Mind-blindness: a neurotypical thing?

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This might sound kind of odd, but I think the idea that mindblindness is an ASD thing is kind of incorrect. I understand that SOME people with ASD have full blown mindblindness, but I definitely do not and find that I am one of the most empathetic persons I know, far moreso than the average person, and people actually greatly appreciate my ability to see things from their perspective. I have a number of friends on the spectrum, and none of them seem any less capable of seeing things from other people's perspective than typical NTs, and all the most mind-blind unempathetic people I've met have been neurotypicals. I can list half a dozen people off the top of my head right now who are both neurotypical and absolutely incapable of seeing anything from any perspective other than their own. I even work with someone right now who constantly tells me what to do, where to go, what I should eat, etc based solely on what SHE wants to do, go, eat, etc. It's as if she has no concept that not everyone wants exactly the same things as her. I've experienced this a number of times, and it's always been with a neurotypical.

Your experiences?

I see what you mean. What you see depends very much on where you are standing. There is mass of evidence, sadly, which attests to a kind of blind insensitivity toward the feelings of AS people, yet it is so normalised that those behaviours are rarely seen nor named as a lack of understanding, as a failure of being able to walk in someone else's shoes, as lack of empathy. There is a very widespread blindness that is represented in the us and they dialogue which paints AS people in very black and white terms. There is an irony there, and you have seen it.

Othering is not unusual for minorities generally, though it appears to happen more intensely when it is aimed at AS people, as far as I can see from where I stand.

I have read many simplistic articles which are based on the assumption that inferring other's intentions and feeling states "comes naturally" for NTs as opposed to "them". Yet the huge sales of books such as "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" and the like suggests (at least to me) that the binary idea of NT = automatic awareness and AS = no capacity is, like most binaries, ignorant of the many shades of grey.

A lot of neurotypical theory of mind comes from the idea that another person's mind is fairly similar to their own, and has similar strength and weaknesses. So, yes. When it comes to ND people, that method of mind reading falls short. They loose their theory of mind. On the other hand, my theory of mind comes from the understanding that peoople are different than me. So, in theory, it should hold true over more instances, because people really are different. But I still make errors in how people think. For example, a discussion of facts or a book recommendation does not soothe the hurt when I disagree with someone.

Everyone makes errors in how other people think, it's the human condition..

Mindblindness is not an actual thing, it's just the result of a misinterpretation of a theory based on evidence which has recently been called into question. But even if the evidence does still said, mindblindness still isn't a thing as it was always a misinterpretation.

Yah. That post didn't make sense. I need to go to bed.

Endless wars prove NT's have mindblindness. The question is do the vast majority of ASD'rs have it and is the percentage of ASD're that have these issues substantially greater then NT's whom have these issues?

All I know is the cognative empathy element of mindblndness issues pretty much explains most key decisions I have made in my life. They can make having mindblinness/TOM/cognative empathy a reason to undiagnose someone like me, have it appear in snopes.com as hoax, burn Simon Baron Cohen at the stake, it would not change the explanation of my life.

I agree with the OP. A lot of people without things like depression and anxiety don't understand how depression and anxiety can affect a person's life.

Also I have a fear of dogs with loud barks, but people don't understand why. They say "oh the dog won't hurt you", but I just cannot feel relaxed if I am in the same room as a dog that is likely to bark.

I am uncomfortable around animals period, but barking dogs are the worst and people are always trying to tell me that the dog is harmless. I think it is a sound sensitivity.

I have noticed this online and experienced it in real life. To me what it looks like is no one ever understands if they have never been in that situation. Like if you (general you) have never been poor before, you will not understand poor people and their perspective on how they live and the choices they make. It's the same with mental illnesses and disabilities, people who don't have that condition will not understand.

I honestly think people don't even try. They may be capable but they just don't try because they don't want to understand. I have seen people online say how they refuse to learn about autism because they just don't care. I notice people do not give a darn unless they know someone with autism who is involved in their life, then they will try to understand and educate themselves about it. But they will not learn it after meeting a stranger with it and try and understand something when they might only run into an autistic person once in a while who they will never see again and will only see for one day or for a few hours or for 45 minutes. Not everyone is interested in mental illnesses or disabilities if they are not involved with someone who has it such as student, neighbor, friend, child, close relative, someone they nanny or babysit, working in a hospital or special ed or being a special ed bus driver or working in social services or working as a therapist or having a patient with it. The reason why my mom would be interested is because she is a nurse and has worked in hospitals where special needs kids and kids with deformatities (sp) lived and that was back in the 70's and plus she had me so of course she might want to learn about any disorders out there as possible to see what I have and how my brain works and how she can help me. But if someone has a "normal" child, they wouldn't be interested, especially if they are not a nurse or a medical professional or a therapist or a social worker and if they are not a special ed teacher. But even if they do work in a school and have a student that has special needs or a problem, they may still not even try to understand and I know this from experience because it has happened to me. They may think they have a kid figured out but they don't. Of course they wouldn't understand because they are not me and are not in my head so they wouldn't understand.

I used to fear dogs because we had a mean dog next door so I thought all dogs were that way. So one day a big dog ran up to me and started licking me and stuff and I was screaming and crying and my best friend did nothing. I don't think she understood my fear of dogs so she might have thought I was over reacting and being a cry baby and my dad had to come and rescue me. No one did anything to stop that dog.

I imagine a person having a fear of dogs so they kick a dog in self defense that gets close to them and bam they are seen as the bad guy and their fear would have been invalidated.

The conflicts between my mum and I that happened earlier this year were caused by mind-blindness on both of our parts. I was mind-blind to the fact that my mum wasn't prepared for the real me to come through. My mum was mind-blind to the fact that England was a mask for me instead of a fixed thing. She was also mind-blind to the fact that I've preferred Germany over Britain for a long time. I was mind-blind to the fact that my mum saw me as a real woman and She was mind-blind to the fact that I'm transgender. I was mind-blind to the fact that it was very uncool to wear a German helmet in the 60s and she was mind-blind to the fact that it doesn't matter what people wear these days, anything goes. I was mind-blind to the fact that my mum hasn't learned to cut the apron strings and she was mind-blind to the fact that I was always a rebel and I'm always going to do what I want to.

It is so frustrating being an Aspie, because it's like we're forced to live a double standard. NTs misunderstand Aspies (and other neurodiversities) so much, and lots have a real hard time figuring out how it feels to be in our shoes, and just want us to be like them and then we get mocked if we don't want to be. But us non-NTs are forced to understand NTs and their thoughts and feelings all the time, and if we don't, well, we are shamed and perceived as "coldhearted inconsiderate phychopaths with no empathy whatsoever".

There's no such thing as mind-blindness. Either that, or everyone has it.

Basically, NTs see that Aspies have a hard time understanding how NT minds work (motivations, desires, intentions, etc.) They call that mind-blindness. At the same time, NT understanding of Aspie minds is usually MUCH POORER still, because Aspies have to deal with NTs every day and the opposite is usually not true. This, however, is not mind-blindness, because....????? Because they're literally so mind-blind that they can't even recognize it in themselves.

Agreed. I think being empathetic and having a flexible frame of mind doesn't necessarily have much to do with being NT/ND. It's more about the individual in question, and variables between the self and others.

I do believe autistics have more TOM/cognative empathy issues then NT's generally. I do believe we bieng a small minority in an NT world is the prime explination for this for the reasons stated above. If you are NT unless you have an immediate family member or close friend on the spectrum you have no real need to understand autistics. And even if you do have somebody close to you that is autistic your whole life you have had reinforcing messages that the NT way (socialization skills are most important in life and anybody but "ret*ds" should acquire them naturally etc) is the right way so anything that differs must be wrong.