i know this is the sort of statement that people would absolutely take in bad faith and crucify me for if it blew up but the way some people online talk about communication and the way they feel their neurodivergence impacts it is just plain selfish. like, yeah, of course you should be able to be your most authentic self without being judged or looked down upon, but guess what? that’s not always what people are doing to you when they express discomfort or frustration with the way you went about something. i think people have gotten so caught up in the idea that actually, the real problem is the neurotypical expectations of society, that they’ve circled around to a good ol’ “you don’t owe anyone kindness! you don’t owe anyone anything!” style approach. and as a result, they’ve become convinced that anyone who doesn’t get along with them must just judging them for having visible symptoms.
communication is a two-way street.
maybe you tend to interrupt people a lot. it’s not coming from a place of being inconsiderate, it’s purely automatic. and maybe you got made to feel bad about that when you were a little kid and you never figured out how to let go of that bad feeling, and then you saw a tiktok telling you that this was about impulse control, that the interruptions came from hyperactivity. and now, maybe, you feel absolved. now when someone feels like you’re not listening to them when you interrupt them, you just tell yourself that that person’s ableist and needs to learn how to tolerate you. except… more often than not? that’s not the case at all. in fact, maybe, that person is also neurodivergent, and knows exactly what causes the urge to interrupt, and maybe that’s why they feel like they can comfortably say “hey man, you interrupt me a lot and it makes me feel like you don’t value what i have to say” without you accusing them of ableism, to their face or otherwise. and when you say “well this is just what i’m like, get used to it or leave”, do you know which of those options they’re more likely to pick?
or maybe your go-to way to try to connect with people is to tell them about something similar that you’ve experienced. and maybe it’s the same thing where once you learned what caused this, you came to the conclusion that you should be allowed to do it whenever you felt the urge and that everyone else needed to learn how to understand, like, “neurodivergent communication styles” or something. but maybe you do it every single time someone tells you something. maybe you do it in really inappropriate situations. maybe you go into way too much detail when you do it, to the point where you’ve actually swung the conversation around to being about your thing instead. i’ve known people who would do that last one and then, when i tried to gently redirect things back to the original topic without being rude to them, they would ignore me and keep talking about themselves, only to use their neurodivergence as an excuse if i brought it up more directly. do you know why? it’s because they only cared about their own experience in the conversation. they could not comprehend the fact that the way they spoke to me had an effect on me.
and look, nobody, regardless of neurotype, is perfect. nobody is ever going to go through life without ever hurting someone else’s feelings in a perfectly preventable situation. but… if you can minimise how often you hurt people’s feelings, wouldn’t you? who you are is not a fixed thing. no, not even your symptoms. if you seem to constantly be hurting people’s feelings, then you need to accept that you’re the common denominator, and that you are capable of working on that. will it be uncomfortable? yeah, of course! does that mean it’s actually just masking and that these people are ableist pricks who are forcing you to be inauthentic to meet their standards? NO. it means that learning and growing takes time and effort, and that the time and effort required from you will probably be greater than the time and effort required of a neurotypical person who is doing similar things for different reasons, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you.
and the process of breaking those habits is going to look different for everybody. maybe you’d fare best learning how to recognise the weight of the situation you’re in and consciously thinking “would this be an appropriate time to tell my own story”. maybe you’d fare best learning how to decrease the length of that relatable story so it really is just a related anecdote and not a diversion of topic from the other person’s problems to yours. maybe you just can’t suppress the urge to interrupt so you find coping mechanisms instead, like jotting down the thing you want to say and saying “hey can we circle back to this thing when you’re done” so that way you don’t forget the thought you had but you don’t have to sacrifice paying attention to remember it. it could be literally anything, and it could start out small too, if you’re not someone who finds it easy to develop new habits.
and the thing is, none of those require you to “seem neurotypical” or to “act like a neurotypical” or to mask. you do not have to try to never interrupt or never express your understanding of a situation through the fact that you’ve been through something similar or whatever else it is you may do that has caused other people to feel devalued. there are plenty of neurodivergent people in this world who are able to be their authentic selves and be considerate to the person they’re talking to.
but if you’re doing something so constantly that it feels like everyone in your life has asked you to be more considerate, then please, try your best to remember that they’re as sentient as you are and that everyone has the ability to impact others for better or worse and that your intentions don’t negate that impact, and that everyone has the ability to try to be a little bit nicer. even just a little, if that’s all you can manage.
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
izzy806
snowghoul
jacobvanloon
areudirty
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
