When the fun stops, Stop. A post prompted by Yellow Tree "melting down" and departing yesterday.

Excellent post 

Maybe I am hard, but when someone throws a wobbly and leaves, my response is  " Goodbye. Sorry to see you go" and scroll down. 

I doubt many people here are deliberately unkind or offensive. I suspect many are over-sensitive. It sort of goes with the territory.

When I teach kids anger management, I say "Can you make me angry right now?"  Eventually they realise that none of us can make another angry unless they allow it. We are responsible for our own emotions. It's part of being a grown up person.

Taking offence is like taking a slice of cake. You can reach out for it, take it and consume it, or you can walk away. Some people take offence like Billy Bunter takes cake.

Welcome to the big kids' playground - we don't accept any bullying, but in the ordinary rough-and-tumble you may get the odd bruise and scratch. It happens. Play nicely. 

The information you get here costs you nothing, and sometimes what you get is worth precisely what you paid for it. Some posters will write rubbish. Hang around and stand your ground ... or have your say and walk away. Inevitably one needs to wade through a lot of dross to find a pearl of wisdom.  Is it worth it? Your choice.

If you are looking for therapy, get yourself a qualified counsellor. They are paid to care.

Please don't slam the door if you decide to leave. In the Big Scheme of Things:

" Take a bucket and fill it with water

  Plunge your hand in, right up to the wrist

 Then take it out, and the hole that remains

 Will show you how much you'll be missed."

I Sperg said:

YT used the word "intolerance" in his bullet points.

People can sometimes be quite negative about having their use of words otherwise interpreted or contextualised, especially in Yellow Tree’s case given that their ‘light-hearted’ intention for the direction of the thread had gone depressively and argumentatively awry.

I Sperg said:

I initially probed a little to find out what he meant by "intolerance of drugs" and I thought (maybe I was wrong) that his attitude which I interpreted in a way I believe is colloquially referred to as "not in my back yard"  or even my favourite, "none for me, thank you" was perfectly in alignment with my own about a number of things, and I thought I said so, actually celebrated it.

‘Intolerance’ still though carries a negative connotation, needing therefore a positive reinforcement contextually, such as for instance, “Now that’s the sort of intolerance that is very tolerant indeed, it makes me glad to be alive!”

I Sperg said:

Well as I mention below, I need to go silent now, but it seems there is a lot to unpack there, and I'll go do that to the best of my ability without further comment here.

BUT if you do "Say it, as if to a child" (Galaxy Quest, great film, coming up one sunday soon at the new time on I-Spergs film night!)  my PM box will remain available.  

Even when I am speaking with children ~ I still speak with the Adult or Spirit within, what with Child and Parent ego-states being behaviourally fragmented memories and memorisations and all that.

And then add in curiosity, honestly questioning to understand.  Hopefully that leads the conversation on and deeper.  

I have been preoccupied with a big project so Ive been checking in for short stretches since the beginning of the month.

I am not sure what the fuss is about nor how wide spread it is. I hope you all stay and continue this unique and precious social experiment.

My experience of the forum, as a whole, has always been as of a flock of starlings. The form is ever shifting and mesmerizing to me. Sometimes I see forms and meanings in the meandering, morphing shapes of the whole and also the individual birds breaking and shifting to inform that shape to a greater or lesser degree, but they remain a cohesive whole.

I do feel that this forum has given all of us a great deal more than we realize - until we step away from it for a time and try to deal solely with the world at large that is much more baffled by us than we are of each other.

I have been very interested in the ways we can emotionally and socially express our most authentic autistic brains in a world where we are a minority. This place is so precious and, even when our our passions rise, we are learning to feel safe enough to express them. No where else do I find such passion and striving for understanding. This is the opposite of an echo chamber, which is what we  want, right?

gotta go now. be back on the morrow.

In the meantime: you can blame all this on the sunspots and wait for cooler heads.

YT used the word "intolerance" in his bullet points.

I initially probed a little to find out what he meant by "intolerance of drugs" and I thought (maybe I was wrong) that his attitude which I interpreted in a way I believe is colloquially referred to as "not in my back yard"  or even my favourite, "none for me, thank you" was perfectly in alignment with my own about a number of things, and I thought I said so, actually celebrated it.

Well as I mention below, I need to go silent now, but it seems there is a lot to unpack there, and I'll go do that to the best of my ability without further comment here.

BUT if you do "Say it, as if to a child" (Galaxy Quest, great film, coming up one sunday soon at the new time on I-Spergs film night!)  my PM box will remain available.  

I Sperg said:

Also prompted by some of the nicer and more innocent posters asking "why?" both in public and also by P.M.

And yes, also hoping that by exploring this issue we can find a way of understanding and managing these issues, and making the forum work better for all, both old and young, Woke or based male or female, traditional or progressive etc.. 

The inference that “Woke” people are by contrast ungrounded and also that habitually / unconsciously abusive people are grounded ~ is somewhat contradictory, and given the nature of socio-political culture wars ~ it is somewhat unhealthy. Normalised abuse for instance increasingly damages our receptive capacities ~ which not only as such further obstructs the conscientiousness of our sensibilities, but also further corrupts them with unbefitting behaviourisms and conceptualisations about fitting in socially ~ involving of course social camouflage and personal masking ~ in order to reduce the chance of getting further attacked and further wounded.

I Sperg said:

I've mentioned it before, and it bears repeating: I have NEVER had as much "trouble" on the internet as I have had here, and I've been to some pretty contentious places, let me tell you! 

Awakening from the violently shared and enforced unconsciousness, subconsciousness and preconsciousness of normalised abuse is by it’s very nature troubling ~ i.e., layer upon layer of psychological and physiological trauma that is interwoven with unbefitting and oppressive narratives involving meaningfully displaced and replaced terms and terminologies, which is somewhat confusing and often considerably distressing.

I Sperg said:

I suggest, and would like help in the form of disagreement or agreement, that this is a facet of Autism.

It is actually a socially enforced co-morbidity that also effects people with Autism ~ on account of inappropriate facilitation, identification and affirmation socially, i.e., not being given the time or space to develop individually, not being communicated with in a meaningful sense, and not being congratulated when we succeed at things most other people don’t have to consider; let alone bother with!

I Sperg said:

In plain english, Autism leads us to have bad days where we see argument or opposition where none actually exists.

Or more accurately, the socially shared and enforced trauma of the past at best blinds us partially or at worst almost entirely in respect of what is happening in the present.

I Sperg said:

We have have had that in a previous encounter with that person and situation, and the "once bitten twice shy" situation then immediatly seems to kick in HARD. 

There is rather a tendency quite naturally that after decades of social oppression and personal repression ~ that some will continue out of habit to forcefully respond in kind (in the historical sense) ~ at least temporarily or sometimes occasionally.

There is also rather the problem of course that most people end up dealing with their pre- and post-diagnostic psychological issues here, rather than so much or even at all with appropriately qualified and experienced psychologists or councillors etcetera.

I Sperg said:

That is my own personal expererience, and after discussing it at some length with my Sprog, who now actually works in MH and is ND we believe this is an artifact of the well known Auitistic "pattern recoognition" SUPERIORITY  over the NT masses.  

The only problem with that analysis is that inferiority complexes consist of inferior, mediocre 'and' superior delusions of grandeur, which involves the ‘will to power’ that disempowers everyone that is as such transactionally inclined and motivated towards assuming other people’s assumed positions of power, rather than embodying their own internal power and as such setting a fulfilling example that likewise empowers everyone else as well.

I Sperg said:

Yellow Tree however, specifically mentioned two issues that prompted his departure, and whilst it would be easy (and possibly correct) to see those as his personal issues and none of my business,  he specifcially mentioned his own "Woke" beliefs and "60 year old members of this site" as being an issue for him, which does make it my business, FI I am concerned about "ageism" (which I have been since I was about 12 years old and started doing sponsoered walks for "help the aged" etc.) and also because his break with the community was seemingly triggered by a post I made.

A post which I made at the time with my heart singing with joy, as it seemed Yellow Tree had expressed a concept I'm trying to sell very hard these days "Reject the sin but not the sinner". 

What then seemed to happen, is that YT (I hope the obvious abbreviation is O.K.) Read my post, saw an entirely different attitude being expressed to what I was holding, and went with that. My attempt to explain my self only seemed to make matters worse. 

Reserving the right to at least be to some extent wrong, it seems to me that the main problem was that Yellow Tree really did not appreciate a serious debate on the international nature of male and female inequality, nor then also your statement that his acceptance of others smoking was the sort of “Intolerance” that makes you glad to be alive ~ remembering that some people really do get their jollies from sarcastically criticising and humiliating others, and also if you call someone’s opinion a display of intolerance ~ no matter how humorously you meant it to be ~ such things can instead be mistaken as “Emphasised” criticisms, and the offence of which can prevent them from being able to interpret otherwise beyond the last letter of what is for them the offending word.

I Sperg said:

It became obvious to me before Debbie articulated it, (correctly) that if I merely shut up and stop participating, less people would be motivated to leave this site.

Here you have let your wounded Child and critical Parent ego-states obstruct and corrupt your Adult sensibilities, but instead used them more effectively to balance out the compulsive drivers of your Child and Parent ego-states as follows here:

I Sperg said:

A less drastic position would seem to be, If I were to simply "modify my conduct better in order to fit in", but for some reason, (perhaps described in teh cenrtal word of this websites banner) that course of action seems to be harder than just walking away, or perhaps just retreating to the echo chamber of my inbox? 

In one sense it is harder to walk away from these situations in that the primary need to interact with others in a balanced way is not as such fulfilled, and the echoes of our Child and Parent ego-states continue to behaviourally haunt and possess us and anyone else that gets involved with these transactional rip-offs.

I Sperg said:

Over to to you guys, but one more thing:

JUST here, just now, in this thread only please obey this rule: As soon as you feel inclined to write a passionate post from the hip, do it by all means, but make sure you keep it safe adn ready to post, but sleep on it (literally) before htting send.

I think this is a serious and diffciult enough topic that it will take a day or two before the community works out a way that we can stem the flow of otherwise rational and valuable posters form this site. So there isn't a race to post before obscurity sets in. I'll bump it myself at least over the weekend if replies are sparse.

I have asked for a second opinion both from the wiser members of this site, and also the admins on occasion, (for about two years now), as to whether I make a net positive contribution to the site, because in addition to the guilt I feel when anyone takes violent objection to something I said then appears to "strop off, comlaing bitterly" I also get periods where I get sick of the conversation and want to leave for my own personal reasons. There is an element of addiction to this stuff, that if I'm doing no good, I ought to be working harder to break. 

The addictive element is a socially fostered and personally adopted re-characterisation of one’s self in order to fulfil other people’s social demands ~ rather than one’s own personal needs.

I Sperg said:

I created a "safe space" thread instead where I can go and share the most innocent and non-controversial of human activities, looking at each others pussycats. (I wonder if that word will make it past the filter?)  Everyone copes in different ways, but maybe as a community we can make ourselves stronger somehow if we talk more about this weakness we seem to suffer from?  

Maybe consider this problem as actually being an encumbrance rather than as such a weakness?

Deal with the cause (‘critical’ Parent and ‘wounded’ Child ego-states) rather than the symptom (‘obstructed’ and ‘corrupted’ Adult sensibilities), and all that.

Because we all are autistic we expect everyone to agree. However, as the effects of autism varies from one individual to the next we are a heterogenous community which will always have different view points. We are not robots after all. Do we expect the neurotypical world to always agree?

TheCatWoman said:

I wonder how many people actually know what woke means and its origins?

I had to look this one up to be certain, but it is an evolving term without a fixed definition:

From Wikipedia:

Woke is a political slang adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination.
Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights.
Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.

I think the context it was used in on the thread in question was in the social justice one, so seems bang on the money.

TheCatWoman said:

So the choice then becomes do I leave what I see as slurs, opinions that I disagree with etc unchallenged?

I get this - there are so many threads where I have found myself responding to something I saw as wrong, naive, incomplete or pointless and I always take a long pause before pressing the Reply button as a lot of the time it adds nothing constructive or helpful to the thread.

What we see in this forum seems to reflect what is going on in the world at large - there is an ever more intoletant, polarising and tribal mentality forming with flame wars becoming the norm.

While there are people involved I don't think this is ever likely to change mind you, is seems like human nature.

I'm not familiar with what happened with Yellow Tree because I disappeared for about a week. But I agree with a lot of what you have said I Sperg. In fact, the reason why I am not very active and often disappear is because it is my way of coping with this phenomenon. This forum can get a bit intense sometimes but I do the same everywhere - when it gets too much, I just silently go away.

I Sperg said:

I suggest, and would like help in the form of disagreement or agreement, that this is a facet of Autism.

I think it probably is a facet of autism.

Personally I am prone to black and white thinking and hold very rigid views. I have historically got into arguments a lot, including with people I would rather not be arguing with, and I get very frustrated when I feel misunderstood. Either I am not articulating myself properly or there is a mismatch in thinking methods, but I think there is also an inability to deal with other people being "wrong". I suspect a lot of this is true of many on the spectrum.

After decades of these kind of disagreements I just got to the point where I try to people please and avoid arguments as much as possible, and one method of doing that is to remove myself from conversation.

Sometimes I do still speak my mind, but I always seem to regret it. I self-censor a lot for that reason, or just avoid participating altogether.

I find that a lot of disagreements and hurt feelings that I have experienced tend to stem from misunderstandings. Language is imprecise and nuanced, but I tend to only find one meaning in what people say, and my own use of language also tends to be misunderstood often and malice assumed where there is none (perhaps from bluntness). My solution to that tends to be to over-explain because I'm afraid of people finding a hidden meaning I didn't intend.

I don't know of a good solution because people here will always have different opinions to each other. We should of course be kind and give each other the benefit of the doubt, not assume bad intent, and remember that it's OK to disagree. But it's inherently part of being autistic to have communication problems so I suspect it will always happen.

I Sperg said:

I have asked for a second opinion both from the wiser members of this site, and also the admins on occasion, (for about two years now), as to whether I make a net positive contribution to the site

I think you make a good contribution because I have liked reading your posts even if I haven't replied.

Good post.

(TBF there are a lot of good posts in this thread, it's possibly unfair to single one out, but that was my knee jerk reaction..) 

Time should teach us, if it doesn't, we're wasting it. 

I'm just sticking this in here as there are a number of points I wish to make inspired by many posters so none of this is particularly directed at anyone.

Being someone who has been accused of being woke, a snowflake, a guardian reading leftie and much much worse, certain things act as a trigger, they tell me that the person posting is going to be generally hostile to people like me and my beliefs and that the thread is not going to be a safe place for me to be in. So the choice then becomes do I leave what I see as slurs, opinions that I disagree with etc unchallenged? The easy answer is yes, don't go there run away and hide, find some other similar people to make a bubble with, but arn't these social and political bubbles a big part of the problem?  I make no applogy that many of my opinions are "woke", I wonder how many people actually know what woke means and its origins? I expect a certain amount of kickback to this, what I don't expect is abuse, sadly this is the case in many situations. It make me mentally "fort up" when replying to such posts, I know that I have to be extrememly careful or risk a pile on, threats and other nastiness. 

Many people don't know how to state a case for the things they believe in, they expect everybody to leave them alone and agree with them and get angry when challenged, even mildly and start hitting out. They shout, they repeat their opinion over and over again never asking a question only repeating their original point with added volume and abuse, repitition and volume dosen't make you more right, it dilutes the point you're trying to make as people stop seeing the opinion and only see the abuse. Unsurprisingly many fight back and the whole situation becomes fraught and many people back away, either because they don't want to be involved, they're afraid of attracting the attention of people who quite frankly are bullies. Others will pile in on the side of the person they like the best and a create a gang, the points raised in the original post become lost in ever escalating hyperbole and yet more accusations and abuse.

Another thing about written conversation is that we can't see the other persons face and expressions, I know as a group we're not always the best at reading faces, but many of us can get an idea of whether a comment is meant as humour, a wind up or a provocation and can respond accordingly.

I don't like agism, I object to agism, probably because I dont' get on with a lot of people my age and prefer the company of younger people who's values and tastes I often find more aligned to mine. I dont' think it natural for people to be divided into age groups and not allowed out except in certain circumstances and roles.

One final point, many people seem not only to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, but have got hold of one from an entirely different tree and don't want to admit it and everybody ends up confused and cross.

You write "Guilty", I see "Insightful". 

There are those of us who are tragically deluded, and also those of us who know exactly what the problem is and want to offer a solution. 

Sometimes you play one role, sometimes another, or neither. 

Then there's the fourth option where you do both..

Best avoided IMHO.

Hi I Sperg

Thank you for this thought provoking post.

I think that because we feel rejected so much in our everyday life, it's easy to interpret remarks as a personal judgement sometimes, and obviously we will sometimes misunderstand things because communication difficulties are one of our main issues.

I have had another poster compare me to a white suprem*cist, but I took time to make sure I was calm before replying, then tried to explain my original post better and thanked everyone for their contributions, stating that everyone is unique and valued. I did not want to drive that person away by arguing, as I have found a lot of their posts interesting. If someone disagrees with me, I always try to use it as an opportunity to review my own thoughts and beliefs, and to see if I can learn from it.

I don't use any social media, I only post on here - I used to use Facebook when it first got going, but stopped as I found it mind numbingly boring. This forum is mostly good, and I've been greatly helped by it. So what if people argue or have misunderstandings sometimes? That's life. It doesn't mean the whole forum is bad. 

I Sperg said:

In plain english, Autism leads us to have bad days where we see argument or opposition where none actually exists

Yeah. Guilty. 

If that's the word. 

I have learned to be less reactive. Mostly. 

Deleted User said:

self-censorship is what I've been doing all my life, as most autistic people have.  I didn't come here for more of the same!

Wise words.

Be your authentic self and just obey the forum rules.

There will always be someone offended and often who will try to cancel you, but that is very much the nature of society now. If we don't contribute for fear of offending others for a valid opinion then our voices are silenced

Please stay just the way you are..

Funny really, I can imagine a headline of "people who struggle with communication struggling to understand why they're struggling with communicating with others who struggle with communication "

Seriously though, you have a point!

I think that encountering challenging or even hostile viewpoints can have two main outcomes, either one folds and cries foul, or one fights back with cogent ripostes and a discussion or an argument ensues. I do not think that anyone can be blamed for not intuiting that the person that is being interacted with is a 'folder' and not capable of holding their own..