The Choice

🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs said:

That's actually not true.
Gay and lesbian (census) population is 1.5%

The office for national statistics has that figure at 3.1%

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2020

The same site you used shows just over 1% of the UK population is autistic:

https://www.beyondautism.org.uk/about-autism/understanding-autism/statistics/

That would support Judge Dredds case.

To be clear, my drive is not to educate, but rather to set up a procedure in which I am most-efficient..

This sounds like a loud thing, like you stated above, but really it just translates to things like: Not expecting me to sing in the company choir or collect coffee for the team when I go to the toilet.
Change for me is not-being questioned and challenged on why I don’t adhere to the unwritten rules, change for me is being allowed to adapt my personal-bubble to expel the sensory chaos around me, it is having a means of communicating with others in a way that I am comfortable. 
Social change for me, is anything but an additional element to the chaos, it is a reprieve from the chaos..

I believe that NTs believe it is a big thing to give one a free-pass from the chaos, and I believe it is for another’s ego, but I thing that autistic change is anything but loud and inconvenient. It is inefficient to appease the status-quo against the pursuit of individual efficiency. It doesn’t take manpower to help autistic people, I feel, it simply takes a nod.. ‘the blue badge of the employment world’..

I used to beat myself up constantly, assuming people hated and shunned me because I was 'weird' and had 'perverted' aspects of my personality that I had to keep secret. The best thing I ever did was throw all that stupid baggage in the bin and fully unmask. I now celebrate my difference, and you should too. 

I have a suspicion that a lot of us autists get into LARPing and D&D for this reason. I used to RP on dedicated forums myself back when I had more time. Ofc forums themselves are rare now, it's Discord servers and FB groups that would mostly do them now.

Judge Dredd said:

There are way more homosexuals than aspies

.

That's actually not true*.
Gay and lesbian (census) population is 1.5% https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64184736
Autistic (diagnosed) population (just the kids, not including adults) is 1.7% https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2021/03/autismratesincrease/

It's not a true* statement because the true population of autistic and lesbian and gay people is throttled back by fear of being outed to homophobic family when completing the census for those that live at home, and the lack of diagnosis of autism due to wait times, high maskers that never get assessed, underfunded NHS, and assessors that innacurately misdiagnose autistic girls as other things. Therefor the true statistics are currently unknowable.

For clarity true here being used by definition as accurate, reliable and trustworthy.

DeSpereaux said:

But I would say that it doesn’t matter how close to normal you try to be, the group will always see through your camouflage, even if it’s as you try to catch your breath. So I would say that it’s a recipe for misery to pursue others’ ideals

Yes. The only way is to pursue your own. It seems impossible unless you comprehend what it means. I found it very hard to get there though, I have to say. 

Nicely put, DeSpereaux.

1) There are way more homosexuals than aspies

2) There is way more support for homosexuals than for aspies

3) Homosexuals tend to be way more functional than the average aspie

Iain said:

I'm inclined to agree with Judge Dredd on this issue - we are in such a small minority that expecting society to change is not realistic in meaningful timescales.

I'm not sugesting we have a riot but in 1969 the homosexuals had the stonewall riots. The next year they were having gay pride marches. 4 years later the american doctors removed homosexuality from the list of mental disorders. A year after a presure group in the uk was formed and 10 years after that gay sex was legalised in scotland.

minorites can change things. If they make themselves too loud to be ignored.

DeSpereaux said:

Efficient for who?

I'm inclined to agree with Judge Dredd on this issue - we are in such a small minority that expecting society to change is not realistic in meaningful timescales.

If we want to interact or live a life that involves interacting with others to do the things we want then it is more efficient to mask if you want to do the things you need to do.

It sucks that it comes to this but it is incredibly hard to live a life of not interacting and often too traumatising to be fully authentic in out interactions. So whether it is just holding back on out stims or responding to small talk - we all end up doing some masking.

DeSpereaux said:

If you’re not aiming to change things for the better are you efficient at all?

This is an unequal comparison. You can still do what it takes to conclude some social interaction that gets your job done faster (as an example) but this cannot be equated with educating everyone at the company and all future employees about autism and hoping they will get it.

Efficiency is about least expenditure of energy to achieve an outcome - clearly masking to get the job done is more efficient than a crusade to educate the company. At least in the short to mid term.

Long term to make things easier for us (ie improve efficiency for us by lowering resistance) will require a willingness for the companies to engage in understanding and accommodating us. This is likely only ever going to be achieved by legislation or massice social change.

I don't think social change is going to cut is as there are so many special interest groups competing for what little capacity society has to adopt a needy minority group - we are just not interesting enough to them.

I Sperg said:

The N.T.'s ALWAYS sniff you out after a time.

Yes!!!

I can’t deny that you make an accurate representation of me. But there is also the question of whether you’d rather be, a shack-dweller looking on a mansion or a mansion-dweller looking on a shack, from what I’ve observed from my shack there are plenty of unhappy people living (in some cases, no longer ‘living’) in mansions. The silver-lining would be at least I have the benefit of being hungry..

This is just not true. 

I have a job, and a house and am neither on welfare or a bum. Yet i still allow myself to be me. I have my quirks and am accepted in my workplace. I dont mind being the wacky one with oddities. 

It seems that you are telling everyone to blend in and not be noticed. That (in my opinion) is unhealthy advice and could make people feel scared of society. 

So to quote your comment to me earlier 'that is probably the most evil thing you could do'. 

It seems like you are here with a totally negative attitude and are intent on spreading it. If you are unhappy then i am sorry for that, but not all people with ASD are unhappy. 

Allow people to have their views based on their experiences and please stop being so narrow minded to think there is one way to live and all who dont follow your 'rules' are wrong. 

Plus people that need welfare and care are just as valid. Calling people 'bums' is just unkind and unpleasant. 

You have taken up too much of my time of late so i will say good day and will move on with my life, my way. 

I hope you find happiness. 

mate, that's just not realistic. ASD are about 4% of the populace, even less. There is just not enough clout and manpower to influence society as a whole.

Efficient for who? I’ve masked the most I have ever masked before, it seems to me that I was a battery for the situation prescribed, when I was depleted I was cast aside. Seven years later, here I am completely unproductive and traumatised, where employment and relationships are concerned, where’s the efficiency in that..?

If I’d spend that time trying to move mountains for my employment and relationships, at least I would’ve been honing my confidence and competence in those things, I suppose it begs the question: If you’re not aiming to change things for the better are you efficient at all?

DeSpereaux said:

I don’t believe that is a hard standard to achieve.

It is. It's way more efficient to learn to mask better, rather than trying to change all society.

I honestly have never been happier when just having a stress free interaction with an unguarded person.

I’ll try to pick the pips out of this and bite into the point you’re making, the individual must play the prescribed game to survive, as the community represents the sea in which we all swim. 
But I would say that it doesn’t matter how close to normal you try to be, the group will always see through your camouflage, even if it’s as you try to catch your breath. So I would say that it’s a recipe for misery to pursue others’ ideals.

The others may have been laughing but the two in that interaction weren’t. Perhaps instead of punishing people because society doesn’t make room for them, by asking them to conform, we should ask society to make reservation for the neurodivergent. I don’t believe that is a hard standard to achieve.
Just like one NT person shouldn’t argue with another over one disabled parking space, they should both ask society to make other space, everybody should have access and everyone’s focus should be on increasing capacity not fighting over what is available.

I mean by what right do equals bestow mercy upon one another, the fight should be aimed at that tyranny I feel, not accepting a self-proclaimed overlord and adjusting accordingly..

There is really no choice. Either you learn to make other people comfortable, or you end up as a bum or as a low-paid labourer doing bad job in an abusive environment. Thankfully I managed to work from home, but I still have to pretend to laugh at my manager's idiotic puns and revolting attempts to act "managerly". Masking is a vital skill and you need to master it to survive.

That's it, unless you want to live like Joseph Kaczinsky in a shack in the wilderness. The people that advise you to "unmask" and "be yourself" are either dependents from somebody else, or welfare recipients living on benefits.

Acting "normally" will eventually catch up with you, I know from experience and it's not fun.

My advice is if you feel you can't present your true self, try and project a modulated version that you can keep up, it's like a lie, it's easier to believe if it has an element of truth.

Masking ASD is like hiding a bright light behind a blackout curtain. The light bleeds around the edges. 

But ask yourself, do you mask to make yourself comfortable or so people feel comfortable around you?

No because you are speaking a whole lot of nonsense. Bye