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?
Who is it that doesn’t understand you and who don’t you understand? And what is this division you talk about?
We come to understand each other better by talking and listening to each other, don’t we? At least that’s how I do it. I’m daily talking to people about my autism and people are always delighted to learn more.
I couldn’t understand most of the article, I’m not quite sure what it was trying to say so I’m probably not the best person to comment but it sounded like a load of drivel to me, like someone complaining and trying to fill space to promote their book.
I'm not usually very good at reading these kinds of articles myself, but I have to say that I found this to be one of the most lucid and cogent that I've read on the subject of autism, both as it is often misrepresented in the popular media (exaggerations or misconceptions based on neurotypical understanding) and in terms of how our own voices are often drowned out or passed over whenever we make attempts at explanation. Yes, you are right that we come to understand each other better by talking and listening, but the conversation often feels like it is only one way. So I will try to explain to somebody that yes, indeed everyone does suffer with anxiety from time to time, but autistic anxiety is of a completely different variety and can be caused by things that most people would regard as trivial or inconsequential. This has long been established within the scientific community, with research including brain scans and other kinds of biochemical monitors. Most often, I find that people still cannot accept the degrees of variation. I tell lots of people I'm autistic, at which I often receive comments that demonstrate varying degrees of either indifference or incredulity, or perhaps some mild curiosity - as one might be curious about seeing someone in the street with learning disabilities. Again, this is most likely because of misrepresentations that people have accepted from films they've seen or books they've read, quite often written by neurotypicals and for a neurotypical audience. The example given of 'To Siri with Love' was a pertinent case in point. I was outraged when I read that book, and even more outraged by the author's assertion that perhaps 'it wasn't written for an autistic audience'. This, it seemed, gave her licence to treat the whole thing as something to be laughed at, and her attitude was both arrogant and patronising, and did a gross disservice to autistic people. If she had written the same about bringing up, say, an adopted black or gay child, there would have been an even bigger outcry about the way she handled the subject. I'm glad you have found that the people you speak to are always delighted to learn more. I've found that quite a few people I've spoken to have been the same. The problem I've usually found, though, is that they are hearing without really listening, so they aren't really learning. It sometimes feels like I'm simply being humoured, or tolerated. I would respectfully suggest that you might want to read the article again and try to suspend your judgements about what the author is attempting to convey through it, because she does actually speak a lot of very good sense. She addresses many of the most relevant issues about 'communication deficit', which is something that most autistic people that I know personally say is their biggest challenge. It also appears to be an issue that arises an awful lot on the threads on these forums, or so I've observed during my short time here. I find none of it surprising.
PS By division, I think Starbuck means that we don't want to live in a them and us world of NDs and NTs. There are enough divisions in the world as it is. The 'division' as I see it is largely a one-way gap of understanding. This gets demonstrated to many of us each day of our lives, with for example an expectation that we will all be quite capable of sharing an environment that might trigger anxiety or meltdowns for an autistic person. It's also seen in the other thread I mentioned, where the person said they were being discriminated against at work and told that all staff members have their issues. Yes, this is true. But in most workplaces (outside of Silicon Valley perhaps) I doubt that most employees are autistic.
Yeah, I told you I’d never met anyone like me and if I had a pound for everyone who’d said that to me, I’d have a nice stash by now. Now you can see, almost the entire human race, autistic or not, sees themselves as separate from each other. You can see why I don’t do casual conversations very well, lol, I literally live in a different dimension to almost everybody else.
And for me, I felt more connected to society once I got my diagnosis, because instead of feeling different, like an alien, this was proof that I was a human being just like everybody else, and it has made me closer to people. I don’t feel like I’m in a minority, I feel like part of the whole of the human race. The diagnosis made feel like one with everybody else. I don’t see myself as being in a minority because of the way my brain is wired up, how would you even break it up? Unless you’re bunching all autistic people in one basket, as if they’re all the same and nt people in another basket as if they’re all the same. But that doesn’t make sense to me because it doesn’t work like that. Just because our brains might be different to people who are nt, that doesn’t mean we’re separate to them. That would be like saying, people from different races are separate, or people in wheelchairs, as if everyone who is in a wheelchair is the same. I don’t really get all those categories, they don’t make sense to me. But I understand lots of you do like those categories, and like Temple Grandin says, the world needs all kinds of minds, so it’s good that we have some variety.
I didn’t know people did live in a them and us world but I can understand that if they do, it can’t be very nice for them.
The entire human race lives in a them and us world, based on all kinds of inequalities. Money, race, ability, caste, access to resources, class structures and so on. It isn't very nice for very many of them, especially if they are starving or homeless whilst some individuals own more wealth than the GDP of entire countries. But on the basis that we're talking about, yes. Many people on the autism spectrum feel left out, which is only to be expected when they're in a minority in a world that doesn't really seem to care about any struggles they may be undergoing because of their condition.
Before I got my diagnosis I felt very separate to other people, to the point where I honestly felt like I was maybe an alien from another planet because I was unlike everybody I met. And that didn’t feel good so I can understand people not liking living in a world where they feel separate to others and it’s like them and others.
As soon as I got my diagnosis, I instantly lost that feeling of being different and separate. I felt that I’m just like everybody else after all. I’m a human being just like everybody else. And I’ve never looked back. So yeah, I do understand what it’s like to live in a world where you feel different and separate to other people. My diagnosis changed all that for me.
It’s funny because I spend way less time with other people, since I got my diagnosis, yet I feel more connected to people than I ever have before. Life is so much less scary now and I now know, that wherever I am, I just have to tell people I’m autistic, and they help me. I don’t have to hide my confusion any more or pretend that I know what I’m doing or that I have to do it all myself. And what I love about people, is that when I tell them I’m autistic, can you help me with this or whatever, even the young ones, they treat me with so much respect and not as if I’m a disabled person, but as if I’m an equal and that it’s perfectly ok and normal that I get overwhelmed in shops and might not be able to find something without help or whatever. It’s like it’s not even a thing and certainly not a big deal at all, if I get a bit overwhelmed and need some help, so I can see that it was me who had been making it into such a big deal in my head for all those years, before I got my diagnosis. People are always more than happy to help me and they say that they can get easily overwhelmed etc as well. They get overwhelmed for different reasons but they understand what it feels like and they are always so lovely and seem to genuinely want to help. So yeah, my life is so much better now in so many ways since I stopped feeling different and separate to people. It’s so much nicer to feel so connected to people.