Who Has the Communication Disorder Again?

 

THEM:  "No, and while we're at it, let me never speak to you a-fucking-gain with no reason given & no goodbye while you flail like an air-starved fish and wonder what you did wrong for the rest of your insignificant life as I move on seamlessly like I never knew you."

ME:  "Oh."

This is doubly cruel because of the way the "neurodivergent" broken autard brain replays traumatic events on a loop, broken-record style, over & over with zero consent from the conscious mind.  Each replay just as fresh & painful as the first time it happened.  It's like we're wired for PTSD or someshit.  (See: "thinking in pictures").  The flashbacks, nightmares & VHS-like looping tape replays of events that seem to pause on the worst parts in a way that the normal brain mercifully doesn't have to deal with is something I didn't realize everyone didn't deal with until I was older.  Much older. 

And then just to triple-ensure we get stuck with PTSD & self-esteem issues, the lovely "neurotypical" people in our lives pull the scenario shown above.  Over and over until we're 100% certain we're not worthy of human interaction or love or connection because we'll just fuck it up and not even know WHY or HOW.  Just that it always seems to happen riiiiiight as we're getting--I won't even say "comfortable"--just slightly less hyper-vigilant & paranoid than usual.  Almost enough to relax (overstatement) and let our "real" selves shine through.  And then, like a cruel God killing ants with a sledgehammer, we're snuffed out with one swift blow.  No warning, no escape plan.  Just darkness and pain. 




What I DO Understand

I shave with this razor daily

I get that there are some behaviors that are just unacceptable and we aren't owed an explanation should we be cut off for them.  Sleeping with someone's spouse.  Identity theft.  Defacing property, physical abuse, threats against loved ones.  In fact, you should go straight to the cops about some of that because YIKES.  Neither autism nor any other disorder is an excuse or explanation for illegal or massively immoral behavior of that nature.  Those are calculating acts that require malice & pre-planning.  If you catch someone in the act or have sufficient evidence that they did those types of things, turn them in.

 But if the issue is something less serious--a misunderstanding, a failure to anticipate the other person's needs that were never clearly communicated in the first place--maybe cut us some fucking slack.  Assume ignorance before malice (Hanlon's razor).  If the autistic person is acting truly baffled about WHY you're so upset, default to believing them because there's about a 90% chance it's not an "act".  Unless a person has a long history of telling big whoppers or exaggerating for no reason, always believe them.  Ask yourself what do they have to gain by doing the thing they're being accused of?  Or by lying about it?  

 What's not acceptable is cutting someone off abruptly without giving them a chance to explain themselves or without clarifying for them what they've actually done wrong.  You always have the right to kick someone out of your life--that's one of the perks of being an adult.  But doing so in the manner shown above is cowardly & chickenshit (unless they've violated a safety boundary).  It ensures that absolutely nothing is gained or learned by the person: all they know is they're a massive fuckup whose relationships are doomed to fail for reasons they don't understand, and they're not even worth an explanation.  That leaves them in a state of permanent paralysis because why tf wouldn't it? 

Even if you're angry at someone, surely you don't want to destroy them forever?  (I guess maybe some of you do--I honestly don't presume to understand humans anymore).  If you ever cared at any point, take 2 seconds to provide closure & let them know where they fucked up so they can be mindful & avoid making the same mistake going forward.  Then you can go on your merry way to dance on their grave or whatever.  

TL;DR - A person can only handle so many rugpulls before they stop trusting the ground beneath them & quit trying to step out into the world altogether.  "A person" is me.  I've literally been the guy in the comic strip more times than I care to think about.  Interesting to see that other autists have had a similar experience (IDK who made the graphic but clearly they've been "there").  Too many people expect too much mind-reading & then get too mad when it fails to materialize.  If that's a "me" problem, so be it.  But I think I speak for all autistic people when I say:  it would be nice if the folks without the communication disorder would try communicating their feelings before flying off the handle at us once in a while. 

Even when we straight up ask for exactly what we need (which is already hard because, hello, communication disorder), y'all refuse to meet us halfway.  It's almost like you're the ones with the problem. But because you lack the unfortunate brain wiring & sensitivity to torture yourselves about it, we're the ones who end up in therapy dealing with the fallout.  Super convenient. 👌🏻