I like this approach. âfunny memeâ aside, I think it is a good way of showing how much a certain language can affect how other people think and feel about a subject. Just read it THAT way and âbeing neurotypicalâ suddenly sounds like a disorder that isnât fully compatible with the public, doesnât it?
We live in a world that isnât exactly kind to people on the spectrum. It is loud, flashy, hectic, overwhelming, unrewarding but youâre still expected to work like a cog in a machine, despite having fewer and fewer places where youâd actually âfit inâ without grinding gears, and whenever there is some sort of public talk about that topic, it always, always sounds like the affected person is the problem and personally responsible for fixing themselves, when a no small part of ânot fitting inâ is due to society itself. Maybe a change in language is due to remove that stigma.
You read into phrases past their actual meanings
Instead of saying what you think, you expect others to infer it based on subjective social rules
I see these as legitimately bad things that people should not do. The fact that society considers this normal is horrible!
I think of it as a dialect difference. Allistic people arenât ânot saying what they thinkâ they are saying exactly what they think. That combination of words just has a specific meaning to other Allistic people outside of their Webster definition. Itâs gibberish/meaningless if you speak a different dialect though.
Iâm gonna be upfront with you, Im ND but Allistic. Your boss asking you to make a spreadsheet automatically told me he wanted you to make it look presentable because it was a work enviornment. The context of who was asking you and where made that clear to me, I understand that it wasnât clear to you. But thatâs what I mean by dialect.
I didnt get all the layout details that he might specifically want but if my boss asked me to make a spreadsheet comparing some numbers 9 out of 10 times Iâll have outlines and colors and Iâll hide messy cells. He wouldnât have to tell me that and Iâd bet most Allistic people would hear those instructions as well. In fact most Allistic people would probably be insulted by the level of specific instruction your asking for if they hadnt specifically requested it. So your boss may think heâs being polite and not realizing that heâs instead using poor communication. It may help to specifically tell him you want specific, detailed, instructions like that, otherwise heâs likely to resist giving that level of instruction for fear of insulting you.
Iâm sorry that your boss hasnât figured out that you need more specific guidance in those situations because thatâs got to be frustrating and I hope that you and he can figure out a better mutual communication style.
What people on the spectrum may not understand is that language is more than just the exchanging of raw information. Itâs culture, itâs artistic, and itâs a way to communicate intangible feelings and emotions.
You: âWe actually do understand thatâ
You: proceeds to not understand that
Like other commenters, I also think that most neurodivergent people understand this very well. Their problem arises where they understand it even much further, like seeing the implications of such normalities. For example, that this must be one of the sources of so many misunderstandings between different cultures (and subcultures!). I can not just assume that everyone I meet speaks the same social language that I grew up in.
And is it not rude to assume that everyoneâs mind works in the same way ⌠or that others would camouflage in a die-cut way as someone they are not truely; is it not kind of intellectually flat to assume self-similarity, given that this is so obviously not the case â I mean divergent or not, everyone is just so engraved by their past experience that we have no true idea what mental process is going on inside another person unless we get to know them more closely.
e: or put in different words, what to do if the intangible feelings and emotions communicated by someone just donât match their verbal message? Or worse, what to do when we cearly see someones cognitive dissonance but we are expected to somehow follow that (itâs an illness and following through would be self-denial)?
May read: The Double Empathy Problem;
more on affective vs. cognitive empathy: Lost in Translation: The Social Language Theory of Neurodivergence (part 1); (part 2)
âYou read into phrases past their actual meaningsâ âInstead of saying what you think, you expect others to infer it based on subjective social rulesâ
The main issues is that you have to do that because other people will use double meanings no matter what. For exemple to double cross you regarding something. So you have to be able to read them.
Meanwhile thereâs actually an other case when people use double meanings : when they canât foster the courage to tell you something really important that would change everything, or to which you could react badly. Like that they are in love with you. In that case infered double meanings will allow the other person to react by sending similar double meanings to signify that they are on the same page, creating a much reassuring envirronment to finally confess their feelings.
Our species is insanely bad at finding partner. Like wildly bad.
Youâd rather everyone just immediately believed everything anyone else said without any thought into the motivation or intent behind the words?
I mean, no, not really. What I said is still a part of what you proposed, just not specifically.
Like you canât suggest that everyone should jump off a high cliff without also suggesting that everyone should fall to the bottom. You canât say âI said jump, not fall! Youâre reading into my words beyond my intent!â
Have you never encountered symbolism? Poetry? Is your favorite book âSee Spot Runâ because every statement is entirely literal with no interpretation needed?
If you read the phrase âUpon seeing the knife in the strangers hand, she let out a scream.â would you not infer that âsheâ is afraid of the knife person, or would you sit there scratching your head wondering âwhy did she scream? I donât understand, knives can be used for many purposes.â
No, there will always be people who lie and have bad intentions. This is something everyone needs to consider.
The problem is the honest people who arenât clear about what their expectations are. Then they get upset when those expectations arenât met. I donât think people do it intentionally, language is hard.
Points 2 and 5 are waaaay off but the rest are pretty funny.
Point 2 is literally the definition of ND folk who get ankle deep in a new hobby then abandon it when their interest passes.
Point 5⌠Iâd wager the vast majority of ND people blow at math. They also absolutely suck at seeing patterns you arenât hyper focusing on lol. Itâs literally baked into the diagnoses of ADHD comorbidities.
Is âblowâ the opposite of âsuckâ or of similar meaning in this context?
âYour interests are shallowâ â âYou arenât interested in things for their intrinsic use value, but for their exchange value in forming social bonds with other neurotypicals who have imprinted on the same token (TV show, political party, sports team, etc.) Talking about these interests is not primarily an exchange of information, but rather a grooming behaviour, like chimpanzees picking lice out of each otherâs coats, only done with language â
Every time you avoid small talk you get a lovely sticker
Germans: I have so many stickers!
Finns: crushed by weight of stickers, nobody calling for help
I mean yeah if I described autism using a bunch of statements that absolutely do not define autism, then it would sound dumb and bad. OP is acting like this is a list of neurotypical behaviors when itâs actually just an inverted list of neurodivergent behaviors. Neurotypicality is not the reciprocal of neurodivergence.
It literally is though. How would you define âneurodivergenceâ if not âeverything which is not neurotypicalâ?
âDivergentâ does not equal âoppositeâ.
A turtle is different than a lizard, the two lineages âdivergedâ evolutionarily at some point. I could describe a lizard as a scaled, heterothermic, terrestrial organism. If I describe something as a scale-less, homeothermic, non-terrestrial organism, Iâm not describing a turtle, Iâm just describing a ânon-lizardâ. Donât confuse âneurodivergentâ with âanti-neurotypicalâ, theyâre not the same thing.
By your logic, for a person to be considered âneurodivergentâ they would have to be completely 100% unlike a neurotypical person in every single way, which is simply not the case.
Youâre misreprenting what Iâm saying.
-
âNeurodivergentâ = ânot neurotypicalâ
-
âNeurotypicalâ = ânot neurodivergentâ
They are antonyms. Note that I didnât say âa neurodivergent person cannot exhibit neurotypical traitsâ because that isnât true.
By your logic, for a person to be considered âneurodivergentâ they would have to be completely 100% unlike a neurotypical person in every single way, which is simply not the case.
By that reading, would neurodivergent people even be human?
Right, but the reptile parts are implicit. The average neurotypical and neurodivergent person is human, they all talk and walk, have five fingers, a normal physique, etc.
So if I describe a turtle as an aquatic reptile with flippers and a shell, then terrestrial reptile with normal legs and not having a shell does kinda describe a lizard.
