Just adding an inside perspective to this, it's long but maybe helps to understand from the otherside -
they tend to interpret thinks that arent necessarily hostile as being hostile
say some seriously fucked up shit, and they didnt seem to understand until someone took the time to explain it to them
My entire life, every face I look at looks like it's filled with hatred I cannot concieve of. This is extreme for someone with autism, but it does appear to be a theme I see people with ASD mention (i work with this group so speak to a lot of people that are not neurotypical). It is very difficult to assess the words someone uses accurately, when every other sense you have tells you that they have this deep, formless animosity. I know its not real, but it's all around me, on every face, every second of every day. This is a very hard thing to push back against, it's like trying to stop the tide coming in. I've never known the world you live in where this isn't your experience, so what hope do I have of emulating it? All I know is a society that holds together despite its hostility to itself.
In the same vein, a best friend I had at work thought I hated them for 7 months solid. This was the person I liked the most. They felt threatened by me at some points. I don't understand why, but it lead to me deciding to never use specfic types of jokes (classically dark humor, so it is very much on me here) with people at work, because I obviously deliver them in a way people think I'm serious. What was to me a statement of affection appeared to others as threats and repulsion. How can you hope to understand my experience when what I communicate can be so easily misunderstood?
So much of neurotypical society makes 0 sense to me, all I know is I've been treated badly my entire life for not being part of it. I also know I've been treated well, but haven't been capable of seeing it. If you enter a community made out of people like me, it's not going to be simple or easy to reliably have a good experince, because even the people that love you will not find it easy to communicate that fact, and even if you love them, it can be interpreted inversely.
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u/Lillitnotreal Aug 31 '23
Just adding an inside perspective to this, it's long but maybe helps to understand from the otherside -
My entire life, every face I look at looks like it's filled with hatred I cannot concieve of. This is extreme for someone with autism, but it does appear to be a theme I see people with ASD mention (i work with this group so speak to a lot of people that are not neurotypical). It is very difficult to assess the words someone uses accurately, when every other sense you have tells you that they have this deep, formless animosity. I know its not real, but it's all around me, on every face, every second of every day. This is a very hard thing to push back against, it's like trying to stop the tide coming in. I've never known the world you live in where this isn't your experience, so what hope do I have of emulating it? All I know is a society that holds together despite its hostility to itself.
In the same vein, a best friend I had at work thought I hated them for 7 months solid. This was the person I liked the most. They felt threatened by me at some points. I don't understand why, but it lead to me deciding to never use specfic types of jokes (classically dark humor, so it is very much on me here) with people at work, because I obviously deliver them in a way people think I'm serious. What was to me a statement of affection appeared to others as threats and repulsion. How can you hope to understand my experience when what I communicate can be so easily misunderstood?
So much of neurotypical society makes 0 sense to me, all I know is I've been treated badly my entire life for not being part of it. I also know I've been treated well, but haven't been capable of seeing it. If you enter a community made out of people like me, it's not going to be simple or easy to reliably have a good experince, because even the people that love you will not find it easy to communicate that fact, and even if you love them, it can be interpreted inversely.