What the title says. Well intentioned, often other “neurodivergent” people look at your life, your autism, and say: “you should mask harder.”
For example, I accidentally said something that offended a friend. Won’t go into detail, but it was me unintentionally coming off as arrogant, not something bad like a slur or hate speech.
I asked for advice (elsewhere) and the advice was universally, “you see, NT avoid this topic at all costs. Going forwards, know it is best to avoid this topic.”
But isn’t this just saying “mask harder and be more palatable for everyone else”?
Every piece of “autism advice” I see even in “neurodivergent friendly” communities is basically “how to be less autistic.”
Where’s the line? I’m rude because I don’t pick up on social cues…that’s literally what I am diagnosed with.
“I think depressed people just need to be happier to avoid depression”
There is no objective line, but if your actions result in your friends getting hurt that is sad, and if your friends decide not to hang out with you because of the chances you’ll hurt them again that is a fair choice. You may choose not to put effort into understanding other people’s perspectives but this means most people with healthy boundaries will either get hurt at some point and leave, or recognize that is bound to happen and leave pre-emptively. So if you want friends that treat you right or a partner who isn’t miserable, then you will have to put effort into understanding other people’s perspectives.
Your friend was offended for a reason. People assume you care why or how to avoid it because that is a necessary part of any healthy friendship. If you do not care, then I hope your friend finds friends that do care so they, at least, can be happy. I also hope that you have friends and you are happy, but an unhealthy friendship does not make you happy and it barely counts as friendship anyway.
Learning how to pick up social cues in a rote way instead of an imitative way, essentially, is a treatment. I mean, I know it’s hard to pick up on norms and mores naturalistically with autism, and we should all be graceful and respectful of that as well. Just you know, if someone says something is rude or hurtful, that’s not an attack on your inability to judge that social situation by default…it is information. Even NT do impose expectations on other NT behavior across settings that is sometimes incomprehensible.
Specifically, that’s a Symptomatic treatment. It doesn’t fix autism or make you less autistic, but can sometimes help you meet life goals.