An NT perspective

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I'm not completely AS and I'm not completely NT. I can see the world from both angles, but don't fully understand either side.

After reading a few posts here I have sympathy for people who feel that they have to put on an act constantly and are tired of trying to work out what an acceptable way of behaving is. I feel that stress from time to time and often second guess myself and try and work out what people actually mean when they say things to me. I often get confused.

However, I was just thinking about how tiring it can be for an NT with an Autistic relative. The majority of my family have autistic traits. I am always trying to work out why my relatives behave the way they do. I try so hard to be understanding, but sometimes I just get so tired that I feel like I'm going to snap!

Yet, I keep reading on here about how so many AS and Autistic people are angry that they are not understood and are being told to change. Please, please spare a thought for how we do try and understand. Sometimes it gets too much and we snap and we say angry things, we use threats as motivation to change behaviour that we see will get you hurt either emotionally or physically. We do care. But we find it difficult at times as well.

I really think that they (NT's) are as clueless about us as we are about them.

I think a lack of real emotional understanding in how one thing can be so hard for one yet relatively easy for another causes all kinds of tension and hurt. The lack of understanding goes both ways. Also, it seems people are given much less slack for emotional issues compared to physical ones. Having to accommodate for a quadriplegic could also be draining and exhausting, yet the quadriplegic doesn't need to worry as much about being the target of frustration and derision for being what they are. If anything is seen as something within the realm of possibility of changing through will-power (realistic or unrealistic), people tend to take that as a justification to place blame. They do it without even thinking or intellectualizing what they are doing.

I somehow thought this would be the topic.

There is a point to which I try to be understanding, although many people in my life have crossed that line to the point of abuse, and as a consequence I am emotionally ill-equipped to just assume goodwill on the part of non-autistic people who may express how frustrating it is to be around me. I already try to go beyond what I normally tolerate to accommodate others, but I find that it's very difficult to get any kind of concession to how I function. Even asking for a minor thing ("If you need me to do something, please give me a deadline") starts an argument.

I mean I do not go around being mean to the non-autistic people in my life (I think I only live with one other NT, but everyone else has ADHD), or expecting them to do everything for me or accommodate my every wish, or what-have-you. But at the same time, when I am told it is impossible to meet me part way and I have to change myself completely to be just like them (this happened two weeks ago) when it is impossible and trying takes so much effort, it is difficult to accept that perspective, no matter how well-meaning the advice was intended to be.

I think both NTs and people with AS have to try to be understanding of each other, as do all people, since everyone is different, but it's not always easy. I sympathize with the people who say that being autistic places a much greater burden on the autistic person to try to adapt than vice versa, because autistics are in the minority.

I had a similar experience when I was living in a foreign country. I had to extend myself to try to understand what other people meant, but whenever I committed the slightest language mistake, other people were stumped instead of trying to extend themselves to understand me.

Exactly.

I think I am pretty understanding. In fact, I feel it's to the point where I'm constantly being walked all over because I try so hard to do everything that's expected of me that I end up suffering for it, when the other person would not have suffered if I hadn't made that effort.

I hate when I see groups of autistic people ganging up and bullying an NT.

The more I try to understand other people the more different I feel.

Yeah, same. I have a reputation for basically not being argumentative or causing drama, and yet people start drama with me and demand things of me, and I am expected to just give in every time.

This is what we deal with all the time, with pretty well everyone.

Same here.

Because that really shows that you care?

Firstly, not everyone has the same experience from their NT family members. My family members call me weird and a few of them look at me like everything I say and do is wrong. I get mocked playfully but at other times I just get tossed aside and told to act normal or 'oh please please please be on your best behaviour' - like I had a choice.
When I'm going through my worst state of stress and overload that's when I get that look like I'm nothing more than a piece of gum stuck to their shoe and this is at my most debilitating moment.

The fact is they don't show understanding. They don't educate themselves on my disorders. They mock my symptoms. I've even had my meltdowns made fun of. They think I'm a hopeless case that will get nowhere in life.

I must remember to thank my family for showing me understanding by making me feel like my life is a joke, that my most impairing symptoms are to be laughed at and not taken seriously. Or that I simply get yelled at for not trying hard enough.

But I suppose I do love them because we are the family that doesn't take anything seriously, just a family of comedians and happy drunks.