Published on 12, July, 2020
One of the things I hate about being autistic is not always seeing when I am being manipulated by another person.
I am not usually in favour of the 'us and them' type debates when it comes to NTs and ND, but does anyone else get sick and tired of NTs being hypocritical or manipulating situations or persons to save their own skin or create an advantage for themselves?
Being older means I am now wiser to most tricks, but I still miss when those close to me are trying to pull the wool over my eyes, probably because I trust them more and let my guard down a little.
The same can be said when it comes to exploiting vulnerabilities and weaknesses. I can run out of fingers counting the number of incidents where family have been completely hypocritical over the festive period and I don't think they even do it intentionally, they just can't help themselves! I can't imagine what it must be like to live like this, to feel you have to twist every situation to your advantage. I once had an internal debate around masking and whether that classed as manipulation as I was fraught with the ethics attached to it. I came to the conclusion that although it was technically dishonest in relation to who I was, it was also done in self-defense to help me keep my head down and out of the way of those that like to exploit. But could the same be said of NTs? Do they see their actions as a form of self-preservation, but to the extent that the end game is to be in a better position than where they started?
If that is the case are we merely as bad as one another, where only our perception of the what is right and wrong with the components of deception, actually differ? We mask to survive, so our end game is to be in a safe and comfortable situation (no threats), whereas for NTs it might be to get a promotion in a job, gain respect from others etc.
I would like to think my intentions around masking are innocent and only done to survive in a world that demands it - it is never done with the intention to hurt others. But could NTs also be doing the same, they mask and manipulate because the same world demands it - it's the intentions and damage caused from said actions I struggle to understand. Are they always aware the consequences of their actions, or do they go about this intuitively without thought? This is something that has been buzzing round my head for most of the day.
Forgive me for repeating a comment I made on another thread yesterday...
1) We're in a small minority, and therefore have a small voice in comparison to the majority. The majority voice, therefore, will always drown ours out.
2) The majority oppresses us by stigmatising us, stereotyping us, discriminating against us, refusing to listen to us, refusing to accept our demands, accusing us of using our minority status and condition as an excuse for our behaviour - basically, denying us our sense of common humanity. In many senses, they pay little more than lip service to trying to 'support' us.
3) We are given little choice but to try our hardest to copy the majority in order to survive in what is effectively their world, their hegemony. This copying - this denial of our essential selves - does us untold psychological damage.
4) We are pushed into ghettos, where we can at least find some sense of commonality and solace through proper acknowledgement and understanding of our true status as functioning humans, sharing a portion of the world that we increasingly feel crowded out of otherwise.
5) In respect of all of the above, we feel disempowered, disenfranchised, disowned... dehumanised. Many of us see struggle as exhausting and/or futile. Many of us, through exhaustion and associated mental health issues, are consigned to lives on the margins - on welfare or low incomes. Many of us become too sick to function properly at all. Many of us take our lives rather than endure it any longer.
Is this all we can hope for? Do we just give up and go along with what they want, in the hope they'll leave us alone? Do we continue to stand for this oppression?
What other choice do we seem to have?
Not to go too much on a tangent, but I agree with what you are saying that we are indeed the minority and as such have the smaller voice. The sad thing is you could apply the above 5 statements to any marginalised group, which would include race, gender, sexuality etc.
This is where I struggle when my thoughts go down the route of 'us and them'. The reason we have discrimination and oppression is because we fail to acknowledge all as equals and human beings despite our differences. I have sat through many a heated debate with my brother, on the verge of ripping my hair out because he has taken the 'us and them' mentality with regards to race. I can't stomach the fact that my brother is a blatant racist and despite my attempted counter arguments of how we are all human beings, it is only our morale compass and actions that cause fractions, he still continues with his illogical mindset.
When we face individuals such as my brother, then we will come up against stigma and oppression - all because they created a final opinion on a group of people, possibly from ill-sourced information or an individual incident.