Running into misunderstandings on this forum

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The main part of Autism or Aspergers is that it is a communications disorder.

I have along with the vast majority on this board being misunderstood in the NT world.

Now you get a whole load of us on this forum and while we mostly help each other out we do run into misunderstandings.

I started a thread two years ago with a sarcastic title not the best idea on an Autism forum I see now.

If somebody says something that might seem offensive I think we should remember where we are and ask for clarification before reacting.

We accuse NTs of doing this to us but we tend to do it a bit ourselves.

I understand your point.

Since joining this forum I have been very pleasantly surprised at how relatively few big misunderstandings arise. It has been good practice for me to give extra thought and care to how I say things in order to minimize that.

I feel like I'm definitely misunderstanding what you're saying (quite ironic I suppose, but please reply and clarify), but I consider these following things that I witness on the board to be relevant regarding misunderstandings:


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+ Generalizations and stereotyping of 'neurotypical' individuals (I.e. Assumptions that neurotypicals do not have problems and have perfect social skills etc.).
+ Assumptions that everyone who is nasty in the world is neurotypical.
+ Claims that neurotypicals don't understand autistics, when it is just as evident that some autistics don't understand neurotypicals. This is also a generalization.

Perhaps my least favourite of all:

+ The on-going invisible war between two imaginary groups.

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Having Autism/Asperger's does not pigeon hole an individual's identity into a small circle as it provides very limited insight into whom a person truly is. The same goes for the term 'neurotypical', in that although the neurology of each individual is relatively 'typical', every person is unique. There are structural differences in autism, that is known, but how important are those differences in contrast to personality and actual identity? A disorder does not define an individual any more so than any other aspect of what makes someone human. Even with that said, our understanding of neurology is so limited that for all we know, something as simple as increased lazyness could be caused by a difference in neurology, and not be classified simply because others have more motivation etc. Where is the line drawn? Fact of the matter is we don't and presently cannot know.

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Unapologetically, Norny.
-chronically drunk

I have misunderstandings every where I go be it a forum or otherwise.

So much so I feel that life as a mute hermit may just be for me...

I personally believe that misunderstandings will happen inevitably in any congregation of people, be it offline or online. While, yes, there is an element of mutual understanding among the majority of the poster body here on WrongPlanet, due to our community consisting of autistics and allies, we are still each of us individuals, coming from individual backgrounds, walks of life, and schools of philosophy, that vary greatly from poster to poster. One must also not necessarily view the occurrence of misunderstandings that arise due to this variation, as inherently a bad thing; it is precisely the things that get lost in translation in the exchange between two or more posters, that may prompt one to revise their own views.

I try my best to write as well as possible to mitigate misunderstandings. Still, they can happen and people could get offended. Such is life.

Misunderstandings suck and it happens to lot of people online ASD or not. Fetlife is the worse and babycenter.