The neurotypical urge to not have a good enough answer and then bully the autistic person for asking the question.
(Not a comment on the post, just a frustration)
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Autism
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This is part of what I call "the allistic disability". They always tried to make us believe we are disabled, but are we really?
are we really?
In many key aspects of day-to-day life...yes, we absolutely are.
It was a joke.
I understand that there are hardships linked to our condition, but many of them are not caused by our condition, rather by the world not willing to accomodate us the same way they accomodate NT's.
That's the same with most disabilities. For instance, blindness does have some intrinsic hardship, but then it also has the hardships that come from a society that assumes you have vision and does not accommodate you.
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Yeah we're different to NTs, we have different perks but defecates in lots of areas.
I fit in well enough but notice where I've said something that's quite specific to my interests or believed something that was obviously a joke. Shit sucks but every day it gets easier, lean into it and don't be afraid to be yourself.
We're not normal but fuck it we ballin'
edit: leaving the autocorrect in, was a ~1am post for me 🫠
I'm not normally one to point out a spelling mistake, but there is a very important difference between someone with deficits in lots of areas and someone who defecates in lots of areas.
That looks like an autocorrect, not a spelling mistake, and a hilarious one at that!
Did you just say you shit in a lot of places?
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As a child I used to annoy the hell out of my mother, by asking why... I'm a scientist now. Now I wonder why, as the pay is shit 😂
As a child I used to annoy the hell out of my mother, by asking why
This is true for literally every kid. All kids are born scientists but many lose interest or get frustrated over time
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Tell me why!
Ain’t nothing but a heartache
Tell me why!
Ain't nothing but a mistake
It's what makes me good at my job.
I thought going into engineering would be a better environment for this kind of questioning. It turns out my toddler-level frequency of "Why?" transcends bachelor level expectations, thus I must pursue even higher education.
Walking into a contract with uncurious junior engineers was frustrating to say the least.
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It'll be the death of me.
Absolutely. I often say I have terminal insatiable curiosity. It will be quelled when I am room temperature.
As it turns out, inexplicably, this is not a trait that works out well within corporate America... Source: Of course I know him, He's me.
What's with this new trend to label normal behavior as somehow related to ADHD or autism? Only morons don't want to know why ffs
Peeing is also normal behavior. But it's not normal if you have to pee every 30 minutes.
What's with this new trend of invalidating ADHD and autism symptoms simply because you don't experience it to a degree that impacts your quality of life?
ADHD and autism don't have one specific symptom. It's a thousand little things that drive you insane from having to conform to neurotypical behavior.
Let patients share their experiences without normalizing and invalidating their condition.
It's always 'everyone has ADHD these days' just like how people day 'everyone is LGBTQ these days. It's never 'underserved and underdiagnosed ADHD patients are finally getting recognition these days'.
Boys are 16x more likely to get an ADHD diagnosis than girls. The vast majority of backlash against ADHD patients on social media are against women and PoC who are finally speaking out against the medical neglect. Women traditionally present different symptoms because girls are punished more heavily for exhibiting ADHD behaviors than boys are. Same goes for autism.
Remember that a lack of diagnosis does not indicate the lack of ADHD and autism. Modern medicine is rife with systemic inequality. Undiagnosed ADHD and autism patients are frequently penalized and not rewarding for concealing their symptoms. The more effort they put into concealing them, the more heavily criticized they are for 'faking' it.
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What’s with this new trend to label normal behavior as somehow related to ADHD or autism?
That's always been around. Another example: having enough interest & focus to get good at something difficult. When someone suggests that isn't normal (rather than a natural result of persistent effort & willpower), it really indicates to me a shortcoming in whoever believes that (why don't they think they could do the same if they seriously tried? are they a moron?).
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Always. I always must understand why something needs to be done before I do it. Rare exceptions in people I have an absolute trust to make decisions for me.
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What is the purpose of this post?
Why do you ask?
I need to know why
Why do you need to know it?
The existential dread of not knowing; gnaws at my psyche in uncomfortable ways that I cannot adequately put into words.
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I want to know why other ppl don't want to know why
Everyone has a different amount of curiosity for different things. Just because someone doesn’t want to know how a carburetor works doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in other things.
Also curiosity can be a luxury. Some people are very focused on following the beaten path because they think it might be safer. Start asking questions and rocking boats and you might cause problems. Curiosity killed the cat and all that. Over a lifetime people settle into their own groove of curiosity and satisfaction.
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I am currently reading into the religion of ancient germanic tribes. Sadly WE HAVE NOTHING! EVERYTHING IS LOST TO TIME!
We have a few names, but that is basicly it. Roman and christian sources are heavily bias so they cant be trustet
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Yes. I can't help that everything is fascinating to me...
mine’s not orange
This is a tough one. I have an autistic child. I love that they’re curious, but sometimes, for all of our safety, I can’t explain why I need them to stop talking about a dangerous subject… for now.
Great. I love that you’re curious about bombs. We’re in line for security at the airport. I need you to be quiet now.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
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I do. And I know that folks will get snippy if I ask.
Thankfully, Wikipedia exists, and it is more than willing to vomit forth information without getting an attitude about it.
Of course I do. It's only the impulse to ask out loud that was trained out of me.
To interact with the social world the way others do, we need to learn the mechanisms behind social interactions to a level that others don't. This urge to know why a social behaviour works before we can properly use it (manners, aggression, group identity, coercion, lying) carries over to physical things and systems in the real world (electricity, trains, cooking, cats, jobs, cars)
We need not understand the entire scope of the thing or concept (though we often do), but understanding the boundaries of the thing, where the walls of the box are, helps us understand the limits of our expectations for it. We know it can't leave the box. When we encounter something brand new, a behaviour, situation, environment or task, we feel fear, because at that moment, the box has infinite size, and only by learning about it can we make the box smaller and more manageable.
This is why I need internet. Every time a question pops up (like etymology of some word or what is the native range of some bird or other obscure stuff) I can just search for the answer. Sometimes the information doesn't exist, but even that is an answer, just not the one you wanted. Obviously it can also spiral into finding so much interesting stuff that you forget everything else and do couple hours or pointless research into subject that doesn't really matter, but that's not a downside if you look at it from a certain perspective.
What I really don't understand is how so many people end up wondering about some facts in a conversation, then everyone goes "huh, that's a good question" and just drop the subject and talk about something else. It usually takes less than a minute to do a quick search and everyone has a phone these days. So... how? How?!
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Imagine if an evil villain could delete all of the times in human history that an autistic person thought "why" about something seemingly unimportant WAYYY too hard?
Fuck... would we even have shoes? Toothbrushes? Washing machines? ..idk It would be a devastating attack upon humanity in terms of pure capability, technology and knowledge, that is for sure.
I am not saying all of the important discoveries were made by autistic people, just like we all know that we have met some autistic people (wait, you ARE one of those people aren't you!?) that are extraordinarily smart in their own way, and you can see in the people around them that they are such a powerful, clear lucid mind that they are loved and supported in their quirkiness because they move mountains (or don't). As it goes with all minds that are different in one way or another.... but certain machines and weapon systems... I just feel like... there HAS to be at least ONE autistic person behind that shit! Probably a lot of other kinds of minds too! Hopefully!
To anyone who hasn't met those autistic people or is unaware they have, damn I am sorry those people are incredibly fun and illuminating to talk to wtf. Not that anyone in this lemmy community would fall under that category, just making a point like I get so mad when people attack autistic people for so many reasons, but weapon systems are a big one that is hard to argue with, weapons aren't clubs and swords these days they are fiddly, super complex electronics warfare sensor ridden monstrosities... and they NEED the people developing and using them to understand the kind of horrifyingly long manuals some autistic people eat for breakfast while humming happily to themselves.
...and people dare to pick a fight with those people and their friends????
"I have a great idea let's have a moral panic about autistic people and ostracize/punish/seperate them out while denying them the care they need (established by science) AND THEN try to fight wars using shit like this.....
???
TL;DR People are silly
I'm frankly not of the opinion that natural human curiosity should be described as autism.
It's like, what, let's not have science? Let's not have history? Let's not have medicine?
This is actually kind of bad because it encourages "normal" people to not ever question anything
It makes me great at independent learning. It also makes me horrible at following orders. A "do this thing" without a "because" will get done quite differently to what you'd expect, if at all.
Hmmm, I am almost 70. I think I am neurodivergent?
After all the stuff I have been reading the past couple of years on Reddit and Lemmy I seem to exhibit quit a few of the traits mentioned about being neurodivergent. Starts with me having Aphantasia(no pictures in my brain) and Anendophasia (no inner voice at all) maybe. Not sure. Is it even worth getting a diagnosis at this point in my life?
Why indeed.
Yes it's your call. It was for me, it gave me peace about being labelled as thick as a kid and it helps me in day to day life.
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I'm not autistic but my partner is, can confirm she has it.
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