What must we do to change things?

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?

  • 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.

  • Cats are NT dogs ND, but I guess that depends if you love cats or dogs

  • Well the way I see it is do cats and dogs like each other? Some do, some don't lol

  • I love being by the window and looking at the tops of the clouds etc. It’s the INSIDE of the plane that stresses me out! I have to wind down now and sleep tonight. Goodnight BlueRay. 

  • Perhaps as illuminating in the way Sir Isaac Newton's brain worked was in his reputed 'invention' of the cat flap. 

    Newton had a cat which had kittens, so he made two flaps, one designed to fit the mother and one for the kittens, apparently not considering that all the cats would get through the larger flap by following the mother.

    The door of his home appears to back up this story by having blocked up holes of two different sizes to the outside.

  • I love the flying part, especially the really long flights and it’s the only place I watch films, for some reason, and the only place I can’t read, lol. It’s like life reversed for me on a flight but I love it and I really enjoy watching the films. 

  • Hi BlueRay! I realise now that’s I feel about being abroad alone. It’s just the journey getting there that I find incredibly stressful. Like sardines in a tin can flying through the air! Soooo unnatural! 

  • This is why I love travelling and how I can just get up and go, to the other side of the world, by myself, not even knowing where I’m going, lol. People say, WoW, how do you do it, by yourself etc etc. And I say what you said,  that this is what life is like for me anyway. It’s like I’m living in a foreign country in the country that I was born in and walking down a local street, is more scary to me than walking down a street in a foreign country as I know that when I’m in a foreign country, I’m less likely to bump into somebody that I know so l’m less likely to get asked questions that I don’t like, such as, how are you, what have you been up to etc etc. So I capitalised on it big time and since my son turned 18, I’ve lived in several places all over the world. It amazes me that I can be in some remote part of India, where they’ve rarely seen a white person let alone heard the English language, yet I can communicate with them and they can help me get on the right bus!!! It amazes me. And I communicate more on an energetic level anyway and some countries, such as Bali, communicate on a more energetic level so I’m much more at ease living in Bali than I am my own country in many ways. It’s a very autistic island. 

  • 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.

    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. 

  • I don’t really know how autism is presented in popular media as I don’t have much to do with that side of life, but I do know what you mean about one sided conversations. I seem to have a lot of those even though I do encourage others to speak as well, but they mostly seem more intrigued and fascinated and interested with what I have to say and they love learning about autism. So I don’t try to dominate conversations on purpose, people seem to just like listening to me but on the topic of autism, I find I usually know more than most people I talk to so I guess it stands to reason that I would be the one doing most of the talking.

    I haven’t read the book ‘To Siri, with Love’, but if it was written for a nuerotypical audience then it wouldn’t really be for me anyway, so I probably won’t read it.

    I find, almost without exception, that people love hearing about autism. They’re usually fascinated to find out that I’m autistic, as they didn’t realise it was so diverse and they had the same kind of impression that I had, before I got my diagnosis, that people with autism have some kind of learning difficulty as well. I find they really listen and they ask some wonderful questions which helps me to understand myself and them better, as well.

    I haven’t really got a judgement on the article because I couldn’t understand it. It seemed like a lot of big words, to me, that didn’t really mean anything much at all, but that’s probably because I’m very blunt, direct and honest when I speak and I appreciate it when people talk to me in the same manner so I often require some support to be able understand articles like this one. I need somebody to break them down for me and put them into more simple, more direct words that I can understand.

    I’m glad you found the article helpful though. It sounds like popular media needs more articles like this.

  • Hence the feeling of being another species, or being on the wrong planet! Culture shock really is the best explanation in human terms! Being in a body form that doesn’t match the thinking patterns even perhaps? Yet the world would hardly develop without the extraordinary people who advanced science, technology and the arts, to some degree. I agree, the article isn’t about being divided, but rather encouraging mutual understanding. It should not be a world of ‘them and us’ any more or less than any other minority ‘group’ among humans. We all need each other. 

  • I like the analogy of culture shock to try to explain what it's like to live with an autistic view of the world.  I try to tell people to imagine how it would be to wake up one morning and find yourself in a foreign country, with no understanding of the language, culture and customs, and no one to help or guide you.  How would you greet people?  Conduct yourself in a public place?  Order a meal?  How would you explain to people that you found their fabrics uncomfortable, their voices too loud, etc?  Especially if using the usual sign language of putting your hands over your ears and shutting your eyes was seen in that country as a gross insult?

  • Many thanks for the link to this article, Starbuck. It’s amazingly close to my own thoughts! After reading all the comments, including BlueRay’s, I thought I’d better actually read it myself. I am so glad I did, but appreciate how complex it could be particularly to those who haven’t yet tried to write from a point of view outside their own experience. I have struggled with this aspect for so long, yet never had the words to convey what exactly it is. I realise I cannot write as if I am someone else at all! If I was to write a romantic novel, the majority would not know what to make of it, for instance! I do wonder now if my viewpoint is neurodiverse rather than just “odd”. 

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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 am aware the world doesn't disintegrate, I do this quite often, close my eyes and just switch off just empty nothingness the world is still here when I open my eyes

  • I’m virtually unoffendable... Bevasue autistics don’t do social convention - so whatever you say - no matter what - just washes over me like clouds in a sunny sky. 

  • You just need to turn off words in your mind. It’s dead easy just do - nothingness. That means though letting go. Just LET GO. I promise the world will not disintegrate 

  • I have seen it as a strength and thought that I was just a freak who can see how the entire universe works - inside out, infinite dimensions, etc etc.... I can see it right now, The Universal Engine Room. I could see it when I was 9 yr old. So - I suddenly realised - that the most weird and out there science - theoretical physics is just a reflection on the inside of my mind wave patterns. 

    That’s what Newton’s law is. His autistic mind that he’s shared with the world and it’s given us calculus. 

    Of course - Newton’s law is now old news. But it’s taken NTs hundreds of years to understand. 

    Maybe it will be 2/02/2219 when their word thinking brains catch up. By then our brains will have found a new String Theory :)