Sombyr

@Sombyr@lemmy.zip

Your local bi(polar) schizo fluffernutter.

Previous profile under the same name over at lemmy.one

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Sombyr,

As a trans woman who has also been sexually assaulted, it has more to do for me with what danger is more real to me. I’ve experienced zero bear attacks. Nobody I know has experienced a bear attack. Why would I fear one? Of course, consciously yeah, I know a bear is dangerous, but I have no real world experience to back that assumption up.
Men though? Yeah, I’ve been sexually assaulted by men. I’ve been physically assaulted by men. I’ve had family and friends who’ve been physically and sexually assaulted by men. That danger is real to me. I know that if a man I don’t know is nearby me he could do those things to me, and I have the real world experience to prove that assumption correct (the assumption that they could, not the assumption that they would.)
Therefore, of course I’m more scared of the man than the bear. And of course I’d choose the bear over the man. I don’t care if it’s the wrong choice, I’ll take my chances to not have to relive that trauma, even if it means risking my life. Not like I’ll have time to regret that decision if the bear decides to kill me. Probably. And most women I know when asked expressed the same sentiment in different words. We’re more scared of men than bears, but that doesn’t mean we literally think men are more dangerous than bears.
Is it the logical choice to pick the bear? Probably not, but humans are not logical creatures. I’d rather make the wrong choice than the scary choice.

Sombyr,

I’ve never been downvoted anywhere for expressing that opinion. Lemmy especially there’s a huge disparity where saying you’d rather be with a bear than a man is unacceptable, but saying you’d rather be with a bear than a woman? A-okay. Source? I’ve said both. Only one was I not attacked for. Guess which?
Seriously, I’ve expressed my trauma regarding men countless times and every time been attacked for it. I’ve expressed my trauma at the hands of women and not a single downvote or attack or disparaging remark any time. Lemmy has a very clear bias.
I wouldn’t have a single problem with men getting upset about this bear thing if they got equally upset when somebody says something similar or worse about women, but they don’t.

Sombyr,

There’s a serious difference in the level of trauma between these examples, and the level of exposure to the dangers of the counter. Sexual trauma is a hell of a lot more scarring on your psyche than simply being beaten. In addition, at least in the US we’re exposed to gun violence every day as opposed to basically never for bear attacks. Even in other countries with better gun control, you’re dramatically more likely to hear about somebody being shot than you are to hear about somebody being mauled by a bear. Not only that, but it’s really easy to process “get shot, you’re dead.” It’s not as easy to make yourself believe you’re definitely gonna be killed by an animal that has whole guides written on how to survive them.
Those two things combined make your example far from comparable. In addition, I’m not saying in any way that the fear is justified nor that no attempt should be made to fix it, what I’m trying to point out us that people don’t realize how intense a fear it really is when they get offended at people making this choice.

Obviously, therapy is important to learning how to handle that fear and think more logically, but if every woman who needs it sought therapy for this, there just aren’t enough therapists in the entire world to handle the load. Not even close. So a bigger part of the solution is, y’know, making sure women aren’t getting traumatized in the first place. But everybody here wants to skip that part for some reason.

Sombyr,

I keep luring them out by accident just by bringing up any kind of women’s issue at all. Thankfully though, a quick report and they get banned from my instance real fast.

Why are neurotypicals in charge of making up the social rules? They're not even very good at it.

Edit: A few people have interpreted the title as serious, so I wanna clarify that it was meant as a sarcastic joke about how little sense the neurotypical world makes to me, but it is still legitimately me asking for help understanding said neurotypical world....

Sombyr,

…Ooooh. I think that’s what she was trying to tell me actually and I just completely misunderstood. That second example is a type of situation I used it a lot in. I didn’t realize people needed to know how interested I was. I thought they just needed a quick confirmation.

Sombyr,

Maybe. I actually scrolled back through the Discord we’re in and only found exactly one other person who uses proper punctuation. Scrolling through my other Discord servers though and people use proper punctuation all the time. It does seem to be a thing that may be specific to this group.
Also coincidentally I actually did witness somebody send a message that was nothing but a single period earlier today, and the reaction was everybody briefly paused then continued on like nothing happened.
Whether it’s a localized phenomenon or a wider one, it’s still weird to me.

Sombyr,

This is really helpful. I didn’t realize there were so many situations people were looking for validation. I just assumed when they said something like that it was just to quickly let me know and “K.” was all they needed.

Sombyr,

Yeah, it seems not everyone has an issue with it. It might be more of an issue with me because I don’t often convey much emotion when I speak because I don’t know how, so I probably sound dead an uninterested when I combine that with perfect punctuation. Thinking about it, I also make very sparing use of exclamation points, so maybe I just seem so dead and formal that it makes people think I’m not really into the conversation.

Sombyr,

I never use emojis either, except specific ones for specific contexts (I.E. the hug emoji when somebody’s having a really bad day.) People have pointed it out, but unlike other things people just view it as an interesting personality quirk of mine instead of off putting.

Sombyr,

Ah, I think the hangup for me wasn’t so much not understanding that they had different info than me, but that they wanted the info I had. Moreover, that they might feel differently about things than I did, and they knew that, so I needed to make sure they knew how I felt.
When I see somebody just respond “K.” or “Alright” to an invitation to do something, that always made me happy enough to know that they were gonna be there because I figured if they didn’t want to, they’d have found an excuse to say no. I didn’t suspect that others might not just assume somebody was happy to be there the way I did. It’s helpful to know I need to clear up how I feel in some way for them to understand that I want to be there and enjoy their company.

Sombyr,

I’d noticed the thing where people send repeated short messages, but I didn’t realize that’s why they were doing it. I think I’m gonna have to take a middle ground though and just leave the period off my last sentence while trying to stay concise. I can’t stand being interrupted in the middle of a thought so I gotta get it all out in one message.

Sombyr,

I see. I always just determined that by their reactions once they showed up, and figured all that mattered until then was whether they had any desire to at all, which was usually conveyed easily with single word responses. I didn’t realize other people wanted to know your feelings beforehand.

Sombyr,

I can definitely adjust my words to express how I’m feeling better more often. The facial expressions and body language though I’m probably incapable of unfortunately on account of me actually having two separate disorders that make me unable to show physical expressions of emotion. Way back in middle school I was put in a special class to teach me both of those and I couldn’t even figure out how to trigger the muscles in my face to actually make any expressions, nor was I even capable of recognizing the body language I was supposed to be mimicking even when it was described to me.

Sombyr,

The disorder is schizoaffective, but the inability to express emotions isn’t usually a big feature of it. It comes with psychosis. Usually, antipsychotics are all it takes to trigger your brain to start expressing emotions again, but I can’t take a high enough dose to do that without serious side effects, so I instead deal with minor psychosis symptoms, like having to remind myself constantly that no, the order of my songs when I hit shuffle is not a secret message telling me the future, and also the fact that I can’t express any physical emotions unless they’re very strong. It also shows in my tone of voice, which is a consistent, flat, unchanging tone that I try to vary randomly just so people don’t tune out my voice.

Sombyr, (edited )

It’s unfortunate I gave that impression, because she’s probably the nicest, most accepting person I know, even including other autistics. She was just trying to let me know because I’ve experienced significant psychological distress from my inability to connect to other people, so she’s trying to help me understand why, which was a recommendation by a psychiatrist I saw.

Sombyr,

Actually I’m fairly popular, but that just leads to me catching a lot of attention from strangers who’s first interaction with me, not knowing I’m autistic, is seeing somebody rude and dismissive.
If I could just explain to everybody immediately “hey, I’m autistic, I’m not being rude on purpose,” that’d be great. But most of my interactions with people are short messages like “What outfit are you wearing on your character” or a quick invitation to join them for something. Not a lot of opportunities to explain to them why I act the way I do.
When I do get the opportunity is usually when I end up making real friends, because they don’t see me as the dismissive girl who doesn’t want to talk to them anymore, but instead the autistic girl who just interacts a little differently.
Hell, some people keep trying over and over again to be my friend even when they think I am being rude and dismissive, they just don’t make any progress because they’ve misread my mood and assume I want them to go away.

Sombyr,

The punctuation thing has actually been pointed out to me on a couple occasions before. One of my exs thought it was weird and said it “gave the impression I’d be mad if other people’s grammar wasn’t perfect.” So apparently it does bother some people, but it’s probably more of a straw that broke the camel’s back situation, where I already speak so formally in the first place that it makes me look stuck up.

Sombyr,

No.

Sombyr,

As far as the first thing goes, I used to avoid using any text speech at all, only used proper punctuation, always made sure my grammar was right. People started to get really annoyed with me because of it, telling me I was being overly formal.
As far as the second thing goes, that was a sarcastic joke about how the “rules” I’m told to follow are always full of contradictions, making them hard to follow. The joke being if autistics made the rules they’d be actual rules, and efficient ones. I’m well aware of why it’s not actually that way.

Sombyr,

I’m not sure, but I’ve asked people and I’m told by my friends that before they knew me better, they thought I was either being passive aggressive, or maybe I was going through something and was being rude by accident (the friend I mentioned said a lot of people were asking her if I was okay, because apparently I came across like I was upset about something.)
I’m guessing that’d be the “spouse k” then since I think that’s the one that often implies “okay, but not really okay.”

Sombyr,

I agree after reading the rest of the thread, but I think that may also have partially been her intention. I hang out primarily with the same group she does, so she’s trying to help me get along with that particular group. Even so, her tips could help me come off as less robotic in general, even if they’re not strict rules that need to be followed, so I think I’m gonna still try to take her tips and just adapt them to myself.
Definitely gonna stop saying “K.” though. I don’t have the skill to be nuanced enough to not use it improperly. Additionally, I always assumed people just wouldn’t try to gauge my tone over text if I didn’t specify it, but I guess unlike me it’s important to neurotypicals to understand how each other feel, even if they have to assume, so I’ll just have to cut down on the assumptions they have to make.

Sombyr,

I mean, probably a therapist would say that. Still ask your therapist and not Lemmy.

The funny part is I asked here specifically because I was directed to by a psychiatrist. They thought the best people to ask would be other people with autism who’ve already learned better how to interact because they’ll understand what I need to hear better.
She also told me to consult the friend mentioned in my post, which is how that conversation started.
The reason I’m trying so hard to understand is because I keep having mental health crises over my inability to communicate and the fact that I have a habit of making people really mad and not knowing why or what I did to cause it. Being not only an outcast but having everyone hate me and not just imagining that is very stressful.
Trusting myself to know what’s rude doesn’t work. I piss people off extremely easily and don’t even notice I did until they’re refusing to speak to me.

Sombyr,

That’s good advice, but it’s also worth noting that my initial strategy was to try to hold of on saying anything at all that could be offensive until I learned what’s okay and what’s not, but that too ended up offending some people. The reason being that I would get close to people, but they would get closer to me faster than I was getting closer to them due to me still being overly cautious and trying to find the proper things I was allowed to say and do with them. That’s partially what this is about. Trying to find the starting line so I know what’s not gonna drive people away immediately.
For instance, while it’s true a lot of people won’t be offended by “K.” or proper punctuation, I feel like in most casual contexts, people are much less likely to be offended if I don’t do those things, which gives me time to get closer to people and learn more instead of driving a sizable portion away right off the bat.
Another piece of advice this friend gave me was to ask more questions. I always knew that was a good thing to do, but I was always worried people would see me as nosy if I asked the wrong ones. I learned from her that people are generally more happy by me showing interest than they’d be upset by me accidentally asking something personal.
That and the advice I’ve gotten in this thread has been really helpful so far. Already people are being a lot friendlier toward me, although it’s gonna take a bit to change the general public opinion of me.

Sombyr,

As far as I understand, people generally assume I’m being rude and dismissive, but they don’t tell me that, they just kinda stop talking. Then they go and ask my friend why I’m like that, where she explains to them that I’m not being rude, I just have difficulty communicating, at which point they usually accept that, but still don’t talk to me much because I’m just too difficult to get close to. Or at least they think I am, because they don’t realize I’m enjoying their company because I don’t express it, because I just assume they’d know because I’m paying attention to them.
That’s what I’m working on. Showing people that I’m genuinely enjoying their company, that when they ask me questions I’m happy to answer, and so on. So it’s not so much a problem of people not being willing to adapt to me, but the fact that they as much as me don’t know how to adapt, so I need to meet them in the middle.

Sombyr,

I’m aware, and thanks for the advice. I’ve experienced a little of this already since I’ve been applying the advice I’ve gotten here. Luckily, so far, most have been willing to put some effort in now that I’ve shown I’m willing to as well. It’s easy enough to just not talk to the people who won’t, because they’re already not trying.

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