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Anyone notice how all (well intentioned) advice for autistic people is just "mask harder"? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/autism@lemmy.world
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What the title says. Well intentioned, often other "neurodivergent" people look at your life, your autism, and say: "you should mask harder."

For example, I accidentally said something that offended a friend. Won't go into detail, but it was me unintentionally coming off as arrogant, not something bad like a slur or hate speech.

I asked for advice (elsewhere) and the advice was universally, "you see, NT avoid this topic at all costs. Going forwards, know it is best to avoid this topic."

But isn't this just saying "mask harder and be more palatable for everyone else"?

Every piece of "autism advice" I see even in "neurodivergent friendly" communities is basically "how to be less autistic."

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[–] -1 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

I see it more like "those poor NTs can't help it, here's how you deal with them" in the sense of, they're not smart enough to understand you, so you have to understand them. If I run into a problem where a child doesn't understand me, I don't expect the child to understand me better, I expect to explain it better.

If literal aliens visited the Earth, I would try to understand them, and at the same time I hope they'd try to understand me, but I can only control my own understanding, not "make them understand me".

It's not so much about "what you're doing is wrong" more about "you can control yourself but not them, so you can do better". At the same time, if you notice they're not even making an effort, and they should know better, you're in your right to point that out. If you talk with someone reasonable, they'll understand.

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