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[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

it was down to how other people/situations made them feel because they were autistic.

That's a meaningless distinction. The end result is identical.

It would be foolhardy to say that you--an assumed neurotypical person--need to be close, personal friends with everyone in your life. You select your friends--and they select you--based on how well you fit each other. The fundamental problem is that autistic people, broadly speaking, don't fit with neurotypical people. A high-functioning autistic person will eventually realize that, and realize just how utterly alone they are in life. They will realize that the people they think of as friends will never think of them as a friend. Their social circle, if they're lucky, might consist of a small handful of people with overlapping interests, but are not an actual social support network.

I discovered this in 2014 when I failed to complete a suicide, and lost 95% of the people I believed were friends.

I am functional on a surface level. I have a job, I'm mostly self-sufficient, I'm married to someone that is also likely neurodivergent after having been in an abusive relationship for over a decade. I've noticed that the less able we are to mask, the more our social circle contracts. We can not reasonably expect that people will life us, or include us in their social circles.

[-] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 year ago

I disagree, its not in my opinion a meaningless distinction at all. A difficulty in cognition might prevent a person from reading War And Peace. Thats a direct result of having a learning disability. Someone with a visual disability who cannot access audio books or braille versions of War And Peace is not being affected by their disability but by the fact an accessible version is not available.

You might argue the end result is the same - an inability to read War And Peace - but the point is that for the person with a visual disability the situation is fixable if society is prepared to make the effort.

In regards to your situation you've had terrible experiences but they are not down to the fact youre autistic, they're down to the fact your NT 'friends' weren't really friends at all. I'm sorry they let you down but I'm pretty sure I could find similar stories where nobody in the story was autistic.

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Autism is a disability. A person with an IQ of 50 simply isn't going to be able to understand War and Peace; you can't dumb the book down sufficiently for someone to understand if they're going to struggle all their life to be able to put on shoes that lace instead of using Velcro. People with dyslexia can listen to audiobooks; there's no audiobook version of deep, fulfilling friendships and social support networks, because people on the autistic spectrum are going to have a hard time offering neurotypical people the what they need. A person that's on the autism spectrum is never going to be able to have social interactions in the same way that neurotypical people can, and those social interactions are necessary to being able to function in society. Some people on the spectrum may be able to appear normal on a surface level and will be able to get by, but it's fucking exhausting. People that have the misfortune to be lower functioning than I am may not be able to mask effectively at all.

That's without even getting into constrained interests, difficulty with coordination and forming positive habits--I still struggle to remember to brush my teeth daily in my middle age--or executive dysfunction.

[-] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 year ago

I never claimed autism wasn't a disability. The fact that autistic people are disabled in some ways isn't in question. But its neither just a disability or - like all disabilities - something that isn't disabling by virtue of the world its part of rather than its intrinsic nature.

For example, you say an autistic person cannot experience social interaction in the same way as a non autistic person. True. But the non autistic person can, with very little adjustment, be aware of that. My kids have good relationships with NT friends and whilst they might not experience them in the same way as NT friendships, they still find them fulfilling.

[-] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

The fundamental problem is that autistic people, broadly speaking, don't fit with neurotypical people. A high-functioning autistic person will eventually realize that, and realize just how utterly alone they are in life. They will realize that the people they think of as friends will never think of them as a friend.

First, I'm sorry for what you've been through. But from my personal experience, I know that I have three friends who have autism and/or ADHD. In each case, I did not know this until they told me. If I can't even know who is autistic without them telling me, how can I treat them differently?

Now I understand that it is possible that some behaviours of mine could make my autistic friends uncomfortable, while not affecting my other friends. But if I am doing something like that, it is out of ignorance rather than malice, and I would of course adjust my behaviour if asked to.

So I don't get why you think autistic people 'don't fit with neurotypical people'. I have friends who speak other languages, and autism is also, in a sense, speaking a different 'body language'. With some effort, we should be able to improve communication.

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

The fact that you just aren't understanding what I'm saying is demonstrating my point. You aren't able to understand my point of view, and think that everything can just be solved by people working harder. It's the same kind of belief that says that depressed and anxious people can be cured by just thinking happy thoughts and touching grass.

[-] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Can you be more specific? Why cannot autistic people fit in with others? Is it that others recognise them as being different and exclude them? Or is it that there are differences in the way we speak or behave that make you uncomfortable? And if it is the latter, what in particular should we change?

[-] Globeparasite@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Yes 95% of your friends aren't your best friends. They have their own struggle and hardships to deal with. So yes, in your situation both side needed to focus on themselves.

Lastly before being worried about the general population not including you in their social circles, did you ask yourself why you would be in their circles ? Because you were colleagues ? Or neighbour. I also am in a situation were I have virtually no friends and it fucking hurts. Loneliness fucking hurts, it ache the minds and psychology its among the worst pain I ever felt.

Though in the past years I've looked not for others but for things that passionated me first. And there I found people which liked me and that I liked. Some people are wildly different than me, others are likeminded but we connected. I don't know my classmates but I have a few friends among my martial arts club. And I am not unhappy of the lack of connexion I have with my class, I don't think we'd really fit. Despite the social constructs that claims a student's first circle must be his class, I don't, and its fine, I just look elsewhere for people, in place where I fit.

this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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