What has been your overall experience with non-autistics?

Post Reply New Topic

I have a question for my fellows on the spectrum.

What has been your overall life experience with non-autistics, otherwise known as neurotypicals?

Eager to learn your perspective.

I've had a mixed bag of experiences.

Mostly negative until adulthood.

Mostly positive afterwards, but with considerable negativity.

Virtually my entire education was spent in a couple of schools that were mainly comprised of autistic students. Which probably gives me a better understanding of what it's like to be in an autistic community.

The difference between autistics, especially aspies, and neurotypicals isn't all that significant in my experience.

Some are bad, some are good. During childhood to early college, mostly bad. Since then, mostly good.

I feel I can't understand neither.

I know a variety of different NTs so I cannot generalize. Some are more understanding than others. My family are a very thoughtful, caring and honest breed of NTs that are socially open-minded and appreciate people who are nice. I have come across some nasty NTs, and a lot of NTs seem to judge strangers more harshly than they do their family/friends/colleagues/acquaintances (at least from my experience).

Little demons in my early childhood and then a mixed bag when I entered my early teens. Many decide they want to mother and protect me but occasionally people pop up who REALLY hate my guts and try to hurt me. Basically, I usually get extreme reactions.

Cannot really generalise across the whole of humanity.

But mostly positive and confusing.

Varied

Varied individuals, like anyone.

Terrible when I was a kid. Not only the kids, but a good number of the adults too. Adolescence was a bit better because all kids were swimming in a pool of pubescent confusion, so NT peers were getting a taste of what I'd experienced all of my life. As an adult...I'm so guarded after nearly five decades that I don't really have much of an opinion about NTs either way. In general I can take them or leave them.

I've only had the pleasure of being around a large group of ND people once recently at an autism conference. Even though it was only one day, I can say without a doubt that I much preferred their company. They felt like family.

Similar to others replies. Some are lovely, most have little interest in me, a few have been predators and beyond horrible.

Most of my experiences of NTs were awful. They still make the excuse of which the oldest is ignorance or being uneducated. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be kind and try to understand it is like they want to use ignorance like a get out of jail card. A few non autistics but not many can be ignorant and show kindness as well but those are just a very small minority as rare as rocking horse poo. I have been bullied a lot during my childhood and adolescence at school and by my family as well. I have has non autistic people pretending to be my friends just to size me up to see what they can get out of me and when they couldn't get anything out of my just show their true colours and I still have to put up with pathetic excuses such as no one understanding me and all that BS.

They all seem to be effortlessly on the 'same page' together, where for me it takes extreme effort to attempt to be on that page. That being the case for me, they give me anxiety.

A mixed bag, but so is my experience with people on the spectrum.

Some examples, good and bad:

Good: My roster teacher that I had in 9th and 10th grade

Bad: When I bagged at a grocery store, a guy once asked me, "do you realize what you're doing? Is this your first day?"

There were these 2 separate shoppers who I thought were together, so I put both of their things in 2 different carts.

Good: One time last year, someone called the cops on me because I was visibly angry in my car in a parking lot. They were really impressed that I was able to explain to them that I had aspergers and other things well.

Bad: One time when playing tennis in gym, I was paired with one person to be my teammate. After playing one round, I heard her say to her friends "I don't want to be partners with him"

Good: An english teacher I had for a quarter. An example is when he told me one day "I know you have an IEP and I'm not going to hold that against you". He was the perfect example of how to treat a student on the spectrum.

Bad: A teacher in 9th grade who did nothing but criticize me. One day, it appeared that she was about to say something very mean, but held back. I dropped out of her class after a couple weeks.