Being part of the autistic community

I've been part of "autistic communities" before. I didn't feel truly welcome and there's so many arguments over the smallest things ("how dare you call yourself a person with autism") that I just can't be bothered, and it seems to be a few powerful people who can control what goes on there.

As someone who was piled on viciously by people who are also autistic, who also decided that I wasn't actually autistic, and was not defended by anyone, I side-eye anyone who says the autistic community in general is wonderful.

HMO said:

I side-eye anyone who says the autistic community in general is wonderful.

Oh we are just people too at the end of the day and there are plenty with bigoted views, bad behaviour and mean personalities - just like any other part of society.

But they are all welcome here so long as they play by the rules so it does encourage a degree of social cohesion.

I'm not sure I could put up with too much nicey-nice bahaviour anyway as it seems just too fake. Odd coming from someone who masks I know, but I guess we can all be paradoxes sometimes

It took me a long time (alarmingly too long) to realise that only interacting with other autistic people is not really a healthy way of living. 

I agree that calling those of us diagnosed much later in life not genuine is stupid, but I think there's a level of shock at how quickly things have changed, don't forget that these days people get taught about Margeret Thatcher as history, whereas to us who lived through her premiership just see it as old news.

I think this is not just about autism though. From what I see of it I think it is just a generational thing where the newer generations "diss" the older generations for being irrelevant.

I've seen it with gen-X, millenials and now gen-Z as well.

It seems to be human nature to consider the older generations as irrelevant as they lack our lived experiences to relate to.

With age I suspect they will experience the same from the next generation and will start to see the error of their ways.

The problem with youth is that it is wasted on the young!

TheCatWoman said:

I think it could be due to the difference of experience between those who've been diagnosed early in life and have had "help" and those of us who are older and had to muddle through as best we could

There's the stupidity of those born after the diagnostic criteria  were broadened, and thus getting diagnosed at a young age, declaring as 'not   genuine' those of  us born decades before that time.

I think lived experience is getting catagorised and if your lived experience dosen't fit with what the often self proclaimed experts think it should be then you're either misdiagnosed and wrong or just wrong. I think it could be due to the difference of experience between those who've been diagnosed early in life and have had "help" and those of us who are older and had to muddle through as best we could. The autistic world is changing all the time, new discoveries and understandings are happening, but the problem of needing to catagorise remains, this will inevitably mean that some of us are left out and in effect disenfranchised. I don't think it's even helpful to think of the need to catagorise as an NT/ND dichotomy, as many NT's hate catagorisation and many ND's love it as it can help make sense of the world.

People can be horrible when they percieve someone's differences and will try to reduce that persons experiences to being about that persons percieved inadaquacies, when really all it is, is different.

HMO said:

Like my lived experience doesn't matter

For what it's worth, it matters to me.

A good defence for the hurt that others cause is to be able to not care about those who are unimportant to you. This takes time and a good mentor to stay the course, but it does work well - or at least it works well for me.

Engaging with these sort of unwelcoming people to have any sort of arguement reminds me ot another saying from  George Bernard Shaw.

"I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

HMO said:

Like my lived experience doesn't matter

For what it's worth, it matters to me.

A good defence for the hurt that others cause is to be able to not care about those who are unimportant to you. This takes time and a good mentor to stay the course, but it does work well - or at least it works well for me.

Engaging with these sort of unwelcoming people to have any sort of arguement reminds me ot another saying from  George Bernard Shaw.

"I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."