Yeah I am married to an autistic person and they think that they are being explicit and clear but are absolutely not. It harms their relationships all over the place and they are constantly thinking less of other people over it.
When you have this problem communicating with everyone, you’re the problem.
Yeah it’s super easy (autistic or not) to think you’re being very clear when you have the full idea in your head, but you’re actually not. It’s like if you’re trying to describe a purple elephant and say “the thing that moves around and is purple and has a trunk”. Those words clearly describe a purple elephant if you already have the concept at the forefront of your mind, but for somebody without a purple elephant in mind, you could just as well be describing a purple car or a guy from the purple equivalent of the blue man group carrying around a big chest of clothes or a purple tree that can move around.
You should look up the double empathy problem. Its been shown that autistic people don’t struggle to communicate or be understood by other autistic people. Its only between autistic and non autistic people where the issues arise but only one side gets all the blame when the failure is both ways.
Sounds like the person you’re married to is kind of a dick, honestly. Thinking less of other people for not understanding your own unclear language just shows a massive lack of introspection. As a local autism, though, I definitely disagree with the last point, as a significant difference between someone who has autism and someone who doesn’t is that language is understood differently (I would know), and that means you can both understand and be understood incorrectly very easily. This post is kind of deliberately divisive anyway, but I believe the point of saying something and being misunderstood, despite your best efforts (hopefully), still stands.
If non-autistic people are constantly misunderstanding autistic people maybe there should be some meeting in the middle instead of broadly declaring neurodivergent people to be the problem.
They did not in any way “declare neuro divergent people to be the problem.”
If you go around your day and are constantly being misheard, it’s more likely that you’re mumbling than it is that every other person just has bad hearing.
Their comments are making broad statements about autistic people and putting the onus of understanding solely on them, when communication is a two way street.
“Everyone” doesn’t have trouble understanding autistic people; other autistic people are more able to socialize with autistic people than neurotypical people are. Being a minority just means the people who are able to socialize well with autistic people are outnumbered by people who can’t/don’t/won’t.
SO: my head hurts
Me: (pick any1) Where in the head? Any reason why? Did you hit something? Anything that might have caused it so we can buy some medicine or I can cook you something or whatever?
SO: idk, it just hurts, imma lie down.SO: I’m cold, I’m gonna take a hot shower.
Me: have you tried wearing bulkier clothes? A blanket?
SO: no. takes the third shower of the day $$
Me (later that day or in another day): force them to wear more clothes and throw a blanket at them in their chair
SO: oh, this is nice uses the blanket every day nowMe: How was your day?
SO: Bad.
Me: Anything out of the ordinary that you want to share to share the pain?
SO: No, its just bad.
Me: Do you want to watch anything, eat anything special?
SO: imma lie down.Sorry but no, i know that they aren’t vague intentionally but they are not clear at all when expressing their needs.
I’d argue your SO might not be displaying neurotypical behavior.
Between 50-85% of autistic spectrum people (plus a significant portion of people with PTSD or depression) experience Alexithymia, or significant difficulty in recognizing and analyzing their emotional state.
When I’m feeling bad, my SO frequently assumes I’m withholding the reason from him in some sort of passive-aggressive mindgame, and I have to remind him that I barely know what my mood is, let alone what’s causing it.
I’m getting better at it, but it’s a lot of work and I still regularly mistake stomachaches for anxiety.
I wrote basically this in another comment, they had a hard time recognising their emotional state and held until bursting out. This was way before they were diagnosed though, after a lot of therapy they are much better at identifying their state, or simply they try to keep in touch a lot more so that I can be there for them before they burn out.
As the neurotypical person in the relationship, my advice is to try to keep in tough more regularly so that your SO can detect if you are halfway through burning out so that they can help you before you become completely unavailable.
My SO also has generalised anxiety and ADHD, so I usually tell them that when they keep burning out for weeks it’s really painful for me because I feel very left out, which resonates a lot with them. I guess that this helps them to do the effort of keeping me up to date so that I can let them vent, hug them, ask which kind of food they would like to uplift their spirits… and all that stuff before they burn out.
my god this would drive me nuts. have you ever experienced pain?? why would your want to be bombarded with questions? give em a hug and leave be jeeeeez
If they don’t feel well, they might not want to answer comprehensive questions. Just reading that feels like an interrogation.
Nah how about y’all just explain yourselves when asked it’s very easy. /s
On a serious note, I have ADHD so if you ask me “what’s wrong” I could go on for hours, giving you a list of symptoms, root cause analysis, contributing historical factors, short term suggestions, future suggestions to avoid the state and bias analysis of my own analysis for hours and hours entirely off the cuff.
It’s so hard with people who can’t, my brain often defaults to the assumption that they are just NPCs who simply lack the level of constant self-evaluation and internal monologue (which constitutes the abstraction of soul to me) and I have to fight it. At any given time I know exactly how I feel, it’s very natural to me to assume others must do as well, or their feelings just aren’t as deep.
Explicit meaning gang.
All my homies hate the astral hidden meaning shenanigans gang.
I still have difficulty accepting this concept from time to time. It’s a real relationship issue, I’m talking in the bedroom. I’m trying to be a gentleman and my wife is telling me please just be straightforward and boring. Be literal. Do not be suggestive. Do not imply. I don’t want to imagine I don’t want creativity. Now, every relationship is different, but I can’t help but feel it unceremonious when she uses the example of ordering at a drive-through as her ideal vision for how the evening should go.
Makes me a bit paranoid but does genuinely seem to be what makes her happy in our case.
Verbose gang 😎
Concise gang is where it’s at, 100% best top #1 gang. Why use many words when one word does the trick‽ The concise gang is the best gang.
*explains concept normally*
“Why are you being so vague?”
*explains concept thoroughly and precisely*
“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot!”Also the “I think A”
“Oh so you think B?”
…no?
Had a whole argument once about capitalism v/s socialism only because I stated that, while neither is desireable, if I HAD to choose, I would rather live in the States than in Russia. Somehow that must have meant that I love the US and it is doing nothing wrong in my view but they are wrong because capitalism etc etc and I was just standing there like “…I literally did NOT say anything to do with that.” And then they had the gall to claim that I am the one blowing up arguments. Yeah right.
I had a lot of that interaction with my mother before I figured out her algorithm. She’d ask about her cooking, “do you prefer food-A or food-B?” and if I gave a straight answer, I wouldn’t see the other option for years. Then when someone brought it up later, she’d go “I thought you didn’t like it”.
Later on I learned to explain my preference as a ratio between A and B. I know she meant well, but bless her heart, she’s neurotypical.
“How dare you teach me things against my will.”
Oh my fucking god, this. Why are people like this?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about”
to
“Why are you mansplaining??” In 6 seconds…
I always try to ask people if they’re familiar with X. Then, if they lie to me, they can only come clean or nod along
Or if I really want to talk about the topic, I ask how much they know about X
People can, and will be dicks, who get embarrassed about not understanding shit and try to find blame elsewhere for their embarrassment.
Still, there is an important skill when teaching someone something, of understanding approximately how much they know, and telling them approximately the parts they don’t, leaving them to ask you questions to fill the gaps afterwards. Makes teaching really fast when done right.
I had something like this when I was working retail during the pandemic.
Customer: Why are you wearing a mask???
M: It’s policy. And I like having my face covered because I’m trans.
C: *visibly confused* …what? Nobody else is wearing one.
M: Right, but I’m trans, so I like having the masculine parts of my face obscured by a mask.
C: …wha- I don’t care!?
##then why did you ask 🙂
Being autistic is taking a normal interaction every human experiences and pretending it is unique to you and your autistic peers.
Is getting bullied for walking a certain way and talking in a “funny way” for their whole lifetime every human experience? Cause I didn’t experience any of those yet I’ve seen my friends go through it. Are you suggesting autism is not real? You must be living in a whole new world.
No, he is obviously suggesting that this horribly generalistic shit take in the pic has nothing to do about autism
Trivializing is taking very real and major struggles that certain humans experience to much greater degree than others and pretending it has the same gravity as minor annoyances that a wide range of people experience.
If your comment is a joke or otherwise intended to be lighthearted, I apologize, but people saying in earnest what you said is a pretty major pet peeve of mine.
Real “Chronic depression doesn’t exist because everyone feels sad sometimes” energy.
Some people experience some things more than others. I believe that’s how they place you on the spectrum
