One of the really, really frustrating things about being autistic is that you feel like you spend your life trying to reach some sort of unattainable middle-ground:
– We’re criticised for not making enough conversation, but when we do actually really get in to a conversation we are told we’re ‘too intense’.
– We’re often trained to maintain unbroken eye-contact during conversations, yet in reality too much eye-contact is called ‘staring’ and makes people very, very uncomfortable.
– We’re encouraged to ‘express’ ourselves more, yet our actual, genuine emotional reactions are usually deemed ‘innapropiate’ or ‘unnescessary’.
– We’re told to be friendly and confident when approaching new people, but are then warned that we ‘come off too strong’.
– We are told to try and make interesting conversation, but are also taught that speaking about our interests will only ever annoy other people.
– We’re asked to explain our difficulties and anxieties, only to be told that these explanations ‘make no sense’ or that our worries are unrealistic and invalid.
– We’re expected to force ourselves in to social situations that feel overwhelming and draining yet still somehow remain friendly, good-tempered and pleasantly sociable.
– We are encouraged to develop good self-esteem, while at the exact same time being taught that everything about us is wrong.
I don’t hate having autism – I’ve never hated having autism. But I do hate living with the never-ending pressure to attain this mythological ‘perfect’ level of social interaction that simply doesn’t exist in my case.
Tag: ouch
parents not believing their disabled child is actually disabled and forcing them to go beyond their limits is abuse.
parents calling their disabled kid a burden or a problem to them is abuse
parents using the disabled kids story to their advantage and making it more about themselves is abuse.
stop excusing abuse just because the victim is disabled.
its nice to know that this is something that other people do too.
^ IT ME
welcome to Mealtimes With Executive Dysfunction, please have a look at our menu:
- leftovers from the last time you had a Real Actual Meal (you lucky bastard)
- leftovers from the last time you had a Real Actual Meal (you lucky bastard), except they aren’t actually there anymore because you ate them for lunch
- staring into the fridge and whining
- plain rice
- tuna straight from the can
- tuna ON TOP OF PLAIN RICE WHAAAAAAT *air horn noises*
- something that’s probably gone bad a little but you don’t have the energy to care
- something you actually like but you’re too tired to cook it properly
- something you hate but it’s still slightly better than all the other options
- canned soup
- cheese???????
- peanut??? butter?????????????
- guilt about eating canned soup for the 6th time this week
- oh thank god i have vegetables in the freezer
- the fresh vegetables you accidentally left to rot because preparing them was too much effort
- the easiest & least appetizing of 5 ways you know how to cook eggs
- 12 different snack foods over a period of 5 hours
you know what, shout out to autistic people who can’t manage their emotions for shit
autistics who have meltdowns once or multiple times daily from emotional overload
“overly sensitive” autistics
autistics who try to control their response to things that upset them but can’t
autistics who are greatly upset by seemingly small things
autistics who get told that it’s “not a big deal” and that they’re “overreacting”
autistics who are mocked for being upset
you’re freaking wonderful and i hope that you have a good day with minimal upsetting events. you deserve to feel okay and your emotions are always valid and real, don’t let anybody try to tell you otherwise.
– “Overly sensitive” autistics who live with volatile behavior and stay overwhelmed a lot
– “Overly sensitive” autistics being actively destabilized by abusive behavior
– People whose “weird”, autistic-looking reactions get treated as the only problem there, and possibly abusive
– Very possibly including by professionals, leading to inappropriate/abusive treatment based on faulty premises
Just to add a few.
It’s the eye of the tiger. It’s the thrill of the fight.
Rising up to the challenge of our rival…you know you hear it too…
You don’t tell people you’re not okay,“ she said, “because it’s hard watching them not know what to do.
“Then you end up comforting them, even though the one who needed comforting was you.
As a person with Complex PTSD, there are certain characters who also have C-PTSD who YES, they behave badly, but I’m not certain if people understand why.
I don’t mean this in terms of “This person/character was abused, therefore it excuses their actions” I mean this in terms of “This person/character was abused and they literally DO NOT KNOW another way to behave”.
Especially since fiction tends to have virtually no therapists.
Here’s the thing. When you’re a kid – and a teen – still in that Learning How To Be A Person stage of things, if your parents/caregivers around you are abusive assholes? That’s your primary frame of reference for modelling “How are people supposed to react to this?”
How are you supposed to react if someone does something that hurts your feelings – even accidentally? How are you supposed to react if someone wants you to do something you don’t want to do – even something that might hurt you? What’s the appropriate way to express how you feel about ANYTHING?
Abusers also tend to isolate you as much as they can, so you probably haven’t been exposed to Actual Sane, Reasonable People very much. There’s a good chance that if you have any extended family, THEY don’t want to be around EITHER because your abusive parent is awful. (Assuming they’re not also awful – which is also a thing that happens, especially in cases of intergenerational abuse.)
It doesn’t help that – even if you’re TRYING to, you just really don’t know how to handle a situation – it can end a lot of friendships because you didn’t know how to interact or how to handle feelings.
If someone’s being kind, is it a trap? It MIGHT be. It was the way you grew up. Where’s the catch? What do they WANT from you?
Teachers rarely see “this kid is being abused at home” they see “This kid is disruptive/withdrawn/weird”.
Maybe you blow up at people when you’re overwrought – nobody’s ever taught you how to calm down (and learning how to calm down and process feelings IS a learned skill, nobody’s born with it) or taught you constructive things to do with your feelings, and you still have PEOPLE HURTING YOU at home, so you’re pretty stressed out most of the time.
Maybe you get clingy to an extent that someone is uncomfortable – because HOLY SHIT, A PERSON DOESN’T THINK I’M SCUM, because you find that person and you latch on like an octopus. For some reason you can’t FATHOM, they think you’re worthwhile. Getting possessive of a person is not healthy, but you don’t know another way to be because you’ve never had or seen a healthy friendship modeled.
That’s another problem. When somebody has been told they’re worthless and a burden for their whole life, a person giving them even a little affection and praise can lead to a situation where you would do absolutely anything for them. It’s one of the reasons it’s so easy for a person from an abusive home to fall right into another abusive relationship (not just romantic/sexual relationships – ANY relationship where you’re being taken advantage of).
And you go with it because you might not even see yourself as someone who is worthy of existing as a person who has value inherently because you’re a person.
Maybe you’re afraid to set boundaries because “What if this person who likes me STOPS liking me because of it?” which can lead to resentment because they can’t read your mind, and then one day it gets to be too much, so you blow up over it.
I have absolutely been a complete asshole to people – friends, even, or potential friends – because I was trying to figure out how you are supposed to handle human interaction when I didn’t know how to set boundaries properly or say “This thing you are doing is bothering me”.
Even if you know “What my parents did was WRONG, so I should do something else”, well, what then? Throw a dart at a list of EVERY POSSIBLE REACTION to a situation? Knowing “not this one specific one” is not as helpful as you might think.
Not to mention there are people who will DESPERATELY deny that what happened to them was abuse. Nobody wants to feel powerless, and admitting you were a scared child involves feeling powerless again.So, can anyone guess which character is on my mind?
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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