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this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Autism
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I'm not naive (or arrogant) enough to think I know everything my kids are thinking and neither am I suggesting their lives are 100% perfect but all of them (on the spectrum or not) are all pretty forthright, confident adults. When they were teens they of course went through some shit related to their being autistic, but none of that was because they were autistic, it was down to how other people/situations made them feel because they were autistic. I'm as sure as any parent can ever be that I've never detected any kind of prolonged resentment or unhappiness at the fact of their autism.
We never taught them that 'autism is a superpower' because it isn't. Sometimes it has advantages and sometimes there are disadvantages and describing someone elses life as superpowered puts an unrealistic expectation of happiness and accomplishment on them. By the same token, neither are their lives a ruin and my life as their parent most certainly wasn't ruined.
I disagree, its not in my opinion a meaningless distinction at all. A difficulty in cognition might prevent a person from reading War And Peace. Thats a direct result of having a learning disability. Someone with a visual disability who cannot access audio books or braille versions of War And Peace is not being affected by their disability but by the fact an accessible version is not available.
You might argue the end result is the same - an inability to read War And Peace - but the point is that for the person with a visual disability the situation is fixable if society is prepared to make the effort.
In regards to your situation you've had terrible experiences but they are not down to the fact youre autistic, they're down to the fact your NT 'friends' weren't really friends at all. I'm sorry they let you down but I'm pretty sure I could find similar stories where nobody in the story was autistic.
I never claimed autism wasn't a disability. The fact that autistic people are disabled in some ways isn't in question. But its neither just a disability or - like all disabilities - something that isn't disabling by virtue of the world its part of rather than its intrinsic nature.
For example, you say an autistic person cannot experience social interaction in the same way as a non autistic person. True. But the non autistic person can, with very little adjustment, be aware of that. My kids have good relationships with NT friends and whilst they might not experience them in the same way as NT friendships, they still find them fulfilling.
There's a possibility of all that, sure. But there's also a possibility of none of that. My autistic kids relationships with their friends is different than my non autistic kids relationships with their friends. I'm not sure I'd describe it as lopsided but I see what you're getting at. Be that as it may, neither of them, as far as I can tell, are unsatisfied or unhappy with their various relationships. And certainly not to the point where either they or I would describe their lives as 'ruined'.
My best friend in the entire world is autistic, as am I. We don't talk as much as we used to, now that I'm in college and he has a job, but we do emotionally look out for each other, reaching out and being a shoulder to cry on when the other is going through a rough patch. I can't say for certain that I'm his best friend in the whole world, especially considering that ever since he went off to college, we no longer live in the same time zone, and I wouldn't blame him for making new friends closer to home, but he's made it clear I'm still in his top three. Besides, I've met his new inner circle both in person and through online videogames, and if even half of them are neurotypical, I'll eat my hat.
Regardless of whether he considers me his best friend or not, your statement that an autistic person cannot be the best friend of another human being, or worse, anything other than the one "friend" who everyone only keeps around because they are useful, is simply false. I am deeply sorry that your experiences thus far have been so awful that they have led you to believe this, but I assure you, they are not universal. There is hope in the world. And I truly believe that even at your age, if you go looking, you'll find plenty of people for whom being autistic is a bonus in a friend rather than a detriment.
First, I'm sorry for what you've been through. But from my personal experience, I know that I have three friends who have autism and/or ADHD. In each case, I did not know this until they told me. If I can't even know who is autistic without them telling me, how can I treat them differently?
Now I understand that it is possible that some behaviours of mine could make my autistic friends uncomfortable, while not affecting my other friends. But if I am doing something like that, it is out of ignorance rather than malice, and I would of course adjust my behaviour if asked to.
So I don't get why you think autistic people 'don't fit with neurotypical people'. I have friends who speak other languages, and autism is also, in a sense, speaking a different 'body language'. With some effort, we should be able to improve communication.
Can you be more specific? Why cannot autistic people fit in with others? Is it that others recognise them as being different and exclude them? Or is it that there are differences in the way we speak or behave that make you uncomfortable? And if it is the latter, what in particular should we change?
Yes 95% of your friends aren't your best friends. They have their own struggle and hardships to deal with. So yes, in your situation both side needed to focus on themselves.
Lastly before being worried about the general population not including you in their social circles, did you ask yourself why you would be in their circles ? Because you were colleagues ? Or neighbour. I also am in a situation were I have virtually no friends and it fucking hurts. Loneliness fucking hurts, it ache the minds and psychology its among the worst pain I ever felt.
Though in the past years I've looked not for others but for things that passionated me first. And there I found people which liked me and that I liked. Some people are wildly different than me, others are likeminded but we connected. I don't know my classmates but I have a few friends among my martial arts club. And I am not unhappy of the lack of connexion I have with my class, I don't think we'd really fit. Despite the social constructs that claims a student's first circle must be his class, I don't, and its fine, I just look elsewhere for people, in place where I fit.