For me, it’s the near-universal social rejection. To a large degree, I’ve learned how to live with it, accept it, not blame myself or others too much. It’s not always a bad thing, either, or not as bad as it might seem… there are positives.
But it is easily the thing that adversely affect my life the most. Every group rejects me, eventually, if not immediately. Every friend becomes unfriendly, many work relationships are strained. Finding a way to be okay when it seems like everyone would rather you just go away.
Today, it feels more difficult than usual but I know I will feel better soon. I wish I had some ND friendships to help me recharge. It’s funny, I left a comment on another post on how to best deal with this kind of thing but, honestly, my capacity to be resilient is not so great rn. Hopeful it will be better tomorrow.
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Anger at injustice and how everyone is fucking blind to what’s happening and will not listen to me. Well, I give up, they’ll find out in a few years how bad it will get.
Yeah, you really can’t make someone see anything they don’t want to see. Super annoying.
I feel you here. I also sometimes hope maybe people will realize shit I see now, after seeing the consequences of their actions years later.
But (neurotypical) people are so bad at cause and effect, and have Goldfish memory, and have a habit to externalize blame and responsibility on everything and everyone but themselves, and accepting horrifying stuff as “new normal” with zero resistance.
I stopped hoping anyone would realize anything.
The I told you so is, alas, never as good as Actually Just Listening in the First Place.
Still, take what you can get.
Internalised ableism.
I work in support with autistic clients, my partner is AuDHD, and I am AuDHD. More than anything else the biggest difficulty I have in the internalised ableism that tells me what I should expect of myself and others.
Could my partner do a little better at managing their emotional state? The ableism tells me yes, that just trying a bit harder is a sustainable option. Should my younger client more more mature and spend less time on childish media? The ableism says yes. Should my older client be more progressive and less rigid in their application of religious doctrine? The ableism says yes. And should I be better at managing my time and able to work more hours? The ableism says yes.
The ableism tells me all sorts of lies that prop up the current layout of society, making it OK that people are bigots, making it acceptable that there are no accommodations in some places. It makes me feel like the problem must be internal to me, and therefore must apply to my clients. It is also sneaky and insidious, coming up with strong arguments around flawed premises.
No matter the situation the ableism makes me less able to understand and support my clients, my partner, and myself. Do I need ear defenders or should I just harden up? Does my partner really need the same breakfast and because I forgot the sausages yesterday I have to run to the shops before work and therefore get up earlier? Do I really have to listen to my client talking about a game character for 2 hours straight and actually pay attention the whole time?
The ableism makes people being cruel OK. I don’t want to be that person, so I fight it when I notice it. I am getting better at noticing it when applied to other people, starting with my clients, and it is helping with how I relate to my partner, and each time I choose compassion over judgement I make the ableism applied to myself a little more dissonant. It is the big thing I am working in at the moment and I think in time I will make good progress with it, but for now it is there and I have to work on it every time I can.
Really appreciate the thoughtful response on this topic. I think it’s a pretty commonly-shared experience among most of us, if not necessarily one that is very often overcome, but I believe that you understand it to a high degree.
What harm do you suffer from deferring your judgments, or from an early morning trip to pick up sausages, or from listening to the fan’s stories of their beloved character? Inconvenience is a small price to pay to offer kindness. The discomfort is bearable, especially when you can occasionally show it to yourself.
I think it’s just that people will listen to someone who’s charismatic and persuasive and wrong, but not me when I’m right and don’t feel like playing the social game, and that goes double if I’m challenging someone’s assumptions/opinions
People will stress out endlessly over something that’s never happened, while actively discounting me explaining something that actually happened, Or is in some cases actively still happening
And don’t get me started when I interrupt someone because I know what point they’re going to make, they get snippy, and then finish their useless statement and then just sit there with their mouth hanging open
Well, to be fair. that last one is an appropriate response you can expect… but yes agree being the person with no social influence teaches you that being correct is not so valuable in society, and that sucks a lot.
Being misunderstood. I have so much anxiety about having my words twisted so I’m super careful and yet… 😭
Good luck comrade, I hope you find your people.
Indeed. The never-ending quest to find those that will understand you; that’s surely one I’ve struggled with a lot, especially in terms of reciprocity and why others never seem to be bothered to try even a bit.
Yeah, happens on here all the time. Feels like talking a different language with the same words.
Yep pretty much the same for me. 1 semi Friend that I have in another state.
I don’t have much of interests that I can talk about that others do. That’s my main problem.(Besides being poor without a job or car and no way to meet anyone irl and having problems communicating online)
I just usually don’t know what to say. I’m beat at doing things with others but Its really difficult to do.
So yeah I get that a lot.
Thanks for your comment; I appreciate you connecting with me on this one.
Probably social and internal/emotional world.
Though social not as many would interpet it that hard to get along or form relationships, that part can be easily “faked”/managed. Social side from personal internal perspective which is connected or effected by the emotional difficulties.
For me the internal side of relationships might as not exist. All of the emotions or drives that most people consider to be the main reasons for relationships, pretty much don’t exist for me. Like the “connection” or “love” or “companionship”, “missing someone”, “wanting to be with someone”, etc are just theoretical concepts in google/textbook for me.
Pretty much like im completely missing one of the most fundamental things that makes us human.
For me it is self confidence and drive. It is constantly struggle to maintain momentum and low self confidence constantly discourages me from trying.
I’m not sure if you’re describing a specific context for this. Do you have an example? Sorry, I’m not quite clear on what you mean.
I was unemployed for the longest time, a big part of it was low self esteem so with the help of a therapist I finally get a job and start a new hobby. I lose momentum and just stop doing the hobby and hate the job but don’t look for others. I get stuck in ruts very easily. I want a lot of things to be different in my life but failure over sensitivity that comes from low confidence gets in the way of so much of. I don’t date because of past failures and don’t try new certain hobbies for the same reason.
You control your actions and your intentions. How people respond isn’t really up to you at all and will trend much more negative when you’re autistic interacting with neurotypical. It’s not easy to come to the understanding of this but, once you do, it becomes very empowering and a source of resilience. In a way, you have a very focused ability to sus out the others who are similar to you. Just accept that it disqualifies almost everyone else and don’t put your energy into connecting with NT more than minimally.
uh yep, that’s the comment im referring to.
This is a mindset I have been leaning towards recently too. Earning NTs approval isn’t worth the effort. They will predominantly consider you weird and exclude, as for NT conformity is the most important value. But it doesn’t mean I am bad, or that they are bad. Just different and incompatible. So no need to waste your time with them.
I feel you. It’s omnipresent and still we need to expose ourselves, we also require social contacts.
Just Sunday I had to cancel something and still feel bad about it. Since then no answer, I have no idea what the rest of the group did. Feels being excluded and a failure. Still, I ran out of spoons and had to do it.
And people say it’s okay I understand but they don’t really. It’s never okay when it relates or targets them. Wish I had a rl. Autistic group to meet or even one relatable person now.
But being in survival mode I just don’t have the reserves to put effort in.
honestly a tie between “terror in the pit of my soul at the combination of fascist christian nationalists in government who worship the Nazis, who had the Aktion T4 program, and who now have surveillance capabilities that would give the Gestapo wet dreams, and the secretary of health and human services saying (paraphrasing here) autistic people as a whole essentially have no future”; and “all I do is bother people whether I want to or not, and all people tend to do insofar as intentionally interacting with me is to screw with me.”
Accepting the things I can’t change for the better, and just living with them. It makes me overthink too much.
trying to get by in a country increasingly running on pure BT.
British Telecom?
bull trump
Ah, yes. That is unfortunate.
You have a choice every day when you wake up. It isn’t an easy choice, but it is a choice. You can wake up and decide to be in a good mood, a neutral mood, or a bad mood every day.
You may not be able to keep that mood choice throughout the day, depending on your initial choice, and what happens that you have no control over. The only thing you have control over is yourself and your own actions.
By internalizing this attitude to the point that one always wakes up in a good mood, it makes it much easier to suffer through the hard days, and infinitely easier to enjoy the good days.
The biggest challenge I have currently is not despairing because no one is effectively fighting fascist authoritarianism.
This is kind of an interesting idea to me. When I wake up there are often some reflexive corrections to some of my initial thoughts, I wonder if I could tack this on somehow.
