On Neurotypicals and Getting Understood

You know, people usually say that autistic persons lack empathy. They say that we are unable to show feelings, to understand what other people go through. We are also famous for not being able to express ourselves clearly, that it can be hard sometimes to grasp what our so different brains are processing. Is it really the case, though?

Where I'm coming from

Since I've been a child, people have always complained about what I've had to say. Either we don't get what I'm saying, or what I say is inappropriate, hurts people, says a lot about how I think, etc. I have internalized that. Like many autistic people, I spend a lot of time looking for the perfect way to say things and most of the time it ends up being by apologizing about our existence.

I want to express something with a sentence: it has to be straight-forward, use simple commonly accepted words, no intentions and unsaid implications, only facts. I will first briefly explain the context and why I'm saying that, to avoid confusion, then conclude with another sentence, to be sure the person in front of understands my intentions. Oopsie, my sentence became en entire paragraph.

The way I function makes me a relatively good documentation writer, to be honest. But to speak with humans? It doesn't work. People usually infer meaning and intentions in what I said, even though I spent so much energy, and often time, to be sure that the information I provide can be understood alone, without requiring people to send requests to my inner world to fill in the blanks.

The bad faith

What I've learnt this past year is the amount of bad faith neurotypicals are able to pull to ensure they won't understand me correctly. Many times, when I'm working so hard, repeatitively, to make myself understood and justify everything I say and reassure the poor person in front of me that, no I am not saying you did something wrong or insulted your skills or whatever, all I said is that I found a bug right here, that we can solve it *this* way and if you want we can also take advantage of the situation to improve *this* and *that* so that the other people in the team, which are extremely competent, it is not the question, can have a better time working on this codebase and......

The problem here is twofolds:

Obviously, like everyone, we can be absolute dicks. Inconsiderate, too harsh, or even mean. But when you work so hard to tell them that you're not speaking with bad intentions, that you have apologized 10 times since the beginning of the conversation, that you are the only one trying to find solutions to the problem at hand, it is not just our autistic brains that have a hard time communicating. It is discrimination.

People take advantage of you when they see that you're trying to be kind, that it is hard for you to make a point with the fear of hurting someone. Because it happened, multiple times. People get hurt, and often, they play hurt. It is all your fault, you are unable to communicate, you should not be a dick etc. And you've internalized that. You know it will happen again and even if you're aware that your intentions are good, you're wearing that big armor not to get hurt back by the person in front of you who will, most probably, react poorly to your speech.

I am probably not helped by the fact that I'm a woman, in tech industry, surrounded by men and not only men, but engineer men! Men who studied in engineering schools, were told they were elite, smart, better than the others, who will have a prestigious career etc. These are full of ego. If you point at them that somewhere, in their codebase, you found an error, a bug, a dark pattern, whatever: they hurt. They can't accept that a woman be better (not that I think of myself as inherently better), that she could tell them what to do, even if she were the one to correct the mistake herself.

It's not only at work

This is happening everywhere in your autistic life. School was like that, office is like that, relations with the family is like that and sometimes friends are like that, the administration is like that and they're probably the worst, especially since they have so much power on your life.

Our traumatized brain can't win. We're surrounded. Being kind doesn't work, explaining doesn't work. The only thing that works is to be confident. Be the evil autistic gremlin that are told to be worry about. You're right and telling the truth? Tell it, spit your facts indeed! And if it hurts them, it's their problem, it's their emotional intelligence that they have to train. Our own emotional intelligence, supposedly atrophied by the same autism, is so strong and trained and always on guards that we are using it to protect people who don't deserve it instead of ourselves.

Find like-minded people

There is something my friends and me noticed with time: the only people we can be direct with are other autistic people. We share information, provide the context when needed. Sometimes the speech is harsh and too direct, but we won't get too upset because we know we all work like that. And at the end of the day, even if we struggle to convey feelings through our speech, if everything was went to be fine... then it's fine. You wanted a honest talk? We just had it.

If you're struggling with people around you to have balanced relationships, where everyone respects each others and the point is not to use your way of talking to attack you, then please find people who function like you. Do not stay alone surrounded by people who fit in the norm, you will always be reminded that you're different and unfit. Regardless of if we are talking about ableism, racism, lgbtqia-phobias, the pattern is always the same: people in the norm are raised to lack empathy towards those in the margin.

I am a queer neurodivergent woman. Men see me like dumb sex object who will do the chores and empower them. Neurotypicals see me like a emotionally unable child who hurts when she speaks but can't manage her frustration (if only you weren't the cause of all that frustration...). Straight people are weird as fuck with me: too gay to be safe, bisexual enough for them to be creepy.

Don't stay alone.

A conclusion somehow

I don't know what I wanted to achieve with this log, but it soothes to rant a bit about our experience of life. I hope other people who experience this kind of discrimination can find a little support in this text.