People use this tactic against autistic people all the time so it’s easy to see how it gets internalized. So many situations where it’s like “Oh, they know what this means and Im not going to humor them by explaining it, so I’m just going to pretend they know what everything means.” It’s very tempting to flip. As a teenager I definitely said “use your words like an adult” to adults, especially the types that would pull that reverse bullshit themselves.
Sorry just to clarify, I wasn’t involved in education at that time, but given that the only solution that’s ever worked for my task management (asynchronous, self directed) was rushed through during a life or death emergency, then that example used to prove it can’t happen is pretty rough for potential future me like people out there.
Actually I’ve got diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and cptsd. Cptsd is the newest diagnosis that explains a lot. But my current therapist seems to be the only person I’ve met (including previous therapists) who affirms the ND sort of view of the world to the point where theyd likely agree with the post. That also includes friends with ADHD diagnoses who definitely accept my ND talk in regards to autism but seem to be hard rooted in the institutional view of their own (and my) adhd. So I sort of didn’t take it for granted that an ADHD community would see eye to eye on this stuff, but I am really glad that ADHD people who see it exist in some number because it seems like proof I might not be just a stubborn hold out jerk who refuses to participate.
I am a 100% work from home worker and have gotten more work done that way than ever before. Of course, all in person management leads to me shutting down and eventually losing my ability to do anything once I’m done with my reserve of will to push through the burnout.
I will admit there was a learning curve. I had to learn how to arrange my tasks so that it works for me. I don’t “sit down” for a 9-5 work day any more than I have a dedicated session to do any personal task. I wake up and I’m kind of on a cooldown management system. From the moment I get out of bed, and I don’t get out of bed until I’m rested and have a plan, I just pick what the best priority task would be to do, cool down from the picking, do any amount of work on that task that moves the needle, only ever pushing into potential burnout territory if I’ve fallen short of moving the needle at all. If it’s a rough day I’ll go back into cooldown after any needle movement at all. If it’s a great day I’ll get it and the next thing done. I cool down and task pick all day until I’m pretty much out of gas for the day.
Sometimes I’m netting a loss of ground on tasks but never go into free fall. Over the broader course of my life id say I’m netting a gain, but time will tell, and this lifestyle is really only possible as a remote working software developer. The only real exception to that is setting alarms for meetings, which are my only “schedule” requirement, and my alarm happens just in time to grab my laptop and get on.
Sorry to reply to two of your comments, but to specifically address “people like us need to be forced to do things”, but people trying to force me and belittling me when I just could not in the end, is what gave me cptsd. There definitely are other ways than force, and for me force just isn’t even a way. For me, seeking out that sort of force would be a form of self harm that would only serve to drive and reinforce my (now dissipating) self hatred. Maybe for others it is a form of self harm that also gets results, or maybe for others it just isn’t harmful, I can’t be sure, but we can’t be forcing it on every kid.
In most cases the more aggressive forms of force came from well meaning people that started out with the type you describe, with a very gradual escalation. The problem is that my burnout was compounding, not reducing, over time when I tried to comply which would lead to this increasing dread over time and eventually would lead to just a total failure. When I reach total failure, they just keep on pressing until it’s a more overt form of abuse. The more overt forms only came out initially a very small number of times. So I really was talking about the sort of force you’re describing, but on a sort of spectrum that leads to the sort you were inferring.
I am a firm believer that the phenomenon of “just a lazy fuck” doesn’t exist. I don’t know your brother, but I know the terms in which you refer to him were used on me pretty much just like that. And the reasons why those things were happening didn’t come to light until long after the era in which the terms were used. Even after the first couple diagnoses, my IEP (sheet teachers have that says what they have to accommodate for you) didn’t say anything that really related to any of the problems I was actually literally having. The cruel irony is that it said I needed longer on tests, which I never needed and was the only thing I was even successful at. Lazy is just a way to stereotype people who’s problems you’ve given up on.
To add to this point slightly, I also did literally say out loud many times that the school work is dumb and I refused, if that makes me sound more like your brother. That is because at even younger ages, I’d been punished and abused out of using the phrase “I can’t” for things they’ve seen me do at least one time before. Things escalated and got much more harsh when I tried to say it, so I was forced to switch to lies, elitist posturing, emotional manipulation, anything that would end the interaction without “I can’t.” Eventually I forgot that I can’t and started believing a subset of my lies.
I agree that this was a great episode. The relationship between the leader and his backward aide was done beautifully and it was really poignant how the aide got his way by proving he’s a jackass.
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the issue of making excuses for everything. I don’t just mean excusing your unfinished chores by saying “I have ADHD”, I mean excuses and fabrications in general - at work, you might say you’re nearly finished with a project, but really you’re halfway done at best, at home you...
For me it helped to address why I made them in the first place. When I was younger (and now), the real reason was always that my executive function just needed more cooldown time or at least a different sort of activity than the one that I was lying about. That wasn’t language I had access to at the time. The closest thing I had was “I can’t”, which adults never let me say because it was always in relation to things they’d seen me do before, so they couldn’t fathom that I couldn’t do it then. So I had to make something up. But in my current adult life, actually, people recognize what my struggles are and understand if I just say what really did happen (executive function misfire). Or if I don’t know them that well I just say something personal came up, which is what an executive function misfire is, no lie, they just aren’t privy to stuff that personal.
In real life the good guys don’t do that stuff. It’s sort of adjacent to copaganda where the noble police detective HAS to torture the suspect because he’s going to strike again! That red tape lawyer bs is going to get everyone killed!!!
But if you look at what that mentality enables in real life it’s innocent teens getting beaten up and tricked into incriminating themselves because bad media led us to believe breaking the rules is what good cops have to do to save the day.
Content Warning: This is a post detailing arguing with a friend about ND rights. It’s probably going to cover topics of discrimination, eugenics, conversion therapy/ABA and other serious topics....
I feel like the saying that autism is a difference and a disability applies here. Some autistic people are more affected by differences being mistaken for disabilities, and feel disability language undercuts them. Some autistic people are more affected by disabilities being mistaken for differences and feel difference language undercuts them. My thought is that both sides need to acknowledge both sides.
I’m au-dhd, and the person in the middle paragraph sounds like they both have one of my ADHD symptoms and are also a jerk. I try to remember that only my ADHD friends like to play interrupting tag, and while I’m bound to screw up elsewhere, I try to treat it clearly like I’m screwing up because it is an understandable default to let people finish their sentences.
Autistic people can feel and comprehend emotions like everyone else, no difference. Not sure why those two were on your list. As far as interpreting emotion, we can, we just have to learn how instead of doing it innately, which it seems Odo did for all human behavior.
This may be unrelated to you, and only a me thing, but I had a couple of people in my lifetime that were great to me usually but would also tell me sometimes that other people were talking about x or y, or that I did something wrong and everyone was just being polite in a particular situation. So I began to rely on those people’s impressions of other people’s impressions of me to dictate my behavior. It took me years after those people were out of my life (it is exhausting to be someone’s conduit to humanity), where I was hyper-vigilant in every social situation wondering who is judging me, as those people had assured me they were but I could never tell, that it really just wasn’t happening… This lifetime insanity of thinking everyone wanted to shame me had to do more with the insecurity of a few people. And yea sometimes people did overtly point things out that they just thought was weird or “wrong” and that factored into the shame as well, but these people are also isolated voices and not part of a chorus, and I think the well-meaning ones did more damage. Just shooting my own stuff into the dark in case it sticks.
I have mixed feelings about Disco ending. I really dug the first season’s look at a Federation at war, and following the person who arguably set that war in motion dealing with her culpability. Add to that a ship that is part weird science lab, part haunted house. And yeah, I could live with the Klingon redesign....
Selective Autism (i.redd.it)
Is this thought about school too radical?
So when I went through school you’d have two types of struggling kids:...
Rewatching TNG: classic Riker boning his way out of the problem (lemmy.nz)
S04E15 “First Contact”
How do you stop making excuses?
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the issue of making excuses for everything. I don’t just mean excusing your unfinished chores by saying “I have ADHD”, I mean excuses and fabrications in general - at work, you might say you’re nearly finished with a project, but really you’re halfway done at best, at home you...
Google was ordered to identify people who watched certain YouTube videos. Privacy experts say the orders are unconstitutional. (www.forbes.com)
If the linked article has a paywall, you can access this archived version instead: archive.ph/zyhax...
Israeli rabbi says ‘kill everyone in Gaza, including babies’ (thecradle.co)
Advocacy and those with severe difficulties
Content Warning: This is a post detailing arguing with a friend about ND rights. It’s probably going to cover topics of discrimination, eugenics, conversion therapy/ABA and other serious topics....
How do you get along with fellow autistic people?
From what I understand, every autistic individual is unique and different from one another, right?...
My favorite gender (sopuli.xyz)
Having Autism and feeling like I'm a complete loser
So recently I feel like I don’t fit in anymore, like the world is turning around in shame to me. Help?
A well-balanced rule (sh.itjust.works)
On the end of Discovery
I have mixed feelings about Disco ending. I really dug the first season’s look at a Federation at war, and following the person who arguably set that war in motion dealing with her culpability. Add to that a ship that is part weird science lab, part haunted house. And yeah, I could live with the Klingon redesign....