From ec8315db15575f8e165e23399c491b82f668e0a85ec4f08bc7e41b471be0193e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Nicholas Johnson Date: Sat, 10 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Subject: New entry: presumptuous-neurotypicals --- content/entry/presumptuous-neurotypicals.md | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/entry/presumptuous-neurotypicals.md diff --git a/content/entry/presumptuous-neurotypicals.md b/content/entry/presumptuous-neurotypicals.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b05b5b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/entry/presumptuous-neurotypicals.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +--- +title: "Presumptuous Neurotypicals" +date: 2025-05-13T00:00:00Z +tags: ['autism'] +draft: false +--- +When I was younger, people scolded me probably hundreds of times for "not paying enough attention". No matter how hard I tried to pay attention though, it didn't help. When I told them it wasn't helping, they still kept insisting that I wasn't paying enough attention anyways. + +Eventually, I got to the bottom of my "attention" problem. Surprise surprise, it had nothing to do with a lack of attention. I found out that I'm autistic, and other factors were at play. + +One of which was an overwhelming environment. I was unable to keep my attention narrowly focused on what I needed to focus on because my brain can't filter out distractions as easily as neurotypical brains can. What I needed was a calmer, quieter environment with fewer people. No one ever suggested that a change in environment was part of the solution though. + +Another was people communicating too quickly. There are certain situations where I don't process new information as quickly as most people, so I need to ask them to repeat things more slowly, or write them down for me. No one ever suggested that was the answer either. + +And being told to pay more attention is but a single example of people who didn't even have a solid grasp of the problem blaming me when their solution didn't work. I've been assigned so many [harmful, innacurate labels](/2025/02/14/labels/ "Journal Entry: Labels") by cocksure neurotypicals who thought they knew what my problem was. + +For example, they told me I was dramatic when reacting to loud noises. Considering they couldn't climb inside my head and see what noise is like for me, the only basis I see for them to have concluded that I was being dramatic is the fallacious assumption that I am like them. It's incredibly frustrating when someone who doesn't have autistic noise sensitivity and hasn't done any research on the topic prescribes an overly simplistic solution for it, and then blames you when it inevitably fails. + +And I think this is a common problem us neurodivergents face. Tourette syndrome? "You're just undisciplined. Try harder to control it." Autism? "You're just antisocial." OCD? "Just don't think about it." A lot of it just comes down to ignorance about mental health. People either don't recognize you're different than them, they explain it away because they're in denial, or they watch one documentary and think they know it all. My wife has known me for over ten years and she still learns new things about my autism. + +So neurotypicals, please have some humility. Some of us have autism, alexithymia, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, sociopathy, or some other deviation from the neurological average. You may think you know what we're going through, but you don't. And you definitely won't fix our unique problems with a soundbite. + +In my own life, the effective strategies I've learned for coping with autism (more like coping with non-autistic society) have either come from experience, my own research, or another autistic person like myself. Perhaps my memory fails me, but I don't recall a single time when a neurotypical suggested how to deal with an autism-related challenge I was having, and it worked for me. + +I'm not trying to say that you neurotypicals should never give neurodivergents advice. More like you should recognize that you don't have all the answers. Remember that others face challenges that you don't. They may require unusual or uncommon strategies for overcoming even common challenges. Recognize that not everyone is like you, things are not always what they seem on the surface, and it's not others' fault if some generic piece of advice doesn't work for them, *even if they don't have a diagnosable condition*. + +Finally, if you found this entry insightful, you may also enjoy my other entry "[How to Help an Autistic Person](/2023/02/02/how-to-help-an-autistic-person/ "Journal Entry: How to Help an Autistic Person")". I know the title says it's for autistic people, but I think the advice generalizes to neurodivergents and people with disabilities as well. -- cgit v1.2.3