Published on 12, July, 2020
There is a behaviour that happens on this forum and it is worse than trolling because the poster may or may not be genuine, and you care about them but then no matter what you suggest to try help them they won't accept it. They might as well preface their original post with "whatever you say I have accepted my fate and it is bad, it just sucks to be autistic, you should feel bad too" and have it over with.That may not be their intention, but we know intention counts for nothing compared to the result. So here it is the lesson learned today, don't wast your energy trying to help those that don't want to be helped. Yes you are right to care, yes you are right to be confused but you need to recognise the cut off point.You cannot save a drowning man by reaching out to him if he won't reach back. For our own sakes as autistic people we need to maintain our own emotional energy, and self preservation is not selfish.Yes there was a specific incident that set off the need to post this, but it's not just about one person, there are others who have and will come in here and engage in this behavior. And whether they mean to or not it harms the community here because it creates the same effect as feeding-the-doom-trolls-comes-at-a-cost and takes it's toll on our collective mental health. It's great to care, I wish more people cared, but please keep yourselves safe and healthy first.
Imagine a black person who decides that all his difficulties, disappointments and perceived inadequacies throughout life were due to being black. He then joins a specifically black online support group, and starts insulting the other black people, denigrating the black online community, and projecting his self-hatred for being black on everyone who is black. How would that be received?
To whom are you referring Martin?
I think it is fairly obvious, given the specific trigger for this thread.
The parallel is reasonably close. Both black and autistic people are a minority in this country, are subject to prejudice, suffer from higher rates of mental illness, are more often un- or under-employed, are more often killed by the police, suffer more harmful restraint techniques etc. than the majority community.
Martin said:I presumed it was triggered by a specific poster who appeared to be making a plea for help, but then just insulted autistics generally and also specific people whose initial concern and goodwill became quickly exhausted.
Oh I've seen that happen since, quite a few times, but no, it wasn't what specifically prompted me to write the original post, I'd have had to be a time traveler otherwise.
I presumed it was triggered by a specific poster who appeared to be making a plea for help, but then just insulted autistics generally and also specific people whose initial concern and goodwill became quickly exhausted.