Published on 12, July, 2020
Have you ever had to interact with a certain type of autistic person who believes that their autism gives them a right to your silence? As an autistic person myself I find it incredibly irritating.
like many autistic people i’m used to getting comments about ‘you’re shouting’ when I’m not shouting but I’m talking more loudly than people expect. For me Stimming can be something as simple as humming a musical under my breath. Something that is likely to indicate that I’m stressed out. In fact I’m more stressed out I am the more likely I am to be making some kind of ‘noise.’ Humming, tapping, singing etc. and of course what stresses me out more is being told I’m making ‘noise’ and I need to stop or else.
absolutely one of the most offensive things you can possibly do is to tell me I am ‘laughing too loud.’ because to enjoy humour and comedy you have to have a lack of self consciousness and it’s absolutely impossible to have a lack of self consciousness if you are worrying about ‘laughing too loud.’
so to those people who think autism gives them a right to demand quietness, to turn the whole world into a library (and I say it as someone who likes libraries) I have to say to you respectfully no it doesn’t. Here’s a set of earplugs, deal with it.
but in truth what offends me the most is them speaking on my behalf. equating autism with this supersensitivity to sound. A lot of us do not get this. A lot of us struggle with social issues; it is after all one of the defining aspects of autism, and it’s really unhelpful when Neurotypicals get the wrong end of the stick and think that autism is just somehow some sort of super sensitive hearing / touch thing. Because from my point of view the thing Neurotypicals really need to understand is how autism affects social interaction.
that is one of the two major things all autistic people share, issues with social interaction. it’s the aspect Neurotypicals tend to really struggle to get their heads around. It’s really un helpful when people paint this inaccurate picture of the autistic presentation. You know the stereotype. If you’re autistic you’ve got to be really quiet and painfully polite and a real indoors introvert that would rather deal with animals than people. Someone who can’t stand noise and hates a party and is really adverse to confrontation. A completely rubbish stereotype that is completely the opposite of people like me.
The person in the room laughing the loudest at the most inappropriate joke. The person who is always trying to stave off boredom and likes a good party and dancing to loud music. The guy looking to turn the conversation to something interesting and weird because every day life is so banal. It would be nice for me personally if we could have a bit of representation among the autistic community that represents me. It’s bad enough that the media gets it wrong, it’s intolerable when other autistic people present the quiet stereotypes as being authentic.
Peter said: Here’s a set of earplugs, deal with it. but in truth what offends me the most is them speaking on my behalf. equating autism with this supersensitivity to sound. A lot of us do not get this.
Here’s a set of earplugs, deal with it.
but in truth what offends me the most is them speaking on my behalf. equating autism with this supersensitivity to sound. A lot of us do not get this.
A lot of us do though. I'm genuinely pleased for you that you don't have this because I can say it is by far the most difficult part of autism for me. I have spent a fortune on all kinds of ear plugs, ear defenders, noise cancelling headphones, etc. They do not deal with it and only dampen it slightly to make the sound a little more tolerable. I can still hear a conversation going on at the opposite side of a room, the constant sound of the air conditioning, a reversing bleeper several streets away.
Peter said:It’s really un helpful when people paint this inaccurate picture of the autistic presentation. You know the stereotype. If you’re autistic you’ve got to be really quiet and painfully polite and a real indoors introvert that would rather deal with animals than people. Someone who can’t stand noise and hates a party and is really adverse to confrontation.
Peter said:it’s intolerable when other autistic people present the quiet stereotypes as being authentic.
Well you've just described me perfectly. I am that stereotype so am I not authentic?
Every autistic person is an individual and people should not assume what one autistic person is like based upon predetermined beliefs. However I would say the quieter sensory avoiding types are much more common than the louder sensory seeking types.
Peter said:Have you ever had to interact with a certain type of autistic person who believes that their autism gives them a right to your silence?
The stereotype you have described above 'is really adverse to confrontation' therefore would be unlikely to demand quietness from you or tell you that you're shouting. They would be more likely to just keep as far away as possible from the source of that intolerable noise.
I don't like being around loud people and it doesn't matter whether they're autistic or not.
Autonomistic said: I am that stereotype so am I not authentic?
There is a difference between the authentic experience and an authentic experience. It’s the difference between saying ‘autistic people struggle with X,’ or even ‘because I’m autistic I struggle with X,’ and seeing instead ‘like many autistic people I struggle with X.’
The first two tacitly imply that it’s all autistic people can feel that way. and I know you’ll probably tell me you never mean to give that impression. The people who talk that way never mean to do so. They just get so focused on their own experience they forget that it isn’t definitive and that when they’re explaining their flavour of autism to other people who’s understanding they require they need to explicitly explain that other flavours also exist.
Autonomistic said:The stereotype you have described above 'is really adverse to confrontation'
Well for starters people tend to be a lot more comfortable with confrontation on the Internet. They also tend to be a lot more comfortable if they can do it indirectly or passively, say by complaining to a third-party instead of to your face. But I’m not trying to claim but there is one unified quiet type of autism, there are certainly flavours of quiet confrontation.