Published on 12, July, 2020
So I recently stumbled across this article that really resonated with me - https://aeon.co/essays/the-autistic-view-of-the-world-is-not-the-neurotypical-cliche
It describes to negative connotations and stereotypes associated with autism and covers controversial areas, such as how autistic people lack empathy, are unable to love etc.
The scope of the article highlights how autistic people are observed and judged by neurotypicals and explains how their perceptions and prejudices are based on their own perspectives and experiences.
This may sound harsh and divisive at first, but there is a valid point throughout that due to our minority status, we rarely have a voice to explains ourselves and although I confess I could never fully understand something from a neurotypical perspective, at the same time I wouldn't expect a neurotypical to fully understand something from a neurodiverse perspective either.
What is depressing for me, is that despite that insight into each other worlds, so to speak, clearly lacking on some parts, it is the autistic person who us at fault and not a problem shared by both parties.
I shared this article with my partner and his response was, when are you going to accept life is unfair and you just have to get on with it. Of course he wants to crack on with things because it doesn't affect him! I gave the example of how it would appear should you swap the autistic person with someone who is homosexual or black - he didn't think the same thing applied and so this is why this article is so relevant for out times.
I don't want a NT and ND division, so how do we come to understand each other better?
We can’t - as long as we have this ‘transactional’ culture.
Autistics want - collaborations and transformation etc.
Normal folk want - competition, winning, beating. They want transactions and try to - keep up with the Joneses. It’s not fault - it is programmed into them by thier disgusting school system. Yuk
This paragraph from the articles is quite salient in some of the clues it gives
'When I come across instances of this folk understanding of autism, I am reminded of Edward Said’s 1978 description of the orientalist gaze, in which the exoticised subjects endure a kind of fascinated scrutiny, and are then rendered ‘without depth, in swollen detail’. Never allowed to speak for themselves, their behaviours are itemised, but not actually understood. The observer, meanwhile, is assumed to be neutral, authoritative and wise. This creates a simulacrum of the Orient, packaged for the consumption of the West. If it happened only once, it would barely be a problem; but reproduced endlessly, each skewed representation gives life and context to the next. The literary trope of autism has that same kind of memetic contagion.'
Whenever I tell people I'm autistic they generally find it hard to believe, most likely because I don't conform to the stereotypical ideas they've ingested through popular novels and films. Because I don't conform to those things, or don't seem to because I wear my masks very well, I have sometimes been challenged by people who think they know more than I do. I don't fit their model of autism so therefore my diagnosis must be false. Either that or I must have lied in order to get it.