I don’t think I’m very ND but it’s very obvious to me in all social settings that I’m not NT. it’s a variety of things, but typically it’s like people staring straight into your eye balls when you talk to them, or the touching, or things like queueing or pathing to and from a place
I have often been asked if I have autism. They often seem ready to wonder this if it seems like a situation is approaching where I can’t, in their eyes and their words, “read the room”. The very concept “of reading the room”, they then have to be told, plays out differently even on a cultural level. I am not of a common cultural background, and this is said to demonstrate itself in, say, seeing someone’s arms crossed. I see crossed arms and, if anything, I’m going to assume “decision maker mode”. They then ask “don’t you see I’m angry”.
For our sake, I’d be lying to say I don’t operate based on “tell, don’t show”, which is the opposite of what others often say, which is supposed to be beneficial yet often gives off the opposite impression because people want to cling to the idea that assumptions are inherent. People often also complain about how complex yet semantically loose (owing to “culture”, but at the same time I wonder why people, again, use their own expectations of verbal norms to assume what something must mean, instead of acknowledging dictionary-described words and sentences are just the word equivalent of mathematical equations) my communication is. Relevantly, that can be combined with my experiences with, ironically, people bashing me for not living up to their “unspoken directives” rather than gentility inspired by how I would say I expect logic to work, to produce the impression in me that maybe neurodivergent people are onto something with their sense of clockwork, placing me in what could be called autistic culture by nurture rather than nature, as is my calling when I’m told I’m only destined to rattle around in the realm of normal people. The neurotypical practice of succumbing to bias based on trained taboo and the infallibility of their dear ones (relevant among the gossipers) has done nothing except disillusion me in the presence of all who willingly exist without a striving for protocol clockwork, and if I had an ark, I would fill it with these neurodivergent people they say they fear.
Based on your post, you’re not autistic, you’re just a writer.
I dated a girl who worked with elderly neurodivergent people. She was at my place and i heard the dryer was done with it’s cycle. I said i’ll have to go and make my bed, because you know how it is, if you don’t do it right away, you’re not doing it for two weeks.
She laughed and said: but you know why “we” have to do that, right? I was like: what? No. And she said, because we have adhd.
I just laughed and thought: YOU have adhd, i do… Oooooooooooh
A friend posted a link to something and mentioned me saying “you’re hyper literal brain will like this” and when I got done being annoyed about the typo I realized for the first time I am excessively literal.
Another time at lunch with a friend she mentioned in an offhand way that I have anxiety and that was when I first realized what anxiety is and that it’s not normal to feel the way I do all the time.
It took me revisiting this comment to see the type and uh… AAAAA
and when I got done being annoyed about the typo I realized
I love this excessively literal description :)
It was 13 years ago but I still can’t forget the typo.
I know that. I don’t get annoyed by typos in internet comments, but when a news organization has a typo I hate that whole article. even if it’s just, a wrongly placed comma, or missing a capital letter.
Had 2 psychologists refuse to work with me, after they got to know me
Psychologists don’t just refuse to work with neurodivergent people, if they did that would be a lot of patients. There is a lot more context to this statement that you haven’t shared.
I think you misunderstand. Psychologists may presumably refuse to work with individuals with this user’s particular neurodivergence.
It’s not exactly the same as a real life situation, but Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist eventually refuses to work with him over some (perhaps misdiagnosed) sociopathy.
In my case, they did. Yes, of course there is more context.
For extra context, various therapeutic methods do not work as well on neurodivergent people, especially people on the spectrum. CBT, one of the main go-to (adjunctive at least) therapies for example, is nearly useless for most folks on the spectrum.
So it may be that their therapists discovered they were not equipped to help op with their issue(s).
Do you work in that field?
No, but I have a close relation who is both on the spectrum and in therapy who was told this. In the distant past I did have a background in medical research, so I went to PubMed and looked it up for them to confirm.
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The reverse, actually.
I’ve since found help at an institute that specializes in my particularities, I’m happy to share.
I’m learning to be kind to myself, too. Slowly.
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Does my doctor who stopped in the middle of an appointment, looked at me, and said “you know you’re neurodivergent, right?” count?
Probably in their mind, but not that I’d care to pay attention; so not obvious to me.
Human beings are diverse. defining a human as “divergent” is meaningless and so fucking dumb. Psychologists seem to be really bad at statistical analysis; and/or data collection that is representative of the species. But they’re maybe good at conning mugs to pay them to denigrate people who don’t fit their world view, or confound their predictions.
It’s not meaningless. Some peoples brain work in a completely different way than the majority, and why should we ignore that? It’s very important knowledge to figure out things.
It’s not like it’s a tiny scale of small differences between people. It’s more like 99% being quite similar and then 1% being completely different. That is very significant. Numbers are made up to make a point.
It’s almost like saying let’s not study sociopaths because they are just like everyone else. They aren’t.
“Completely” different, interesting way to put it. Diagnosis must be trivial.
My boss has got very high EQ, but tends to have fraught, tense relationships with our female coworkers (I described it to my husband as working with a mother and daughter who don’t get along- they say a bunch of things that seem nice and also seem to hurt each other a lot and I don’t know why).
She sometimes says passive aggressive things to me, but it always takes me too long to parse passive aggression in person, so I respond completely earnestly. This seems to confuse her without being rude, and she’s just vexed by me.
Actually, passive aggression in general makes me feel very neurodivergent.
Honestly this seems like the best way to deal with someone being passive aggressive. If they have a problem make them actually say something.
I fully agree. It’s not always intentional, because sometimes I do pick up on it (probably the non native language + work makes it just impossible to get in the moment from her), but I almost always pretend not to, and it generally defuses the situation pretty well.
I’m also a crier, so the alternative is not great
No I changed my mind next time you should start balling. Like the ugly kind of crying that makes it hard for others to look.
I do this on purpose. I also ignore all the signs that someone’s taking to me “just to be nice”. If you’re nice, then you’re nice. If you’re just pretending to be nice, suck it up cuz it’s working.
…not until now…
I am learning an instrument as an adult and my instructor commented “You’re so good at recognizing patterns.” That comment hit way harder than it had any right to.
We’re in the ancestor simulation, buddy. It’s why being decent is painted as rebellious and we all hear “you’re very observant” all the time.
If you don’t mind me asking is there more context to this or was it literally in the middle of an annual physical or something
Nope, just finished some scales and arpeggios and was moving on to some warm up pieces.
I think you replied to the wrong comment. Most music instructors don’t do those, haha
Sounds like you’re going to the wrong music instructors.
You’re right but this is funny so I’m gonna leave it here.
Reminds me of one of mine. In the middle of my lesson, my instrument teacher paused to ask me some questions: can you tie your shoes without looking? Do you have trouble unlocking your door in the dark? Etc. Turns out I have little to no muscle memory lol.
Holy crap is that a thing? I have to pay attention to stuff like that - I will be brushing my teeth and it seems awkward and I’ll realize I’m using my non dominant hand.
Though my feet do point reflexively when I jump or kick, and arm positions for dance I can feel still, large motor skills my body remembers.
ETA I’ve been thinking about this and don’t think the right/left thing is the same, because I can touch type without looking on a real keyboard. That is muscle memory for sure.
No one person specifically, but it was all the ADHD memes that had me actually go and get checked. Ended up diagnosed with ADHD, Asperger’s, and BPD. I didn’t even know about BPD until I was told I had it.
what has your experience with bpd been like ?
Horrible.
I don’t think I’m ND even though sometimes I’m a little awkward in person and make up for it in other ways. Unfortunately, one of my aunts doesn’t think so and spent a good portion of a family meeting trying to convince everyone that I have Aspbergers because she had just learned about it and found my behavior odd when she went to ask me a question and started me. I could hear all the shit she was talking through the wall saying how antisocial I was for keeping to myself. Then years later she proceeded to wreck the family but that’s a different story, so I’m left wondering who the antisocial one really is.
Sounds like your aunt was projecting from what little you’ve said.
I was working on a personal project when a friend visited. I went through a quick series of successes and failures with my project and openly emoted at each, afterward he said to me “I’ve never seen anyone go through so many emotions in such a short amount of time.”
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I didn’t get converted to a permanent position after a whole year at my job. The only negative feedback (among otherwise great remarks) I had was six months in:
- Be more organized and send updates more often.
- Speak without tangents or sounding scattered.
- Improve prediction of how long tasks will take and completion dates when considering other priorities.
Does anyone want to guess my diagnosis?* Lol
The maddening thing is that I didn’t get any follow-up after those comments until five months later, when I got the surprising news that they would not be continuing with me. If I had thought my subsequent med change and work strategies were not, in fact, improving my performance, I would have pursued accommodations.
* It’s ADHD.
