It's Time For an Alternative to "Fitting In"

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My previous post was deleted for violation of this rule. I deeply and publicly apologize for my flagrant disregard of Wrong Planet policies. It was not my intention to create conflict. The other part of my post was thanking alba for his wonderful post on the abuse autistics suffer at the hands of NTs. It is truly horrid the ridiculous NT rules that are imposed on us by society, and the horrid abuses they inflict on us when we don't want to follow them. I said other things, but I cannot remember them now.

There should be an aspie uprising

I was oblivious to the idea of "fitting in" until very recently.
I'm very disturbed by it, surely everyone's an individual in his or her own right?


An alternative to not "fitting in", I believe I've experienced it.

I've often found myself on the periphery of social groups.
I've often been assigned roles such as solo drawing, record keeping, sorting objects and equipment checking due to my intense focus on details. Would an archaic term for that be "divination"?

It's kind of spooky, but people gravitate towards to me to ask me for answers to technical problems from plotting a graph to how to flush an infrared activated lavatory (someone thought the handle was missing!).

Technical one to one assistant for those that are in difficulty. I can't help helping people whoever they are, it's beyond weird. They ask me lots of questions. I am the "human penknife" of skills.

When everyone's run out of ideas, they stop talking and look at me in desperation for inspiration. I'm like the "secret weapon", the "reserve player" when all other options have been tried.

I sometimes feel like a quiet blacksmith working away alone in his hut on the outskirts of a tribal village. People come to me for practical advice, it's not often the other way round.

By helping others in practical ways, I've felt like I've belonged.
That's not the same as "fitting in" though. My speech is sometimes erratic and esoteric, focussed on the physical environment.

Cool post, AmberEyes!

Please pardon the in-put from a newbie here.

Am high-functioning autie(whatever that really means) and have not always liked being part of an NT-oriented world.

Simultaneously, tended to down-play my autism when I was younger(am 44 going on 45 now), before, over a long process, accepting it, and myself, for who and what I am.

Is my autism the sole part of my identity??? No. I have many identities,as a member of a family, the region in which I live, my country(US), and so on.

But, it's certainly one of the most important parts of who I am. How can it not be, since it influences so much of how I take in information from the outside world, process it and understand it.

Have got to the point, thanks, in part to neurological rehabilitation therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and living on my own(albeit on Social Security Disability and SSI payments)since 1988, to where I can, to a fair extent, function(sort of)in the world.

Does that mean everything's okey-dokey in my life??? No, but I can at least handle most things, even if I swear, blaspheme, and drive myself utterly mad at times about various crises, great and small.

Live alone with my cat, Amigo(lovely creature), and, while I would like romantic or similar such companionship, well, that may not be in the cards for me.

Either way, the big task for me is to accept myself for who and what I am, flaws and all, work on the flaws I can correct(No, Autism isn't one of those ), and at least minimise the rest.

If have understood this premise's thread at all, it is the longing by the poster(Sorry if I didn't catch your name)to find others who understand what she's going through.

Not an easy task, even for NTs, I think.

One of the big problems in human communication, whether NT, Spectrum or other condition, is that so often, signals put out by one individual to another, of whatever kind you care to name, can and are often mis-understood, mis-construed, or, whether deliberately or accidentally, ignored or disregarded by their recipient, and any return signals sent out may be likewise botched.

Right now, can't think of any good places or people to whom the poster could turn for this, as am relatively new to most of this myself. But, I wish her the very best of luck, and to the rest of you out there, in finding such places and people, if that is your desire.

As for myself, well, am here to listen, learn, and, Yes, put my two cents in on topics from time to time.

In fact, as you can already see, it's oft-times hard for me to shut up .

There have been two other posters whose therapists have told them that, more or less, they are in the world, but not of it. I agree with that, because that's how I see myself.

Learn what you can and want to of the world and its ways, accept those into your life that you may find useful to yourself, and give the rest of it a miss, I think.

Knowing the premises behind the world's logic, or lack thereof, and how it works doesn't, and should never mean, buying into them whole hog.

Anyhow, that's all for me. Next!! !

I'm always of the opinion that 'they need us'. It's how you get them to acknowledge it that is a problem.

Given the difficulties of living with autism are discussed in these forums, as well as meetups, could this be shortened to:

Mods, please make a projects section.

?

No sarcasm intended. These are good posts.

I have a secret weapon that I use under all stress with people who fit in, I smile. the more they ignore me, tease me, talk around me, the bigger I smile. you see this is one thing that will bug a nt more than anything. don't do it 24 hours a day just anytime someone is making you angry in real life. it's pointless online or watching t.v. sometimes people will group up and get loud just because I'm not seeking their approval to be happy. don't let anyone ever get the power to take control of your mood their not worth it. I don't care how cheesy the smile do it! and if that doesn't work, raise your arms to the sky,head up and say what bothers you.

My alternative is just being myself, doing my own thing and loving the people in my life.

I feel your pain svcruse, I to fit nowhere in this world and also cannot got my own school to be honest i start to cry as soon as I get out of the car and have to go into the school for their wonderful state test’s, in fact I have one tomorrow and i don't know how I’m going to handle it, but as said before i think to go through our lives, different, and cut-off in some many ways, we must remain vigilant and subtlety explain to many people our situations, they will accept our obstacles soon enough, just not yet.

Time is unforgiving and takes every second away from you, but you... You see a brighter light, and because of that "I" do wish to say just hang in there, it will get better..... One way or another it will get better!

Am I the only person here who thinks that even if there were some sort of Aspie-only society that there would still eventually be a hierarchy, a set of behaviors and values to conform to, as soon as people forgot what it was like to be on the outside looking in?

That aside, I do think that there is far too much emphasis on "fitting in" these days at the expense of original thought or techniques that actually work but happen to be unorthodox. Control freaks (and that's what they are more than anything, control freaks) insist that things MUST be done, said and even thought about in one particular way no matter how dysfunctional in order to be normal and therefore right. To be blunt, f**k them.

The people worth one's time in the first place will be the ones who care about what a person can do instead of how well they can do the same thing that everyone else does. For a lot of people, what might be "weird" if it were coming from someone who did nothing worthwhile would become merely "eccentric" if done by someone who was useful, or at very least interesting, and did their best on a regular basis to be a decent person. These are the people from whom we can expect acceptance from regardless of how well we fit in.

Basically, there are non-separatist ways to not fit in and still make it in the world. It might be harder, but it's worth learning how to do, at least I think.

In business advocacy I have found that fitting in is not necessary. Simply in business it's not what has been left out but what has not yet asserted itself as expected to be part of normal.

First, what are your feelings about changing behavior, not out of a desire to fit in, but out of a desire not to offend others?

Second, to those of you who support separatism, do you fear that this will damage Aspie-NT relations?

I suppose the questions are being asked to the general readership and not to the last reply which was me.

Psychosocial separatism is mechanized based upon actualizing and focusing on differences, the N.T and otherwise ideas. Firstly we are all human and me personally I've never thought much of these concepts and always felt them to be a waste. I have observed fantasies of autism being a sub-species which made special and or recognized developmental differences as not necessary impairment but unique and qualifying special differences. This originated I believe socially and individually with the original thinker unto a group and beyond as a response I believe to notions of inferiority, making others feel defective. The self-esteem, ego if you will, need adapt to balance this negativity and so this was perhaps the coping mechanism. We should observe however ourselves and the group more abstractly and with less emotional personal influences if at all possible and that perhaps it all originated from others tying to help instead of make others feel inferior, thus labeled and defective. Socially and otherwise in evolution we can say those with autism can adapt emotionally and sociologically by normalizing differences as part of normalcy and render not the negative judgment of others as anything but unusual itself and simply typical of general insecurities on either or both sides.

The so said N.T firstly is unaware he or she is so and the labeled firstly is unaware of being so said labeled. Every human person is different and this is realized naturally. IF we think back in times of innocents, as far as we can think back into our childhood, no such concepts existed nor were fathomed. Hence so said relations are non-organic and are not natural but man made in a complex social way. It all has to do with adaptation of the human spirit to coexists through understanding and integrate in response to a lack of accommodation (equal participation). What truthfully is harmful is not simply separation with concepts dividing people and minds like skin colors but neurological constructs but a lack of unity of human spirit in actualization.

When it comes down to it, accepting oneself and estranging the idea that differences are alienable either by yourself or others is healthy. Behaviors are uniquely our own individually and if having to do with autism there is nothing another can do to really change what manifested and is so resulting naturally. If you are speaking about divisive social behavior I'd say being positive and friendly can help people with autism much more then when one or a few with autism or even without autism are so angry divisive advocacy persists in a manner that harms others by it's very social nature. This is a complex topic and being more specific is required.

I hope that I have entertained the topic in its intended context.

In two sentences, you have very much captured the essence of my existence in the social scene. Amen!

It was quite interesting actually. I was watching an Anthropology documentary and it seems that some traditions do allow for this niche.

There's a culture and folklore in place to protect an individual who lives and works on the outskirts of a tribal settlement. This person is often a tool maker, carpenter and metal worker, and is respected for his skills. The elaborate tribal stories about this person's ancestors discovering fire ensure that the person has a social network in the background to take care of him and protect him. Also helpers to bring him ore, wood etc. They can also find him a wife from another village if necessary (usually of "blacksmith" decent). People seem to come into the hut to check he's okay every so often or bring him food in exchange for the things he makes. The don't patronise him: they respect him for his skill.

Otherwise, he doesn't really say much. He just works by his fire, tells the odd story and makes things. People in the village respect him for that and don't badger him into socialising or group activities. The villagers just accept that the man's role is to make things for them, some of the items, such as masks, having spiritual significance.

In those sort of societies, clearly defined roles ensure a stable community.
In the west, our roles aren't as clearly decided and their aren't the cultural mechanisms in place to protect the skilled, but less social.