Neurotypicals, what do you think of them?
I know this thread was posted in 2008, but I've been looking through WP to see which topic will suit with what I want to write, and this is relatively the closest I could find (and is rather interesting too).
People on the spectrum think that all NTs have exactly the right thing to say in any situation, and never feel awkward or confused, no matter who the individual is. This is quite wrong. Even the typical NT often reaches a point in their lives where they feel socially phobic in situations, and experiences problems in their social lives - and this doesn't just happen once either.
Last week at work I heard a group of NT telling eachother about how they don't always know what to say to someone who is feeling rather overwhelmed in a bad situation. My own mum is NT, and her best friend (who she's known since she was 4) has had her husband walk out on her and found out he had been having another affair with someone else behind her back, but my mum seems to be avoiding her lately because she says she doesn't quite know what to say to her. And I was like, ''but I thought that was just people like me who find it hard to know what to say to people in awkward situations?'' and my mum said, ''it happens to people without Autism, too.''
So I just think neurotypicals are a little like Aspies underneath, but just can know how to look beyond themselves and fit in with the social world more without struggling like Autistics do - although they can come to a situation they don't quite know what to do. Only with Autistics, coming to a situation where they don't know what to do is more frequent, and is ''normal'' for a person on the spectrum.
Besides, if you meet one NT, you haven't met them all. If NTs were all the same, this world would be very dull and boring.
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Female
I often get the feeling that once up on a time, someone somewhere sat down with their group of friends and listed all the things they thought made people normal before turning this list into a mold into which everyone who was 'normal' would have to fit.
Anyone who did not fit that mold would be deemed as 'abnormal' or 'wrong' and so they would be pushed into treatment in order to make them fit that mold so that they could become just as normal as the normal people.
I prefer to think that people are just different and that difference can sometimes be a good thing.
I don't generally "think about NTs" at all, I think about individual people.
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"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams
People on the spectrum think that all NTs have exactly the right thing to say in any situation, and never feel awkward or confused, no matter who the individual is. This is quite wrong. Even the typical NT often reaches a point in their lives where they feel socially phobic in situations, and experiences problems in their social lives - and this doesn't just happen once either.
Last week at work I heard a group of NT telling eachother about how they don't always know what to say to someone who is feeling rather overwhelmed in a bad situation. My own mum is NT, and her best friend (who she's known since she was 4) has had her husband walk out on her and found out he had been having another affair with someone else behind her back, but my mum seems to be avoiding her lately because she says she doesn't quite know what to say to her. And I was like, ''but I thought that was just people like me who find it hard to know what to say to people in awkward situations?'' and my mum said, ''it happens to people without Autism, too.''
So I just think neurotypicals are a little like Aspies underneath, but just can know how to look beyond themselves and fit in with the social world more without struggling like Autistics do - although they can come to a situation they don't quite know what to do. Only with Autistics, coming to a situation where they don't know what to do is more frequent, and is ''normal'' for a person on the spectrum.
Besides, if you meet one NT, you haven't met them all. If NTs were all the same, this world would be very dull and boring.
I understand the angle that this type of reasoning comes from, but I think it is flawed.The situation with your mother and her friend is difficult for everyone involved because it is highly personal, severity emotional, and a total life-changing event.
When it comes to issues of Autism, Anxiety, Phobias, etc. we are talking about totally different type of problems. We're talking about common everyday things that affect the person afflicted in one way, but affect most other people a different way.
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DenvrDave
Veteran
Joined: 17 Sep 2009
Age: 59
Gender: Male
Posts: 790
Location: Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
I think of NT neurology as an outdated though successful neurology.
I was watching a cat killing moths, practising her killing techniques.
This same instinctive mind, the ancient reptilian centre at the base of the brain that NT's possess, is a fantastic survival adaptation - IN THE OLD WORLD
At present, and IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE, strong NT qualities will become less useful, and adaptive mechanisms will introduce a HYBRID NT.
Try imagining what cars will look like in 100years. Our minds will design themselves too, environments will alter the DNA spiral.... or more precisely, Brussels may have a hand in things...
I just take people as they come, whatever diversity they may have. I think that as long as people are generally nice to me and are friendly, I like them back. If they are nasty to me, well, they can piss off. (That goes to the girls who bullied me last year.)
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Female
I was watching a cat killing moths, practising her killing techniques.
This same instinctive mind, the ancient reptilian centre at the base of the brain that NT's possess, is a fantastic survival adaptation - IN THE OLD WORLD
At present, and IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE, strong NT qualities will become less useful, and adaptive mechanisms will introduce a HYBRID NT.
Try imagining what cars will look like in 100years. Our minds will design themselves too, environments will alter the DNA spiral.... or more precisely, Brussels may have a hand in things...
Hey, my instincts are my best qualities. My conscious thought, when it exists, exists best mainly as a support system for thoe instincts. And I'm autistic, and I know plenty of others that are this way. So it's not like NTs are the only ones who go by instincts.
Meanwhile, if other sorts of autistic people truly lacked those reptilian brain centers they wouldn't be able to function at all, in spite of claiming to be all about conscious, "logical" (?!?) thought.
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"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams
Hey, my instincts are my best qualities. My conscious thought, when it exists, exists best mainly as a support system for thoe instincts. And I'm autistic, and I know plenty of others that are this way. So it's not like NTs are the only ones who go by instincts.
Meanwhile, if other sorts of autistic people truly lacked those reptilian brain centers they wouldn't be able to function at all, in spite of claiming to be all about conscious, "logical" (?!?) thought.
I think the word doesn't really exist and it's just a made up word for people off the spectrum. Lot of people have problems and disabilities and other mental problems. It doesn't describe them nor define them, they are just them. Things people do is because they're human or because they are just a jerk or stupid or a bully, etc. not because they are NT.
I hate people in general but I am not going to hate someone just because they are a person. If they are nice, non judgmental, open minded, not ignorant, I like them. But of course everyone is judgmental and ignorant and everyone is closed minded because we don't know everything and it's impossible to not judge anything or be open about everything or else we be accepting robberies or child molestation or rape.
As my mother always says "What's normal?" and she also says "There would be no normal people in the world" if normal meant not having anything wrong with you and you were perfect.