art source : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gJ82Yx
This is why I can’t do online left wing spaces any more. They talk the talk about ableism, but then its “why can’t you boycott the only food you can eat, just eat something else”, “you could talk to service workers if you wanted to, you just think you’re better than them”.
Then sharing a video of people with their fingers in their ears at a black music festival with a caption calling them racists, when they’re clearly autistic people enjoying the festival but having sensory problems.
I blame the popular understanding/misunderstanding of neurodiversity. People think autism is just a personality type.
Well, that and the weird obsession with autocracy because they can’t admit that their folk heroes might have actually just been assholes who did more to harm leftist movements than any western opposition ever did.
That, the other thing, and resorting to campism to immediately choose simple, identity-based positions over complex ones that are more coherent with specific ethical principles. At least there’s people who get everything right, even if they aren’t too many.
For that kind of thing I blame the cultural fact that today’s leftism is based on finding people to hate.
They pride themselves in not hating groups, but they do spend about 93% of their mental/social/political efforts in identifying people who need punishment.
And don’t you dare tell a vegan you can’t drink anything with plant milk!
Being unable to drink plant milk doesn’t make drinking cows milk okay.
Just don’t drink cows milk? It isn’t essential for your diet anyway.
There are quite a lot of days cows milk is literally the only source of calories that doesn’t make me vomit from the intensely unpleasant sensory experience all other food gives me. So no, I’m not going to stop drinking it.
Drinking cow milk is ok. You not liking that dont change that, or that nw Europeans are literally evolved to drink it.
“I know that social cues are hard for you and you are trying your best and I can’t expect you to get it right on the first try, but I will shame you when you do and react like you didn’t even try or did it on purpose.”
“or react like you didnt even try”
tbh, they are often in the same boat with autistic people. normies are allowed to be offended and not be able to make the connection to autism.
they should practice kindness but so should the rest of us.
Thanks for pointing that out. I wanted to edit in something like that, but it felt like rambling.
It’s frustrating when people react badly to what they incorrectly percieve as hostility, but it’s not on them to read my mind and know the full context.
It’s extra frustrating when people know but still get insulted by what they on an intellectual level know isn’t an insult. It’s human nature and it takes practice to manage that.
All in all, people may even both know and be patient but still find my behavior exhausting. And it’s unfair to expect them to bend around me.
This is why I’m annoyed when people protest at any mention of “masking” as if it’s evil. It’s not. It’s just basic courtesy to not confuse or upset people. Just be aware of how much you can do it healthily is all.
What invites me to be resentful is the fact I spend all day every day doing theater to keep these mopes comfortable, and asking the slightest deviation in their behavior is seen as such a huge deal.
I wear a mask all day every day. I constantly push myself to behave in ways unnatural to me, to fit in.
It’s so exhausting. All human interaction is like typing with chopsticks for me.
“I’m actually really strange”
“You don’t seem strange”
“Well I am, and I’m asking for your understanding with this”
“What is there to understand? You seem like a normal guy to me!”
“This is our first day meeting one another”
“Your son doesn’t look autistic.”
“My apologies. Luke! Do an autism for the lady, please.”
[struggling with the inauthenticity of being authentically autistic which equals shutting down my NT mask which means writing new code to turn off the NT mask which I never do so what I’m doing is two layers of fakeness not zero]
“I am autistic”
“Well you seem perfectly normal to me, young man”
What a minute…autism is not a blood type?
Maybe we should raise our standard to “don’t bully.”
Sadly we love hierarchy dominance just about as much as we hate how much it makes us look like apes.
Teachers and school administrators almost always side with bullies. They can’t help themselves.
I know. My child had a terrible time* of it, during their school years. And I’m slowly* becoming more aware, because I’ve almost no filter and blurt out whatever crosses my mind. I’m addressing it, but reversion sneaks up on me. I just have to keep working at that, and way too often, missing what seems obvious to others or very belatedly.
*Yay autocorrect
… this just reignited my desire for a boyfriend, but like, one that’s also autistic, so he fucking gets me. We’ll have lunch in perfectly comfortable silence at a busy diner and judge people that talk too loud in public. It’ll be great!
Maybe I’m autistic because that sounds fucking awesome. Fuck small talk. I just like existing by people I care about.
My wife is autistic, can confirm lots of happy, comfortable silence. We also have a collection of white sounds, and different rain sounds from around the world lol
You could just, you know, just skip the false virtue signaling and not bully anyone.
But what will they signal then?? That they’re just nice and make people around them feel included??? /s
I do believe that is the point of the post; however, it also implies that the kind of person it describes does not understand that they are actually engaging in bullying behaviours.
Ableism is so entrenched in society that “teasing” (thought of as playful, but is actually harmful) people for being a little different is not seen as anything to bat an eye at. Media upholds the normalization of this kind of ableism through shaming these traits in the form of “jokes” — meaning that when people in turn do it to others, they often believe themselves to be engaging in funny banter. When it is actually creating an environment that others autistic and neurodivergent people. Ie, upholding systemic ableism. All without their knowledge.
The point of a post such as this is partially for autistic people to commiserate, but also hopefully for a few people to stop and think about their own behaviour. If they are the kind of person who wishes to be inclusive to autistic people, seeing this might make them realize how they do unconsciously bully autistic people when they denigrate people with these traits. And hopefully they will stop, though it takes time to deconstruct and unlearn this kind of behaviour.
- You shouldn’t really bully anyone autistic or not
- Don’t mistake someone trying to encourage positive behavior as bully. Just because you have one of these behaviors doesn’t mean you correctly self-diagnosed yourself with autism either
Which ones of these are bad behavior?
None of them are exactly bad behaviors. Just encouraging trying new things and effective self regulation as positive behaviors, is my point
Upholding the hegemony of neurotypicality as the “acceptable” way to be, and the encouraging of neurodiverse people to mask their (fine, unharmful) behaviours. Masking which actively harms them.
All this does is promote ongoing ableism. I beg that you read something about the experiences of autistic people and come to understand how marginalized and harmed they are by this continual shaming of these traits. Traits that are not harmful, or even uncommon. They’re just different, and less normalized.
Thank you for your perspective, my intent isn’t to cause harm, so I will take your comments to heart
Positive according to whom? What’s positive for you may be destructive for me.
