the big lies

[kaberett]

Not-really-a-linkspam: How Autistics and Neurotypicals Experience Emotions Differently. I have a whole bunch of quibbles & criticisms, but I'm interested in the framework, the concept of experiencing "justice" and "mercy" and "work" as emotions -- for example (emphasis as in the original):

I have a close friend [...] She will show me something she has been working on, and my immediate response will be to correct the language which might not be as accurate or as thoughtful as it could be. I do this before telling her how proud I am for the Work she’s doing, before I tell her it’s well-written, and before I affirm for her that she is a good person doing a good thing. She does the same for me.

The reason is because if someone complimented me on Work I was doing, then I would feel they were implying that I was Laboring in the interest of self-promotion or validation-seeking. These aren’t spoken values, but something we feel innately. This is how I Labor with other autistics. We correct each other. We offer what expertise and insight we can to sharpen the other’s Work, to add volume and clarity to the other’s Love song.

I don't think the things the author talks about as Weird Neurotypical Habits -- gifts, cards, talking about the weather, asking "how are you?" -- are in any sense universally solely Weird Neurotypical Habits even though they don't work for her. "We don’t really congratulate each other, because that would be an invalidation of the Purpose." -- um, excuse me, no. (There's probably something here about autism and trauma, as previously discussed: it's taken me a while to learn that it's useful for me to note and recognise and praise effort, as well as outcomes and product, but it taking me a while to notice that, it not coming naturally to me, doesn't mean it's pointless or invalidating.)

But it still feels like there is Something In There, even if I've not managed to articulate it yet, so apparently that's what I'll be chewing over this afternoon.

Comments

[recessional]

Honestly I often think it comes down to facility in shifting focuses, and how we don't have it.

I think NTs have significant obligation to their values, it's just that they are much much better at having multiple systems of values on the go at once and shifting between them with sufficient facility that they often don't NOTICE.

They have to learn to notice, because the capability of switching perspective, position and focus is so much higher that it's like . . . done . . . before they know.

Whereas doing that is enough of an effort that even when extremely practiced we often can't HELP noticing, which means we're sitting there going "how do you not REALIZE you just decided to prioritize social connectivity over honesty?" because we can't NOT notice that change because changing, in and of itself, is a Huge Effort. Even if it's a change we WANT to make ("the happiness and mental peace of my grandmother is actually more important than the specific perfect accuracy of her understanding of the life of Beethoven"), it's HARD; it's work.

NT most often just . . . . do it. (Which is also why the few times they can't the are often incapable of recognizing this as "having trouble switching perspectives/value-sets", because they've never noticed doing that before.)

Vague motions towards thoughts, anyway.

[ewt]

This makes sense to me as a model, thank you.

The times I have been able to switch to prioritizing social connectivity with any real facility are times of significant duress, e.g. under immediate threat of physical violence. And even then, I'm as likely to freeze as anything else. Sometimes in less dangerous situations, freezing is mistaken for agreeableness, but it's usually just overload or distress. This is a real problem for me in medical appointments, among other things.

(As usual I have difficulty separating trauma-brain from neurodivergence-brain here; I am sure that some of my early traumatic experiences would also have caused lasting harm to a neurotypical child, and I am also sure that there were things I experienced as traumatic which a neurotypical child would not have found particularly difficult, and even some things a neurotypical child would have found terrible which were merely "meh" to me. But sorting out which is which and the after-effects of them is Hard, and devolves quickly into me trying to question which of my needs are really valid, which it turns out is often not a good idea for my general well-being.)

[recessional]

Oh absolutely: the entanglements of trauma and neurodivergence are so fucking complicated. Plus also the category "this experience would be traumatic for anyone but if I weren't neuroatypical this experience would not have arisen from this situation/the precursors to the experience", which is in and around mine a lot.

I also think that neuroatypicality and trauma can end up with one in the same place, and needing the same things, just from different angles (the super easy example being that both ASD kids and traumatized kids both need REALLY RELIABLE environments and life-patterns), and to some extent there's only any utility in trying to differentiate, on a personal level, when one is faced with a situation where the solution to a problem would be different depending on which is causative.

Which is, yeah, given the poison in our culture so often very easy to turn into "which need is valid?" but really isn't: whether one is freaking out at the crowd because of a trauma-response based in the arousal system, or freaking out in the crowd because THERE'S TOO MANY SOUNDS CANNOT PARSE, either need is EQUALLY valid.

And in both cases one probably most needs a coping strategy that allows one to sort out how to remove oneself from the crowd.

Only one is probably going to be ameliorated by putting earplugs in, though, and only the other is likely to be ameliorated by finding a wall to put one's back to in order to chart out the exits.

But if it's not that kind of situation, meh. And those can often be figured out through trial and error.

/ramble

Anyway. The POINT being: I fully endorse avoiding situations where you're trying to determine which need is Valid, as yes, it is not good for general wellbeing.