• Replies 14 replies
  • Subscribers 90 subscribers
  • Views 643 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Empathy from neurotypical people

pthwaites7

Hi all, 

I'm new here - I was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD just a few days ago. 

I've told my family about my diagnosis, and they have been very empathic, but not in a way that feels truly understanding! I tried to explain about masking and the lifelong sense that I've been pretending to be "normal", and how the result of that for me has been a sense that I don't know who I am beneath the masking. They responded by saying things like, "I gave up trying to be normal years ago". 

I can understand that response - I don't like the idea of "normal" either. But I'm this case, it just feels like a platitude that allows people avoid trying to understand how hard it is to be an autistic person in a neurotypical world. I don't know that anybody really believes in "normal", but at the same time autistic people struggle in ways that most neurotypical people never will. I don't know how to help my family to understand that. 

Does anyone have any experience of this? 

Peter 

Parents

  • I am very wary of empathy from neurotypical people, for several reasons - past experience being one. There is a middleground which I see is rarely met, when they do meet you there an alterior motive quickly becomes all to vibib,le So NDs are required to extend themselves futher into a world designed for extraverts and NTs who save energy and effort and generally come out on top (because the system favours them). So ultimately there is anunadressed bias there, and in all big organisations and industries which does not allow for alternative thinking and working methods even if these strive towards exactly the same goal. In 100years time people will look bac at how ignorant and blinkered we were to what general popiulatiopnms are doing as schoosl and the workplace do not support everyone equally. This isn't even to do with fairness, these are often human values and moral codes being undemined. To take for your self at someone elses detriment also often crosses the line into criminality which I believe in the future laws will be be much stricter to pick up apon. The world currently is a big free for all. 'Normal' or 'Beautiful' allows you to get away with things someone else wouldnt in the same situation. 

Reply

  • I am very wary of empathy from neurotypical people, for several reasons - past experience being one. There is a middleground which I see is rarely met, when they do meet you there an alterior motive quickly becomes all to vibib,le So NDs are required to extend themselves futher into a world designed for extraverts and NTs who save energy and effort and generally come out on top (because the system favours them). So ultimately there is anunadressed bias there, and in all big organisations and industries which does not allow for alternative thinking and working methods even if these strive towards exactly the same goal. In 100years time people will look bac at how ignorant and blinkered we were to what general popiulatiopnms are doing as schoosl and the workplace do not support everyone equally. This isn't even to do with fairness, these are often human values and moral codes being undemined. To take for your self at someone elses detriment also often crosses the line into criminality which I believe in the future laws will be be much stricter to pick up apon. The world currently is a big free for all. 'Normal' or 'Beautiful' allows you to get away with things someone else wouldnt in the same situation. 

Children
  • in reply to pietro_21
    pietro_21 said:
    schoosl and the workplace do not support everyone equally. This isn't even to do with fairness, these are often human values and moral codes being undemined.

    I recall in a management training course that I must stop trying to treat my staff equally as that was against the Civil Services code of conduct. I must treat staff fairly instead.

    That is to say if I had one wheelbound memeber of staff and I had a task that required someone to, say, run a cable down a staircase then I would be required by equality to expect the wheelchair bound person to do this job as well as an able bodied person.

    Equality in this sense is pointless.I need to allocate the tasks so they are allocated according to the capacity and ability of the staff so the workload is fairly distributed and nobody is disadvantaged.

    Also think if you are interviewing potential candidates for a role. If you have an NT candidate with the skills and experience you are after and a ND candidate with the same skill and experiece but who admits they have issues with meltdowns, high absence rates, don't like team work and struggle with phone work then the equality act says we have to treat the two as equals and cannot take the negative effects into consideration for the candidate selection.

    Do you think this is reasonable for the employer?

    I can understand it being an issue if the information is not disclosed but assumed by the recruiter though.

    The equality situation is a really tricky one because most recruiters can spot candidates that they think will be a problem later on through their own experience and will find ways to down mark them in ways that stay within the letter of the law.

    I know I always insisted on having a second recruiter with me for such applications, we had our own score sheets (provided by HR) and had to keep these from every interview to show there was no personal bias came into the assessment process. I know other recruiters made these score cards up after the interview so they aligned to meet their opinions.

    Maybe I did it too much by the book for most places but it felt impotant to me and I was able to build a quite effective team in spite of a few ND personality issues in it (yes I did hire ND people).