first post

Hi Pupi. 

It is not a prerequisite to be a native English speaker here. I would still be shy to join a similar group in the country where I live, which has a very rare language which it's natives are very proud of.

Are you saying you see no reason to accept stigma, when as it is most  'norms' have a pretty limited view on life too?

1. Arguably, wanting to be 'normal' could disay a certain lack of ambition, nevertheless not to be neurotypical does force a choice on how much to blend in with that majority of fitting in. 

Hi
I also prefer not to write in a local group. And now I also wonder if we are from the same country

I never wanted to be like others. It's not a "decision" or a thought, but that's how I always felt. It's special to be special.
Unless. It's actually not special, but a kind of problem. Or more precisely it's part of another group. Very defined. You can talk all day about who is really normal and who is not - but it's meaningless. For example
I can say that my language is the best in the world, in this case it is also true, but I need to know English and those whose native language is English do not need to know my language.

If you have lived here for a long time you need to know the local language. After Brexit I had to dosomething, so I went for citizenship. 

There is a lot of awareness of autism around here now, though I still don't like the way it's described as a behavioural disorder in the literature. Kids all know about it now. The most noticeable thing I saw about two girls I had in my classes, who had been diagnosed, was how hardworking they were. But four boys were expelled from the school on account of one of them, for some kind of social media abuse against her, I was told. In another school there was one boy who seemed very noticeably autistic. In my second year the other kids were starting to bully him, I just told them that in a good class everyone has a place. I have a boy who comes to me five days a week now, and I have wondered if it isn't a case of neurodiversity there too. I've certainly had private students, adults and children, who seemed a bit ADHD, or had issues with an iety or depression. I once had a boy who was always very being late for his train, and was otherwise very interested in trains. He got work with the local train service when he left school. 

My school days, at least at secondary school, were a disaster, being an absolute parish whom everybody loved to hate. I used to fantasise that I was really an alien from a distant star whose consciousness was trapped in one of these rather mean apish bodies. I don't suppose I was all that nice really at all, but others were called nice, yet socially they could be bullies who lived to create pecking orders of popularity, or they were pretty quick to take advantage of any weakness they saw, for example asking to borrow a favourite pen, having no intention of giving it back hogging all the space on the shared schooldesk knowing I wouldn't be able to stand up for myself,, or occasionally beating me up in the school bus home. 

I suppose a bad card is only bad for as long as there is no apparent way to resolve the challenges it brings.

And when talking about religion I didn't really have organised religion in mind, perhaps a better eork wrould be 'existential.' this is about the sense that humans are thrown into a hostile world, spirit trapped in matter. These are ideas expressed in the movie The Man who Fell to Earth, where the alien who comes here gets rich, and forgets about why he came in the first place, which was to tale water back to his home planet, and save his people. 

It happened to me that people suddenly said hello to me and it turns out they studied with me. I have no idea how they could remember me because most of the time I didn't come.

I didn't read but humans are like any animal. The desire to have children is a survival mechanism. Nature takes beautiful pictures but it is cruel, those who don't fit in with the rest of society are hunted down. I didn't understand what you meant further on.
Don't all religions think like that? I didn't understand what it had to do with religion but basically religions in the past gave rules for the existence of society. I doubt if there was any real meaning to the question of where you come from.

The example is interesting. Of course it is better to receive good cards than to learn to get along with bad cards. No one would say give me bad cards. But maybe if the cards are bad and I don't know, the self-confidence I would have is high. It is not based on facts but self-confidence is a different fact in itself.

Thanks for responding, you know there is a thread here on how folks found University?

I have a BA too, and found that sometimes there were individuals who wanted to friend me because they decided I was clever, but just as many found me detached, and weird. The tutors decided I didn't mix perhaps because of being an only child, but I wasn't an only child. I was criticised a lot for not making eye contact, but didn't see any significance in that at the time.

Did you ever read any books by Desmond Morris? He was the one who drew attention to just how ape-like we are, and he saw all the jostling for status, being better than, dominating others through creating alliances and cliques, as well as excluding and bullying, as typical of the way chimpanzees behave. 

It's not always clear to me whether in fact autistics aren't pretty similar in this respect. Look at someone like Elon Musk, for example! One or two religions in particular see all of us as having fallen to earth, if it's all just a glitch in our neurology, we'll then so much for that. In any case I think what is more important is how me play the cards we are dealt with, not not the cards themselves. But it doesn't help if you have difficult cards you didn't even know you had.... 

Thanks for responding, you know there is a thread here on how folks found University?

I have a BA too, and found that sometimes there were individuals who wanted to friend me because they decided I was clever, but just as many found me detached, and weird. The tutors decided I didn't mix perhaps because of being an only child, but I wasn't an only child. I was criticised a lot for not making eye contact, but didn't see any significance in that at the time.

Did you ever read any books by Desmond Morris? He was the one who drew attention to just how ape-like we are, and he saw all the jostling for status, being better than, dominating others through creating alliances and cliques, as well as excluding and bullying, as typical of the way chimpanzees behave. 

It's not always clear to me whether in fact autistics aren't pretty similar in this respect. Look at someone like Elon Musk, for example! One or two religions in particular see all of us as having fallen to earth, if it's all just a glitch in our neurology, we'll then so much for that. In any case I think what is more important is how me play the cards we are dealt with, not not the cards themselves. But it doesn't help if you have difficult cards you didn't even know you had.... 

I suppose a bad card is only bad for as long as there is no apparent way to resolve the challenges it brings.

And when talking about religion I didn't really have organised religion in mind, perhaps a better eork wrould be 'existential.' this is about the sense that humans are thrown into a hostile world, spirit trapped in matter. These are ideas expressed in the movie The Man who Fell to Earth, where the alien who comes here gets rich, and forgets about why he came in the first place, which was to tale water back to his home planet, and save his people. 

It happened to me that people suddenly said hello to me and it turns out they studied with me. I have no idea how they could remember me because most of the time I didn't come.

I didn't read but humans are like any animal. The desire to have children is a survival mechanism. Nature takes beautiful pictures but it is cruel, those who don't fit in with the rest of society are hunted down. I didn't understand what you meant further on.
Don't all religions think like that? I didn't understand what it had to do with religion but basically religions in the past gave rules for the existence of society. I doubt if there was any real meaning to the question of where you come from.

The example is interesting. Of course it is better to receive good cards than to learn to get along with bad cards. No one would say give me bad cards. But maybe if the cards are bad and I don't know, the self-confidence I would have is high. It is not based on facts but self-confidence is a different fact in itself.