SIGH.
I bet i'm more frustrated with you then you are with me. You have to deal with me once, i have to deal with you EVERYDAY AND FOREVER AND EVER.
Communication difficulties are the hallmark of an autistic person's life. It doesn't matter where you fall on the spectrum, if you are on it at all, this problem is assured.
I often find myself sitting in the wake of various histrionic outbursts, pondering the thrashing, hostile neurotypical that has just stormed out.
Sometimes i myself become angry, as i saw nothing wrong or offensive with my response, but find myself being verbally assaulted with vulgarities seemingly out of blue, and i am a grown man. I will not be talked to in such a manner unless it is truly warranted.
I've tried to make sense of this for my lifetime, and it never, never makes sense to me. Some suggestions for neurotypicals engaging in communicative efforts with those on the spectrum.
DO NOT ASK A QUESTION YOU DO NOT WANT ANSWERED
This is paramount. If you are not ready for the full range of possible answers to a question, DO NOT ASK IT. What the neurotypical mind is designed to do, anatomically speaking, is to be a predictive computer. All of our TESTS for intelligence are based on prediction. What word comes next in this sequence? Which order do these images go in, and so on.
So i suspect i understand what is happening here.
You are asking a question, but predicting an answer. If the response falls outside that range of predicted outcomes, it elicits hostility, or a general negative emotive response. I cannot read your mind. I cannot read your face. I cannot read the hundreds of ques that other NT's can read that would allow me to know exactly the thing you want to hear in this instance. You created a loaded situation for yourself, and me, so read the caps-locked-bolded part a few more times. I do not want to hurt your feelings, and i do not take kindly to being yelled at, over reacted too, or treated with great hostility when i do not understand the cause. I am honest, i am different from NT's, this is true. That does not mean i am LESS than, and i will not be ABUSED because you are incapable of hearing certain sequences of words.
SAY WHAT YOU MEAN
If you are the significant other of someone with ASD learn how to do this as soon as humanly possible.
If you come home after a long day at work, and start talking about something that is deeply frustrating for you, and you are VENTING and expressly DO NOT WANT ANY INPUT on the situation you are relaying, YOU MUST START WITH THAT FIRST. If your stress about this day or said situation is profound, and my response, as covered in lesson one, is not what you predicted, or want to hear, you will likely become more agitated and now direct that stress and anger squarely at your partner, whom up until a moment ago, was a confidant, and is now, a punching bag that had nothing at all to do with your stress.
It is considered, i'd like to think universally, EVIL or at the very least, cruel, to hit a pet, or spank a child for it's actions when it cannot comprehend what is occurring. I do not know at what point responding to a statement was grounds for full out verbal nuclear warfare, but had i known, i certainly would have avoided in it entirely. I get no joy from oppressing or irritating others indiscriminately. I am pedantic by design as a result of my brain's biology, not because of my desire to show off my intelligence or make you feel stupid.
BE SPECIFIC
This is a continuation of lesson 2, but important. When you say, "I wanted you to support me."
I don't know what the fuck your talking about. Seriously. Even if i've known you my entire goddamn life, that sentence means NOTHING to me. It's far too vague, it forces me to make vast amounts of assumptions about what your precise desires are and am not comfortable doing that. I will not undertake to do something i know i will FAIL at, just because you are incapable of more coherent language. I experienced this problem once in a very short job i held as a prep cook. I would be given a list of materials and quantities required of me to prepare for the chef, but no notes regarding specifics. To tell someone, "chop this up." Is woefully inadequate to me. Do you want to onions diced? Chopped? Quartered? Cut into strands? I was NEW TO THE JOB, and in all situations dealing with people, i respond that same way. I will not prepare all the food under the assumption that perhaps, this is how you want it done, only to be browbeaten upon completion because you did not specific the thing you wanted because your inconsiderate or just a complete idiot.
Tell me how you want it done, and I will do it perfectly, comfortable that our communication was flawless, and that i did the job I was supposed to do, not the job I assumed that you wanted done.
Think about it. The whole fucking world runs like this. I feel so excluded from virtually everything that it takes all of my will power to get out of bed day to day, and you could help me so much, by just thinking a BIT more about how you act, what your saying, and by being a little considerate.
DON'T FORGET
That i am on the spectrum.
That just leads into the whole mess repeating itself. You get angry at me for some perceived slight or lack of some vague feeling of support or politeness or social protocol that i did not enact....
and i am depressed and irritated that all the times i explained in great depth, THAT I AM NOT LIKE YOUR FRIENDS,AND THAT MY BRAIN WORKS DIFFERENTLY THEN THE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH, and yet your still getting angry at me for the way i think and the way i talk, even after spending countless hours carefully explaining how i work to you. I feel twice slighted, for not being listened to, and then being yelled at.
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I still don't know if there is any practical way in which those on the spectrum and your average NT can interact in a fulfilling manner without these reactions eventually driving the autistic to live out life like a hermit in a cave due simply to be outnumbered by those that would be oppressive and close minded about different types of people. I'm going to sit in my cave for ANOTHER 10 years, while i think about it.
This structure heaves and sags under it's own weight, and i have no course, but to patiently await it's fall.
