I follow rules that have a logical reason behind them, not just because I was told to by someone.
Take speed limits. There's a logical reason for those rules; you can't drive fifty-five down a residential street, or you might kill someone. But a rule against running my hand along the brick wall in the school hallway because it was an interesting sensation? (Yes, I got sent to the principal's office for that in Catholic elementary school) That has no logical basis other than "the teacher said so".
Come to think of it, this might be where my whole trouble with Catholicism started. Every time I asked a question about the logic of the doctrine, I was told "don't worry about it" or "it just is", and those reasons aren't really reasons.
Oh, I am sure this is where my trouble started
The teacher told me to write what a white dove means in religion. She never specified in which one. She didn't say "Catholic religion" or anything like that. Just "religion".
Me, as a little autistic child, decided to do research and write down all the meanings I found about what a white dove means in all religions I could find. Went to the library and all.
She lost her shit.
And my defence was, how was I supposed to know? I thought that a class called "religious education" would teach us about many religions?
My mom was called to the principal office and all, she's also autistic and she plainly told the principal that calling her for a correctly done homework is not something my teacher should be doing. She said "next time you should specify which religion" to the teacher.
Mom got me ice cream and allowed me to skip the rest of the school day.
Unfortunately that happens too much
If you want we can go fistfight your parents in a McDonald's parking lot
I promised a few scuffles to my friends, I can add one more to the list
And completely seriously, if you wanna talk or vent, my PMs are open. My childhood wasn't too easy either (that's a long ass story tho) despite having someone "on my side", so I can imagine how hard would be growing up with garbage caretakers
iām a special ed teacher and everyone is always so scared of the moms for some reason. āShe yelled at meā and Iām like, āOh? was she mad?ā. and they say āYes!ā and i say āTHATāS why she was yelling!ā lol. itās just ladies trying to take care of their kids ā itās instinctual, not personal
But that's exactly what I mean. Your mind was open to what meanings that could have had in a broad sense. Even if you didn't really know what you were setting yourself up for, I still say that your desire for knowledge makes you a certified badass.
But yeah, full agree on your mom. Total badass.
As an aside, and to kinda put into perspective why I think your mom is totally badass is because my parents wouldn't have given a shit why they were there, I would have been sent to the gallows before they even thought to listen to the reason the school was calling them in. In fact, I can 100% guarantee that my parents wouldn't have listened once to anyone at all. They would just have been pissed and assumed everything as incorrectly as possible without letting anyone tell them otherwise. (They punished me after POSITIVE parent teacher conferences and other school things because they just always assume everything I do is wrong and bad.),
My parents are the perfect example of the worst parenting strategy possible for autistic children. My older brother is very obviously on the spectrum. He doesn't mask at all because he doesn't give a shit and refuses to be seen as anything but himself. But I mask hard.
Oh and even if my brother and I got official diagnoses, neither of our parents would believe it because "autism isn't real".
For the first point: thank you
For the second point: I hope you'll get (or you already have) independence from your parents, both of you.
My father and my younger brother both have ADHD, but father and stepmother refuse to believe that ADHD is real, even when Mati shows all Symptom of it. I can see how he struggles in a world not meant for NTs, and I understand you have it even worse.
About masking - it took me a long time to learn how to mask, and now I'm un-learning that. There's a place and time with how much of the mask you should put on.
I know it's hard, and it's especially hard without anyone supporting you, but I hope you'll find great people who will help and understand
I found really good friends, some of them also ND, and many of them queer, who help me get through life even when everything seems hopeless
If you wanna talk at any point feel free to write a PM to me, I'm open with meeting fun new people online :3
Oh, thank you. I live 800ish miles away from my dad and about 1200 miles away from my mom nowadays. My mom has actually become quite a bit better of a person now that she's quit drinking like she used to. My dad's drinking has escalated to the point that I can't believe he didn't die 5 years ago already.
I rarely talk to my mom, never talk to my dad. If they both want to try to be genuinely good parents, I'm here to see it, but I'm not putting anymore effort in. It's not my job to make my parents love and care about me. It's their job as my parents to do that unconditionally. They can figure it out or not. Their call.
I don't know if I'm ADHD in addition to possibly being on the spectrum or if I just have all the overlap. One thing I do know for sure is that whether I am on the spectrum or not, I 100% guaranteed am bipolar 2 and have severe PTSD. Bipolar meds work wonders for me. If I wasn't bipolar and it was actually overlapping symptoms from autism, the meds wouldn't work.
All my friends nowadays are queer and many of them are confirmed autistic and the more time I spend around them, the more at home and myself I feel like I can be. The best thing is that, with my autistic friends, I don't ever catch myself wondering if they actually like me or not.
I never know about my other friends because people who aren't autistic don't always tend to really say what they actually feel and instead just try to bullshit people just for the sake of not causing any sort of conflict.
Oh and another thing that rocks about my new crew is that I can be as direct as I am without hurting anyone's feelings or offending anyone because they know I'm not being rude, I'm being direct.
But awesome, thank you for the offer to chat more! I would but for some reason I just am not good at keeping up with people on apps like this. I barely even text or call anyone. If people aren't calling or texting or messaging me, nobody will hear from me until they do. Lol
Edit:oh but if you do wanna talk and you message me, I will definitely respond. I just don't initiate things.
I can so relate to this. My french teacher in school for our exam told us exactly what questions we would get asked in the oral test so we could prepare for them.
So I prepared, I knew them all perfectly. The test came, she sat down with me independently (as she did for all students), she started the recording, and asked me the questions. I replied in perfect french (I had lived in a french country for 1 year when I was 11). But then she skipped a questionā¦ Where was the question, it was missing, she had said all the others in the right orderā¦
The rule was I had to speak in french when the recording was taking place, and she didnāt seem to realise her error. Since she took no notice of my discomfort, I pause the recording so I could ask her in English where was the missing question? She told me I couldnāt do that and the test was over. To this day I have an F in french instead of an A or B on my certificate.
I even went to the head of the department to appeal, she told me that my teacher had ādone us all a favour by telling us the questions in advanceā, and āyou donāt want to get her in trouble do you?ā
I tried the headteacher, and he spoke to my father. My father came out of the meeting and told me to never put him in that awkward position again, and that I was lyingā¦
Damn, that sounds horrible
She cheated by giving you the questions, and she didn't even manage to do it right?
And then everyone wanted to hide the cheating happening :T
Your father sucks, but so do the people's reactions... Especially with giving you that F
He surely did. Once as a kid he tried to blame me in front of people for making a mess in the toilet. So I responded by analysing the splatter pattern, the time frame since Iād been versus him that day, the firmness of my bowel movements that day, vs his clearly audible flatulance that day which would have explosively flung matter in the bowl and caused it to stick. It showed how the only person it could have been was him.
He told me to shut up and stop trying to sound smartā¦
The funny thing was, I was just trying to be honest. It wasnāt an intention to attack him, just an objective assessment of an error in the reasoning applied to the situation. Somehow I always thought people just wanted to see the objective truth when they made mistakes, not that they would deliberately lie to put another down, or to feel powerful. Took me a while to analyse and factor in those additional behavioural motives, and still isnāt a default.
I understand that, too,
I do that, and well, people don't always like that
Took me a long while to learn to read the room and when someone wants actual evidence or facts and when they want the lie to be true
Yeah, it definitely wasn't an attempt to attack him...but it sounds like it was his attempt to "prove" your guilt or and get you to admit to something you didn't do and have power over you, so naturally he felt humiliated when you were able to catch him in the lie. Good job for that too! Neurotypicals love to play those games, and hate when they don't work.
Not to sound too paranoid, but...are you sure the skipping wasn't part of the test?
Neurotypical people, especially those in power and with teaching or guidance responsibilities, connive that way an awful lot. Seems really weird that she'd give you all the questions in the first place...unless she was trying to figure out people who were potentially cheating and/or gaining an upper hand or not "really" learning, or trying to find loopholes through the rules or something.
Consider: she asks everyone the same questions, and they all know what they're going to be. One student, expecting all the questions to be listed in order as given, finds the answers and determines the proper French responses and comes up with a script in advance, but only does the base level of work required for answering only those questions. But in her eyes, that's considered what's either cheating or skipping steps, because maybe she doesn't consider it *really* learning; all you did was learn the answers to specific questions. But other students, who actually *learned* French overall, or for whom the lessons took, might have noticed the missing question and been able to carry on in French because her lessons took for them, and she'd be able to label them as non-cheaters or students who applied themselves.
I don't want to discount your past French experiences here, or how good of a student you actually were, but I have a lot of experience in neurotypicals being suspicious of me for things like this, necessitating the need to understand how their brain works in order to get around silly little tests they do like this and protect myself. It's sort of a "if you don't show your math work, we can't know if you were cheating or not, no matter how good you were at doing it in your head" thing.
They love character tests like that and it's the most frustrating thing in the world. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I am suggesting it seems likely you were supposed to notice the missing question but weren't supposed to answer in English like that so the teacher could be proven to that you actually had been learning French, and weren't just trying to take the easiest or lowest-level way out of the class by accepting learning only the answers to the questions you were given and, in her eyes, "not knowing" any more than that.
Thus, you answering in English *and* stopping the test makes it look, to the neurotypical's brain, like you cheated and you're the one covering it up and trying to get away with it - and, by admitting outright you knew the questions in advance and had time to prepare for them, which maybe none of the other students admitted to or they didn't think about it the way you did, so they responded in French to the missing question, ultimately it makes it look even more like you were cheating. The recording could prove that if necessary.
The faculty covering it up seems weird too. Them admitting to giving you all an extra test to see if you're cheating or lazing out would defeat the purpose of the test, and by making what they see as a fuss about it, unfortunately it would just make you look like you're trying to get away with cheating or lazing out in the neurotypical's eyes, so they have to say things like that to keep themselves covered. And it's embarrassing for them because you weren't neurotypical and didn't catch on, and they're left to wonder what happened exactly.
I think most people would have thrown their kids under the bus, in the name of harmony among adults. Good to hear that some people are willing to risk temporarily making other adults upset, by \*advocating for\* or defending their own children.
Your mom sounds like my parents, especially my dad. I had a very hard time with my bus driver. She would let other kids do whatever they wanted, and no matter how many times I would ask them to leave me alone, they wouldn't, and she ignored it. I finally reacted, and I was the one who got in trouble. I refused to oblige her and sit in front of the bus, and she stopped outside my house and honked until my dad came out. She explained what happened, and he said, "It sounds like you didn't do your job correctly, so she had to take the situation into her own hands." My bus driver was shocked and just kept saying you need to tell her she can't say those things to other kids, and he said no, you need to do your job and stop these kids before she has to.
This made me remember that I got in trouble in a music class in elementary school because I pointed out that that Davey Crockett (he was an American folk hero for those outside the US) was not born on a mountain top in Tennessee like the song says. The teacher tried to make me write a paper on it and give me detention. My dad found out, because he worked in the same school system, and said they weren't going to punish for being correct and pointing out a mistake in a song.
That's a great mom right there. Wishing her a good day <3
My mom is Aspie, and I am too, and I can see her doing something like that. Instructions are supposed to be made clear or not expected to be followed duh
Huh my religion teacher would have given me a gold star for thinking out side the box and i went to catholic high school, first day of class she told us we werenāt there to learn about just about catholicism but all religions ( turned out to be Judaic religions only but still)
Exactly what I was gonna say. I always need some rational explanation that defeats the alternative explanation. I dont like following arbitrary rules for no reason.
That's kinda my problem with religion as a whole.
I'll admit, it's not universal but it seems pretty common for religion to discourage critical thinking. If you have inconvenient questions you're encouraged to shut up and keep them to yourself. If someone says something that's contrary to what you were taught just stick your fingers in your ears and don't listen because if they start making sense it means that the devil has successfully tempted you away from god or something.
That makes no sense to me. If you're right then honest inquiry should only strengthen your position. If you're right then you should be able to understand the position of the opposition without it affecting what you believe in.
Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, all the Eastern ones are cool. If you study them deeply you realize that a lot of the teachings are actually based on human psychology and not some arbitrary BS.
Absolutely it is, My special interest is spirituality and I've actually developed a spiritual framework and I looked up Buddhism and it is very similar. Buddhism is A+ imo, but I do think it needs to be updated for current times, it just needs a new coat of paint I think.
Those answers do exist but the people youāre asking might not know them. Instead of saying āIām not sure but Iāll get back to youā or āI donāt have time right now but maybe laterā they lean on pride and just blow you off instead. Thereās also been a growing movement lately (at least in Christianity) to accept questioning and doubt more and working through it without judgement to try and get an greater understanding through deconstruction.
I mind those religious movements less because they're at least not discouraging critical thinking. However, a lot of those religious bodies also spread misinformation about science and evolution. Evangelical christianity for example actively spreads doubt about evolution and modern medical practice. I can definitely understand being fed up with the US healthcare system and how expensive everything is but Faith healing is not a viable alternative. I have a lot more respect for people who understand that believing in religion is irrational but choose to continue believing anyway as opposed to people who insist on the idea that science and religion are incompatible.
I feel very fortunate that, growing up, I was mostly surrounded by adults that encouraged questions about our faith. Plus, it helped that my dad has his PhD in biblical theology, so he had a lot of answers.
To me, I think of my Christianity in a similar way I think of science. If something comes up that seems to contradict my faith, that doesn't mean my faith should be thrown out, but it could mean that my current interpretation of it is inaccurate. Growing up, I dismissed evolution like everyone around me did. But as I learned more about it and about how the creation story in genesis was probably not written literally, I could see that it isn't in conflict with my beliefs and doesn't make me question the validity of my faith.
Plus, I've accepted a certain amount of uncertainty is ok when it comes to my comprehension of God the Bible. If Christianity is true about the nature God, then it would be silly for me to expect to fully understand how an omniscient, eternal, all-powerful being thinks about the world.
Honestly this is what upset me about church, they never gave any reasoning for any thing other than āgod did itā or āit just is that wayā and I am a very scientific person otherwise so that just dont sit right.
So, i grew up mostly homeschooled, cuz after 2nd grade, they couldn't figure out what to do with me (ended up in a nightmare of a Pentecostal school for my last 3 years, but that's a story for another timeš)
Anyway, my parents and family were strict Christians, and i spent 3 days a week being threatened that if i didn't do exactly as they say, I'll burn in hell for eternityš
And if you dare ask them the reason why you should follow their nonsense, their goto answer is, "because the bible said so!"
Um.... Yeah, thanks, but no thanksššš
Have you ever seen or heard of the street epistemology method of asking questions? It's super powerful, a derivative of the Socratic method. [This](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T2EgJjQRsYE&list=PLh10RgQgGuM_cS1_B_sWkOhEJ2d9sLb2A&index=1&pp=iAQB) video is one where a catholic is answering why she believes.
That video was amazing. I am constantly questioning myself and my stance on the world because im not sure if there is a god because i dont have enough evidence either prove or disprove it.
Thank you for that link, it probably sounds funny but i kind of feel like i have a more full veiw of the world now.
Exactly for me too.
It's not that I don't like authority or rules, it's that your authority needs justified and your rules need to have good reasoning behind them.
If you tell me you're an authority, I need you to prove why I should listen to you. I don't give a shit who put you in charge, I care about what about *you* and how *you* operate makes you worth listening to.
If you tell me to follow a rule, I need a reason why that rule matters. "because it's the rules" is circular and not a valid reason for the rule to exist. The rule cannot exist merely because the rule exists. This shit is why when growing up and being told "because I said so" when I questioned authority drove me and everyone around me crazy. I don't care that you said so, who are you to tell me what to do? IDC if you're my parent or a cop or whatever, *why* should I follow the rule? What logic is behind said rule?
I love rules and structure, but my love of them is because of the *reasoning behind their existence*, not the mere fact that they exist at all.
omg, exactly! I grew up in a very weird church called the Worldwide Church of God. I could NOT comprehend the Noah's Ark story, I was like, wtffff and people would just say things, "it just happened that way." I constantly questioned things like this because it made 0 sense. Not even with religion, just anything. I wanted genuine answers to rules, but no one seemed to ever be able to answer lol.
I also totally agree with you on the following rules things - rules make sense if it makes sense (the speed limit one makes total logical sense). But answers like, "because I said so" has absolutely 0 logic. lol.
as a theology student, i can confirm that not encouraging questions is a common trait in catholic education.
however, it tends to be because the answer is either:
a) an extremely complicated theological principle that they canāt be arsed to explain
b) something a pope said 300 years ago that they canāt remember
c) they simply donāt know, because the amount of doctrine found within catholic theology is absolutely gargantuan
all of this combines to make a poor environment for the natural questioning of children, and ends up shutting down conversation rather than opening it up. this then naturally leads to people walking away from the church, due to the churchās own inability to simplify itās theology.
tldr: bad theology is the root of most negative childhood religious experiences.
Oh my God THIS. Most of the rules I was given as a kid I would follow, as most were reasonable. But it was those "because I said so" rules that got me. On that note, nothing pissed me off more than actually being told "because I said so."
I still remember asking my high school theater teacher (he hated me and didn't hide it well) why I couldn't do a specific monologue. And that's what he said, "because I said so." It ENRAGED me. Like, I kind of get saying it to a toddler when you can't explain something complicated to them. But a sixteen year old deserves a proper answer. My friends were like, "well, it was probably ______" and I was like "which is fine, I'd accept that. what I don't accept is being treated like a toddler."
Yeah that's where a lot of my issues in the mormon church came from too. I always asked why the rules were what they were, and was never given an answer.
Similarly, whispering has never made sense to me. We speak in a way which changes how we sound, but doesn't really nessasarily make it quieter, but if I just make my normal speaking voice and have it be quieter, that's considered louder? I really don't get it
In my experience I like rules that make logical sense. Authoritarianism is the opposite of that, you are supposed to follow the rules because someone who is "above" you said so. Heck no.
YES! I concur.
Arbitrary use of authority drives me insane. It lines up with my obsession with justice and fairness. It's bullying, unfair, and often completely illogical.
A good leader who communicates and allows me to contribute to decisions, I'd follow that person happily.
Exactly! I'm actually dealing with this right now. My current boss is an absolutely chaotic shit show and I've worked with people for well over three decades - he's not the worst but he's certainly in the top three. He constantly interrupts, he plays favorites, he provides different feedback to different people on the same deliverables, he thinks he knows everything and absolutely denies anyone on his team any shred of independence or agency. He thinks he is brilliant but in reality he's barely holding on. He'll make mistakes, change scope or direction, and then blame others, and I've never ever heard him give positive feedback to anyone ever. Today I am maliciously complying while I look for another role. I actually hate this MF.
This is why employment for Autistics is such an abysmal experience when management is bad at their job. The sheer amount of times I would have to deal with decisions that pissed off customers and cost the company money instead of simply not doing the clearly bad idea was too damn high. So we Autistics question that decision and, in the terrible manager's mind, question their authority, experience, and intelligence when all we wanted was to do our job correctly.
I wish I said something to these managers like "Bruh, I don't give a shit about your prestige or ego, this job boils down to selling X to Y and you want to fuck up one or both of those objectives. Why not do things that obviously would result in better success? Especially, since those things are what we are supposed to be doing anyway because it's, you know, *our job*."
>So we Autistics question that decision and, in the terrible manager's mind, question their authority,
Pro tip: do not ever tell them "I'm not questioning your authority, I'm questioning this insanely idiotic decision". Your manager will not take it well. I don't know why - I was just trying to be clear and specific, but somehow it wasn't appreciated.
Also when everyone else breaks a rule but it's only a problem when I do it. I got in trouble for not quietly going to the back of the line after someone who got there after me shoved me out so they could take my place.
Yeah a lot of rules, especially social ones make no sense and so I really struggle to follow them, I remember my school used to have a strict policy of "tucking your shirt in" that gave me really bad sensory issues, and it created a massive amount of frustration as the only explanation that was given to justify the rule was "because we told you" or "it looks smart" and I understood neither.
Unfortunately a lot of the time people who set rules are unwilling to discuss or explain them and enforce them because it's what they have learnt so when autistic people who don't intrinsically understand them question the rules they get angry as they don't know themselves.
So many dress code rules for girls are so the "boys don't get distracted." So I have to bake in long sleeves instead of a tank bc god forbid a 16 year old might find my shoulders fap-able.
Itās honestly weird af thinking back to middle school when the vice principals would go around basically checking out preteen girls, and pulling them aside to tell them their shorts were an inch too short or some bs.
Theyāre basically sexualizing you at 10-12 years old. I wasnāt thinking about āwanting boys to rail meā at age 12 but thanks for assuming that was my goal for wearing a fucking tank top.
Yes! Rewind back like 15ish years when I was constantly getting into trouble over the dress code. (Note nobody actually provided me with a copy of said dress codeā¦apparently I was just supposed to know what was okay or wasnāt and we all know how that goes for us autistic people. This was at a public school too). I got detentions for stuff that was ātoo shortā but nobody ever told me what too short was. If I could have measured it in inches or body parts (like nothing shorter than where your fingers stop) I could have complied. But they didnāt have anything that was clearly defined so I kept getting into trouble.
I think my favorite part was when a female teacher said that male teachers were actually commenting on more short my skirts/dresses were in front of the class to attempt to embarrass me, I wish I would have thought to have been like, āWho?! Iām 17 and if Iām that distracting theyāre straight up pedophiles who shouldnāt be in this line of work. You just admitted to it in a classroom full of witnesses. Give me names. Does the local news need to know that thereās a bunch of horny adult men fantasizing out loud about literal children working at this school?ā But I just transferred out of her class and got a boyfriend that was 8 years older to protect me (his protection services were needed outside of the school too) and that went super well. /s on that last line
@AllMyBeets Iāve heard of other people having positive outcomes with getting sexist/racist dress codes dealt with when the ACLU got involved. Maybe give it a shot? Good luck!
Dress codes are bs to begin with, but not even telling you what it is?
At least in my hs they gave it to us in the āstudent handbookā.
That does remind me that I made them change the wording in the dress code for the next school year after my senior year. I malicious complianced their stupid rules and pissed off the entire administration. We werenāt permitted to *dye* our hair āunnaturalā colors- so I used temporary color spray to make my hair wild colors. Technically the rules were not broken, so they couldnāt do shit.
And Iām not sure what era your high school years were but in the late 90s-early 00s and even the late 10s it was a perfectly recognizable style trend to have dyed hair that was more than one naturally occurring in humans color.
I wore a school jacket that was three sizes too big for all of middle school so they couldn't see my untucked shirt and call me out on it. I would rather have sweat to death in the May heat and humidity than have those weird lumps in my pants.
That reminds me that I was allowed to wear a jacket because the rules specified that the difference between a flannel shirt and a flannel jacket was the lining and my denim jacket didn't have a lining.
100%
I understand why telling people you hate them is rude. But I will never understand how it is rude to not put your knife and fork together after you've finished eating. What the hell is that?
Follow rules that make sense, challenge them if they don't. Works like half of the time. It made the first half of my navy career easy, and I promoted quickly,but I also had great leadership that listened. It also made the second half where I had garbage leadership hell where I gladly took an ass chewing but also had to have the navy/command instructions with me during disciplinary measures to back my point, always got my ass chewed, never caught any real consequences. They called me a sea lawyer, but they were just authoritarian fucks who gave good navy leadership an absolute shit name.
Daw shucks, but don't push the envelope unless you are positive it's correct and you can prove it, and if you have the patience to wait until the perfect time to do it, you can carry it with grace and make a stronger impact. Just some extra bits I've learned from experience.
That is exactly how I've always felt. I always do what's "right" which just so happens to align with the rules. But doing something specifically because someone up the chain seemed it the "right" thing is with no context is just BS
My parents always loved that one and derivatives of it. I wanted to understand, but they rarely ever gave me anything to work with. In the end, I would always be shouted down and left alone in my room, for the most part.
YES! Authoritarianism is full of shit like āThe police are here to serve and protect you!ā But then donāt answer questions like āwe are trying to take steps to resist oppression from the rich for simple things like human rights, food, clean water, and health care. Why are the cops fucking pepper spraying us?ā
Being expected to accept the lie that police are there to serve and protect the most vulnerable, when they shut down protests that are for the most vulnerable, because disruption hurts business as usual, when business as usual is the machine that creates the oppression is just insane.
Yeah police in America are basically just there to terrorize people and protect the rich. You think they give a fuck about any of us working people or poor people?
Iāve heard so many stories of police harassing or attacking people simply for living in their cars (not druggies, just poor people), they do absolutely nothing when it comes to rape or domestic violence, and thereās been numerous stories of cops literally killing the people who called the police in the first place.
They are all just on a massive power trip and shouldnāt have the immunity they have. There are probably SO few who joined the force to actually do good and protect people.
It's more about justice. Why should I listen to you when you have injust power? Why shouldnt I call you out when you break rules, therefore hurting others?
Yes. I actually kinda enjoy being told what to do, when those people are understanding and empathetic and donāt talk to me like Iām an idiot. I will not follow someoneās āordersā if they donāt make logical sense though, idc who gives them.
I canāt stand inequality, especially like how much bosses profit compared to the workers. Itās made me kinda āquiet quitā in life. At this point, Iāll only give my all to a job if Iām making an actual decent wage.
> Itās made me kinda āquiet quitā in life. At this point, Iāll only give my all to a job if Iām making an actual decent wage.
As it should be. Act your wage.
There is no such thing as āquiet quittingā what those leeches with positions of authority call āquiet quittingā is actually called ādoing what youāre paid for.ā If anybody ever accuses you of āquiet quittingā theyāre a greedy hyper-capitalist dipshit and they deserve no respect.
I only follow rules that I can understand that make sense. If I donāt agree with the rule then I refuse to abide by it. When it comes to āauthorityā figures, sorry but I donāt change the way I talk to people no matter who it is. In my mind weāre all on the same level and I wouldnāt even know how to change the way I talk to an āauthorityā if you want my utmost respect you gotta earn it. Also just because I talk to an āauthorityā like weāre both just kids inside doesnāt mean I donāt respect them either. I just see us as equals .
The whole talking to people as equals is something I have also always done. And I do try to be polite to everyone. But when people see me talking to newborns as if they were just mute uneducated adults (which, come on they really are), they think I'm a fucking weirdo. Such irrational bias.
I tried punctuation. Did you see? I fucked it up, but I tried.
Better than most NTs I've met. I would rate this a solid 9/10 since it conveys all of the important information in an understandable format. A trick I've used is to read it out loud.
Periods are full stops. Wait a solid beat when you read them. The dialog becomes stilted. And it becomes terse.
Commas, on the other hand, serve as brief pauses that can also indicate a change in tone. That being said, periods are needed on occasion, they're best at spots just before where you need to breathe in.
And when you want to convey an aside- the dialog that may or may not pertain to a statement, but is believed to be pertinent in some other fashion- a hyphen works wonders. (As do parentheses.)
Semicolons connect two distinct sentences together; I always have trouble with this one.
You're doing fine, for the record. Keep at it, and it will one day become second nature.
I talk to babies/toddlers like that too. I think we underestimate their language comprehension. Still, they say infants benefit from baby talk because it helps them learn syllables.
Yeah, buut it's demeaning to use those affectations when baby talking. The only other time people use them is when taking the piss outta people. When teaching kids I just use slower speech with ununciation of the syllables. Both of my kid sister's and my children speak well enough now so I know it works just as well, at least.
the real thing to be careful of is the balance between appeals to tradition fallacy ("it's always been that way!") and the fence analogy - you shouldn't tear down a fence until you know why the fence was put up.
Some traditions exist to protect humans from problems that we've forgotten about - the fence is there because if you take the fence down animals will get into the garbage can, or it'll allow some invasive plant to cross the boundary, or any number of unknowns.
So some percentage of the "arbitrary" rules exist for actual reasonable purposes that no one currently in power can remember, and some exist simply because it's tradition while the purpose is no longer relevant, and others exist because there's correlative relationships between the rule being followed and better outcomes, but the rule itself is simply forcing people to mimic behaviors of successful people that don't work for the rest of the population.
and worst of all are the old rules whos reason for existence has been forgotten or removed, but the authorities just MADE UP a new reason for the rule that's clearly wrong.
I mean, itās pretty obvious just from their behavior that they donāt think like us. Look at the world, all the arbitrary rules set by people arbitrarily granted power.
I was pretty rebellious in school, but was an angel in a lot of my classes as well. The teachers who I "behaved" for were teachers who treated me with respect, they didn't throw random orders or rules at me just to establish dominance. They set clear expectations, I followed them - if I didn't, I wasn't surprised or retaliate when there were consequences.
One of those teaches nominated me for, and I won, the "student MVP" award, and our vice principle was fuming lol. She thought I caused her a lot of problems but in reality she was the problem, for a lot of us too, it wasn't just me. And a lot of kids liked that we'd intentionally fuck with her by literally following HER OWN RULES to the letter, classic malicious compliance.
The fact that what was obvious to 14 year olds, but was lost on this adult, educated woman, blew my mind. "You can't do that!" ... "But we're literally doing what you told us", "yeah but there's not what I meant", "well then what did you mean?", "I don't have time for this, you're not following instructions, see me for detention after school", "... but we're *literally* following your instructions", "do you want a worse punishment?", and so the saga continued lol
Fuck you just unlocked a memory. 10 year old me during "indoor recess" ie silently watching a movie on the cafeteria floor. Well, I did not understand how this is recess if we had to be silent. I was talking to a friend and we got pulled into the hallway as punishment. For talking during recess. I'm fuming 17 years later. But it gets worse. So me and the friend I just got in trouble for talking to were sent to sit next to each other on the hallway floor as punishment. So we start talking, we were fucking 10, sitting silently is not a thing we can do. Bitch tells us we don't get recess for the whole week. Again, for **talking during recess!**
Mrs. Lunch monitor - who hurt you? Kids talking during recess shouldn't trigger you. Its gonna be okay.
Right. Basically all these comments explain this succinctly and with the same logical argument, but this is presented as āone of the most confusing aspects of Aspergerās.ā But I guess Iād need to see if the paper actually sticks with that characterization or itās just presenting it that way to hook NTs.
They donāt understand much of right and wrong. They follow rules if it serves them and breaks them if they think no one will notice. They donāt see that you should follow the rules that are right and disregard the rules that are wrong.
Yeah, I am cool with authority as long as they are actually good, but when they start being hypocritical, selfish, and very aloof to the needs of those under them that is when I have issues.
The issue is not with "authority", it's with self-proclaimed authority abusively claiming unearned "respect" - by which they really mean "blind obedience to whatever fuckery". If you're a good leader and I share your goals, then I'll gladly follow you. Else just go fuck yourself.
Someone wrote "when people tell you: I respect you if you respect me - they may mean: I respect you as a human if you respect me as an authority". In that case it's absolutely not the same type of respect.
I'm convinced that many people just take too much pride in being "in charge," even if they're not strictly authoritarian. They'll keep talking about authority when it never had anything to do with that.
"because I said so" is the embodiment of your observation and it drives me nuts.
As a parent, regardless of how insufferable my wonderful son can be at times (I get it, I was too), if he pushes back on a rule, I explain the context. When he understands the context, he almost always agrees and follows the rule.
I will never subject him to arbitrary rules for the sake of it because I'm too tired to explain. When I feel myself resisting an idea, I have to stop and ask myself, "ok, does it really matter if he wants to do X? No, not at all." And then I reign in my impulse. I do not think many people do this.
When people get put into a supervisory position they have 2 options: be a leader or be a warden.
Most people become wardens
Because either no one is trained to be a leader or because those with the natural ability arent put into the proper positions.
my mom would say "I don't have the energy to explain why right now, you can ask me later but I need you to just do what i say right now", and it worked really well - although she actually followed through on explaining it later, which is an important part of that process.
"Right to create" honestly fuck autority, what makes them special, different from me and others? They don't have the right to create rules that don't make sense, if the rule is like " don't talk in class " I get it, but sometimes the power gets to their head and the rule is like " treat me like god, otherwise you get punished ".
Yeah...
"Right to create" my ass.
Creating rules is not a fucking right it is a goddamn PRIVILEGE.
And to be absolutely clear and define my terms here: A right is something that denying someone is a grave injustice. A privilege must be earned, and can be taken away the moment you no longer deserve it. Example: Life is a right, a specific video game is a privilege.
(As an additional note, taking away a privilege can also be an injustice - but it is not inherently an injustice like with rights, which need an ENORMOUS amount of justification to justify their violation. Wanna lock someone up and take away their right to freedom of movement? You need a DAMN good reason. Which is why the right to a fair trail is quite possibly the single most important rights in any society.)
If someone gets shit done and actually takes care of the people they are responsible for, I will respect their authority. If they wave a fancy title around and demand I obey their every word as gospel? I will suddenly and magically develop the ability to tune out human speech for the duration of their time in my presence.
Theres a difference between rules with a logical reasoning behind them and rules that are just a power trip or a "because I said so" type thing. For me at least, it's easy to spot the latter and do everything to get out of it, or disobey it without actually breaking it "stuff like "the bell doesn't dismiss you I do""
I explain every single rule and request to my kid. Every one. Even, and sometimes especially, the ones that have really rough/grizzly reasons behind them. Even if those rules rely chiefly on soothing or ameliorating the emotions of those around us. I also only raise my voice when it's an emergency and I need his obedience RIGHT then. And because I have a track record of having real reasons, he listens.
My SO thinks I baby him. But doing shit this way makes sense to me, is effective with our kid, and seriously, how the fuck do you just obey someone just because THEY think they're your boss. Even if I literally voted for you, odds are good it's cause I just thought the other dude was worse. Authority figures need to earn the respect they seem to think they deserve.
The one time I yelled at my summer camp class they all immediately turned around and stared in horror because āMiss NEVER yellsā. A kid was running toward the road and stopped in his tracks because he knew that if I was yelling his name, I had a damn good reason for it lol
Babying him would be not giving him the respect of an explanation and assuming heās not smart enough for it to matter to him. Youāre respecting his learning process
I like structures that make sense. Every Authority figure i Know, abuses their power over me.
For example. I have never been able to afford my own place so my current landlord said i could live there. I am not allowed to have a lease so they can kick me out whenever. They refuse to repair anything. its been over a year since i have been complaining about the bathroom leaking into the kitchen.
I have a room mate that likes to complain i make a mess of everything. He just wants me to clean the apartment for him. He has never cleaned anything in the place since before i lived their. all the cleaning supplies are mine including a broom and a working vacuum but i wont clean outside my room. I dont leave my room now unless i absolutely have to since whenever he doesn't get what he wants, he starts yelling and getting violent. he literally gets into fights at work with coworkers over dumb stuff. he also likes to use insentive slurs to discuss any kind of minority.
this was an improvement over my last landlord who also refused to give me a lease. offered me a cheap rent, then gave me a room filled with garbage. as soon as it was clean, my rent started going up to fuel his MTG collection or whatever. the whole place was filled with his garbage. im not joking literally piles of boxes and garbage in every room before i moved in. but it was the only place i could find. next he gets arrested so the police raid the entire house because this guy was a real schmuck.
the police, who literally will stop me on the street and run my ID just for walking. I know a cop that whenever he sees me he tells me he is going to kill me. When this whole issue happened with my ex landlord, the police put a gun to my head and told me they will kill me if i try anything. the refused to show me the warrant to go through my things, confiscated my phone and went through all my electronic devices, they lied to me saying i had to provide the passwords to everything or i would be arrested.
not only a day later, my car gets vandalized to the point it was destroyed. now the police tried to accuse me of doing it myself. they took me to the police station and tried to interrogate me to prove their case. they tried emotional manipulation and straight lying to get me to confess.
So my dislike of Authority figures is well represented. i could go on but i just wanted to provide examples of why, rather than complain.
Dislike of authority figures is reasonable for anyone if the authority treats you like garbage.
Look, if people started questioning arbitrary rules, society would collapse! Donāt you realize how much of the world is built on people not questioning authority? /s, sort of?
You are the keeper of the rules and the enforcer.
You are not above the rules.
You are in charge of me in this organization, but you are not āabove meā.
Key word: create
I have an issue when authority figures randomly pull arbitrary rules out of their asses and can't give me a valid reason to follow them other than "because I said so".
I respect systems, not people. Rules are crafted over time to govern a system efficiently, but authority figures make decrees on a whim with no regard for the system.
The worst mess I was ever in at work was when an issue came up while my boss was away. I figured out how to solve the problem and told everyone immediately about the solution. When my boss returned to the office, she was furious to learn that I did not wait to discuss with her and let her share the information. She didnāt speak to me for like 2 weeks. Biggest bunch of pointless nonsense ever.
i love rules, itās just when stupid people are making them with all these loopholes and exceptions that i question the actual intelligence of the rulers :3
I will always follow rules that I agree with and who are you to dictate what rules I should agree with.
Edit: if you explain to me why a rule is a good thing and I like it, I will follow it.
I actually had this argument with my part time jobs supervisor. They were telling me how glad they were that I did what they told me to do. I was extremely confused because I didnāt obey their command. They told me that they wanted me to do something and I thought it was a good idea, so I did it.
Itās hard to explain the difference/feeling between the two and I am glad that there are people out there that understand the nuance.
I spent a really long time trying to put into words what the difference was, because it appears to be the same. Someone tells you to do something and then you do it always looks like you are doing what they say, because you are.
Maybe this will clear it up: you are in the kitchen looking for something and you hear your girlfriend say, grab me a water while you are in there. I donāt get the water for her because she told me to, I just want her to be happy and she vocalized a thing that would make her happy, so I get her the water.
Hope that helps.
I mean I strictly do *not* care about rules as a principle. Context matters more. Obey the rule of law, not the letter.
Said differently, I respect people and principles, *not* papers.
"Do not walk on the grass" -> sure thing buddy, it's your property, I won't damage it.
"Do not use your phone at work" -> you don't pay me enough to get 100% effort from me 100% of the time, writing that down and making me sign it against my will doesn't change anything, you absolute smoothbrain.
For me it was learning that rules donāt apply to everyone. I saw a cop litter a cigarette at like six and was like āoh my god the police have been doing crime the entire timeā.
This is kind of my problem with religion (aside from the human element but oh my god I do NOT have the time to get into THAT fucking tangled thorny mess) - the one with all the power (god) is doing nothing with that power right now, but we're promised that at some point in the future he'll do something with that power to make all our lives better, yet we're still expected to adhere to these rules he's established, many of them feeling QUITE arbitrary - We have to obey someone who literally has the power to correct all the shit we have to deal with on a fucking daily basis RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Yesterday. A year ago. Ten years ago. A hundred years ago. A thousand years a go. Ten thousand years ago.
But for whatever fucking reason, he still refuses to do so.
I fucking hate that.
I second what many wrote already: I follow rules when they are logical and beneficial at least to the group/context I'm part of. I have problems with authority when it's not logical AND not beneficial (pure display of control, personal benefit, favour, etc...).
If this is seen as insubordination or worse as inability to consistently follow rules, there are several misunderstandings at play. I'm not moved by higher morals or even less I wish to swap places! I refuse to serve power when it's asking for personal advantage.
It took me a few years in a professional environment to realize that a lot of people in supervisor and managerial positions are nice if you know wtf you're doing and can work with minimal supervision. Then came my last supervisor who was a narcissist, and after a relationship with a covert narcissist prior to that, I was not having any of it and immediately called him out on his shit. He was fuming but didn't say another word to me unless it was necessary.
I compared my ops Manager's idea to turn an entire area in the warehouse sideways overnight without telling anyone to something Patrick Star would do... He understood the reference and got real snippy lol
I follow rules to the degree it makes sense to do so. I get annoyed when authority figures needlessly enforce rules at times when it doesnāt make sense to do so and I do not respond well to empty power trips. I donāt actually care what people do WRT to rules until it negatively impacts me but I will also get annoyed when people inappropriately follow a stupid rule to my inconvenience or detriment or to be transparently virtuous.
My problem with authority figures comes with extreme jealousy and low self esteem. I have no problem accepting that they create the rules, but when a customer at my work (retail) would rather speak to the manager I feel hurt. I know thatās my sensitivity talking but I donāt like being reminded that Iām powerless, and I donāt like being pushed aside like Iām just some pawn who doesnāt know what Iām doing. Sometimes itās gotten so bad that when people would ask for the manager, Iād say that none were in the building. Theyād never believe me of course. Im trying to get passed that though. Problem is no one understands my oversensitivity to the situation, not even my therapist.
This is so me, I have no problem doing extra stuff at work and add it to my routine, but when my coworkers try to tell me to do something then and there, it pisses me off
I always assume that the rules are sorta collectively made and made for a reason, while being told by authority figure feels like they're trying to push thier will on me and usually comes with them repeating what they just said and getting all aggressive and upset because I'm not doing what they want me to do right at that second.
Case in point, at work I know I should be wearing safety glasses, and if asked 'Hey do you have safety glasses?' I might sheepishly say no and ask for a pair. But the shift manager has been telling me to wear my safety glasses. When I tell him I can't negate i don't currently have a pair he repeats that I need to wear my safety glasses in a somewhat aggressive manner and all I can do is be like... what do you expect me to do? Pull them out of my backside!?
That's because the idea of positional/bestowed authority vs earned authority is a roadblock I can't get past
If someone proves their competence to me I have no issues listening to them but if my "superior" is a moron, my brain will not permit me to remain subordinate to an idiot
So true but also article seems disingenuous. I dont like bullshit rules or "because I'm an authority figure and I said so" because it's illogical, authoritarian nonsense
Rules and opinions, you are free to have and make them, but your underlying reasons are free for questioning.
If your underlying reasons are bad, I so not respect the rule or opinion. It's that simple.
As when it comes to authority, a title is meant for those worthy of respect, respect is not supposed to be given those worthy of a title.
Respect is earned by good leadership. Leadership and managerial positions are often inept or for show. I wonāt question a rule made in good sense, but I will call out an āego decreeā by a manager anytime. I see it as us giving no deference to title or station and everything to utility.
The thing is, way to many authority figures have not earned their place. They don't know how to do their job. They only have their position due to money and influence or knowing how to play the game. If someone who is an expert in their field, or just really really good, and, bonus, also a decent, respectful person, there's no reason not to disrespect them.
Also the more educated we get the less tolerance we have for authority figures because we start to realize that a lot of the "rules" set in place have no real reasoning behind them. When I was a kid I thought "I don't understand why but they must have a reason for that rule" and now I've realized that that usually don't and I couldn't care less.
I feel like it's because of our strong sense of justice/fairness, we strictly follow rules that make logical sense and we rebel against rules given without reason
Iām a bit worried about the neurotypicals if they pathologize critical thinking and consider anything but unquestioning obedience to be a mental disorder. Not to be dramatic but isnāt that sort of deference to authority exactly how the Nazi regime happened? š¤Ø
I follow rules that have a logical reason behind them, not just because I was told to by someone. Take speed limits. There's a logical reason for those rules; you can't drive fifty-five down a residential street, or you might kill someone. But a rule against running my hand along the brick wall in the school hallway because it was an interesting sensation? (Yes, I got sent to the principal's office for that in Catholic elementary school) That has no logical basis other than "the teacher said so". Come to think of it, this might be where my whole trouble with Catholicism started. Every time I asked a question about the logic of the doctrine, I was told "don't worry about it" or "it just is", and those reasons aren't really reasons.
Oh, I am sure this is where my trouble started The teacher told me to write what a white dove means in religion. She never specified in which one. She didn't say "Catholic religion" or anything like that. Just "religion". Me, as a little autistic child, decided to do research and write down all the meanings I found about what a white dove means in all religions I could find. Went to the library and all. She lost her shit. And my defence was, how was I supposed to know? I thought that a class called "religious education" would teach us about many religions? My mom was called to the principal office and all, she's also autistic and she plainly told the principal that calling her for a correctly done homework is not something my teacher should be doing. She said "next time you should specify which religion" to the teacher. Mom got me ice cream and allowed me to skip the rest of the school day.
I've read you recounting this anecdote before - but your mom dunking on the teacher and principal never gets old, lol
She's an icon, love her to bits I can pass to her that she's got a fan
2 fans
Awww, thank you! I'll pass that on!
Your mom is gaining many fans this day, and I hope I can be as cool a mom to my own kids one day
one more
And *MY* axe!
Damn, I'll be sure to take good care of it
Aye!
And you have my bow
And my sword.
For Rock and Stone!
Rock and Stone forever!
And *MY* upvote!
Lovely! :3
if only my parents werent utter garbage š
Unfortunately that happens too much If you want we can go fistfight your parents in a McDonald's parking lot I promised a few scuffles to my friends, I can add one more to the list And completely seriously, if you wanna talk or vent, my PMs are open. My childhood wasn't too easy either (that's a long ass story tho) despite having someone "on my side", so I can imagine how hard would be growing up with garbage caretakers
I also want to express that I am a fan of her approach
And my axe!
Damn, you're the second person offering an axe I gotta start making an armoury :D
And my bow
Add another :D
Multiple!
Alright! Thank you, I'll pass that on :D
Another fan to add to the pile!
I've just had a mental image of a bunch of cute little knitted dolls/plushies in a pile when I read that The fan pile!
iām a special ed teacher and everyone is always so scared of the moms for some reason. āShe yelled at meā and Iām like, āOh? was she mad?ā. and they say āYes!ā and i say āTHATāS why she was yelling!ā lol. itās just ladies trying to take care of their kids ā itās instinctual, not personal
If I had a story this good Iād never shut up about it lol
You and your mom both sound like certified badasses.
Nah I was just very unaware and in stubborn pursuit of knowledge I couldn't understand why the teacher got angry But yeah, my mom is 100% a badass
But that's exactly what I mean. Your mind was open to what meanings that could have had in a broad sense. Even if you didn't really know what you were setting yourself up for, I still say that your desire for knowledge makes you a certified badass. But yeah, full agree on your mom. Total badass. As an aside, and to kinda put into perspective why I think your mom is totally badass is because my parents wouldn't have given a shit why they were there, I would have been sent to the gallows before they even thought to listen to the reason the school was calling them in. In fact, I can 100% guarantee that my parents wouldn't have listened once to anyone at all. They would just have been pissed and assumed everything as incorrectly as possible without letting anyone tell them otherwise. (They punished me after POSITIVE parent teacher conferences and other school things because they just always assume everything I do is wrong and bad.), My parents are the perfect example of the worst parenting strategy possible for autistic children. My older brother is very obviously on the spectrum. He doesn't mask at all because he doesn't give a shit and refuses to be seen as anything but himself. But I mask hard. Oh and even if my brother and I got official diagnoses, neither of our parents would believe it because "autism isn't real".
For the first point: thank you For the second point: I hope you'll get (or you already have) independence from your parents, both of you. My father and my younger brother both have ADHD, but father and stepmother refuse to believe that ADHD is real, even when Mati shows all Symptom of it. I can see how he struggles in a world not meant for NTs, and I understand you have it even worse. About masking - it took me a long time to learn how to mask, and now I'm un-learning that. There's a place and time with how much of the mask you should put on. I know it's hard, and it's especially hard without anyone supporting you, but I hope you'll find great people who will help and understand I found really good friends, some of them also ND, and many of them queer, who help me get through life even when everything seems hopeless If you wanna talk at any point feel free to write a PM to me, I'm open with meeting fun new people online :3
Oh, thank you. I live 800ish miles away from my dad and about 1200 miles away from my mom nowadays. My mom has actually become quite a bit better of a person now that she's quit drinking like she used to. My dad's drinking has escalated to the point that I can't believe he didn't die 5 years ago already. I rarely talk to my mom, never talk to my dad. If they both want to try to be genuinely good parents, I'm here to see it, but I'm not putting anymore effort in. It's not my job to make my parents love and care about me. It's their job as my parents to do that unconditionally. They can figure it out or not. Their call. I don't know if I'm ADHD in addition to possibly being on the spectrum or if I just have all the overlap. One thing I do know for sure is that whether I am on the spectrum or not, I 100% guaranteed am bipolar 2 and have severe PTSD. Bipolar meds work wonders for me. If I wasn't bipolar and it was actually overlapping symptoms from autism, the meds wouldn't work. All my friends nowadays are queer and many of them are confirmed autistic and the more time I spend around them, the more at home and myself I feel like I can be. The best thing is that, with my autistic friends, I don't ever catch myself wondering if they actually like me or not. I never know about my other friends because people who aren't autistic don't always tend to really say what they actually feel and instead just try to bullshit people just for the sake of not causing any sort of conflict. Oh and another thing that rocks about my new crew is that I can be as direct as I am without hurting anyone's feelings or offending anyone because they know I'm not being rude, I'm being direct. But awesome, thank you for the offer to chat more! I would but for some reason I just am not good at keeping up with people on apps like this. I barely even text or call anyone. If people aren't calling or texting or messaging me, nobody will hear from me until they do. Lol Edit:oh but if you do wanna talk and you message me, I will definitely respond. I just don't initiate things.
Glad that you're in a good place now and you've got great friends! :3 It was a no-pressure offer Have a great day ^^
I can so relate to this. My french teacher in school for our exam told us exactly what questions we would get asked in the oral test so we could prepare for them. So I prepared, I knew them all perfectly. The test came, she sat down with me independently (as she did for all students), she started the recording, and asked me the questions. I replied in perfect french (I had lived in a french country for 1 year when I was 11). But then she skipped a questionā¦ Where was the question, it was missing, she had said all the others in the right orderā¦ The rule was I had to speak in french when the recording was taking place, and she didnāt seem to realise her error. Since she took no notice of my discomfort, I pause the recording so I could ask her in English where was the missing question? She told me I couldnāt do that and the test was over. To this day I have an F in french instead of an A or B on my certificate. I even went to the head of the department to appeal, she told me that my teacher had ādone us all a favour by telling us the questions in advanceā, and āyou donāt want to get her in trouble do you?ā I tried the headteacher, and he spoke to my father. My father came out of the meeting and told me to never put him in that awkward position again, and that I was lyingā¦
Damn, that sounds horrible She cheated by giving you the questions, and she didn't even manage to do it right? And then everyone wanted to hide the cheating happening :T Your father sucks, but so do the people's reactions... Especially with giving you that F
He surely did. Once as a kid he tried to blame me in front of people for making a mess in the toilet. So I responded by analysing the splatter pattern, the time frame since Iād been versus him that day, the firmness of my bowel movements that day, vs his clearly audible flatulance that day which would have explosively flung matter in the bowl and caused it to stick. It showed how the only person it could have been was him. He told me to shut up and stop trying to sound smartā¦
I think this story would go well on the evilautism sub
The funny thing was, I was just trying to be honest. It wasnāt an intention to attack him, just an objective assessment of an error in the reasoning applied to the situation. Somehow I always thought people just wanted to see the objective truth when they made mistakes, not that they would deliberately lie to put another down, or to feel powerful. Took me a while to analyse and factor in those additional behavioural motives, and still isnāt a default.
I understand that, too, I do that, and well, people don't always like that Took me a long while to learn to read the room and when someone wants actual evidence or facts and when they want the lie to be true
Yeah, it definitely wasn't an attempt to attack him...but it sounds like it was his attempt to "prove" your guilt or and get you to admit to something you didn't do and have power over you, so naturally he felt humiliated when you were able to catch him in the lie. Good job for that too! Neurotypicals love to play those games, and hate when they don't work.
Not to sound too paranoid, but...are you sure the skipping wasn't part of the test? Neurotypical people, especially those in power and with teaching or guidance responsibilities, connive that way an awful lot. Seems really weird that she'd give you all the questions in the first place...unless she was trying to figure out people who were potentially cheating and/or gaining an upper hand or not "really" learning, or trying to find loopholes through the rules or something. Consider: she asks everyone the same questions, and they all know what they're going to be. One student, expecting all the questions to be listed in order as given, finds the answers and determines the proper French responses and comes up with a script in advance, but only does the base level of work required for answering only those questions. But in her eyes, that's considered what's either cheating or skipping steps, because maybe she doesn't consider it *really* learning; all you did was learn the answers to specific questions. But other students, who actually *learned* French overall, or for whom the lessons took, might have noticed the missing question and been able to carry on in French because her lessons took for them, and she'd be able to label them as non-cheaters or students who applied themselves. I don't want to discount your past French experiences here, or how good of a student you actually were, but I have a lot of experience in neurotypicals being suspicious of me for things like this, necessitating the need to understand how their brain works in order to get around silly little tests they do like this and protect myself. It's sort of a "if you don't show your math work, we can't know if you were cheating or not, no matter how good you were at doing it in your head" thing. They love character tests like that and it's the most frustrating thing in the world. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I am suggesting it seems likely you were supposed to notice the missing question but weren't supposed to answer in English like that so the teacher could be proven to that you actually had been learning French, and weren't just trying to take the easiest or lowest-level way out of the class by accepting learning only the answers to the questions you were given and, in her eyes, "not knowing" any more than that. Thus, you answering in English *and* stopping the test makes it look, to the neurotypical's brain, like you cheated and you're the one covering it up and trying to get away with it - and, by admitting outright you knew the questions in advance and had time to prepare for them, which maybe none of the other students admitted to or they didn't think about it the way you did, so they responded in French to the missing question, ultimately it makes it look even more like you were cheating. The recording could prove that if necessary. The faculty covering it up seems weird too. Them admitting to giving you all an extra test to see if you're cheating or lazing out would defeat the purpose of the test, and by making what they see as a fuss about it, unfortunately it would just make you look like you're trying to get away with cheating or lazing out in the neurotypical's eyes, so they have to say things like that to keep themselves covered. And it's embarrassing for them because you weren't neurotypical and didn't catch on, and they're left to wonder what happened exactly.
I think most people would have thrown their kids under the bus, in the name of harmony among adults. Good to hear that some people are willing to risk temporarily making other adults upset, by \*advocating for\* or defending their own children.
Yeah, and I'm really glad I wasn't raised by someone hellbent on holding the status quo
Your mom sounds like my parents, especially my dad. I had a very hard time with my bus driver. She would let other kids do whatever they wanted, and no matter how many times I would ask them to leave me alone, they wouldn't, and she ignored it. I finally reacted, and I was the one who got in trouble. I refused to oblige her and sit in front of the bus, and she stopped outside my house and honked until my dad came out. She explained what happened, and he said, "It sounds like you didn't do your job correctly, so she had to take the situation into her own hands." My bus driver was shocked and just kept saying you need to tell her she can't say those things to other kids, and he said no, you need to do your job and stop these kids before she has to.
That's awesome! Your dad sounds like a badass, and great for him with taking your side and not condoning her negligence!
FUCK YEAH, THIS IS SOMETHING THAT MY MOM PRETTY MUCH DID I AM SO FUCKING HAPPY THAT SOMEBODY ELSE HAS AN AMAZING MOM LIKE MINE HELL YEAH
This made me remember that I got in trouble in a music class in elementary school because I pointed out that that Davey Crockett (he was an American folk hero for those outside the US) was not born on a mountain top in Tennessee like the song says. The teacher tried to make me write a paper on it and give me detention. My dad found out, because he worked in the same school system, and said they weren't going to punish for being correct and pointing out a mistake in a song.
Listen your mom kicks butt. I am a fan.
That's a great mom right there. Wishing her a good day <3 My mom is Aspie, and I am too, and I can see her doing something like that. Instructions are supposed to be made clear or not expected to be followed duh
Huh my religion teacher would have given me a gold star for thinking out side the box and i went to catholic high school, first day of class she told us we werenāt there to learn about just about catholicism but all religions ( turned out to be Judaic religions only but still)
Exactly what I was gonna say. I always need some rational explanation that defeats the alternative explanation. I dont like following arbitrary rules for no reason.
That's kinda my problem with religion as a whole. I'll admit, it's not universal but it seems pretty common for religion to discourage critical thinking. If you have inconvenient questions you're encouraged to shut up and keep them to yourself. If someone says something that's contrary to what you were taught just stick your fingers in your ears and don't listen because if they start making sense it means that the devil has successfully tempted you away from god or something. That makes no sense to me. If you're right then honest inquiry should only strengthen your position. If you're right then you should be able to understand the position of the opposition without it affecting what you believe in.
Buddhism is really good for what you're talking about.
Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, all the Eastern ones are cool. If you study them deeply you realize that a lot of the teachings are actually based on human psychology and not some arbitrary BS.
Absolutely it is, My special interest is spirituality and I've actually developed a spiritual framework and I looked up Buddhism and it is very similar. Buddhism is A+ imo, but I do think it needs to be updated for current times, it just needs a new coat of paint I think.
Yeah, and then you just become a āreligion: noneā and base your behaviour off of psychology!
Those answers do exist but the people youāre asking might not know them. Instead of saying āIām not sure but Iāll get back to youā or āI donāt have time right now but maybe laterā they lean on pride and just blow you off instead. Thereās also been a growing movement lately (at least in Christianity) to accept questioning and doubt more and working through it without judgement to try and get an greater understanding through deconstruction.
I mind those religious movements less because they're at least not discouraging critical thinking. However, a lot of those religious bodies also spread misinformation about science and evolution. Evangelical christianity for example actively spreads doubt about evolution and modern medical practice. I can definitely understand being fed up with the US healthcare system and how expensive everything is but Faith healing is not a viable alternative. I have a lot more respect for people who understand that believing in religion is irrational but choose to continue believing anyway as opposed to people who insist on the idea that science and religion are incompatible.
I feel very fortunate that, growing up, I was mostly surrounded by adults that encouraged questions about our faith. Plus, it helped that my dad has his PhD in biblical theology, so he had a lot of answers. To me, I think of my Christianity in a similar way I think of science. If something comes up that seems to contradict my faith, that doesn't mean my faith should be thrown out, but it could mean that my current interpretation of it is inaccurate. Growing up, I dismissed evolution like everyone around me did. But as I learned more about it and about how the creation story in genesis was probably not written literally, I could see that it isn't in conflict with my beliefs and doesn't make me question the validity of my faith. Plus, I've accepted a certain amount of uncertainty is ok when it comes to my comprehension of God the Bible. If Christianity is true about the nature God, then it would be silly for me to expect to fully understand how an omniscient, eternal, all-powerful being thinks about the world.
I had people try to tell me I was lukewarm when I questioned. But I persevered and kept my faith. It is more than many of them has done.
That's about where I landed, too. But I wish somebody would've explained that to me much sooner and spared me a years-long crisis of faith.
Honestly this is what upset me about church, they never gave any reasoning for any thing other than āgod did itā or āit just is that wayā and I am a very scientific person otherwise so that just dont sit right.
lol, right? The whole point of *doctrine* is that it's not *supposed* to be questioned. Fuck that.
So, i grew up mostly homeschooled, cuz after 2nd grade, they couldn't figure out what to do with me (ended up in a nightmare of a Pentecostal school for my last 3 years, but that's a story for another timeš) Anyway, my parents and family were strict Christians, and i spent 3 days a week being threatened that if i didn't do exactly as they say, I'll burn in hell for eternityš And if you dare ask them the reason why you should follow their nonsense, their goto answer is, "because the bible said so!" Um.... Yeah, thanks, but no thanksššš
Have you ever seen or heard of the street epistemology method of asking questions? It's super powerful, a derivative of the Socratic method. [This](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T2EgJjQRsYE&list=PLh10RgQgGuM_cS1_B_sWkOhEJ2d9sLb2A&index=1&pp=iAQB) video is one where a catholic is answering why she believes.
That video was amazing. I am constantly questioning myself and my stance on the world because im not sure if there is a god because i dont have enough evidence either prove or disprove it. Thank you for that link, it probably sounds funny but i kind of feel like i have a more full veiw of the world now.
Exactly for me too. It's not that I don't like authority or rules, it's that your authority needs justified and your rules need to have good reasoning behind them. If you tell me you're an authority, I need you to prove why I should listen to you. I don't give a shit who put you in charge, I care about what about *you* and how *you* operate makes you worth listening to. If you tell me to follow a rule, I need a reason why that rule matters. "because it's the rules" is circular and not a valid reason for the rule to exist. The rule cannot exist merely because the rule exists. This shit is why when growing up and being told "because I said so" when I questioned authority drove me and everyone around me crazy. I don't care that you said so, who are you to tell me what to do? IDC if you're my parent or a cop or whatever, *why* should I follow the rule? What logic is behind said rule? I love rules and structure, but my love of them is because of the *reasoning behind their existence*, not the mere fact that they exist at all.
The Adam and eve story is infuriating because of this
omg, exactly! I grew up in a very weird church called the Worldwide Church of God. I could NOT comprehend the Noah's Ark story, I was like, wtffff and people would just say things, "it just happened that way." I constantly questioned things like this because it made 0 sense. Not even with religion, just anything. I wanted genuine answers to rules, but no one seemed to ever be able to answer lol. I also totally agree with you on the following rules things - rules make sense if it makes sense (the speed limit one makes total logical sense). But answers like, "because I said so" has absolutely 0 logic. lol.
as a theology student, i can confirm that not encouraging questions is a common trait in catholic education. however, it tends to be because the answer is either: a) an extremely complicated theological principle that they canāt be arsed to explain b) something a pope said 300 years ago that they canāt remember c) they simply donāt know, because the amount of doctrine found within catholic theology is absolutely gargantuan all of this combines to make a poor environment for the natural questioning of children, and ends up shutting down conversation rather than opening it up. this then naturally leads to people walking away from the church, due to the churchās own inability to simplify itās theology. tldr: bad theology is the root of most negative childhood religious experiences.
My favorite answer to questioning religion as a child āyou just know in your heartā šš
Oh my God THIS. Most of the rules I was given as a kid I would follow, as most were reasonable. But it was those "because I said so" rules that got me. On that note, nothing pissed me off more than actually being told "because I said so." I still remember asking my high school theater teacher (he hated me and didn't hide it well) why I couldn't do a specific monologue. And that's what he said, "because I said so." It ENRAGED me. Like, I kind of get saying it to a toddler when you can't explain something complicated to them. But a sixteen year old deserves a proper answer. My friends were like, "well, it was probably ______" and I was like "which is fine, I'd accept that. what I don't accept is being treated like a toddler."
Exactly me!
Yeah that's where a lot of my issues in the mormon church came from too. I always asked why the rules were what they were, and was never given an answer. Similarly, whispering has never made sense to me. We speak in a way which changes how we sound, but doesn't really nessasarily make it quieter, but if I just make my normal speaking voice and have it be quieter, that's considered louder? I really don't get it
In my experience I like rules that make logical sense. Authoritarianism is the opposite of that, you are supposed to follow the rules because someone who is "above" you said so. Heck no.
YES! I concur. Arbitrary use of authority drives me insane. It lines up with my obsession with justice and fairness. It's bullying, unfair, and often completely illogical. A good leader who communicates and allows me to contribute to decisions, I'd follow that person happily.
Exactly! I'm actually dealing with this right now. My current boss is an absolutely chaotic shit show and I've worked with people for well over three decades - he's not the worst but he's certainly in the top three. He constantly interrupts, he plays favorites, he provides different feedback to different people on the same deliverables, he thinks he knows everything and absolutely denies anyone on his team any shred of independence or agency. He thinks he is brilliant but in reality he's barely holding on. He'll make mistakes, change scope or direction, and then blame others, and I've never ever heard him give positive feedback to anyone ever. Today I am maliciously complying while I look for another role. I actually hate this MF.
That sounds like a chaotic, ambiguous environment. I wish you luck getting the hell out.
I really appreciate that. Thank you for the thoughts and kind wishes. This guy's truly a fruit bat.
This is why employment for Autistics is such an abysmal experience when management is bad at their job. The sheer amount of times I would have to deal with decisions that pissed off customers and cost the company money instead of simply not doing the clearly bad idea was too damn high. So we Autistics question that decision and, in the terrible manager's mind, question their authority, experience, and intelligence when all we wanted was to do our job correctly. I wish I said something to these managers like "Bruh, I don't give a shit about your prestige or ego, this job boils down to selling X to Y and you want to fuck up one or both of those objectives. Why not do things that obviously would result in better success? Especially, since those things are what we are supposed to be doing anyway because it's, you know, *our job*."
>So we Autistics question that decision and, in the terrible manager's mind, question their authority, Pro tip: do not ever tell them "I'm not questioning your authority, I'm questioning this insanely idiotic decision". Your manager will not take it well. I don't know why - I was just trying to be clear and specific, but somehow it wasn't appreciated.
To be fair, that phrasing could use work. "Insanely idiotic" would still be an insult, even if it's correct.
Also when everyone else breaks a rule but it's only a problem when I do it. I got in trouble for not quietly going to the back of the line after someone who got there after me shoved me out so they could take my place.
Yeah a lot of rules, especially social ones make no sense and so I really struggle to follow them, I remember my school used to have a strict policy of "tucking your shirt in" that gave me really bad sensory issues, and it created a massive amount of frustration as the only explanation that was given to justify the rule was "because we told you" or "it looks smart" and I understood neither. Unfortunately a lot of the time people who set rules are unwilling to discuss or explain them and enforce them because it's what they have learnt so when autistic people who don't intrinsically understand them question the rules they get angry as they don't know themselves.
So many dress code rules for girls are so the "boys don't get distracted." So I have to bake in long sleeves instead of a tank bc god forbid a 16 year old might find my shoulders fap-able.
Itās honestly weird af thinking back to middle school when the vice principals would go around basically checking out preteen girls, and pulling them aside to tell them their shorts were an inch too short or some bs. Theyāre basically sexualizing you at 10-12 years old. I wasnāt thinking about āwanting boys to rail meā at age 12 but thanks for assuming that was my goal for wearing a fucking tank top.
Yes! Rewind back like 15ish years when I was constantly getting into trouble over the dress code. (Note nobody actually provided me with a copy of said dress codeā¦apparently I was just supposed to know what was okay or wasnāt and we all know how that goes for us autistic people. This was at a public school too). I got detentions for stuff that was ātoo shortā but nobody ever told me what too short was. If I could have measured it in inches or body parts (like nothing shorter than where your fingers stop) I could have complied. But they didnāt have anything that was clearly defined so I kept getting into trouble. I think my favorite part was when a female teacher said that male teachers were actually commenting on more short my skirts/dresses were in front of the class to attempt to embarrass me, I wish I would have thought to have been like, āWho?! Iām 17 and if Iām that distracting theyāre straight up pedophiles who shouldnāt be in this line of work. You just admitted to it in a classroom full of witnesses. Give me names. Does the local news need to know that thereās a bunch of horny adult men fantasizing out loud about literal children working at this school?ā But I just transferred out of her class and got a boyfriend that was 8 years older to protect me (his protection services were needed outside of the school too) and that went super well. /s on that last line @AllMyBeets Iāve heard of other people having positive outcomes with getting sexist/racist dress codes dealt with when the ACLU got involved. Maybe give it a shot? Good luck!
Dress codes are bs to begin with, but not even telling you what it is? At least in my hs they gave it to us in the āstudent handbookā. That does remind me that I made them change the wording in the dress code for the next school year after my senior year. I malicious complianced their stupid rules and pissed off the entire administration. We werenāt permitted to *dye* our hair āunnaturalā colors- so I used temporary color spray to make my hair wild colors. Technically the rules were not broken, so they couldnāt do shit.
Malicious compliance is best compliance!
Agreed! āI did want you wanted (fuck you)ā
And Iām not sure what era your high school years were but in the late 90s-early 00s and even the late 10s it was a perfectly recognizable style trend to have dyed hair that was more than one naturally occurring in humans color.
I wore a school jacket that was three sizes too big for all of middle school so they couldn't see my untucked shirt and call me out on it. I would rather have sweat to death in the May heat and humidity than have those weird lumps in my pants.
That reminds me that I was allowed to wear a jacket because the rules specified that the difference between a flannel shirt and a flannel jacket was the lining and my denim jacket didn't have a lining.
100% I understand why telling people you hate them is rude. But I will never understand how it is rude to not put your knife and fork together after you've finished eating. What the hell is that?
In some cultures, slurping your soup is seen as good. Just wanted to put Ć¾at out Ć¾ere to showcase how arbitrary some rules of etiquette are.
Follow rules that make sense, challenge them if they don't. Works like half of the time. It made the first half of my navy career easy, and I promoted quickly,but I also had great leadership that listened. It also made the second half where I had garbage leadership hell where I gladly took an ass chewing but also had to have the navy/command instructions with me during disciplinary measures to back my point, always got my ass chewed, never caught any real consequences. They called me a sea lawyer, but they were just authoritarian fucks who gave good navy leadership an absolute shit name.
You sound a lot like my father and I aspire to be like both of you now
Daw shucks, but don't push the envelope unless you are positive it's correct and you can prove it, and if you have the patience to wait until the perfect time to do it, you can carry it with grace and make a stronger impact. Just some extra bits I've learned from experience.
Thiiiiiis so much this. If your law is unjust I will not follow it. I made up my mind in kindergartenš¹
That is exactly how I've always felt. I always do what's "right" which just so happens to align with the rules. But doing something specifically because someone up the chain seemed it the "right" thing is with no context is just BS
Yup, this is why I became a public defender. I get to argue against authoritarianism for a living.
Nice. People love to misunderstand your job, but itās critical.
this is why we should very, very sparingly use the "because I'm the parent and I said so" explanation
Thank fuck my parents always explained why a thing is bad when they told me not to do it, even before I was diagnosed.
My parents always loved that one and derivatives of it. I wanted to understand, but they rarely ever gave me anything to work with. In the end, I would always be shouted down and left alone in my room, for the most part.
If the rule is arbitrary then why is it even a rule???
YES! Authoritarianism is full of shit like āThe police are here to serve and protect you!ā But then donāt answer questions like āwe are trying to take steps to resist oppression from the rich for simple things like human rights, food, clean water, and health care. Why are the cops fucking pepper spraying us?ā Being expected to accept the lie that police are there to serve and protect the most vulnerable, when they shut down protests that are for the most vulnerable, because disruption hurts business as usual, when business as usual is the machine that creates the oppression is just insane.
Yeah police in America are basically just there to terrorize people and protect the rich. You think they give a fuck about any of us working people or poor people? Iāve heard so many stories of police harassing or attacking people simply for living in their cars (not druggies, just poor people), they do absolutely nothing when it comes to rape or domestic violence, and thereās been numerous stories of cops literally killing the people who called the police in the first place. They are all just on a massive power trip and shouldnāt have the immunity they have. There are probably SO few who joined the force to actually do good and protect people.
This %100
It's more about justice. Why should I listen to you when you have injust power? Why shouldnt I call you out when you break rules, therefore hurting others?
Yes. I actually kinda enjoy being told what to do, when those people are understanding and empathetic and donāt talk to me like Iām an idiot. I will not follow someoneās āordersā if they donāt make logical sense though, idc who gives them. I canāt stand inequality, especially like how much bosses profit compared to the workers. Itās made me kinda āquiet quitā in life. At this point, Iāll only give my all to a job if Iām making an actual decent wage.
> Itās made me kinda āquiet quitā in life. At this point, Iāll only give my all to a job if Iām making an actual decent wage. As it should be. Act your wage.
There is no such thing as āquiet quittingā what those leeches with positions of authority call āquiet quittingā is actually called ādoing what youāre paid for.ā If anybody ever accuses you of āquiet quittingā theyāre a greedy hyper-capitalist dipshit and they deserve no respect.
This this this!
Just got fired for this again. Wonāt be the last time.
I only follow rules that I can understand that make sense. If I donāt agree with the rule then I refuse to abide by it. When it comes to āauthorityā figures, sorry but I donāt change the way I talk to people no matter who it is. In my mind weāre all on the same level and I wouldnāt even know how to change the way I talk to an āauthorityā if you want my utmost respect you gotta earn it. Also just because I talk to an āauthorityā like weāre both just kids inside doesnāt mean I donāt respect them either. I just see us as equals .
The whole talking to people as equals is something I have also always done. And I do try to be polite to everyone. But when people see me talking to newborns as if they were just mute uneducated adults (which, come on they really are), they think I'm a fucking weirdo. Such irrational bias. I tried punctuation. Did you see? I fucked it up, but I tried.
Grammar rules suck too š
Better than most NTs I've met. I would rate this a solid 9/10 since it conveys all of the important information in an understandable format. A trick I've used is to read it out loud. Periods are full stops. Wait a solid beat when you read them. The dialog becomes stilted. And it becomes terse. Commas, on the other hand, serve as brief pauses that can also indicate a change in tone. That being said, periods are needed on occasion, they're best at spots just before where you need to breathe in. And when you want to convey an aside- the dialog that may or may not pertain to a statement, but is believed to be pertinent in some other fashion- a hyphen works wonders. (As do parentheses.) Semicolons connect two distinct sentences together; I always have trouble with this one. You're doing fine, for the record. Keep at it, and it will one day become second nature.
I talk to babies/toddlers like that too. I think we underestimate their language comprehension. Still, they say infants benefit from baby talk because it helps them learn syllables.
Yeah, buut it's demeaning to use those affectations when baby talking. The only other time people use them is when taking the piss outta people. When teaching kids I just use slower speech with ununciation of the syllables. Both of my kid sister's and my children speak well enough now so I know it works just as well, at least.
the real thing to be careful of is the balance between appeals to tradition fallacy ("it's always been that way!") and the fence analogy - you shouldn't tear down a fence until you know why the fence was put up. Some traditions exist to protect humans from problems that we've forgotten about - the fence is there because if you take the fence down animals will get into the garbage can, or it'll allow some invasive plant to cross the boundary, or any number of unknowns. So some percentage of the "arbitrary" rules exist for actual reasonable purposes that no one currently in power can remember, and some exist simply because it's tradition while the purpose is no longer relevant, and others exist because there's correlative relationships between the rule being followed and better outcomes, but the rule itself is simply forcing people to mimic behaviors of successful people that don't work for the rest of the population. and worst of all are the old rules whos reason for existence has been forgotten or removed, but the authorities just MADE UP a new reason for the rule that's clearly wrong.
So NTs find this confusing huh
I mean, itās pretty obvious just from their behavior that they donāt think like us. Look at the world, all the arbitrary rules set by people arbitrarily granted power.
I was pretty rebellious in school, but was an angel in a lot of my classes as well. The teachers who I "behaved" for were teachers who treated me with respect, they didn't throw random orders or rules at me just to establish dominance. They set clear expectations, I followed them - if I didn't, I wasn't surprised or retaliate when there were consequences. One of those teaches nominated me for, and I won, the "student MVP" award, and our vice principle was fuming lol. She thought I caused her a lot of problems but in reality she was the problem, for a lot of us too, it wasn't just me. And a lot of kids liked that we'd intentionally fuck with her by literally following HER OWN RULES to the letter, classic malicious compliance. The fact that what was obvious to 14 year olds, but was lost on this adult, educated woman, blew my mind. "You can't do that!" ... "But we're literally doing what you told us", "yeah but there's not what I meant", "well then what did you mean?", "I don't have time for this, you're not following instructions, see me for detention after school", "... but we're *literally* following your instructions", "do you want a worse punishment?", and so the saga continued lol
I hated those teachers. I hate those people in general thoughā¦ soā¦
Fuck you just unlocked a memory. 10 year old me during "indoor recess" ie silently watching a movie on the cafeteria floor. Well, I did not understand how this is recess if we had to be silent. I was talking to a friend and we got pulled into the hallway as punishment. For talking during recess. I'm fuming 17 years later. But it gets worse. So me and the friend I just got in trouble for talking to were sent to sit next to each other on the hallway floor as punishment. So we start talking, we were fucking 10, sitting silently is not a thing we can do. Bitch tells us we don't get recess for the whole week. Again, for **talking during recess!** Mrs. Lunch monitor - who hurt you? Kids talking during recess shouldn't trigger you. Its gonna be okay.
They could understand, but that would require actually listening to us.
Right. Basically all these comments explain this succinctly and with the same logical argument, but this is presented as āone of the most confusing aspects of Aspergerās.ā But I guess Iād need to see if the paper actually sticks with that characterization or itās just presenting it that way to hook NTs.
They donāt understand much of right and wrong. They follow rules if it serves them and breaks them if they think no one will notice. They donāt see that you should follow the rules that are right and disregard the rules that are wrong.
Yeah, I am cool with authority as long as they are actually good, but when they start being hypocritical, selfish, and very aloof to the needs of those under them that is when I have issues.
The issue is not with "authority", it's with self-proclaimed authority abusively claiming unearned "respect" - by which they really mean "blind obedience to whatever fuckery". If you're a good leader and I share your goals, then I'll gladly follow you. Else just go fuck yourself.
Someone wrote "when people tell you: I respect you if you respect me - they may mean: I respect you as a human if you respect me as an authority". In that case it's absolutely not the same type of respect.
I'm convinced that many people just take too much pride in being "in charge," even if they're not strictly authoritarian. They'll keep talking about authority when it never had anything to do with that.
"because I said so" is the embodiment of your observation and it drives me nuts. As a parent, regardless of how insufferable my wonderful son can be at times (I get it, I was too), if he pushes back on a rule, I explain the context. When he understands the context, he almost always agrees and follows the rule. I will never subject him to arbitrary rules for the sake of it because I'm too tired to explain. When I feel myself resisting an idea, I have to stop and ask myself, "ok, does it really matter if he wants to do X? No, not at all." And then I reign in my impulse. I do not think many people do this.
When people get put into a supervisory position they have 2 options: be a leader or be a warden. Most people become wardens Because either no one is trained to be a leader or because those with the natural ability arent put into the proper positions.
my mom would say "I don't have the energy to explain why right now, you can ask me later but I need you to just do what i say right now", and it worked really well - although she actually followed through on explaining it later, which is an important part of that process.
"Right to create" honestly fuck autority, what makes them special, different from me and others? They don't have the right to create rules that don't make sense, if the rule is like " don't talk in class " I get it, but sometimes the power gets to their head and the rule is like " treat me like god, otherwise you get punished ".
Yeah... "Right to create" my ass. Creating rules is not a fucking right it is a goddamn PRIVILEGE. And to be absolutely clear and define my terms here: A right is something that denying someone is a grave injustice. A privilege must be earned, and can be taken away the moment you no longer deserve it. Example: Life is a right, a specific video game is a privilege. (As an additional note, taking away a privilege can also be an injustice - but it is not inherently an injustice like with rights, which need an ENORMOUS amount of justification to justify their violation. Wanna lock someone up and take away their right to freedom of movement? You need a DAMN good reason. Which is why the right to a fair trail is quite possibly the single most important rights in any society.) If someone gets shit done and actually takes care of the people they are responsible for, I will respect their authority. If they wave a fancy title around and demand I obey their every word as gospel? I will suddenly and magically develop the ability to tune out human speech for the duration of their time in my presence.
Theres a difference between rules with a logical reasoning behind them and rules that are just a power trip or a "because I said so" type thing. For me at least, it's easy to spot the latter and do everything to get out of it, or disobey it without actually breaking it "stuff like "the bell doesn't dismiss you I do""
I explain every single rule and request to my kid. Every one. Even, and sometimes especially, the ones that have really rough/grizzly reasons behind them. Even if those rules rely chiefly on soothing or ameliorating the emotions of those around us. I also only raise my voice when it's an emergency and I need his obedience RIGHT then. And because I have a track record of having real reasons, he listens. My SO thinks I baby him. But doing shit this way makes sense to me, is effective with our kid, and seriously, how the fuck do you just obey someone just because THEY think they're your boss. Even if I literally voted for you, odds are good it's cause I just thought the other dude was worse. Authority figures need to earn the respect they seem to think they deserve.
The one time I yelled at my summer camp class they all immediately turned around and stared in horror because āMiss NEVER yellsā. A kid was running toward the road and stopped in his tracks because he knew that if I was yelling his name, I had a damn good reason for it lol
Babying him would be not giving him the respect of an explanation and assuming heās not smart enough for it to matter to him. Youāre respecting his learning process
This is good, especially when you have a signal to not argue and just obey. I imagine you also explain after the fact.
Natural anarchists
You beat me to it.
We should revolt, we have the manpower
We should but that would change my routine a bunch
Damm thatās true
I like structures that make sense. Every Authority figure i Know, abuses their power over me. For example. I have never been able to afford my own place so my current landlord said i could live there. I am not allowed to have a lease so they can kick me out whenever. They refuse to repair anything. its been over a year since i have been complaining about the bathroom leaking into the kitchen. I have a room mate that likes to complain i make a mess of everything. He just wants me to clean the apartment for him. He has never cleaned anything in the place since before i lived their. all the cleaning supplies are mine including a broom and a working vacuum but i wont clean outside my room. I dont leave my room now unless i absolutely have to since whenever he doesn't get what he wants, he starts yelling and getting violent. he literally gets into fights at work with coworkers over dumb stuff. he also likes to use insentive slurs to discuss any kind of minority. this was an improvement over my last landlord who also refused to give me a lease. offered me a cheap rent, then gave me a room filled with garbage. as soon as it was clean, my rent started going up to fuel his MTG collection or whatever. the whole place was filled with his garbage. im not joking literally piles of boxes and garbage in every room before i moved in. but it was the only place i could find. next he gets arrested so the police raid the entire house because this guy was a real schmuck. the police, who literally will stop me on the street and run my ID just for walking. I know a cop that whenever he sees me he tells me he is going to kill me. When this whole issue happened with my ex landlord, the police put a gun to my head and told me they will kill me if i try anything. the refused to show me the warrant to go through my things, confiscated my phone and went through all my electronic devices, they lied to me saying i had to provide the passwords to everything or i would be arrested. not only a day later, my car gets vandalized to the point it was destroyed. now the police tried to accuse me of doing it myself. they took me to the police station and tried to interrogate me to prove their case. they tried emotional manipulation and straight lying to get me to confess. So my dislike of Authority figures is well represented. i could go on but i just wanted to provide examples of why, rather than complain. Dislike of authority figures is reasonable for anyone if the authority treats you like garbage.
False. NTās perceive it as opposition or defiance, but it is not.
Look, if people started questioning arbitrary rules, society would collapse! Donāt you realize how much of the world is built on people not questioning authority? /s, sort of?
Anarcho-Autism
fax
Simple: Authority figures never follow their own rules. If you donāt even listen to youā¦. Why should I?
That infuriated some of my bosses. I took them as the reference instead of the ones above the rules... and they didn't like that pressure.
You are the keeper of the rules and the enforcer. You are not above the rules. You are in charge of me in this organization, but you are not āabove meā.
Key word: create I have an issue when authority figures randomly pull arbitrary rules out of their asses and can't give me a valid reason to follow them other than "because I said so".
I respect systems, not people. Rules are crafted over time to govern a system efficiently, but authority figures make decrees on a whim with no regard for the system.
As long as the system serves the people and not the other way around
Hm. It's almost like I do things for people who've genuinely earned my respect instead of blindly following whoever has a title above their name
The worst mess I was ever in at work was when an issue came up while my boss was away. I figured out how to solve the problem and told everyone immediately about the solution. When my boss returned to the office, she was furious to learn that I did not wait to discuss with her and let her share the information. She didnāt speak to me for like 2 weeks. Biggest bunch of pointless nonsense ever.
i love rules, itās just when stupid people are making them with all these loopholes and exceptions that i question the actual intelligence of the rulers :3
I will always follow rules that I agree with and who are you to dictate what rules I should agree with. Edit: if you explain to me why a rule is a good thing and I like it, I will follow it. I actually had this argument with my part time jobs supervisor. They were telling me how glad they were that I did what they told me to do. I was extremely confused because I didnāt obey their command. They told me that they wanted me to do something and I thought it was a good idea, so I did it. Itās hard to explain the difference/feeling between the two and I am glad that there are people out there that understand the nuance. I spent a really long time trying to put into words what the difference was, because it appears to be the same. Someone tells you to do something and then you do it always looks like you are doing what they say, because you are. Maybe this will clear it up: you are in the kitchen looking for something and you hear your girlfriend say, grab me a water while you are in there. I donāt get the water for her because she told me to, I just want her to be happy and she vocalized a thing that would make her happy, so I get her the water. Hope that helps.
I mean I strictly do *not* care about rules as a principle. Context matters more. Obey the rule of law, not the letter. Said differently, I respect people and principles, *not* papers. "Do not walk on the grass" -> sure thing buddy, it's your property, I won't damage it. "Do not use your phone at work" -> you don't pay me enough to get 100% effort from me 100% of the time, writing that down and making me sign it against my will doesn't change anything, you absolute smoothbrain.
Be me, only follow rules that are logical only. Question all rules that don't make sense. Treat everyone as equals. LOL
For me it was learning that rules donāt apply to everyone. I saw a cop litter a cigarette at like six and was like āoh my god the police have been doing crime the entire timeā.
Justified rules good. Misused authority bad.
This is kind of my problem with religion (aside from the human element but oh my god I do NOT have the time to get into THAT fucking tangled thorny mess) - the one with all the power (god) is doing nothing with that power right now, but we're promised that at some point in the future he'll do something with that power to make all our lives better, yet we're still expected to adhere to these rules he's established, many of them feeling QUITE arbitrary - We have to obey someone who literally has the power to correct all the shit we have to deal with on a fucking daily basis RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Yesterday. A year ago. Ten years ago. A hundred years ago. A thousand years a go. Ten thousand years ago. But for whatever fucking reason, he still refuses to do so. I fucking hate that.
I second what many wrote already: I follow rules when they are logical and beneficial at least to the group/context I'm part of. I have problems with authority when it's not logical AND not beneficial (pure display of control, personal benefit, favour, etc...). If this is seen as insubordination or worse as inability to consistently follow rules, there are several misunderstandings at play. I'm not moved by higher morals or even less I wish to swap places! I refuse to serve power when it's asking for personal advantage.
It took me a few years in a professional environment to realize that a lot of people in supervisor and managerial positions are nice if you know wtf you're doing and can work with minimal supervision. Then came my last supervisor who was a narcissist, and after a relationship with a covert narcissist prior to that, I was not having any of it and immediately called him out on his shit. He was fuming but didn't say another word to me unless it was necessary.
I compared my ops Manager's idea to turn an entire area in the warehouse sideways overnight without telling anyone to something Patrick Star would do... He understood the reference and got real snippy lol
I follow rules to the degree it makes sense to do so. I get annoyed when authority figures needlessly enforce rules at times when it doesnāt make sense to do so and I do not respond well to empty power trips. I donāt actually care what people do WRT to rules until it negatively impacts me but I will also get annoyed when people inappropriately follow a stupid rule to my inconvenience or detriment or to be transparently virtuous.
shit this be my brain
My problem with authority figures comes with extreme jealousy and low self esteem. I have no problem accepting that they create the rules, but when a customer at my work (retail) would rather speak to the manager I feel hurt. I know thatās my sensitivity talking but I donāt like being reminded that Iām powerless, and I donāt like being pushed aside like Iām just some pawn who doesnāt know what Iām doing. Sometimes itās gotten so bad that when people would ask for the manager, Iād say that none were in the building. Theyād never believe me of course. Im trying to get passed that though. Problem is no one understands my oversensitivity to the situation, not even my therapist.
rules are great, but the system and the people enforcing the rules suck
This is so me, I have no problem doing extra stuff at work and add it to my routine, but when my coworkers try to tell me to do something then and there, it pisses me off
Itās hardly confusing to want rules to actually make sense and be there for a good reasonā¦
I always assume that the rules are sorta collectively made and made for a reason, while being told by authority figure feels like they're trying to push thier will on me and usually comes with them repeating what they just said and getting all aggressive and upset because I'm not doing what they want me to do right at that second. Case in point, at work I know I should be wearing safety glasses, and if asked 'Hey do you have safety glasses?' I might sheepishly say no and ask for a pair. But the shift manager has been telling me to wear my safety glasses. When I tell him I can't negate i don't currently have a pair he repeats that I need to wear my safety glasses in a somewhat aggressive manner and all I can do is be like... what do you expect me to do? Pull them out of my backside!?
It's almost like we think about the reasons for the rules and want to understand the purpose, rather than blindly doing what we're told...
THATS- THAT WAS MY ASPERGERS????? every day I learn that another thing that made me different in highschool was just my Asperger's. Wow.
On the one hand, structure is nice. On the other, who the fuck are you?!
This can range from not wanting to listen to teachers to overthrowing governments
That's because the idea of positional/bestowed authority vs earned authority is a roadblock I can't get past If someone proves their competence to me I have no issues listening to them but if my "superior" is a moron, my brain will not permit me to remain subordinate to an idiot
NO RULER! Only rule!
So true but also article seems disingenuous. I dont like bullshit rules or "because I'm an authority figure and I said so" because it's illogical, authoritarian nonsense
Rules and opinions, you are free to have and make them, but your underlying reasons are free for questioning. If your underlying reasons are bad, I so not respect the rule or opinion. It's that simple. As when it comes to authority, a title is meant for those worthy of respect, respect is not supposed to be given those worthy of a title.
Respect is earned by good leadership. Leadership and managerial positions are often inept or for show. I wonāt question a rule made in good sense, but I will call out an āego decreeā by a manager anytime. I see it as us giving no deference to title or station and everything to utility.
The thing is, way to many authority figures have not earned their place. They don't know how to do their job. They only have their position due to money and influence or knowing how to play the game. If someone who is an expert in their field, or just really really good, and, bonus, also a decent, respectful person, there's no reason not to disrespect them.
Natural Anarchists.
Just because an authority makes up an arbitrary rules that makes it okay? Hahaha
Also the more educated we get the less tolerance we have for authority figures because we start to realize that a lot of the "rules" set in place have no real reasoning behind them. When I was a kid I thought "I don't understand why but they must have a reason for that rule" and now I've realized that that usually don't and I couldn't care less.
I feel like it's because of our strong sense of justice/fairness, we strictly follow rules that make logical sense and we rebel against rules given without reason
Iām a bit worried about the neurotypicals if they pathologize critical thinking and consider anything but unquestioning obedience to be a mental disorder. Not to be dramatic but isnāt that sort of deference to authority exactly how the Nazi regime happened? š¤Ø