I can understand where your frustration is coming from. I apologise if this is explaining something you’re already familiar with, but your comment reminded me of research about the “double empathy problem”: how the problems in socialising that autistic people experience seem to mainly present when they’re communicating with neurotypical people — these issues are much lesser when an autistic person is communicating with another autistic person. The theory also suggests that rather than these difficulties being attributed to communication deficits on the part of the autistic person, as has been the historic view, we might be able to better understand the problem in terms of a lack of mutual understanding between an autistic person and a neurotypical person — that is, neurotypical people struggle to empathise and understand autistic people as much as autistic people struggle to do the same with neurotypical people.
I find this quite an empowering perspective, because it disrupts the idea that autistic people are inherently broken or lesser (which unfortunately, many of us have deeply internalised over the years). However, I have seen people who take this notion and seem to twist it into the odd, prescriptive logic that you describe being annoyed at. I find it bizarre because to my eyes, research like this should cause people to be more hopeful about neurodivergent and neurotypical people mixing; if both parties are able to effectively communicate in other contexts, then it should certainly be possible to build mutual understanding.
It may take a little more work to build, but if anything, that’s all the more reason to do it. Empathy and communication are skills that can be honed, and there’s always room for improvement.
This is a long way of saying that I feel your frustration, and I suspect we have heard some of the same rhetoric. I’m glad that you were big enough to acknowledge that your bad mood negatively influenced your original comment. I hope that your day improves, and that you are able to be kind to yourself in the meantime.
I appreciate the edit to your comment.
I can understand where your frustration is coming from. I apologise if this is explaining something you’re already familiar with, but your comment reminded me of research about the “double empathy problem”: how the problems in socialising that autistic people experience seem to mainly present when they’re communicating with neurotypical people — these issues are much lesser when an autistic person is communicating with another autistic person. The theory also suggests that rather than these difficulties being attributed to communication deficits on the part of the autistic person, as has been the historic view, we might be able to better understand the problem in terms of a lack of mutual understanding between an autistic person and a neurotypical person — that is, neurotypical people struggle to empathise and understand autistic people as much as autistic people struggle to do the same with neurotypical people.
I find this quite an empowering perspective, because it disrupts the idea that autistic people are inherently broken or lesser (which unfortunately, many of us have deeply internalised over the years). However, I have seen people who take this notion and seem to twist it into the odd, prescriptive logic that you describe being annoyed at. I find it bizarre because to my eyes, research like this should cause people to be more hopeful about neurodivergent and neurotypical people mixing; if both parties are able to effectively communicate in other contexts, then it should certainly be possible to build mutual understanding.
It may take a little more work to build, but if anything, that’s all the more reason to do it. Empathy and communication are skills that can be honed, and there’s always room for improvement.
This is a long way of saying that I feel your frustration, and I suspect we have heard some of the same rhetoric. I’m glad that you were big enough to acknowledge that your bad mood negatively influenced your original comment. I hope that your day improves, and that you are able to be kind to yourself in the meantime.