@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me cover
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joshsusser

@[email protected]

not your typical neuron.
de gustibus non est disputandum.
black lives matter. trans people are people.
pronoun: he.
d.e.i.

#ActuallyAutistic #autistic #ADHD #AuDHD #neurodivergent #neurodiversity
#queer #SciFi #webdev #RubyProgramming #pastafarian #nobridge
AKA @joshsusser

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chevalier26 , to ActuallyAutistic group
@chevalier26@mastodon.social avatar

@actuallyautistic Just found out that NT people have REAL habits that happen basically on autopilot. This is news to me.

What most NT people think of as a "habit" I think of as a "task," even if it is a part of my routine. For example, brushing and flossing my teeth is a part of my daily routine, but I have to make myself think about each action separately. I wouldn't call them habits because I literally remind myself to do them every night. It isn't automatic.

joshsusser ,
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

@chevalier26 @actuallyautistic That is wild. I hadn't thought about that difference like that before. And just as wild, NT people invent rituals so they have something to do as a group, even if it is completely meaningless, useless, and subject to change. For example, casual Fridays.

joshsusser ,
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

@Uair @chevalier26 @actuallyautistic I didn't say pointless, but that's not far off. I think a good ritual has elements of meaning, utility, and tradition. A wedding ceremony is meaningful, useful, and traditional, and I don't think they're pointless either, so there's one for you. Also birthday parties, Thanksgiving dinners, and graduation ceremonies. Marking transitions is a primary function of rituals.

chevalier26 , to ActuallyAutistic group
@chevalier26@mastodon.social avatar

@actuallyautistic Wish more YouTubers and content creators added a toggle to their videos that could switch off background music. Idk about y'all, but so many videos have added music that is unnecessary, distracting, and overstimulating.

I have seen videos on YouTube where the closed captions settings have been programmed with a separate audio track with no commentary, so I know it can be done! Would probably be so helpful for so many people!

joshsusser ,
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

@chevalier26 @actuallyautistic Hear, hear! I bitch about this a fair bit myself, too. I even emailed a complaint to YT two weeks ago, asking for an easy way to make background music optional. I sometimes complain directly to creators, but there's only been one that removed the music after that, and she's autistic. ND creators just ignore me completely, or say they appreciate the feedback but then do nothing about it. Sometimes I wonder if a campaign to leave a lot of feedback on videos would help, but it doesn't seem likely.

Zumbador , to ActuallyAutistic group
@Zumbador@mefi.social avatar

@actuallyautistic

Here's something that causes friction between me and my family.

Someone asks me to make a decision about something I don't have a strong preference, but they want me to have a preference.

"do you want x or y? "

Saying "I don't care" comes across as rude, and even softening it as "I don't really have a preference" or turning it back to them by saying "what do you think?" isn't appreciated. They want me to care.

I understand that they want me to choose so they don't have to do that emotional labour. That's fair. But often when I do choose (at random), they try to change my mind, and then I'm back to square one because I don't really care, and I don't want to lie!

A honest answer would be "I'm depressed, I don't want to exist. Putting on a polite face is taking up all my effort, expecting me to actually care is beyond my capacity"

But that's too heavy for most interactions.

I'm not sure what I'm asking for here, just writing it out.

joshsusser ,
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

@Zumbador @actuallyautistic My operating theory is that you can't just tell allistics some information, but you also have to tell them how they should feel about it. Them offering you a chance to decide can be seen as a gesture of showing they care about what you want. If you don't engage with the decision, they can feel you don't appreciate that or that you don't care what they want. When they ask you to make that kind of choice, it's hardly ever just about that choice. When you push the choice back at them, they may take it as a rejection of their feelings or that you don't care about them.

One way I have handled this in various groups was to make common choices into a game with simple rules. Choosing a place to eat was easy: you have to suggest a place to start things off, and to reject an idea you have to provide an alternate suggestion. You could also just pass and accept the group's decision. The particular rules of that little game don't matter as much as that we had a standard way to work that out with minimal confusion or frustration.

The Double Empathy Problem cuts both ways. It shouldn't always be on us to adapt to allistic communication norms. But it's hard to get allistics to even realize that's a thing, let alone do the work to meet us halfway. So if you make it a standard ritual interaction, everyone knows how to meet in the middle and no one gets confused and allistics don't have to work too hard either.

joshsusser , to ActuallyAutistic group
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

I'm so used to mainstream media reporting about people being terrible inspiration porn that I almost didn't watch this one, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually pretty good. The best thing is it mostly centered the autistic person and her experience. It's also kind of amazing to see a non-speaking person given an opportunity to speak for herself with AAC. There's still some ableism and centering the allistic perspective, like when the interviewer talks about how he's a parent of an autistic child, but it's still so much better than anything else I've seen on a mainstream show. More of this, please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTECNar9yG4

And seems awesome. More about her at https://www.jordynzimmerman.com

@actuallyautistic

joshsusser , to ActuallyAutistic group
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

I'm so used to mainstream media reporting about people being terrible inspiration porn that I almost didn't watch this one, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually pretty good. The best thing is it mostly centered the autistic person and her experience. It's also kind of amazing to see a non-speaking person given an opportunity to speak for herself with AAC. There's still some ableism and centering the allistic perspective, like when the interviewer talks about how he's a parent of an autistic child, but it's still so much better than anything else I've seen on a mainstream show. More of this, please.

And seems awesome. More about her at https://www.jordynzimmerman.com

@actuallyautistic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTECNar9yG4

CynAq , to ActuallyAutistic group
@CynAq@neurodifferent.me avatar

@actuallyautistic

I have issues with the "top-down ( purported to be most NTs)" and "bottom-up (purported to be most autistics)" thinking binary.

I don't think these labels identify the differences as I believe this is an issue of motivation and value judgement.

Let's take the common example of essay writing for school. The story goes "when they asked us to write an outline, the NT students got right on it while the ND kids were bewildered because how could they write a bullet point version of an essay that didn't exist yet."

This makes intuitive sense to everyone who experienced the frustration of being asked to write that outline so we connect over this and give this as an example of our "thinking style" difference from the NT population.

If we actually think about this a little, though, the example, while a common experience, doesn't actually demonstrate how our thinking differs.

First, NTs and NDs both need to acknowledge the concept of an essay. If we then say "the NTs get right on writing the outline when asked to do so, which means their brain started from the concept of an essay, then automagically filled it out with a list of section titles, then guided their person through the acts necessary to fill out those sections," does this sufficiently explain what is happening? After all, the ND people can write research essays, and without coming up with an outline first too!

I think there's something deeper going on here. I think, the main difference is priorities, not the method of thinking.

In my opinion, when asked to write an essay, most NT people respond by asking "why" or even "what's in it for me" first, and since the school structure pre-answers that question for them, move onto "how," which is also formalized for their convenience: "start by thinking of possible questions and reword them as titles, put them in a list. This way, you won't have to experience the inconvenience of being curious for once." The entire process is optimized for form over substance.

In the same situation, putting the curiosity first, most ND people respond by "<insert every question possible>", and concluding "I'm going to start looking into it." No instruction necessary because the ND brain here optimized the question asking part of the endeavor. The information will be gathered and new questions will form and then more information will be gathered until there's too much of it and..." Yeah... "why are we doing this again?" Notice the "how" isn't very important here, even though it's included in the "every question possible" because after all, what can be more natural than making observations and learning other people's observations and then putting them into a report of facts? Substance rules, and form will emerge as a necessity.

So, I like thinking about "substantial (substance first)" and "formal (form first)" modes of thinking rather than "bottom-up" vs "top-down".

If you're still reading, thanks!

I'm curious as to what everyone else thinks about this issue :)

joshsusser ,
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

@CynAq @actuallyautistic I also dislike the top-down vs bottom-up canard, and it smells a little like NTs trying to figure out how we think without asking us to comment. Maybe it's that autistic folk see more connections between all the different concepts, so forcing that multi-dimensional, interconnected map into a hierarchical outline or a linear narrative is not always straightforward. There are usually several ways to organize all those connected ideas, so how do you know which one is best? How do you know the best way to say something until you know what you want to say?

The essay writing example is probably a terrible example, though. Allistics love to say things where what they say doesn't mean anything at all, but the way they say it means everything. The assignment to write an essay is at least as much about learning the form and showing you can use it as it is about writing an essay that says something, or even what it says. One of the hardest exam questions I ever got in college was an essay question, and I had no idea what to say, so I just rephrased the question and said "I don't know" a lot, but I used the right form of answer, so I got full credit.

LehtoriTuomo , to ActuallyAutistic group
@LehtoriTuomo@mementomori.social avatar

One reason why it took me so long to self-diagnose autism is that I thought I don't stim. In fact, once I learned that I do stim, my self-diagnosis process kicked in. That was the first time I said to myself that I might actually be autistic.

The reason for this misunderstanding was that I thought stimming is stereotypical, very repetitive, compulsory movement. I guess this misunderstanding is quite common.

I've since learned that stimming, short for self-stimulatory behavior, is basically stimulating one's sensory system in certain ways. It may be a way to soothe oneself, help to focus in overwhelming situations by feeding one's brain predictable sensory input, a way to express joy, or simply something that feels nice. Movements are part of it but any sense can be used.

When googling the term, there are mentions that also neurotypicals stim but that when diagnosing autism, stimming is somehow different -- only socially unacceptable stims are "real" stims. Bah.

I've started paying attention to how and when I stim, and collect a list of stims I do. I've noticed all types of stimming behavior (soothing, focusing, joy, fun). I do it more than before -- or maybe I just notice it more often. I've noticed that I love moving my body parts, especially to music. I also love different textures.

@actuallyautistic

joshsusser ,
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

@LehtoriTuomo @actuallyautistic Bingo. It's one of those begging the question things, where they pathologize autism, so anything associated with it must also be pathological. Stims that everyone does don't count as autistic stims because they are not pathological because normal people do them so they must be normal. (That sounds confusing because that's the nature of circular reasoning.)

And once you get there, where only stims that are pathological count as stims, you can't see the whole world of stims that don't look like broken versions of NT ideas of normal behavior. NT folk think it's normal to splash some cold water on your face to calm yourself down, to tap your toe when impatient, to doodle on a notepad in a meeting, or to knit while watching TV, so those things don't count as stimming. But even a little bit of hand flapping or toe walking can get us in trouble because it seems weird and pathological to folks with a more limited repertoire of stims.

joshsusser , to ActuallyAutistic group
@joshsusser@neurodifferent.me avatar

My own ideas on and human society. Just trying to get this down as concisely as I can, so definitely skimping on the explanations and justifications. Honestly, this is largely speculation, but I'd love to see some good research done on these kinds of ideas. It would be more useful than all the eugenics crap they are wasting money on to identify genetics so they can remove us from the gene pool.

  1. in humans isn't a problem or genetic mistake. It's a natural and important part of what makes us human.

  2. The (NT) neurotype shouldn't be assumed to be the healthy or correct one, but only the most common one. To be specific, it is not the baseline from which all other neurotypes diverge. (It also needs a different name, but let's not fight that battle today.)

  3. Early humans must have had a diversity of neurotypes, just as we do today, but the NT type didn't dominate in pre-agrarian tribal life. Different neurotypes had different strengths and contributed to the success of the tribe in different ways.

  4. The NT neurotype can be characterized, as we do with types. The most prominent attribute is their ability to acquire useful information socially (as opposed to other types which prefer to get information through study, observation and analysis, or other ways). NTs have cognitive shortcuts that help them validate a social information source as trustworthy based on non-verbal signals or social hierarchy. This also lets them align on goals and coordinate activity across large groups more easily.

  5. As agriculture allowed prehistoric human communities to scale up to larger sizes, the NT neurotype became more prominent. NTs thrive in large communities where social connections and hierarchy are the dominant factor in success, while other neurotypes are less well suited for navigating large social structures with complex dynamics.

  6. As NTs prospered, their influence on society increased, and social norms adapted to the way they naturally did things. Society became better suited to NTs and more difficult for other neurotypes, so NTs had an even larger advantage, had more success, bigger families, and grew to dominate the population both socially and genetically.

  7. Over time, the NT ability to function effectively in a population of millions has changed human society from being balanced and inclusive of a diversity of neurotypes, to being entirely dominated by one neurotype. NTs only have to learn how to coexist with each other, but all other neurotypes must learn how to exist under NT dominance. Welcome to neurosupremacy. (see )

  8. The NT cognitive ability to validate trustworthiness is not infallible, especially when talking to other neurotypes. They can easily mistake honest autistic communication as deception or insincerity, or ADHD sporadic attention as disinterest or rejection. (see )

  9. Those NT cognitive shortcuts have failure modes, and can be taken advantage of. For example: charismatic cult leaders, conspiracy theories, mass marketing.

  10. A Humanity of only NTs would probably fall apart in a generation or two. Being neurotypical is great for sharing known information, but take a good look at history and you'll see how much of civilization was discovered and invented by neurodivergent folk. Some of us like to speculate about historical inventors and scientists who might have been Autistic, for good reason. There's most likely also other important people throughout history of other neurotypes that are harder to recognize. Today, we need more a more balanced population and more inclusive norms, as we still rely on the cognitive strengths of non-typical neurotypes. NDs are now a scarce resource and need to be respected and protected, for the good of the species.

(edit: sharing with @actuallyautistic because I forgot before oops)

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