understanding autism

It's not all right the way autism is being patologised, starting with DSM-V, and that we are misunderstood and then pushed to accept responsibility for that while we had entirely different intentions and it was fault of the other person jumping tio conclusions

Yesterday I watched a funny video made by Yo Samdy Sam, about that, and presenting entirely different society where we are normal and neurotypicals suffer Neurotypical Syndrom Disorder and their peculiarities are presented in patologising way, 

watch maybe you'll smile at least www.youtube.com/watch

If you unwittingly upset someone, just point out that you didn't intend to and apologise, it costs nothing.

My honesty has been taken as rudeness on occasion. On others it's been appreciated. I was that one person prepared to say what everyone else knew to be true but were too busy *** footing around the real issue out of some sense of social deference or other to say it. Lol.

In some contexts there are ways to mitigate. I have a strap line on my work e-mail signature that just says 'I'm autistic and need time to switch between tasks', for instance. There might be circumstances where you feel comfortable saying; 'I'm autistic. This means I tend to be forthright and miss social cues. Rudeness is never intended.'

The best thing to do when upset is make the decision to not speak. They are My Words and Thoughts and I don't owe them to anyone. They are mine to keep and mine to relinquish when I feel they're concise. Remove yourself from the situation. If there are others around, execute NT Polite commands "I apologise, but I do need to leave". And then re-enforce this boundary as there are other exiting commands NTs will toss about. 

When we get stressed or overwhelmed, a flood of hyper-connectivity and overwhelming emotions can cloud our ability to clearly and precisely isolate the specifics of the incident and communicate the problem. Most of us have a form of Alexithymia. Most of us have a larger problem/obstruction finding the word to describe a thing on any given day anyway, never mind when there's a flurry of overwhelming thought and multiple feelings about these thoughts. I find I need to just keep writing everything down into a laptop while also trying to identify the exchanges, principles, beliefs, motives, etc. at play. I cannot just find the words.

All this Intensity is not just overwhelming for us, but since NT cannot read us either, they will 99% of the time misunderstand.

Over the years, I have become aware that almost all of my anger and frustration with NT society is usually based in others being biased, hypocritical, unjust, unreasonable, cruel and/or just plain confusing. Sometimes if I hold off and bring it up later with someone, I have a better chance at using tools of conflict/resolution and can also make sure to communicate a fundamental truth: I care about YOU (but this behaviour/response/etc. is maddening).

Now, if I don't wish to further a relationship and further my time and resources or invest in to this person, I might discard trying to fix the problem. Or I might have had enough of their behaviour and hit a wall where we will probably benefit from severing the relationship. This was a difficult rule to learn, as steadfastness and loyalty is deeply rooted into the innate part of Autistic Being Human. 

We can all practice diligence, kindness, being considerate of others (as best as possible), being thoughtful. It doesn't mean we'll make the right decision every time but I do find using Doubt as a tool to help guide my "Next Step" is more useful than not. There are a lot of things NeuroTypical individuals do and say which lack integrity (integration) or are just echoing each other like a tribal ritual (think of the call/response mechanism in a church setting). They don't actually mean these things. I just make a conscious decision to not include myself in those moments whether online scapegoating or in person virtue signalling. It's good to try and work out when things like that are happening and execute the NT Polite "Smile and agree". 

Hopefully this helps a little. It was a world of misunderstanding and feeling mis-judged that pushed me toward discovering Autism. In the process, I looked up anything I could to try and help. It was good to find that many NTs do believe in "Healthy" practices starting with clear open communication. For them it is effort. For us, finding the precision of what we actually mean to say is effort. For the long-term, it's always best to find a few friends willing to work at the same level as you.