#AskingAutistics Does telling an allistic person you're #autisticever help improve communication? Over and over, I let people know I'm autistic in hopes it will help, but it never makes things better. It seems like no one wants to do the reading, or to make an effort to even meet me halfway. The main reactions I get when I disclose fall into these categories:
Ignore it entirely and just keep on like I'm not autistic.
Say I'm nothing like their 10 year old nephew who has #autism.
Assume that since we're friends it doesn't matter, because friendship is magic and will enable me to "overcome my autism" with them if I am just motivated enough, and if they aren't special enough for me to do that then I don't really value them as a friend.
Give advice on how I can mask better for their comfort and convenience, like I haven't spent my whole life becoming expert on that.
Try to be accommodating without taking the time to learn what is helpful and what is just going to make things worse.
Infantilize me and treat me like a child or an intellectually disabled person.
Give up on me because autistic people are too hard to deal with.
No reaction, because most people don't know anything about autism. They don't even understand that I'm doing all the work to bridge the communication gap, or that they could do anything to help, or even cut me some slack when I fail.
I do have a couple allistic friends who accommodate me enough to maintain a decent relationship, but they are rare and special. And we had somehow worked that out before I knew I was #ActuallyAutistic even, so telling them still didn't change much.
Has anyone had communication improve by telling someone you're autistic? Or is that just a fantasy?
@joshsusser No, I haven’t found telling people I’m #autistic improves communication due to a poor general public understanding of #autism —or the breadth of what the term encompasses. Instead, if I need to have this conversation, I will focus it around my specific communication needs or traits. #AuDHD @actuallyautistic#actuallyautistic
I'd also add that it's because a lot of people suck at communicating in general. I've had job interviews where I've been noted as being the strongest communicator out of all the candidates and that's simply because I work on my communication skills as an autistic person.
A lot of people just never learn how to properly communicate or don't work on their skills.
@Falco_77@BZBrainz@joshsusser@actuallyautistic
Interesting. Made the same observation during my years as an academic, albeit I had to refine those skills early in my career. It's like 'mode switching', where the professional formal mode switches between the informal mode and even the 'autistic' mode (rarely in public).
@joshsusser Knowing someone is neurodivergent only gets you so far. To truly capitalize on this you must also appreciate how you must modify your defaults to better interact with and work with them. Otherwise it’s passing along information they don’t know how to act upon.
@btaroli That's also how I see it. I remember coming out of the closet to straight people back in the 80s. I always set aside some time to discuss it because the common knowledge about being queer was woefully misinformed. But talking about being autistic is so much harder than that, and dropping a PhD level course on neurodiversity on someone in passing isn't really an option.
@joshsusser I've had it improve communication but only when they're also autistic and they were masking to communicate with me under the assumption that I'm not lmao
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