So a lot of people will explain it with many very interesting psychological and sociological theories on discrimination and shits
But to summarize it all :
they are
really
fucking
dumb
They can't understand two thirds of the shits happening so when faced with something new they simplify it by interpreting it as close to the closest thing they understand. Except they are fucking dumb so the closest thing they understand is miles away from the thing they are discovering.
Therefore when they encounter autism, they understand it like the closest thing they actually know, which is children or more likely stupid and they talk to children like they are dumb.
Now the other things that lead them to that is that despite being world class idiot their job is to evaluate people so considering they don't understand most things they require even more simplification.
TL;DR : tell them you know damn well they're not supposed to require an eval for autist so you're gonna sue them, should shut them the fuck up
You're all acting like the relevant bit here isn't the 15yo bit.
Adult gets frustrated with know-it-all 15yo, and does what they need to to put the kid in their place so they can do their damned job, kid comes up with bullshit rationalisation for why they're right and everyone else is wrong once they get home, Internet echo chamber enables them, news at 11.
Bit late to this post, but whenever you're on a bureaucratic process where declaring that you're on the spectrum doesn't have any specific advantage that outweights everything else, you just don't bring it up, because you may come across idiots or even bad regulation.
I've already known a couple people in my country who were denied their driver's license because they mentioned their Asperger diagnosis. I didn't mention it, and when I ran for the driving test, while the examiner was somewhat nervous that I wasn't constantly trying to drive over the speed limit like everyone else, he appreciated that I was always actively looking in all directions to be extra cautious against any potential danger.
This is why I can't do online left wing spaces any more. They talk the talk about ableism, but then its "why can't you boycott the only food you can eat, just eat something else", "you could talk to service workers if you wanted to, you just think you're better than them".
Then sharing a video of people with their fingers in their ears at a black music festival with a caption calling them racists, when they're clearly autistic people enjoying the festival but having sensory problems.
I blame the popular understanding/misunderstanding of neurodiversity. People think autism is just a personality type.
Well, that and the weird obsession with autocracy because they can't admit that their folk heroes might have actually just been assholes who did more to harm leftist movements than any western opposition ever did.
That, the other thing, and resorting to campism to immediately choose simple, identity-based positions over complex ones that are more coherent with specific ethical principles. At least there's people who get everything right, even if they aren't too many.
There are quite a lot of days cows milk is literally the only source of calories that doesn't make me vomit from the intensely unpleasant sensory experience all other food gives me. So no, I'm not going to stop drinking it.
For that kind of thing I blame the cultural fact that today’s leftism is based on finding people to hate.
They pride themselves in not hating groups, but they do spend about 93% of their mental/social/political efforts in identifying people who need punishment.
"I know that social cues are hard for you and you are trying your best and I can't expect you to get it right on the first try, but I will shame you when you do and react like you didn't even try or did it on purpose."
Thanks for pointing that out. I wanted to edit in something like that, but it felt like rambling.
It's frustrating when people react badly to what they incorrectly percieve as hostility, but it's not on them to read my mind and know the full context.
It's extra frustrating when people know but still get insulted by what they on an intellectual level know isn't an insult. It's human nature and it takes practice to manage that.
All in all, people may even both know and be patient but still find my behavior exhausting. And it's unfair to expect them to bend around me.
This is why I'm annoyed when people protest at any mention of "masking" as if it's evil. It's not. It's just basic courtesy to not confuse or upset people. Just be aware of how much you can do it healthily is all.
I feel this post so bad. I'm autistic but according to people that know me well, I'm also highly intelligent. Yet, when I first meet people without masking, they treat me as if I were stupid. This is such an issue in my life that I have often joked about getting a shirt that reads, "I'm autistic, not re****ed", but my NT friends have said that it's a bad idea. Anyway, this happens until a situation presents itself in which my intelligence is demonstrated, then people treat me as some sort of genius/savant. It's ridiculous, but I'm used to it.
It's great, that you found people, that you can joke about your autism without being judged or made fun of.
My friend from primary school was one of those people, but later he started going to gym and it inflated his ego to the point, that he stopped respecting me (for "going to a worse high school") and some other people for various stupid reasons.
Yes, thank you! If I can't joke about being autistic with someone, I don't become their friend. Thanks to therapy, I have been really selective with who I allow in my life, and it has made a major welcomed difference in my quality of life and how I see myself.
That sucks about your friend's inflated ego, but I'm happy you see it so you can adjust accordingly.
Well, congratulations on finding people, that respect you.
About my friend, I can't really adjust to him only talking about being better than me and shaming me for having autism and "being lazy" (partially correct, but still).
Thank you! The way I'm handling it now is that if I were in a similar situation like yours with your friend, I would just distance myself from them. If we were together and they started making me feel bad, I would just leave. I don't need to endure emotional distress because someone else is rude to me. I can just leave.
Same as Black people are subjected to automatic devaluation/abuse, so we are, too.
What's sad about it is that evidence doesn't have any validity to Kahneman System-1 mind ( read "Thinking Fast & Slow" to understand prejudice/ideology )..
Richard Feynman's autistic body-language was obvious-as-hell to anyone who knows to look, go see the youtubes of him, & see for yourself...
and that guy was some 400x as quick at physics as a normal physicist ( literally: a normal physicist did a lecture, giving 365/2 days of his work, Feynman wasn't at that lecture, he heard about it, and 1/2 days, ie that night, he not-only recreated the guy's work, but he took it further than the original guy did. He was THAT fast. ).
Autistics are underrepresented in motor-vehicle crash-statistics.
With reason: we're more rational, more predictable.
Prejudice will never allow facts to interfere with imprint/belief, however.
That is law in herdbeasts ( who have System-1 but not the considered-reasoning System-2 ) & in humans ( who, in theory have both systems, but we work to eradicate considered-reasoning, preferring ideology/prejudice, .. rather completely ), both.
Because most people don't understand that developmental disabilities aren't always intellectual. Same reason a lot of people treat bind, deaf, or other physically disabled people like they are also intellectually disabled.
Nah, don't assume malice when stupidity can be at play. That type of person is self centered, self absorbed, and they don't respect things they cant grasp. Most of the time its not a power play.
Do you think the US system is better? Just let anyone and everyone drive 3 tons machines at speeds that would have been impossible to reach in any public mode of transportation 100 years ago?
I mean, the US has driving tests and written tests you have to pass....People don't walk into their state's Department of Motor Vehicles, say "1 license to drive please," and walk out without anyone checking to see if they're competent to drive a non-commercial vehicle.
Arguably they need to test people again once they're seniors, when mental decline can start. But that's another subject.
The easiest test I've ever received was the written portion of a US driving test. I'm sure the average American would need no more than ten minutes of study to pass it. I regularly observe US drivers either willfully ignoring what they know from the test or having forgotten it entirely. Everything is bad here but for transportation I wouldn't be surprised if it were the worst in the developed world.
Even in Slovenia, I don't recall anyone remembering anything from their tests and we have to do a theoretical, practical test and a medical evaluation.
This is for a regular drivers license, yea? The only way those evaluations make sense to me is if you were getting some kind of license to race on closed circuits/tracks.
I went through some similar issues at work. I'm pretty good when it comes to understanding technical stuff with their proper names and schematics, but I struggle awfully at understanding organisations (who to talk to when this issue arises, what to do when that stuff comes up, etc). I've been called disappointing because of it, yet as far as I can see I'm the most technically competent person on the team, by far.
It's really frustrating and I have to rely a lot on other people when it comes to organising.
Thankfully the guy I mainly work with is very understanding and helps me a ton on that.
This! People only see what you cant do compared to them while being oblivious to the stuff they themselves cant.
There is also this bias that just because your clearly clever one way (like dealing with patterns off massive data web displayed on a a 4k monitor) means you must be smart everywhere else.
“Hey you’re smart, what is “math equations using more then 4 different numbers”…. I have no short time memory and need a screen for everything . I cannot possibly hold 4 numbers in my head at the same time and calculate.
The thing is, I'm not officially diagnosed yet so I didn't "come out". I plan on doing it whenever my diagnosis is complete and then I'll see if anything changes on that side.
Maybe you need to work on masking. Pretending to be a "normal" person to fit in is a big pain, and something I personally hate. But if you act "normal" when meeting new people, they will treat you like everyone else. It's tough to act this way but it might help you.
(It also sucks that we can't be accepted the way we are, but that's how the world is. As much as we might want to change the world, we also have to live in it as it is day to day)
Ye, what I usually do it mask until they treat me as an equal, then casually mention my ASD when it is relevant. I think it serves to normalize it without creating preconceptions.
Well, I dont think anyone can answer this definitively. But I recon its multiple things:
autism is still widely unknown/not understood
we‘re just starting to see people advocating since more and more keep getting diagnosed
teachers are often not autistic and/or come from a generation that frowns upon disclosure of medical information
lots of prejudice
since you have slovene as a language, I recon you might be from slovenia, which is in europe. Europe is far behind the US in autism advocacy and slovenia as part of the balkans could be even further behind (feel free to tell me otherwise if you‘ve ever visited france, germany or GB for example)
autistics afaik often report problems with speaking their mind or explaining their thought process (which would include me) and therefore get underestimated
Those are just my thoughts and opinions. Nothing of this is proven fact and I am happy to stand corrected. Just trying to give some ideas of why this might be a unhappy coincidence.
You can always decide to change this and write up a lecture or speech which you can hold at some event if thats your cup of tea. You can then educate large amounts of people in a short timeframe. Good luck.
Yes I see the balkan influence in Slovenia. I feel bad, because my father (also autistic) is on the doctor's side even tho he knows I'm not intelectually disabled (he even thinks I'm smart). He just doesn't want to question their authority.
On the unrelated note: I accidentaly said yes to a question I later learned it was partialy corelated with intelectual disability, so it might be my fault.
I‘m not in your position so I dont know anything about it. Its possible to be declared incapable but thats quite a big stretch to assume it will happen usually. If you dont have a criminal history or people interested in controling you it sounds like a less likely outcome. Feel free to correct me. Also, if you‘re interested in shaping your and other autistic folk‘s future, you can always advocate.
In that case I‘d worry about things you can control instead of things you cant control. Makes life a lot easier and healthier - most likely longer too.
Learn, try to discover new things and do what you can to be selfreliant.
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