I'm trying to put together a short list of the basic concepts that are essential to understanding the #ActuallyAutistic experience of life. These can be helpful for explaining things to allistics/neurotypicals, but also for seeing ourselves from our own perspective instead of how we are failed NTs. I think it's just a few (albeit big) concepts. Here's my basic list:
#AskingAutistics Do you have your own short list of concepts for understanding or explaining #autism? What are the big ideas that shape your experience of #autistic life?
@akamran I had been considering that as what happens when CPTSD bumps into VariableCompetency. But now you've got me thinking. I wonder if there's a better angle on it.
@joshsusser I would add masking to the list. Understanding masked autistic presentation was huge for breaking myself away from stereotypical understandings of autism
@inherentlee Masking is important to understand, for sure. I thought about including it, but I now tend to think of it as an interaction of DoubleEmpathy, VariableCompetency, and CPTSD. That's why I'm thinking about what are the basic ideas, because they can be used to explain a bunch of other things. I could be wrong tho.
@joshsusser can you explain more how you see it as an interaction of those things? I can sorta see how they'd play in but I don't think I'm getting as clear a picture as you have
@inherentlee OK I'll give it a shot. Masking is how we accommodate allistics in conversation. Because of DoubleEmpathy, we don't share the same ways of showing and perceiving subtext, so autistics have to perform allistic communication to be understood - that's what masking is. VariableCompetency says we can be good at many things but still bad at masking, or good sometimes but bad at other times, so conversations can be much harder to engage in than one might expect. And CPTSD explains how a lifetime of masking wears you down until you burn out.
How was that? It's the first time I tried writing it down.
@inherentlee Cool, thanks! That's kind of the point of this list to me, that it's just a few basic concepts that can be used to explain all the other ones.
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