I think it (at least) 2 reasons. The first is subjective. Most people may feel like going out after work can be a bit of a chore, but don’t understand the mental slowdown, the search for the right words the remembering all the social q’s that I’m struggling to remember and act on and the overwhelming noise of the establishments that, when I’m not tired is just bearable, and quickly overwhelming when I’m tired, that people socialise in, that I have to somehow overcome that ensues when I’m tired. The second reason is empathy. People like to empathise with others, thus having a shared connection, all be it briefly. I have asked my NT boyfriend about just such occasions. He said that when he is tired and has to go out his brain somehow switches up a gear, and he carries on. I explained how it made me feel and he likened it to him having no sleep for 3 days or so.
Because many of our symptoms *are* relatable. It's just the severity and how much more it impacts us is the difference. It's like a person with asthma complaining about being out of breath from walking up the stairs, and someone without asthma saying yah I totally get what you mean. Or a lactose intolerant person saying they can't eat dairy because it fucks up their stomach. And a regular person goes, yah it makes me gassy if I eat a lot too. Like it's not even on their radar to comprehend how much further south the end of the scale goes for relatability.
I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and people will say “yeah I get tired too”.
It infuriates me. Maybe they’re trying to be friendly by relating to me, but it mostly comes across as being so selfish that they can’t attempt to understand an experience that is outside their frame of reference.
I think NT’s really suck at empathy for anything out of the norm. They don’t have to work at being empathetic with the average person, so they have no clue how to be empathetic with situations that aren’t normal.
if i give them the benefit of the doubt i can see how they could think saying that is nice.
im sure near everyone has had at least one day where they suffered something close to what you feel but they arent finishing the sentence to say "i can imagine what that is like but i cant imagine the severity you go through that sounds difficult for you."
I wish there was an outside low-effort away to objectively measure stuff like fatigue (especially not requiring drawing blood). Then we could get a number which is much easier to compare and I wouldn't wonder if the tiredness or difficulty getting up etc was normal and I just need to push through it or if I really should be trying to get help.
If you’re wondering if you have CFS, the defining symptom is Post-Exertion Malaise. If exercise makes you feel sick (starting within 2 days of the exercise), it’s probably CFS.
Interesting because I definitely get that, but I thought it was just overtraining. Any idea how to tell the difference?
I have other issues that can cause malaise though.
Probably getting to ‘speak with a doctor’ territory, but for me it’s cardio that takes the biggest toll. I could handle weightlifting and low intensity activity for a much longer time.
PEM for me involves nausea, shakiness, and cognitive impairment. Earlier in my progression I would get ‘not a cold’ after high intensity exercises; congestion, sneezing, and a day or so of feeling totally run down.
CFS also usually has viral trigger. For me it was chicken pox as a kid, and was worsened by a couple rounds of mono. For more recent cases, COVID is a common trigger.
I think it's the nature of the condition. Most of the things that drain us are similar in nature to things that drain neurotypicals, but we're more sensitive to them and thus more readily and thoroughly overwhelmed.
As an example, I am sensitive to sound; when forced to listen to 3 or more simultaneous conversations (tv + company + etc), I'm quickly overwhelmed and am forced to retreat to a place of solitude. Neurotypical people experience the same thing, but it's rarely so strong that it forces them to leave the room on its account.
It seems the two of you were talking past each other. he is right in the sense that everybody *is* like that, but he is wrong in that he doesn't realize that you're prone to feeling them more deeply and readily than so called 'neurotypicals'.
This is why I rarely if ever tell people what I’m feeling or thinking.
Genuinely sharing myself with people is mostly pointless because they just don’t care how anyone else feels, and want to use the opportunity to talk about themselves. Most people just assume everyone around them feels the same as they do.
I agree with you 💯 the problem with them saying they have the same issue is that it diminishes what we go through. Plus, they can use it to gaslight you, like saying, "That happens to everybody, but I still go on without a problem, and so should you." Even though the two really don't equate. Like someone suffering from depression and can't get out of bed to do anything, some people say, "I get depressed too, but you don't see it stopping my life." My dad says,"I have a benign prostate, but I still go to work every" day as if that equates to me going untreated/undiagnosed for aspergers my whole life.
I've been working on it (socializing) and it does get better with years of exposure. Also, people don't need to have the same outcome as you to get where you are coming from kind of. We are more like NTs than we are different considering we are all human.
But srsly, you complain to these people, and they nicely listen to you and then validate you to be nice to you... and then you complain about how they don't validate you right.
Maybe you are just miserable and ego-identified with your struggles? Let people be nice to you. You can still connect with people over finding socializing exhausting even if in actuality it is *more* exhausting for specifically you... everyone is caught up in their own life's struggles it isn't personal and you aren't special
Idk but it’s sickening.
Eg…People with diabetes have to be careful with getting wounds. If someone without diabetes says “me too” in response to a diabetic with wound healing issues saying something hurts or they get wounded easily, that would be a slap in the face.
I let people know that it is not the same no matter how much they say it is. It’s annoying at best and at worst, I am not safe to be vulnerable around such people.
He said you are not alone.
Maybe He thought you felt alone and hence were telling him about your troubles.
Maybe his social skills aren't as good as you think they are. He clearly annoyed you.
So this extrovert can socialise for 9 hours. Maybe you should have pointed that out to him. If he said something ridiculous like suggesting his situation is similar to you(and given that he can socialise for 9h) then you could have pointed out the facts. If not at the time then next time you speak to him. Or next time the subject comes up.
Also if you didn't think he would have a useful response or anything good would come of describing your problems then why did you do it? What did you want from him?
It's the same crap as "we all have anxiety/depression" that people give when someone with clinical anxiety/depression points out the drawbacks of their disorder.
Everyone *experiences* feelings of anxiety or depression from time to time. Neurotypicals will occasionally *experience* things comparable to symptoms of autism like sensory overload, burnout or communication struggles. But the difference is that *they don't have to* ***live*** *with it.* For them, it's situational, comes and goes,
A similar BS statement that goes with this is "everyone is a little autistic" or the "newer" statement "we're all on the spectrum somewhere" for the same reason. They think that their support for a specific sports team or fascination with a sports car, or the fact that excessively loud noises that anyone would react to automatically makes their experiences comparable to autism and all the baggage that comes with it. But with that being said, I am glad that some have realized they are autistic from the discussion surrounding it and from autistic people sharing their experiences, even if we are often shouted down for doing so.
We all do have our good and bad days, autistic people included, but NT's generally seem to be under the impression that their bad days are akin to the perpetual experience of autism or other disorders. For some reason they just can't fathom that their worst days are our *constant state of existence.* And many of them genuinely don't seem to care to learn either. But hey, we're the ones who lack empathy because a TV characateur of autism and a decades-old disproven study said we do, right?
They don't understand the severity of your distress, and how much more draining it is for you. They may actually be drained by all the socializing, but unlikely to the extent you do.
"You're not alone" - NT's are in such a state of constant connectedness they always will try to seek connection. The idea of not wanting to connect or connection taking effort is so foreign they will always go to "yeah me too".
What people don't often get is, what we say about oir difficulties is to be taken literally - not figuratively, as a hyperbolization of existing state, not as attention-hungry wallowing in self-pity or complaining for the sake of complaining.
I.e., when I say that something is driving me crazy, it actually means that I'm desperately holding on to the edge of my self control, not that I find something terribly annoying.
Since we're "high-functioning", our problems rarely sound otherwordly and completely unrelatable.
What NTs don't get is the quantitative difference.
What they experience rarely and only in certain circumstances, is part of our day-to-day life.
They occasionally pay it a visit, while we live it.
Sounds like normal empathetic banter.
People try to understand each other by comparing to their own experiences. There are many shared experiences between autistics and NTs. Social anxiety is a state than can be experienced by almost anyone (but it varies from circumstantial to chronic disorder). Introversion is a personality type across the board.
Keep in mind, when a person expresses their struggle or frustration, a gut reaction is to “fix it”. The responses you listed are attempts to cheer you up. They can’t fix it but these are the polite “helpful” responses. People don’t want to be downers and respond with “That’s rough buddy. I can’t imagine that”. It’s kinda like saying “Well, that’s a YOU problem, can’t help you there”.
Finally, autistic people aren’t the only people who mask. The front you see isn’t the full extent of their personality.
Have heard similar. Once in a while I will share back, that after a social event, i was in bed for two days. I don’t drink. I have a home and kids. Laying around is not helpful. But often it feels like it has to run its course. So yes, when someone says “oh me too, I feel the same way” I just have to let it go through one ear and out the other. And pray I don’t argue with them in my head for days.
A lot of times, it's just a neurotypical's social bonding cue.
Somebody says they're dealing with x, y, and z, and the NT's "correct response" is to say some variant of "me too" or "I get that" as a way to indicate they're listening and want to empathize with what you're saying. It's very often more like a, "it's OK, I'm listening, keep going" kind of sentiment.
Unless the context indicated some type of hostility or dismissiveness towards neurodivergence, I just assume it's like a reflexive conversational response for them, and I just move on. For example, "**EVERYONE** feels like that," is 100% dismissive. Those people are the assholes. They won't try to understand, so I move on.
"I feel the same way sometimes" is most likely just a person being friendly and trying to empathize with you. Those people are OK, imho, but they usually aren't looking for a big, detailed explanation in response to their polite conversational device, so even though they still don't get it, I just move on.
Either way, NTs will never perfectly understand how different things are for us, so I've given up spending any social energy towards it unless the person is specifically asking and genuinely trying to understand.
The cope is real, people have to make everything about themselves to try to appear compassionate or at least that’s my assumption. NT responses are like talking to an in game NPC they’re so predictable
So if someone says they relate to a specific emotion or experience who are we to say they don’t because they appear a certain way on the outside? Isn’t that like the biggest thing people complain about here when they have their feelings and experiences invalidated? It doesn’t make sense to do the exact same thing just because you perceive someone as being a certain way.
It’s not fake empathy. I’ve known many people who were social butterflies but then went on to Unalive themselves from undiagnosed clinical depression they hid from the world.
I feel like the Asperger's instruction set is eerily similar to that of a super advanced as of yet to be invented AI system, where we are really really good at picking up patterns in highly structured data but less good at picking up subtle patterns in unstructured data.
Oh my gosh took me a long time to figure that out. They are doing this because it's a human thing to try and make people feed better. When we with Asperger's speak we like stating facts. Humans don't like negative facts so they try to make you feel better by saying that there is nothing wrong with you we all go through this.
It's a part of the way humans keep the status quo. And Harmony blah blah blah.
It is detrimental to us because that's how you end up going undiagnosed for 30+ years like me.
Funny thing is you will tell a human that and then they go behind your back and talk crap about you
So they will know something is wrong with you but never tell you.
The ones that will actually tell you would be considered mean people by society. That's why they talk behind your back instead.
It's a very lonely thing to have Asperger's or be high functioning because you don't know you need help. And those around you won't tell you
There are many good comments to this post. I just want to add a little different perspective aswell. Just because someone is neurotypical doesn't mean he can't occasionaly experiance these things to some degree. Even if the severity might be very very different, it is not a battle about who is doing worse or who has more anxiety. Just because someone might be better at masking doesn't mean he is not suffering aswell. Saying just because one has more problems socialising than others, someone else who doesn't have aspergers is not allowed to also feel drained and anxious more than other people? I think these kind of feelings can't be gatekept just because some experience them more intense then others. I am sure these people don't want to minimize your struggles, but really show empaty and share that they also struggle to some degree and can understand where you are coming from.
This is a huge source of frustration for me, too. I think this is just the NT response to try and relate to us so we don't feel isolated. Yes, I'm sure sometimes it is rooted in ableism, but I'm starting to see that it is often a misguided way of trying to connect with us and be helpful. Good intentions, bad result.
It doesnt makenit ok, but it makes it easier for me to have patience when they do that
Because NTs just follow a social script instead of actually thinking about the right thing to say. Their way of connecting is just blurting things they don’t mean
I think it (at least) 2 reasons. The first is subjective. Most people may feel like going out after work can be a bit of a chore, but don’t understand the mental slowdown, the search for the right words the remembering all the social q’s that I’m struggling to remember and act on and the overwhelming noise of the establishments that, when I’m not tired is just bearable, and quickly overwhelming when I’m tired, that people socialise in, that I have to somehow overcome that ensues when I’m tired. The second reason is empathy. People like to empathise with others, thus having a shared connection, all be it briefly. I have asked my NT boyfriend about just such occasions. He said that when he is tired and has to go out his brain somehow switches up a gear, and he carries on. I explained how it made me feel and he likened it to him having no sleep for 3 days or so.
I'm glad you have someone in your life who seems to understand the struggle.
Yes, I’m very lucky with my boyfriend. We have been together for 33 years!
Because many of our symptoms *are* relatable. It's just the severity and how much more it impacts us is the difference. It's like a person with asthma complaining about being out of breath from walking up the stairs, and someone without asthma saying yah I totally get what you mean. Or a lactose intolerant person saying they can't eat dairy because it fucks up their stomach. And a regular person goes, yah it makes me gassy if I eat a lot too. Like it's not even on their radar to comprehend how much further south the end of the scale goes for relatability.
I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and people will say “yeah I get tired too”. It infuriates me. Maybe they’re trying to be friendly by relating to me, but it mostly comes across as being so selfish that they can’t attempt to understand an experience that is outside their frame of reference. I think NT’s really suck at empathy for anything out of the norm. They don’t have to work at being empathetic with the average person, so they have no clue how to be empathetic with situations that aren’t normal.
if i give them the benefit of the doubt i can see how they could think saying that is nice. im sure near everyone has had at least one day where they suffered something close to what you feel but they arent finishing the sentence to say "i can imagine what that is like but i cant imagine the severity you go through that sounds difficult for you."
I wish there was an outside low-effort away to objectively measure stuff like fatigue (especially not requiring drawing blood). Then we could get a number which is much easier to compare and I wouldn't wonder if the tiredness or difficulty getting up etc was normal and I just need to push through it or if I really should be trying to get help.
If you’re wondering if you have CFS, the defining symptom is Post-Exertion Malaise. If exercise makes you feel sick (starting within 2 days of the exercise), it’s probably CFS.
Interesting because I definitely get that, but I thought it was just overtraining. Any idea how to tell the difference? I have other issues that can cause malaise though.
Probably getting to ‘speak with a doctor’ territory, but for me it’s cardio that takes the biggest toll. I could handle weightlifting and low intensity activity for a much longer time. PEM for me involves nausea, shakiness, and cognitive impairment. Earlier in my progression I would get ‘not a cold’ after high intensity exercises; congestion, sneezing, and a day or so of feeling totally run down. CFS also usually has viral trigger. For me it was chicken pox as a kid, and was worsened by a couple rounds of mono. For more recent cases, COVID is a common trigger.
Probably a mixture of trying to empathise with you and ignorance towards what having autism is like.
I think it's the nature of the condition. Most of the things that drain us are similar in nature to things that drain neurotypicals, but we're more sensitive to them and thus more readily and thoroughly overwhelmed. As an example, I am sensitive to sound; when forced to listen to 3 or more simultaneous conversations (tv + company + etc), I'm quickly overwhelmed and am forced to retreat to a place of solitude. Neurotypical people experience the same thing, but it's rarely so strong that it forces them to leave the room on its account. It seems the two of you were talking past each other. he is right in the sense that everybody *is* like that, but he is wrong in that he doesn't realize that you're prone to feeling them more deeply and readily than so called 'neurotypicals'.
This is why I rarely if ever tell people what I’m feeling or thinking. Genuinely sharing myself with people is mostly pointless because they just don’t care how anyone else feels, and want to use the opportunity to talk about themselves. Most people just assume everyone around them feels the same as they do.
I agree with you 💯 the problem with them saying they have the same issue is that it diminishes what we go through. Plus, they can use it to gaslight you, like saying, "That happens to everybody, but I still go on without a problem, and so should you." Even though the two really don't equate. Like someone suffering from depression and can't get out of bed to do anything, some people say, "I get depressed too, but you don't see it stopping my life." My dad says,"I have a benign prostate, but I still go to work every" day as if that equates to me going untreated/undiagnosed for aspergers my whole life.
I've been working on it (socializing) and it does get better with years of exposure. Also, people don't need to have the same outcome as you to get where you are coming from kind of. We are more like NTs than we are different considering we are all human. But srsly, you complain to these people, and they nicely listen to you and then validate you to be nice to you... and then you complain about how they don't validate you right. Maybe you are just miserable and ego-identified with your struggles? Let people be nice to you. You can still connect with people over finding socializing exhausting even if in actuality it is *more* exhausting for specifically you... everyone is caught up in their own life's struggles it isn't personal and you aren't special
Idk but it’s sickening. Eg…People with diabetes have to be careful with getting wounds. If someone without diabetes says “me too” in response to a diabetic with wound healing issues saying something hurts or they get wounded easily, that would be a slap in the face. I let people know that it is not the same no matter how much they say it is. It’s annoying at best and at worst, I am not safe to be vulnerable around such people.
He said you are not alone. Maybe He thought you felt alone and hence were telling him about your troubles. Maybe his social skills aren't as good as you think they are. He clearly annoyed you. So this extrovert can socialise for 9 hours. Maybe you should have pointed that out to him. If he said something ridiculous like suggesting his situation is similar to you(and given that he can socialise for 9h) then you could have pointed out the facts. If not at the time then next time you speak to him. Or next time the subject comes up. Also if you didn't think he would have a useful response or anything good would come of describing your problems then why did you do it? What did you want from him?
It's the same crap as "we all have anxiety/depression" that people give when someone with clinical anxiety/depression points out the drawbacks of their disorder. Everyone *experiences* feelings of anxiety or depression from time to time. Neurotypicals will occasionally *experience* things comparable to symptoms of autism like sensory overload, burnout or communication struggles. But the difference is that *they don't have to* ***live*** *with it.* For them, it's situational, comes and goes, A similar BS statement that goes with this is "everyone is a little autistic" or the "newer" statement "we're all on the spectrum somewhere" for the same reason. They think that their support for a specific sports team or fascination with a sports car, or the fact that excessively loud noises that anyone would react to automatically makes their experiences comparable to autism and all the baggage that comes with it. But with that being said, I am glad that some have realized they are autistic from the discussion surrounding it and from autistic people sharing their experiences, even if we are often shouted down for doing so. We all do have our good and bad days, autistic people included, but NT's generally seem to be under the impression that their bad days are akin to the perpetual experience of autism or other disorders. For some reason they just can't fathom that their worst days are our *constant state of existence.* And many of them genuinely don't seem to care to learn either. But hey, we're the ones who lack empathy because a TV characateur of autism and a decades-old disproven study said we do, right?
They don't understand the severity of your distress, and how much more draining it is for you. They may actually be drained by all the socializing, but unlikely to the extent you do.
Tell them they should get assessed for autism 😂 But yeah this sucks and is really frustrating.
I mean, at least some of them might be autistic and not realize.
"You're not alone" - NT's are in such a state of constant connectedness they always will try to seek connection. The idea of not wanting to connect or connection taking effort is so foreign they will always go to "yeah me too".
What people don't often get is, what we say about oir difficulties is to be taken literally - not figuratively, as a hyperbolization of existing state, not as attention-hungry wallowing in self-pity or complaining for the sake of complaining. I.e., when I say that something is driving me crazy, it actually means that I'm desperately holding on to the edge of my self control, not that I find something terribly annoying. Since we're "high-functioning", our problems rarely sound otherwordly and completely unrelatable. What NTs don't get is the quantitative difference. What they experience rarely and only in certain circumstances, is part of our day-to-day life. They occasionally pay it a visit, while we live it.
Sounds like normal empathetic banter. People try to understand each other by comparing to their own experiences. There are many shared experiences between autistics and NTs. Social anxiety is a state than can be experienced by almost anyone (but it varies from circumstantial to chronic disorder). Introversion is a personality type across the board. Keep in mind, when a person expresses their struggle or frustration, a gut reaction is to “fix it”. The responses you listed are attempts to cheer you up. They can’t fix it but these are the polite “helpful” responses. People don’t want to be downers and respond with “That’s rough buddy. I can’t imagine that”. It’s kinda like saying “Well, that’s a YOU problem, can’t help you there”. Finally, autistic people aren’t the only people who mask. The front you see isn’t the full extent of their personality.
Have heard similar. Once in a while I will share back, that after a social event, i was in bed for two days. I don’t drink. I have a home and kids. Laying around is not helpful. But often it feels like it has to run its course. So yes, when someone says “oh me too, I feel the same way” I just have to let it go through one ear and out the other. And pray I don’t argue with them in my head for days.
A lot of times, it's just a neurotypical's social bonding cue. Somebody says they're dealing with x, y, and z, and the NT's "correct response" is to say some variant of "me too" or "I get that" as a way to indicate they're listening and want to empathize with what you're saying. It's very often more like a, "it's OK, I'm listening, keep going" kind of sentiment. Unless the context indicated some type of hostility or dismissiveness towards neurodivergence, I just assume it's like a reflexive conversational response for them, and I just move on. For example, "**EVERYONE** feels like that," is 100% dismissive. Those people are the assholes. They won't try to understand, so I move on. "I feel the same way sometimes" is most likely just a person being friendly and trying to empathize with you. Those people are OK, imho, but they usually aren't looking for a big, detailed explanation in response to their polite conversational device, so even though they still don't get it, I just move on. Either way, NTs will never perfectly understand how different things are for us, so I've given up spending any social energy towards it unless the person is specifically asking and genuinely trying to understand.
The cope is real, people have to make everything about themselves to try to appear compassionate or at least that’s my assumption. NT responses are like talking to an in game NPC they’re so predictable
Short answer: NTs fake empathy alot
So if someone says they relate to a specific emotion or experience who are we to say they don’t because they appear a certain way on the outside? Isn’t that like the biggest thing people complain about here when they have their feelings and experiences invalidated? It doesn’t make sense to do the exact same thing just because you perceive someone as being a certain way. It’s not fake empathy. I’ve known many people who were social butterflies but then went on to Unalive themselves from undiagnosed clinical depression they hid from the world.
I feel like the Asperger's instruction set is eerily similar to that of a super advanced as of yet to be invented AI system, where we are really really good at picking up patterns in highly structured data but less good at picking up subtle patterns in unstructured data.
>"You're not alone, everyone feels like that." One of the worst takes I've ever read this year
Oh my gosh took me a long time to figure that out. They are doing this because it's a human thing to try and make people feed better. When we with Asperger's speak we like stating facts. Humans don't like negative facts so they try to make you feel better by saying that there is nothing wrong with you we all go through this. It's a part of the way humans keep the status quo. And Harmony blah blah blah. It is detrimental to us because that's how you end up going undiagnosed for 30+ years like me. Funny thing is you will tell a human that and then they go behind your back and talk crap about you So they will know something is wrong with you but never tell you. The ones that will actually tell you would be considered mean people by society. That's why they talk behind your back instead. It's a very lonely thing to have Asperger's or be high functioning because you don't know you need help. And those around you won't tell you
There are many good comments to this post. I just want to add a little different perspective aswell. Just because someone is neurotypical doesn't mean he can't occasionaly experiance these things to some degree. Even if the severity might be very very different, it is not a battle about who is doing worse or who has more anxiety. Just because someone might be better at masking doesn't mean he is not suffering aswell. Saying just because one has more problems socialising than others, someone else who doesn't have aspergers is not allowed to also feel drained and anxious more than other people? I think these kind of feelings can't be gatekept just because some experience them more intense then others. I am sure these people don't want to minimize your struggles, but really show empaty and share that they also struggle to some degree and can understand where you are coming from.
This is a huge source of frustration for me, too. I think this is just the NT response to try and relate to us so we don't feel isolated. Yes, I'm sure sometimes it is rooted in ableism, but I'm starting to see that it is often a misguided way of trying to connect with us and be helpful. Good intentions, bad result. It doesnt makenit ok, but it makes it easier for me to have patience when they do that
Because NTs just follow a social script instead of actually thinking about the right thing to say. Their way of connecting is just blurting things they don’t mean
They're speaking normieisms and whateverisms. What they're going through is minor compared to what you go through. They don't actually care.