Published on 12, July, 2020
How trusting are you? If someone presented themselves as a good person would you immediately take their word for it? How easy to manipulate do you consider yourself? I'm sure it's not just Autistic people who are taken advantage of. But are Autistic people easier to take advantage of? Do you present yourself as honest? And do you see other people as being the same as you? Because often they are not.
How trusting I am depends on how well I think I know the person, and also how I know that person (i.e. family, friend, or someone I have just met for the first time).
If someone I did not personally know presented themselves as a good person, for example by telling me I could trust them, I would wonder why they felt compelled to tell me that. Telling me they are trustworthy is not the same as me knowing they are trustworthy, so why should I take them at their word? To be honest, if someone I don't know tells me I can trust them, it causes me to feel suspicious of them. For me to trust someone, I need their actions to consistently match their words.
When I was younger, there were instances when I could be gullible and taken advantage of. However, I have always been somewhat headstrong, so I'm not so sure that I was ever easily manipulated, but maybe I was. Now that I'm middle-aged, I have become more cynical and less trusting.
Do I see other people as being the same as me? It's unclear if you mean people in general. All I can say is that it varies. It's rare that I ever consider someone to be exactly like me in terms of how I think and see the world, but I do encounter people who I perceive as being similar to me, along with people I perceive as being not at all like me.