main matter.  A simple, "When you said/did [whatever] made me feel [however]," would have been enough for me to quickly address and move on.  Is this expectation of mine inappropriate for the setting?

2) Is there something about me that makes others believe that my contributions are not valid nor valuable?

3) Am I misunderstanding professional formalities where acknowledging a person’s multiple offers to support is expected?

4) Is there something else that I have not discussed that I may be missing, or anything else that you would like to address?

Again, the purpose of this email is solely to learn from the interaction so I could better navigate the world as I am currently confused on how to understand what happened.

Respectfully,

[My name]

I think that's a good idea, using their prejudices against them, you can borrow terms from what I said below if you like, but maybe not use exactly the language I used because that was my very restrained version of spitting fire and brimstone. (Sorry, about that, I'm just so upset and angry about the way you got ignored like that, esp' considering NTs are teh ones who really should know how rude that is.)

All My Friends Are Autistic said:

there was a guest NT that was asking the group for experiences with masking to help build her presentation to an audience interested in learning about autistic people

Also sounds like she is using autistic people so she can look like "did you see her presentation, she is such a good person, helping those poor disordered people with autism" among other NTs. If she's getting something out of it at your expense that's a messed up balance of power for a group that is supposed to benefit autists.

Autistic groups should be run at least FOR if not by the autistic people who attend, NT's that walk into spaces meant for us need to be prepared to disrupt the medicalised abelist power structures that always puts us last by not making it all about them and their NT feelings for a change. If they can't put the autistic people first in those setting the NTs need to not be there because they are perpetuating harm to us by putting themselves before the needs of autistic group members.

I'd honestly make a formal complaint about the way you felt dismissed and CC that email to a 3rd party witness to make them aware you are not gonna just be swept under the rug. Because in a face to face or online 1 to 1 that is what they do, they think they don't have to listen to us and think our concerns aren't valid because we are "disordered" (less than them) that is what they think, and if you cannot get an advocate to speak on your behalf exactly as you need them to then you need to have a witness for when you self advocate so tehy will be forced to take what you say seriously.

That was very insightful!  If you don't mind, can you apply this perspective to my situation with the group guest and suggest any recommendations?

Yeah, someone above mentioned sending the lady an email.  I like your passion and feel validated by it.  However, just like people in martial arts use their opponents moves against them, I plan on using their perceived dysfunction of mine the same way.  I want to come in playing their game to get a better understanding of why I was dismissed and ignored rather than creating direct conflict because I rather not be overtly offensive.  By playing their game, she'll also realize that she her strategies are not only unhelpful, but she is not properly educated on autism, so she might want to avoid presenting as an expert on the matter.  I think it would also be a good learning lesson for her to realize that because we interact differently and tend to avoid direct conflict with NT disrespect doesn't mean we don't see the gaslighting.

That's a good idea.  However, my stated plan does not include bringing it up to her because she will not be in the next group session since she was merely a guest for the last one.  I would bring it up to the regular NT facilitator.  However, I think that sending her a direct email could be a good idea.  I might write a draft and post it on here to see what y'all think.  Thank you!

Exactly!  One of my running hypotheses with this interaction is that she has a preconceived view she wants to portray and is fishing for any comments that could support that.  She isn't interested in portraying actual reality.  It's a common theme in academic social sciences where academics will develop theories and studies to support their beliefs -- and ego as an extension -- rather than attempt to try to disprove them.  It's the exact opposite of science, but we need to consider the pleasure they get from looking at their list of publications and presentations on their CV 

The problem is the Language Barrier - most NeuroTypical individuals cannot even fathom just how different we communicate. And because we look human, and culture, language, tribal connexions / togetherness, all feel so innate - there will be few Types who literally cannot ever make sense of the extreme difference. I'll see if I can spell this out to make sense of it from our end.

The Neurotypical Model of Human (let's pretend we're a pre-packaged computerised toy for fun), comes with a motherboard that's literally wired to send and receive on the same frequency as every other NT. And because this this the Majority of Models out there even though everyone is unique, this internal structure is for Tribal togetherness. This means they pre-programmed to intake the download codes from their Social Surroundings. And so, they integrate these software systems without even thinking about it. In fact, to the degree, they don't get to choose whether or not they want these codes! 

How this works: The Typical neurotype will then have a good command of the language, be able to fluidly navigate the 'Theatrics' of the culture. The other thing these codes do is help them dull their senses. This functions as a way of allowing an individual to be part of the tribe, focused genuinely on others rather than being subjected to environmental factors. It's an Ease of Being in the group. This internal system is called 'defence mechanisms' and they're designed to help this Type grow and mature and enjoy their way of Playing together through, a sort of Drama or Comedy - what ever had been deemed the appropriate theatre production of the moment. The Shakespearean "Life is a stage and we are merely players" is SUCH a perfect analogy here. 

Now, the difference can be reconstructed to this: NT's are similar to the Actors and Directors, the Thespians and the Audience, all changing places! While Autistics can resemble the Crew. There might be a few inter-changing High Functioning NeuroTypicals in the Costume shop or the Orchestra Pit. But behind the scenes, creating the sets, the lighting crew... the cool kids - that's us! Making stuff. Not a conduit for the collective conscious, engaging in the 'Group Think' Telling the audience what they want to hear, making magic with the telepathic words being sent on the same frequency in the air. And the problem here is that we can end up resenting one another for lack of knowledge.

For instance, a crew member pops on stage to fix a broken light, not recognising there's a show actually happening. I think dress rehearsal, but for some reason this other sees a whole audience. I think maybe they're going a bit delusional, I genuinely don't see them and this light needs fixing and so on.

The fact is, Autistic communicating, like a crew, is something like working with walkie-talkies. We're all in the dark, so we'll spell it out and this is horrifying to the NT who is used to using magic words to trigger the effect.  So if someone doesn't like that you can't speak on their telepathic frequency, it's a loss in translation and it's an inability to understand the ACTUAL difference between Autistics and NeuroTypical speak. But we can all learn to engage with philosophical wisdom, with mature understanding and by affording respect.

She doesn't belong in this role. Who is this moderator accountable to? Is there anyone above her who - regardless of their NeuroType has reached a place in life they can work with more grounded Rules of Engagement which include a bit of wisdom?

I would send a VERY SHORT email saying: "I'm trying to be civilised and a Responsible Participant, not stressed out by being Stonewalled or Ghosted - this is not helpful. If you don't understand how Autistics use language, I'm happy to help you learn. Sincerely, ____"

Personally I'd consider sending her a letter first. Explaining that you feel slighted by her failiour to acknowledge your response to her request. That you think it's disingenuous to ask for interviews to gauge the range of needs and concerns of autistic people and then only select those who you think will give you answers you like. Sending her a letter gives her a chance to respond privately before you raise it in front of everyone. And if she still ignores you after that well then really she's brought this on her self.

I get what your saying and understand your frustration. How else are we going to raise awsreness if we are not acknowledged x

treat it as a game, a social experiment.

i say go for it ... but i'm not the  one doing it! :-)