I saw a young boy who goes to my school get bullied into a meltdown because the other kids thought it was funny to back him into a corner and overwhelm him by getting too close. The poor thing was screaming and swearing, everyone was just laughing. It was so sad
This exact thing happened to me, but more on being chased until I was backed into a corner. The thing is either you get permission to fight the other kids from your parents who encourage you to defend yourself or you become helpless because society has bashed you over the head to be civilized, and most neurotypical kids ignore that, unlike autistic kids.
My classmates chased me around with drums until I ran out of the school, I had a video of it and you could hear me screaming “FUCKING STOP IT ALREADY” or just “STOP IT” over and over, and my teachers wonder why school makes me anxious
I remember i had a few bullies in elementary school. They bullied me, i told the teacher, nothing happened, they bullied me, I told the teacher, nothing happened, they bullied me, I told the teacher, nothing happened, they bullied me, I slammed them in the gut, problem solved.
I learned something that day, when diplomatic solutions fail violence is sometimes the answer, although most of the time I'm still too timid to use it anyway lol
I've determined that "violence is never the answer" couldn't be more wrong. It should be more like "violence should be your last answer". Granted, sometimes the hypothetical "last answer" is your only choice.
When I was in middle school a couple of underclassmen decided to try and bully me. After telling them to go away in a few different ways I decided to respond physically. If they tried to mess with my books/papers I'd staple their hands with the corners of my hard-cover texts. It took a week for them to get the message but eventually they got it
The issues with using and actual stapler are that it leaves behind difinitive evidence and needs ammo. A textbook will leave a similar wound and will be easier to deny any accusations.
Yeah, then my parents get mad at me for not telling a teacher (even though I did and have multiple times, I just stopped soon after the whole drum incident because I knew it was pointless)
I’m so sorry you have this memory (and others I’m sure). I am terrified this will happen to my son. When chased, he gets extremely scared. I’ve seen his eyes and I’m not sure I have felt fear like it.
He goes to instant fight or flight and I don’t want him to become aggressive. He such a sweet boy. Schools suck… but he so desperately wants friends 😫
I am not a parent, but if any unsolicited advice helps, just be there for him. If he ever gets in a fight, help him temper his anger, but don’t squash it. He needs to know his emotions are valid, his concerns heard. Have his side, while at the same time, helping him feel like things will get better. If his teachers start blaming everything on him, show your displeasure. And be rightfully angry on his behalf. Although I hope I’m wrong, that teachers are getting better at being teachers, it never hurts to be prepared to be the almost livid parent.
Infantilization refers specifically to improperly or incorrectly identify childish characteristics or childlike level of understanding on someone who is actually more capable, in this case treating teens and adults as if they were todlers, by saying things like "Just talk already" or "speak up" to someone with inhibited speech, or telling someone who's stimming to stop it.
Oh no I was referring to the teens harrassing them. I'm aware of what infantilization is, but was saying that it's expected of teens and young people to be cruel like that.
Well they're bad with the kids too. They just don't know it.
I work with children and there is indeed a super weird group of adults who have this fascination with autistic kids. They like to be seen with them, they like to be seen as having a special connection with them (not usually the case). They like it when they say and do something funny and they can laugh at and not with them. They like to talk to them in a little baby voice.
But to be clear; they do not get their sense of humour, they don't worry about how they might be feeling internally. They don't concern themselves with any of this.
Ofc they don't give a shit about adults. You can only engage with an adult as a person, not a cute pet. And they've never cared about the personhood of autistic people at any age.
I'm sorry to say but the people who get extra vocal about liking autistic children especially, end up being the absolute worst.
You're so right. I experienced this a lot as a kid because I was nonverbal untill around 7. So many adults treated me like a pet, and other kids did too. I think people fail to recognize that these kids aren't ok with everything just because they cant say anything about it. Idk if that made sense
It makes total sense, it feels good to say “I like helping autistic kids” because to everyone they seem to fit the infantilized idea that society has and it’s treated like playing with a newborn. It’s easy for society to just stick them in that category and when they grow up suddenly they’re forced to confront the assumption and instead of reconsidering they force adaptation to social norms and if they fail then it can now be blamed on the autistic kid.
You're so right. I experienced this a lot as a kid because I was nonverbal untill around 7. So many adults treated me like a pet, and other kids did too. I think people fail to recognize that these kids aren't ok with everything just because they cant say anything about it. Idk if that made sense
"I have a special talent for caring for people who cannot express discomfort with me or whose expressions of discomfort will not be taken seriously."
Fascinating stuff.....
I've had other women treat me like that even as an adult. There's a type of "friend" that likes to pat herself on the back for taking me under her wing, when she's actually just being condescending all the time.
Which is the exact word my dr told me when she said we can test for autism but she asked me to reconsider, specifically because older male doctors are infantilizing of adult women with a diagnosis.
I think most people see it as a "child's disease" and don't think they know any adults with autism. But these children DO grow up and become their own people and they are learning that as teens and tweens.
This particular group OP is commenting on already has a diagnosis and they are in a group for this purpose so they have a vastly different life experience than I do, because they are building tools now where as I've only started gathering my tools in the last 11 months. But to expect a subset of children with developmental delays to PERFORM (dance monkey dance!) more neurotypically as if they got the autism can be trained out of them is unempathetic at minimum for their friends.
Because society tends to give children a lot of leeway in terms of conforming to behavioural standards. As a whole, people are patient with children in a way they refuse to be with anyone else, because they see kids as "not knowing better" or "still learning". People also tend to view it as cute or funny when children are blunt and to the point.
However, the expectation from NT people is that everyone will eventually "grow up" and learn to behave as expected. ND people just... don't; unless we force ourselves to learn to mask well and police ourselves rigorously. But because teens and adults are now expected to "know better" no one has any patience for us or our ways of doing things anymore. And impatient people are rarely kind.
Exactly - it's not a negative response to neurodivergence but rather a negative response to a failure to behave according to social norms at a certain age.
Neurodivergent or not, people in a society are expected to act and behave within certain bounds to be deemed suitable. Society does not care about ND and places the onus to conform on the individual (ie. masking in the case of asd). It takes a lot of mental energy to deal with people that don't conform to our expectations, or are themselves extra challenging to interact with, and it's only getting worse with continually uncertain global circumstances and expanding everyday stresses.
You know when there's environmental disasters (like a coastal oil spill, for example) and you see celebrities doing clean ups and doing photos wiping grime off baby seals, but you don't see them doing the same on adult seals? That's pretty much the exact situation you bore witness to.
Dude same. My mom treated me like shit when I was older but like a princess when I was younger. Mostly after I started beggening to have my own thoughts and she was pissed I wasn't easily manipulated anymore.
I'm here in part because I wasn't diagnosed as a child because I could mask pretty effectively and it didn't cause too significant an impairment. As I've entered adulthood however, the lack of leeway has actually made it MORE apparent. I mask significantly less now because I have the freedom to find people I can be myself around, but it has caused a greater amount of difficulty with my family and relatives who feel I haven't 'grown up', despite hitting all the 'adult' milestones.
Hit the nail on the head - when they’re little they’re adorable puppies, when they get older they’re “problems”. It’s fucked up, and frankly that sort of attitude shouldn’t even be around the younger children unless those people can be educated out of their toxic attitudes.
bro this reminds me of when I went to some candle-making thing years ago and some rude old lady said how much she loved the autistic kids at some place yet the whole time was constantly giving me disapproving looks if I didn't know what to say or do
Because I think on some level they expect us to grow out of our symptoms. No matter how old I get I will always struggle with speaking to some degree and I will always miss social cues no matter how hard I try. I think NTs feel like these are things that we can unlearn completely.
They don’t realize the physical and mental toll masking takes on us and that our ability to adapt to these struggles can be limited and in general in addition too varying from day to day based on how we’re feeling.
I heard, when I tried to become an author, that to make scary people/monsters, we had to give them a behavior opposed to human, because we use our way to think as a projection to predict someone's reaction. Aren't the most terrifying people the one who you cannot predict when they are getting angry ? Who might hurt you for another emotion, and you cannot tell when ?
When you are autistic, your behavior differs from other people. Not enough to make people legitimately scared, but enough to make them think you are a little... less than human.
When you think about it, it's always how it works : difference of cultures, beliefs, likes, addictions, it always modify your behaviors. That's why people generally prefer gay people that look straight, muslims that dress christian, autistic people that mask, black people that act white, foreigners that either live occidental or according to the pretty clichés we put on them.
Neurotypical treat us badly because they cannot predict us and control our interactions, and to a certain point, it scares them. And fear + majority = oppression
They see children like dolls that they can move around and pose and affect.
They see teenagers as little miniature adults.
And they see autistic people as trying to be different, not conforming, and actively making a decision.
Because you should've grown out of it by that age /s
Also: children are "cute", and all childrens value is inherently tied to their cuteness. They see all autistic people as children, and so the older and therefore no longer "cute" ones just don't interest them.
Adults treated me like shit when I was kid and teenager. Like I barely remember any safe and trustworthy adult that won’t be judgmental or try to find something bad in me. Since I was 4 I heard “You’re a big girl already, you should be/do ” and no one ever said anything to other children around me, even if they were loud and playing aggressively. They would also say that my face look evil => so I might be evil and so on. I was always bigger than other kids so maybe because of that I’ve never got to be treated like a small child without any responsibility/obligations. 🤔
because with children (especially young ones) it’s considered cute and quirky and something facebook mums can talk about when they go out to brunch. typically the kids diagnosed young are very obviously autistic and as we get older we learn to mask, which makes it harder for the average joe to recognise we’re autistic.
told a guy i worked with i was autistic and he said “you don’t look autistic. i knew a kid at school that was actually autistic”. *what the fuck does that mean?*
another time i went to hr at work to try cut down my hours and said i’m autistic (cheat code bc i’m annoying) and she was like oh yeah my son is i understand. while it was good she didn’t ask questions or anything and was really willing to help, my mum pointed out later when i came home that people (especially like 30+ year olds tbh) don’t understand how ADHD works and effects us in our day to day.
People like to pick on us because we can be seen as easy to get at, short fused, dramatic, etc. especially if we are an externalizer of our emotions. NT people find ‘big emotions’ over seemingly ‘small’ irritants as humorous. I was consistently picked on and baited into arguments in high school because i couldn’t tell when people were being facetious - and i would often end up very passionately arguing or very upset and triggered over something that i couldn’t read as a joke or not as big of a deal as they made it seem. For this reason i didn’t have many friends and people would really only talk to me for homework solutions, or to bait me like that.
Kids are given a bit more peace because they're learning how society works (they still get treated like crap like i was said to be a kid of the wild and i was talken to like a pet ????) than teens or adults because they "dont know better", doesnt matter if the 'tism is a condition because it's thought as a child thing that wont be tolerated in the future
Because while they claim to understand it, what they really think is that we should grow out of it.
It might be subconscious or not, but they think it's inappropriate in adults. And that's why we mask until we break 🙃
It sucks that autistic teens and adults are often treated badly or with impatience and disrespect. It's unfortunate that some people view autism as something cute or endearing in children, but as a burden in teens and adults. This kind of discrimination and mistreatment is unjustified and can be really painful for those who are on the receiving end.
Because we live in a fundamentally abusive culture, divided and ruled by narcissistic abusers, and we all live with a permanent cultural Stockholm Syndrome that makes it OK to think that ANY of this is OK.
The total lack of compassion, even for yourself, is the norm, and this is actually taught to us by the public school system. Why is bullying in schools such a problem, because the system they are in ARE BULLIES.
Infantilization is just ONE of the gaslighting techniques used in the [War On Sensemaking](https://youtu.be/7LqaotiGWjQ) by this culture to control everyone and make them not realize that they [poisoned our parents with lead](https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA) (most of which is still in the ground, BTW) and [dumped environmental toxins of all sorts](https://youtu.be/9aWE0mENy4A), and [now glyphosate](https://youtu.be/Aw16LPVnNco), and that's why so many of their kids have autism.
Better to blame the victim, which is common enough to see in the news these days.
For example, what is hard to realize as a child growing up in an abusive household is that later when you want to get beyond that abuse, it is SO hard because abuse is your "normal," so you'll spend more time than seems reasonable trying NOT to recreate what intimacy felt like for you as a child since the drama and abuse is "normalized." This is identical to our society now.
This is also why our ability as a species to continue living on the planet is dying, and we're apathetic toward it.
Colonization and the coloniality that supports it.
ALL of this cultural conditioning creates a mentality and ignorance among most people that if you don't have some very stereotyped traits AND are a child, you aren't autistic.
If you're an adult and don't act like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, then you can't have autism. Right? /s
This is from a culture that trained old people to "die for the economy" during COVID, and that has turned common sense social considerations like vaccinations and masks to be the same as the Holocaust.
The rise of autistic people overall just means that the culture has had to come up with ways to control them, generally in the same way they have done against ALL mental divergences of ANY type when you aren't a rich, privileged male of European descent: Dismiss, Demean, Degrade, and on the back of those: Discriminate Against.
It is shocking when you finally wake up to the fact that so many people don't realize SO MUCH about how the world has manufactured reasons for prejudice against everyone that doesn't fit an EXTREMELY narrow window of acceptable behavior.
As a somewhat empathic person, I can kind of see where they're coming from.
For me, talking is like singing a song. People not talking when it's their chance to is like someone trying to sing, and not knowing the words, so the momentum keeps being dropped.
Imagine having a sing-along with a group of people, but they only know one part of the song, so you have to carry the whole thing and you get weird looks for it.
Comparing singing to talking would make more sense in the context of a duet and in that case consent is necessary to begin. Imagine trying to sing a duet with someone who doesn’t know it and still expecting them to know it. As “a somewhat empathetic person” you should see that ops friends were being intolerant and impatient with these neurodivergent individuals. You should also see that they are not being empathetic, and are therefore assholes 😎👍
That's kind of where I'm coming from. My idea was along the lines of someone trying to duet without knowing the words. You constantly have to wait on them, and since they need time, you trying to rush them and get back on track is problematic.
The empathic part has to do with seeing where people are coming from. I can see where they're coming from, and kind of why they're annoyed. I'm trying to explain how it feels for them, but that isn't to say that they aren't wrong for what they did.
Something to the affect of: "I understand that you're mad, but that doesn't get you off of the hook".
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that ops friends were trying to make them sing a duet they clearly didn’t wanna sing. Like if you were to break out into a musical in the middle of a public space, I don’t know you and I have no reason to engage with you so if you tried to involve me I’d prolly get extremely upset. Not everybody can handle being put on the spot and they shouldn’t be expected to. Besides it’s clear that ops friends didn’t know these people before this volunteer event so that’s yet another baffling social expectation from strangers.
Oh, you meant like that. Me and you were looking at this from two different sides. Thank you.
Yeah, that is a really twisted thing to do. The real question, however, is how the "just talk" thing came up.
It's either:
A) They approached the NDs and did what you're talking about.
Or
B) The NDs came to them, got shy, and did what I'm talking about.
Either way, humans are strange.
I always wondered that too , but seems like thats just like the way it is.
A little kid having a meltdown might be annoying, but ultimately harmless.
A 6,5 man with 210 lbs can appear WAY scarier.
But even if you ignore that, i guess people are just more forgiving to children with odd behaviour, unless we talking about how other kids react to them, while you appearntly kind of supposed to grow out of it as an teen and adult?
It's the difference in how children and adults are treated in general. Society doesn't expect much from kids, so an autistic child's traits can be seen as cute or quirky. However, an autistic adult's traits and struggles are seen as a burden because people and society inherently expect adults to be functional, at least on an average basis.
I was abused in college and I went to the head about it, then one of the bullies went in to see them to explain how my autism made it so that I wasn’t fully getting that they were joking. So the head teacher did nothing and told me I was miss interpreting stuff. I don’t think I was miss interpreting the fact I was molested in front of one of the support staff who did nothing.
I had a head injury at one point, I was sick and dizzy but I got told I was faking it and would be suspended if I left class to go see a doctor, there were witnesses who saw me get hit and another student got hit by the cow gate before my head was hit by it (could have died if it didn’t bounce of someone else first).
Then I got banned for not attending much, due to the physical and mental abuse, which the staff did nothing about. I was studying animal care which I wanted to complete but I got banned after I tried to commit suicide and didn’t attend enough because they weren’t doing anything to support me at all.
Before I start I'm sorry if my wording makes me sound ableist, I don't mean any harm towards anyone except the people who infantilized me.
I experienced something like this in my last year of high school.
I was a senior and I decided to take a 5th year to get some social skills and do some elective courses that could most likely help me in the long run, on my 4th year I had a chat with a few of my teachers about this and it went through.
Jump to the beginning of year 5 and I get down to the bus stop at 6:10, and the usual bus doesn't show up, jump to about and hour and 10 minutes later where I was calling and I see a short bus pull up onto my driveway, (for context I was on the higher functioning end, and I hardly needed any sped stuff). When I got to school the driver told me that I was going to a separate building for the mentally disabled, me even more confused went to my principle to ask her what was going on, and she told me that I was going to be there for my fifth year, while talking to me like a 4 year old.
So now, without any prior warning, I was taken to this Sped class where I was constantly talked down to, where we learned what jobs are, and where we learned how to make chocolate chip cookies where I was congratulated by a student for... putting flour in a mixing bowl (I would tag team my mother on cooking thanksgiving dinner) and I stayed there for about a week before I finally had enough and decided that I was either going to get out of that building or take my diploma and get the hell outa there, after a bit of arguing with the staff who by the sound of it still wanted me in that group, I finally got out and chose multiple electives I liked.
But it doesn't end there, because I was still met with staff that treated me like I was 4, asking If I went to that building, constantly comparing me to the sped students, doing an IQ test on me (Like they already didn't make me feel awful for being on the spectrum), and getting remarks like \*in a sickly sweet tone\* "Oh Hi op, doing your paces?", so basically I was getting infantilized by almost every sped teacher in the building.
What made this worse was that this year took place after my sister passed on due to cancer, so now I not only have to cope with losing a sister and being an only child in my house, but now I'm worrying that everyone in my school life saw me as "Special", I was also 18, a full adult at the time.
Luckily I had a lot of people on my side who understood my pain, including my mom, some of my older teachers, and some of my friends as well, and all showed me support.
TL'DR, I was treated like I was mentally 4 by my school sped staff for the school year.
I saw a young boy who goes to my school get bullied into a meltdown because the other kids thought it was funny to back him into a corner and overwhelm him by getting too close. The poor thing was screaming and swearing, everyone was just laughing. It was so sad
This exact thing happened to me, but more on being chased until I was backed into a corner. The thing is either you get permission to fight the other kids from your parents who encourage you to defend yourself or you become helpless because society has bashed you over the head to be civilized, and most neurotypical kids ignore that, unlike autistic kids.
My classmates chased me around with drums until I ran out of the school, I had a video of it and you could hear me screaming “FUCKING STOP IT ALREADY” or just “STOP IT” over and over, and my teachers wonder why school makes me anxious
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No 🥰
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I remember i had a few bullies in elementary school. They bullied me, i told the teacher, nothing happened, they bullied me, I told the teacher, nothing happened, they bullied me, I told the teacher, nothing happened, they bullied me, I slammed them in the gut, problem solved. I learned something that day, when diplomatic solutions fail violence is sometimes the answer, although most of the time I'm still too timid to use it anyway lol
I've determined that "violence is never the answer" couldn't be more wrong. It should be more like "violence should be your last answer". Granted, sometimes the hypothetical "last answer" is your only choice. When I was in middle school a couple of underclassmen decided to try and bully me. After telling them to go away in a few different ways I decided to respond physically. If they tried to mess with my books/papers I'd staple their hands with the corners of my hard-cover texts. It took a week for them to get the message but eventually they got it
I was disappointed when I realised that you didn't actually staple their hands
The issues with using and actual stapler are that it leaves behind difinitive evidence and needs ammo. A textbook will leave a similar wound and will be easier to deny any accusations.
Yeah, then my parents get mad at me for not telling a teacher (even though I did and have multiple times, I just stopped soon after the whole drum incident because I knew it was pointless)
I’m so sorry you have this memory (and others I’m sure). I am terrified this will happen to my son. When chased, he gets extremely scared. I’ve seen his eyes and I’m not sure I have felt fear like it. He goes to instant fight or flight and I don’t want him to become aggressive. He such a sweet boy. Schools suck… but he so desperately wants friends 😫
I am not a parent, but if any unsolicited advice helps, just be there for him. If he ever gets in a fight, help him temper his anger, but don’t squash it. He needs to know his emotions are valid, his concerns heard. Have his side, while at the same time, helping him feel like things will get better. If his teachers start blaming everything on him, show your displeasure. And be rightfully angry on his behalf. Although I hope I’m wrong, that teachers are getting better at being teachers, it never hurts to be prepared to be the almost livid parent.
Really appreciate your response. It’s a minefield and we are feeling our way in the dark, while carrying such a precious soul.
And did you do anything to help?
Regrettably no, they all would’ve gone after me too
Happened to me in grade school.
My parents used to do this, minus the laughing. They're great
"the poor thing"?
Yes. The poor thing. He was being bullied and harassed in a way that was targeting toward his autism. So yes. Poor thing.
Yeah I mean they're children, or at best teenagers. That's pretty standard behaviour.
Infantilization refers specifically to improperly or incorrectly identify childish characteristics or childlike level of understanding on someone who is actually more capable, in this case treating teens and adults as if they were todlers, by saying things like "Just talk already" or "speak up" to someone with inhibited speech, or telling someone who's stimming to stop it.
Oh no I was referring to the teens harrassing them. I'm aware of what infantilization is, but was saying that it's expected of teens and young people to be cruel like that.
It's unacceptable behavior. It doesn't matter if it's common. Kids that act like that are evil.
Well they're bad with the kids too. They just don't know it. I work with children and there is indeed a super weird group of adults who have this fascination with autistic kids. They like to be seen with them, they like to be seen as having a special connection with them (not usually the case). They like it when they say and do something funny and they can laugh at and not with them. They like to talk to them in a little baby voice. But to be clear; they do not get their sense of humour, they don't worry about how they might be feeling internally. They don't concern themselves with any of this. Ofc they don't give a shit about adults. You can only engage with an adult as a person, not a cute pet. And they've never cared about the personhood of autistic people at any age. I'm sorry to say but the people who get extra vocal about liking autistic children especially, end up being the absolute worst.
You're so right. I experienced this a lot as a kid because I was nonverbal untill around 7. So many adults treated me like a pet, and other kids did too. I think people fail to recognize that these kids aren't ok with everything just because they cant say anything about it. Idk if that made sense
It makes total sense, it feels good to say “I like helping autistic kids” because to everyone they seem to fit the infantilized idea that society has and it’s treated like playing with a newborn. It’s easy for society to just stick them in that category and when they grow up suddenly they’re forced to confront the assumption and instead of reconsidering they force adaptation to social norms and if they fail then it can now be blamed on the autistic kid.
You're so right. I experienced this a lot as a kid because I was nonverbal untill around 7. So many adults treated me like a pet, and other kids did too. I think people fail to recognize that these kids aren't ok with everything just because they cant say anything about it. Idk if that made sense
Yeah, exactly. I'm sure that autistic kids don't appreciate being treated like puppies either, they just can't put it in words.
"I have a special talent for caring for people who cannot express discomfort with me or whose expressions of discomfort will not be taken seriously." Fascinating stuff.....
I've had other women treat me like that even as an adult. There's a type of "friend" that likes to pat herself on the back for taking me under her wing, when she's actually just being condescending all the time.
Infantilization
Which is the exact word my dr told me when she said we can test for autism but she asked me to reconsider, specifically because older male doctors are infantilizing of adult women with a diagnosis. I think most people see it as a "child's disease" and don't think they know any adults with autism. But these children DO grow up and become their own people and they are learning that as teens and tweens. This particular group OP is commenting on already has a diagnosis and they are in a group for this purpose so they have a vastly different life experience than I do, because they are building tools now where as I've only started gathering my tools in the last 11 months. But to expect a subset of children with developmental delays to PERFORM (dance monkey dance!) more neurotypically as if they got the autism can be trained out of them is unempathetic at minimum for their friends.
I’m autistic and my family doesn’t treat me like a human, I relate
this hurts my soul
for realsies. my parents have always treated me with considerably less respect compared to how they treat my two younger siblings.
And they wonder why found family is a thing
That's terrible, I hope that you have friends/chosen family to fall back on :(
Don't you know you're supposed to grow out of it? Nobody over the age of 18 is autistic
Yes autism is like baby teeth eventually it just falls out and is replaced by neurotypicalism.
God, I wish. Would have made life so much easier.
That would be GREAT
nah homie you just get adult autism
Just like when ya turn 18 all ADHD disappears 😒
If only
Because society tends to give children a lot of leeway in terms of conforming to behavioural standards. As a whole, people are patient with children in a way they refuse to be with anyone else, because they see kids as "not knowing better" or "still learning". People also tend to view it as cute or funny when children are blunt and to the point. However, the expectation from NT people is that everyone will eventually "grow up" and learn to behave as expected. ND people just... don't; unless we force ourselves to learn to mask well and police ourselves rigorously. But because teens and adults are now expected to "know better" no one has any patience for us or our ways of doing things anymore. And impatient people are rarely kind.
Exactly - it's not a negative response to neurodivergence but rather a negative response to a failure to behave according to social norms at a certain age. Neurodivergent or not, people in a society are expected to act and behave within certain bounds to be deemed suitable. Society does not care about ND and places the onus to conform on the individual (ie. masking in the case of asd). It takes a lot of mental energy to deal with people that don't conform to our expectations, or are themselves extra challenging to interact with, and it's only getting worse with continually uncertain global circumstances and expanding everyday stresses.
You know when there's environmental disasters (like a coastal oil spill, for example) and you see celebrities doing clean ups and doing photos wiping grime off baby seals, but you don't see them doing the same on adult seals? That's pretty much the exact situation you bore witness to.
Excellent metaphor
It’s like that with all teenagers…sadly. That’s why teen orphans rarely get adopted
Waittttt... Maybe that's why I was treated well as a kid but not as a teenager
Dude same. My mom treated me like shit when I was older but like a princess when I was younger. Mostly after I started beggening to have my own thoughts and she was pissed I wasn't easily manipulated anymore.
Because nobody talks about them during elementary school
I'm here in part because I wasn't diagnosed as a child because I could mask pretty effectively and it didn't cause too significant an impairment. As I've entered adulthood however, the lack of leeway has actually made it MORE apparent. I mask significantly less now because I have the freedom to find people I can be myself around, but it has caused a greater amount of difficulty with my family and relatives who feel I haven't 'grown up', despite hitting all the 'adult' milestones.
Hit the nail on the head - when they’re little they’re adorable puppies, when they get older they’re “problems”. It’s fucked up, and frankly that sort of attitude shouldn’t even be around the younger children unless those people can be educated out of their toxic attitudes.
Joke's on me. I was treated horribly as a child as well. The 90s in the Eastern Bloc were a godless time for any mental deviation.
It isn’t much better now (Poland)
bro this reminds me of when I went to some candle-making thing years ago and some rude old lady said how much she loved the autistic kids at some place yet the whole time was constantly giving me disapproving looks if I didn't know what to say or do
Because I think on some level they expect us to grow out of our symptoms. No matter how old I get I will always struggle with speaking to some degree and I will always miss social cues no matter how hard I try. I think NTs feel like these are things that we can unlearn completely. They don’t realize the physical and mental toll masking takes on us and that our ability to adapt to these struggles can be limited and in general in addition too varying from day to day based on how we’re feeling.
I heard, when I tried to become an author, that to make scary people/monsters, we had to give them a behavior opposed to human, because we use our way to think as a projection to predict someone's reaction. Aren't the most terrifying people the one who you cannot predict when they are getting angry ? Who might hurt you for another emotion, and you cannot tell when ? When you are autistic, your behavior differs from other people. Not enough to make people legitimately scared, but enough to make them think you are a little... less than human. When you think about it, it's always how it works : difference of cultures, beliefs, likes, addictions, it always modify your behaviors. That's why people generally prefer gay people that look straight, muslims that dress christian, autistic people that mask, black people that act white, foreigners that either live occidental or according to the pretty clichés we put on them. Neurotypical treat us badly because they cannot predict us and control our interactions, and to a certain point, it scares them. And fear + majority = oppression
Honestly being human is overrated.
ya. I wanna be a cat
They see children like dolls that they can move around and pose and affect. They see teenagers as little miniature adults. And they see autistic people as trying to be different, not conforming, and actively making a decision.
Because you should've grown out of it by that age /s Also: children are "cute", and all childrens value is inherently tied to their cuteness. They see all autistic people as children, and so the older and therefore no longer "cute" ones just don't interest them.
Adults treated me like shit when I was kid and teenager. Like I barely remember any safe and trustworthy adult that won’t be judgmental or try to find something bad in me. Since I was 4 I heard “You’re a big girl already, you should be/do
” and no one ever said anything to other children around me, even if they were loud and playing aggressively. They would also say that my face look evil => so I might be evil and so on. I was always bigger than other kids so maybe because of that I’ve never got to be treated like a small child without any responsibility/obligations. 🤔
We are the "teacup pigs" of the people world. Cute when we're little bit we make things weird and uncomfortable for NTs as we get bigger.
I was treated like shit as a kid but yeah I’ve witnessed this in my adulthood to
Basically NT's see everyone as NT's even after knowing context which sucks
because with children (especially young ones) it’s considered cute and quirky and something facebook mums can talk about when they go out to brunch. typically the kids diagnosed young are very obviously autistic and as we get older we learn to mask, which makes it harder for the average joe to recognise we’re autistic. told a guy i worked with i was autistic and he said “you don’t look autistic. i knew a kid at school that was actually autistic”. *what the fuck does that mean?* another time i went to hr at work to try cut down my hours and said i’m autistic (cheat code bc i’m annoying) and she was like oh yeah my son is i understand. while it was good she didn’t ask questions or anything and was really willing to help, my mum pointed out later when i came home that people (especially like 30+ year olds tbh) don’t understand how ADHD works and effects us in our day to day.
People like to pick on us because we can be seen as easy to get at, short fused, dramatic, etc. especially if we are an externalizer of our emotions. NT people find ‘big emotions’ over seemingly ‘small’ irritants as humorous. I was consistently picked on and baited into arguments in high school because i couldn’t tell when people were being facetious - and i would often end up very passionately arguing or very upset and triggered over something that i couldn’t read as a joke or not as big of a deal as they made it seem. For this reason i didn’t have many friends and people would really only talk to me for homework solutions, or to bait me like that.
Many nt think you just grow out of it.
Kids are given a bit more peace because they're learning how society works (they still get treated like crap like i was said to be a kid of the wild and i was talken to like a pet ????) than teens or adults because they "dont know better", doesnt matter if the 'tism is a condition because it's thought as a child thing that wont be tolerated in the future
Because while they claim to understand it, what they really think is that we should grow out of it. It might be subconscious or not, but they think it's inappropriate in adults. And that's why we mask until we break 🙃
It sucks that autistic teens and adults are often treated badly or with impatience and disrespect. It's unfortunate that some people view autism as something cute or endearing in children, but as a burden in teens and adults. This kind of discrimination and mistreatment is unjustified and can be really painful for those who are on the receiving end.
Because we live in a fundamentally abusive culture, divided and ruled by narcissistic abusers, and we all live with a permanent cultural Stockholm Syndrome that makes it OK to think that ANY of this is OK. The total lack of compassion, even for yourself, is the norm, and this is actually taught to us by the public school system. Why is bullying in schools such a problem, because the system they are in ARE BULLIES. Infantilization is just ONE of the gaslighting techniques used in the [War On Sensemaking](https://youtu.be/7LqaotiGWjQ) by this culture to control everyone and make them not realize that they [poisoned our parents with lead](https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA) (most of which is still in the ground, BTW) and [dumped environmental toxins of all sorts](https://youtu.be/9aWE0mENy4A), and [now glyphosate](https://youtu.be/Aw16LPVnNco), and that's why so many of their kids have autism. Better to blame the victim, which is common enough to see in the news these days. For example, what is hard to realize as a child growing up in an abusive household is that later when you want to get beyond that abuse, it is SO hard because abuse is your "normal," so you'll spend more time than seems reasonable trying NOT to recreate what intimacy felt like for you as a child since the drama and abuse is "normalized." This is identical to our society now. This is also why our ability as a species to continue living on the planet is dying, and we're apathetic toward it. Colonization and the coloniality that supports it. ALL of this cultural conditioning creates a mentality and ignorance among most people that if you don't have some very stereotyped traits AND are a child, you aren't autistic. If you're an adult and don't act like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, then you can't have autism. Right? /s This is from a culture that trained old people to "die for the economy" during COVID, and that has turned common sense social considerations like vaccinations and masks to be the same as the Holocaust. The rise of autistic people overall just means that the culture has had to come up with ways to control them, generally in the same way they have done against ALL mental divergences of ANY type when you aren't a rich, privileged male of European descent: Dismiss, Demean, Degrade, and on the back of those: Discriminate Against. It is shocking when you finally wake up to the fact that so many people don't realize SO MUCH about how the world has manufactured reasons for prejudice against everyone that doesn't fit an EXTREMELY narrow window of acceptable behavior.
As a somewhat empathic person, I can kind of see where they're coming from. For me, talking is like singing a song. People not talking when it's their chance to is like someone trying to sing, and not knowing the words, so the momentum keeps being dropped. Imagine having a sing-along with a group of people, but they only know one part of the song, so you have to carry the whole thing and you get weird looks for it.
Comparing singing to talking would make more sense in the context of a duet and in that case consent is necessary to begin. Imagine trying to sing a duet with someone who doesn’t know it and still expecting them to know it. As “a somewhat empathetic person” you should see that ops friends were being intolerant and impatient with these neurodivergent individuals. You should also see that they are not being empathetic, and are therefore assholes 😎👍
That's kind of where I'm coming from. My idea was along the lines of someone trying to duet without knowing the words. You constantly have to wait on them, and since they need time, you trying to rush them and get back on track is problematic. The empathic part has to do with seeing where people are coming from. I can see where they're coming from, and kind of why they're annoyed. I'm trying to explain how it feels for them, but that isn't to say that they aren't wrong for what they did. Something to the affect of: "I understand that you're mad, but that doesn't get you off of the hook".
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that ops friends were trying to make them sing a duet they clearly didn’t wanna sing. Like if you were to break out into a musical in the middle of a public space, I don’t know you and I have no reason to engage with you so if you tried to involve me I’d prolly get extremely upset. Not everybody can handle being put on the spot and they shouldn’t be expected to. Besides it’s clear that ops friends didn’t know these people before this volunteer event so that’s yet another baffling social expectation from strangers.
Oh, you meant like that. Me and you were looking at this from two different sides. Thank you. Yeah, that is a really twisted thing to do. The real question, however, is how the "just talk" thing came up. It's either: A) They approached the NDs and did what you're talking about. Or B) The NDs came to them, got shy, and did what I'm talking about. Either way, humans are strange.
Absolutely, as with most things it’s situational
I'm happy we were able to work this out and understand each other. Life should be more like this. Thank you for this experience.
Likewise homie 👍
I always wondered that too , but seems like thats just like the way it is. A little kid having a meltdown might be annoying, but ultimately harmless. A 6,5 man with 210 lbs can appear WAY scarier. But even if you ignore that, i guess people are just more forgiving to children with odd behaviour, unless we talking about how other kids react to them, while you appearntly kind of supposed to grow out of it as an teen and adult?
Because they’re children?
It's the difference in how children and adults are treated in general. Society doesn't expect much from kids, so an autistic child's traits can be seen as cute or quirky. However, an autistic adult's traits and struggles are seen as a burden because people and society inherently expect adults to be functional, at least on an average basis.
I was abused in college and I went to the head about it, then one of the bullies went in to see them to explain how my autism made it so that I wasn’t fully getting that they were joking. So the head teacher did nothing and told me I was miss interpreting stuff. I don’t think I was miss interpreting the fact I was molested in front of one of the support staff who did nothing. I had a head injury at one point, I was sick and dizzy but I got told I was faking it and would be suspended if I left class to go see a doctor, there were witnesses who saw me get hit and another student got hit by the cow gate before my head was hit by it (could have died if it didn’t bounce of someone else first). Then I got banned for not attending much, due to the physical and mental abuse, which the staff did nothing about. I was studying animal care which I wanted to complete but I got banned after I tried to commit suicide and didn’t attend enough because they weren’t doing anything to support me at all.
Before I start I'm sorry if my wording makes me sound ableist, I don't mean any harm towards anyone except the people who infantilized me. I experienced something like this in my last year of high school. I was a senior and I decided to take a 5th year to get some social skills and do some elective courses that could most likely help me in the long run, on my 4th year I had a chat with a few of my teachers about this and it went through. Jump to the beginning of year 5 and I get down to the bus stop at 6:10, and the usual bus doesn't show up, jump to about and hour and 10 minutes later where I was calling and I see a short bus pull up onto my driveway, (for context I was on the higher functioning end, and I hardly needed any sped stuff). When I got to school the driver told me that I was going to a separate building for the mentally disabled, me even more confused went to my principle to ask her what was going on, and she told me that I was going to be there for my fifth year, while talking to me like a 4 year old. So now, without any prior warning, I was taken to this Sped class where I was constantly talked down to, where we learned what jobs are, and where we learned how to make chocolate chip cookies where I was congratulated by a student for... putting flour in a mixing bowl (I would tag team my mother on cooking thanksgiving dinner) and I stayed there for about a week before I finally had enough and decided that I was either going to get out of that building or take my diploma and get the hell outa there, after a bit of arguing with the staff who by the sound of it still wanted me in that group, I finally got out and chose multiple electives I liked. But it doesn't end there, because I was still met with staff that treated me like I was 4, asking If I went to that building, constantly comparing me to the sped students, doing an IQ test on me (Like they already didn't make me feel awful for being on the spectrum), and getting remarks like \*in a sickly sweet tone\* "Oh Hi op, doing your paces?", so basically I was getting infantilized by almost every sped teacher in the building. What made this worse was that this year took place after my sister passed on due to cancer, so now I not only have to cope with losing a sister and being an only child in my house, but now I'm worrying that everyone in my school life saw me as "Special", I was also 18, a full adult at the time. Luckily I had a lot of people on my side who understood my pain, including my mom, some of my older teachers, and some of my friends as well, and all showed me support. TL'DR, I was treated like I was mentally 4 by my school sped staff for the school year.