Published on 12, July, 2020
Collectively as autists, and as a wider society. We need to stop assuming/pressuming other people's ability to function and support needs. Especially online. We are all strangers. Nobody here really knows what it is like to live our lives when we step away from the computer. What we tell people here is just snippets and the basis of absolutely nothing anyone else can say or prescribe with anything other than a faux qualification. Especially the assumption that someone's ability to communicate in a text based format means they do not go or are not in fact nonverbal irl, or has any bearing on the other areas of their life.
That's really it. That's the post.
🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #StopTheShock said:We need to stop assuming/pressuming other people's ability to function and support needs.
This is a great idea in principle but without making some assumptions it becomes incredibly difficult to offer advice, have a conversation or even avoid offending some people by being in the same place as them.
If someone posts "how to I get my autistic teenager to stop farting at the dinner table" in the forum, do we offer advice or spend 20 posts trying to establish if they have:
If I make any assumption about their ability to function or process advice then I could trigger them or offend them.
It becomes incredibly difficult to try to work out what functions a person can or cannot work with in the absence of a complete disclaimer from them, and often they will not disclose this until something triggers them.
I've run afoul of situations like this when I'm trying to offer advice then end up being attacked because I accidentally triggered someone when offering advice that would normally have been entirely appropriate.
So in conclusion - unless people are willing to give advance warnings of their needs in every interaction then I don't think this is viable in the real world. There would be so much reading to do before responding that people would lose interest or be afraid of accidentally offending someone.
We are such a disparate collection of issues and triggers that this looks like it will always be an issue for us.
If you have a solid idea on how this could work then I would love to hear it.
Great post Iain.
It's one of the reasons I often ask questions, it's not out of spite or rudeness but because it's often hard to know what the poster wants/needs from a reply. Sometimes when people ask for help or advice someone may come up with a completely different perspective on a issue that actually helpful, even though at first it might seem odd or dismissive. I think we have to be open to being misunderstood when we post on a public forum, it's great to have a place to emotionally vomit sometimes, but you've got to accept that it will give some the ick.