On communicating and viciousness.

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I don't normally post in this section of the site. I am not sure how often I will post on it after this. It is really disturbing to me that this is the only section of the site that I can expect for the restriction on personal attacks to actually be enforced.

There are ways in which I am not like a lot of the people here. In particular, compared to other areas of ability, my comprehension is much lower than people would expect, especially linguistic and symbolic comprehension.

When I am on a website reading and responding to stuff, my entire thinking is taken up by the acts of reading and responding and figuring out what's said and how to say any reaction to it I might have. I don't always get things right, and I don't always react the right way. I try to take responsibility for my side of the problem, apologize, and if necessary explain what was actually going on.

But lately the viciousness of this forum has got me afraid of reading it. I can't count the number of pretty extreme accusations and insults I have seen people throwing back and forth at each other. I can't even count the number of people doing it. I don't understand why an extra level of viciousness and vitriol seems to be permitted at the moment.

I don't mind anger, I can handle anger, anger is straightforward. Viciousness is not particularly straightforward, though, and that is something I have trouble tracking or handling, or defending myself against. I have had trouble doing that my entire life.

I don't know how to describe my mental state when I deal with forums. I described it in another post and was attacked, out of nowhere, for no reason, which was the last straw for me. But I'll try again.

I'm focused on figuring out what people mean, and what I think in response to them.

I have nothing left over, from that struggle, to use on tracking the back-and-forth weird social dynamics I see going on, the ones where people are forming little groups that fight each other for reasons I don't understand. I can see those things, but they are as if out of nowhere to me. There's no apparent reason for them other than people wanting to hurt each other.

And I have nothing left over to use on defending myself from those things. And I never have.

I can still remember -- vividly -- times when I had put all my effort into accomplishing something when it came to conversation.

I can replay these conversations exactly.

Because the words I had worked really hard to find and place in the right places, finally fell into place, and I was really happy about that.

And somehow, invariably, someone would come along and use what I still could not understand against me.

For instance, I remember once someone asked me an either/or question about how I think.

I worked out how to reply to the question, by taking one part of the either/or thing and replying with that part. (It was not the best answer possible, but I had managed to answer, and I had managed to give the least inaccurate answer, and I was really happy about that.)

I asked the same question back at the other person.

The other person got very happy and smug and gave a reply that was not either/or -- something she could do at that point in time and I could not, and she was aware of that. She enjoyed pulling the rug out from under me when it came to language comprehension as often as she could, and that was one instance where she did just that.

I know that it isn't just my flawed perception or something, because I was around a number of other people who saw her do things like that to me and have commented on how cruel it was. One other person who used to do things like that to me, has apologized profusely every time since then that he has talked to me at all. He is fully aware that what he did was wrong and intended to hurt me -- at one point he said it was revenge for my not being who he wanted me to be.

At any rate, right now it feels like the same minefield all over again. By minefield, I mean that these attacks on other people are coming out of nowhere as far as I'm concerned. I can't anticipate most of them, so I can't see them until they're right in my face. I get really nervous in environments where I see a high level of vicious insults being flung around, because as far as I'm concerned... there's no reason at all for them, they just happen, and if two people in my vicinity are throwing them at each other, it's likely they'll throw them at or near me at some time in the future.

And I have never, ever found an effective defense against them. I am slower at coming up with words. I know I look very verbose, but it is in limited areas, my verbal abilities are just not set up to handle or deflect this kind of thing. They are way too direct for that. There are plenty of people in the world (some autistic, some not) who can't write anything near as long as I can, or can't write at all, but can in a sentence or two convey far more social-positioning statements than I'll probably ever be able to create in a lifetime.

And I haven't the slightest clue how to deal with that. I want to ask, don't people have anything better to do than be vicious and nasty? When I go to the trouble to explain exactly what my trouble processing language is (something it's taken me a lifetime to learn how to do), why on earth is it met with insults? Do people want me to pretend to understand things I don't understand or what? I thought this was one place I wouldn't have to deal with people either using innuendo against me, or reading innuendo and hidden agendas into my writing that isn't there. Why is it that the clearer I communicate the more some people seem to hate it? It's like I start to master one thing and people start accusing me of doing something five levels of communication higher than I'm even capable of.

I believe I know one of the situations to which you are referring; I can assure you that I have no idea where the name-calling, etc. came from. Then again, I don't have the history with this site that you do.

When I joined, an entire month, maybe two, ago, I noticed the same trend. It really does seem as if (some, but not all) people on this site are jockeying for position in the eyes of....someone. And one of the favored strategies is personal attack. I can only guess that it is so much static thrown from damaged egos trying to repair themselves.

I am sorry that you have been the target, deliberate or not, of so much destructive energy and bitterness. I would love to know why. I wonder if anyone could cite any actual reasons....

For the two months or so that I have been reading them, your posts have been insightful, accurate, balanced and gentle. For what it's worth. I can't imagine why that would incite a riot. I guess people are waiting to riot.

I'm not sure what my response will tell you or will accomplish. I did want to give you my opinion on the situation. I hope you continue to post.

I will. I didn't mean that I was planning on going away, just that instead of approaching this place as somewhere I could let my guard down while discussing things of interest, it seems like that isn't the case. Actually the isolated attack or two against me I can handle, it's more the undercurrent of meanness I see in some places (mostly directed at people who are not me) that both baffles me and scares me a bit. Not like, snapping every once in awhile like anyone does (heck, I just did a few posts ago), but just gratuitous nastiness.

I actually don't know who I'm talking about, because unless I really pay attention I tend to forget who said what. Which is just as well because it's the actions that are the problem.

Although when there's a continuing trend of nastiness it also puts me on guard in the same way as being faceblind at school put me on guard -- I still don't know how many mean kids there were because I couldn't tell any but a few of them apart from the nice ones.

That, and I'm PMSing, which might explain why I'm taking things more personally than I normally would (and why I'm grumpy, too). I might actually be fine in a few days.

But I do have an underlying assumption of good-faith conversation. I think maybe because I have to in order to consider the effort worth it? I don't know. It could just be naivete. And it's always disturbing when I see conversations happening that are not in good faith, because I've got just about no tools to deal with that, whether it's directed at me or someone else.

I wrote this about it last year:

anbuend,
am agree with everything,it's making a mess of wp.

it's not fair that some WPers have been using the language problems that [anbuend] have got,against self,if anything that is discrimination? and is something would have thought everyone here is against-rather than a user of.
it does not take knowledge to understand another user-or their difficulties,just understanding and tolerance-being on an autism forum,they should be aware that everyone has got different needs and difficulties here,and they have no right to come on WP to treat people like lesser beings and crap.
am also know of one user here,who looks like is only here to make personal attacks which is against the rules[am sure am recognise the name from the old A.S. forum],yet she's still posting the same thing.


am understand about not knowing if will answer,am have cut down a lot on any threads that are big topics and use a lot of direct communication.
am also notice that self [anbuend] is never nasty and are tolerant to everyone else here,so why should someone who never gives it-get it back?


am also never understand why those who make personal attacks here,do it around the person-ignoring them,rather than speak to them,have they never heard of private message?


if need to cut down the amount of topics for a while,do it as head stuff is more important than posts.

I've had similar reactions as well.. I'm not so great with words myself, and awful at explaining things, but I've never intended to be rude to someone for no reason. I'll get angry if someone is rude to me, but until that point I'm as polite as I can be. And yet I get accused of being a nasty person, and told that I look fat in my avatar(a different one that I have right now), which is of no importance to anyone either way. I also have people reading into things I say and accusing me of thinking of things like pedophilia.. which.. is so out of the blue and I just don't get it because the comment I'm talking about had nothing to do with it!

I actually did leave for a little while, just because I'm so tired of being put down and misunderstood. At the very least, you're not alone.

mmm I think PPR and Activism generally seem to attract antagonists, so I've come to expect it there. I don't venture into Activism much at all, so that's just an impression.

Generally there is a bit more rudeness or obnoxious type responses around. Lets hope it's just a passing phase.

There are some new members who seem to be very intolerant. I think it's very sad that a person's ASness is used against them at an AS support site. I have a lot of the same issues about posting, understanding what's been said and what's been meant (sometimes the difference between the two is mind-blowing ) and the effort involved to grasp meaning. Also never know how to defend myself. It's something that makes me feel very inadequate.

But if the reasonable, 'good faith' members stop posting, then what are we left with? The nastiness just gets less diluted and the general atmosphere becomes worse. Let's hope it's just a phase, WP does go through odd phases like this sometimes. Maybe post in the 'gentler' forums for a while. But don't let anyone make you leave

I have just read a personal attack in one of the other threads in the Haven. That does surprise me. I thought the Haven was a relatively safe place to post.

i appreciate your post.

(and on an unrelated note, KingdomOfRats, i love how you talk. am understand quicker that structure.)

i would say that i easily get sucked into insult flinging sometimes. sometimes i read a post that is just so hateful, i respond back with something mean, just because i feel like it is too bad not to object to and i get so angry about it.

i suppose i am supposed to report it to someone, but i usually just post something like, "you are an as*hole" instead. i guess i get so mad not because it hurts me personally-- but because i worry about other people reading it and taking it to heart.

if a post is locked, then that is just one person who complained about it... but if i post and say that i find something completely stupid, then the next person who feels that way will know that they are not the only one.

Oh, figured I'd add, the nastiness I was referring to was in the general forum, not any of the other forums that I read far less often. And the vast majority of it was not directed at me, it was just directed at various people in general, creating an unpleasantly hostile atmosphere.

ahh...I was about to say 'odd'...flamewars...

but if it's the GD forum...well in my experience that's the worst part of forums often.....that and the trashcan part...worse if they fuse