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Any ASD spectrum people think it's other people who are the problem?

LastHorizon

I feel worn out with the endless references to the difficulties people on my spectrum have without considering that it's perhaps neurotypical people who cause the difficulty.

Have you considered the same thing?

In discussions with my advisor, for example, difficulties are sometimes identified as my tendency to "take things litererally". I find it frustrating. If people expressed themselves both clearly and directly then their literal meaning would be the meaning intended. What's wrong with that?

Also, something which frustrates me greatly is other people who fail to take my own meaning literally. They appear to believe, incorrectly, that like them, I also mean something I didn't say. In discussions with my advisor, again, this difficulty is basically discussed as if it is my fault because I'm autistic.

In both cases it seems to me that if others expressed themselves more clearly, and were used to doing so, then neither of us would have such problems with communication.

Limitations experienced or caused by neurotypical people are not sufficiently acknowledged or recognised, they tend to be hidden or widely accepted simply because their faults are deemed socially normal.


What do others think?

Do you agree the difficulties you face on the ASD spectrum are often really as much to do with the limitations and difficulties caused by neurotypical people? 

Do you have experiences of difficulties you beleive you wouldn't have if neurotypical people developed some of the distinct advantages of being on the ASD spectrum?

Do you have stories or regular frustrations which make you think "If only..." the person you're speaking to, or example, would see things more literally, or something else?

Where do you think being neurotypical is a disadvantage over being ASD?

Also, like me, do you believe it is significant that such difficulties only occur in meetings with neurotypical people, and mysteriously vanish at all other times? Suggesting it's as much neurotypical who are the cause of producing the problem as anything we are the cause of ourselves?

Just generally what do you think are the frustration of ASD for which the neurotypicals basically really have only themselves to blame?

Parents

  • What an interesting topic, and some very insightful posts too.

    When I first started to realise that my ASD diagnosis was looking likely, long before it was officially confirmed, I began to feel very bitter about the society around me.  Up until then, I had blamed my own "uselessness" and "unlikability" for the problems that led me to anxiety and depression.  When it became clear that I'm autistic, I switched from everything being "my fault", to believing that everything was the fault of the NT people around me.  This led me to become very bitter, cynical and depressed about the society around me.  Very much the "black and white" thinking talked about earlier.

    But I've calmed down a bit in the months since then, and try to take a more nuanced view of what happens when there's a clash between my way of thinking and doing, and those of the people around me.

    Even if I disclose my autism diagnosis to the NT people around us, it is worthwhile to remember that without a lot of "coaching" about my specific, personal differences, the word "autism" alone does very little to help NT people understand me.  I am learning now to be a little bit more assertive at the "point of contact" rather than relying on people to adjust their behaviour based on a general statement of my condition.  For example, explicitly telling people when they are talking too fast to keep up with, or that I'm uncertain whether I've understood something.  This can be daunting, and certainly doesn't *always* help, but I find it is generally more effective.

    The second thing that I try to remember is that NT people can no more change their innate characteristics than I can.  So many of the NT behaviours that autistic people might find frustrating are processed on a sub-conscious level, reinforced by a lifetime of interaction with people who are, 99% of the time, not autistic.  That sub-conscious processing is there for a reason - evolution has developed those "instincts" in human brains because it reduces the amount of conscious processing that the brain needs to do, and enables people to react more rapidly and fluidly to a fast-changing environment.  The instincts are far from infallible, of course, but as "rules of thumb", they do serve most people, most of the time, very well.

    As an example, here's a scenario that my counsellor put to me recently...

    A person sits down in a social setting, and is joined by two others, one sitting on each side of them.  Both of these people will not look the first person in the eye, are showing "closed" body language, and respond with one-word mumbles if spoken to.  One of these other two people is autistic, the other is someone who has previously been offended by our protagonist and is only sitting there because it is the last remaining seat in the room - they're only reacting at all for the sake of decorum.

    Without a good understanding of autism, and advance knowledge that one of the companions is autistic, our protagonist has no way to discern the difference between these two people.  And in the absence of other information, their instinctive judgement that they are trapped between *two* people who dislike them would be correct 99% of the time.

    As an autistic person, I do not have a magic "on" button that will give me the kind of instinctive insight that most NT people are using when they socialise.  But I need to remember that NT people don't have a magic "off" switch for their innate traits, either.  Because it is largely sub-conscious behaviour, I will need to explicitly remind people to consider my needs sometimes, because they do not have an internal "prompt" to remind them not to slip into their familiar ways of thinking about other people.

    Whenever I find myself slipping into the cynical belief that people are being callous or malicious, I take a deep breath and remind myself of the above.  Sometimes they are just nasty, inconsiderate people - but in that case, most NT folks would probably dislike them just as much as I do.

Reply

  • What an interesting topic, and some very insightful posts too.

    When I first started to realise that my ASD diagnosis was looking likely, long before it was officially confirmed, I began to feel very bitter about the society around me.  Up until then, I had blamed my own "uselessness" and "unlikability" for the problems that led me to anxiety and depression.  When it became clear that I'm autistic, I switched from everything being "my fault", to believing that everything was the fault of the NT people around me.  This led me to become very bitter, cynical and depressed about the society around me.  Very much the "black and white" thinking talked about earlier.

    But I've calmed down a bit in the months since then, and try to take a more nuanced view of what happens when there's a clash between my way of thinking and doing, and those of the people around me.

    Even if I disclose my autism diagnosis to the NT people around us, it is worthwhile to remember that without a lot of "coaching" about my specific, personal differences, the word "autism" alone does very little to help NT people understand me.  I am learning now to be a little bit more assertive at the "point of contact" rather than relying on people to adjust their behaviour based on a general statement of my condition.  For example, explicitly telling people when they are talking too fast to keep up with, or that I'm uncertain whether I've understood something.  This can be daunting, and certainly doesn't *always* help, but I find it is generally more effective.

    The second thing that I try to remember is that NT people can no more change their innate characteristics than I can.  So many of the NT behaviours that autistic people might find frustrating are processed on a sub-conscious level, reinforced by a lifetime of interaction with people who are, 99% of the time, not autistic.  That sub-conscious processing is there for a reason - evolution has developed those "instincts" in human brains because it reduces the amount of conscious processing that the brain needs to do, and enables people to react more rapidly and fluidly to a fast-changing environment.  The instincts are far from infallible, of course, but as "rules of thumb", they do serve most people, most of the time, very well.

    As an example, here's a scenario that my counsellor put to me recently...

    A person sits down in a social setting, and is joined by two others, one sitting on each side of them.  Both of these people will not look the first person in the eye, are showing "closed" body language, and respond with one-word mumbles if spoken to.  One of these other two people is autistic, the other is someone who has previously been offended by our protagonist and is only sitting there because it is the last remaining seat in the room - they're only reacting at all for the sake of decorum.

    Without a good understanding of autism, and advance knowledge that one of the companions is autistic, our protagonist has no way to discern the difference between these two people.  And in the absence of other information, their instinctive judgement that they are trapped between *two* people who dislike them would be correct 99% of the time.

    As an autistic person, I do not have a magic "on" button that will give me the kind of instinctive insight that most NT people are using when they socialise.  But I need to remember that NT people don't have a magic "off" switch for their innate traits, either.  Because it is largely sub-conscious behaviour, I will need to explicitly remind people to consider my needs sometimes, because they do not have an internal "prompt" to remind them not to slip into their familiar ways of thinking about other people.

    Whenever I find myself slipping into the cynical belief that people are being callous or malicious, I take a deep breath and remind myself of the above.  Sometimes they are just nasty, inconsiderate people - but in that case, most NT folks would probably dislike them just as much as I do.

Children
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