this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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Autism
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~~I’m never going to diagnose a friend or family member with an illness or disability. Until they say something, they’re just a picky eater or fidgety and I will bully them relentlessly for their minor character defect, as is tradition. Communicate in a way that works, written or verbally, or it’s fair game.~~
Came here from All and didn’t notice the community, sorry about that.
If it's okay for an autistic person to have these traits, why can't someone else? This kind of mindset is what makes the world so inherently hostile to autistic people. Even if you don't shame people whom you know to have autism for these traits, you are still communicating to them that you think these traits are bad when you shame others for having them.
And why are these traits "bad?" None of these really affect anyone but the person who has them. Picky eating limits the person's own choices, not your own. Their lack of understanding of humor or sarcasm isolates them socially from others, not you. It's not a reflection on the quality of your joke. Their awkwardness hurts themself significantly more than it can possibly hurt you. Not wanting to be touched is a basic personal boundary that should be respected no matter whose boundary it is. Fidgeting is a harmless motion. Most of what we shame for being "cringey" interests are rooted in misogyny anyway, and others' interests do not harm you in any way. Meltdowns are something that anyone can experience, if pushed to the brink. Autistic people just happen to have more sensitivities, and also to live in a world that is actively hostile to them. Of course they will be pushed to the brink more often.
It can be hard to unlearn ableism. And I hope you're able to read these words with an open mind and take the time to introspect on why you hold the beliefs that you have expressed here, and try to understand the harm that they cause to autistic people. It's especially harmful to express them here — as I'm glad that you noticed, and walked back — but I wanted to also address you in a more general way, because I believe that this sentiment would have been harmful even if you had expressed it on 196 (where you stated that you originally thought you were.)
It’s fine for everyone to have those traits, but that doesn’t preclude these traits from being made fun of in a friendly setting. A person’s ability to accept good natured humor at their expense and whether good natured ribbing is acceptable are separate discussions. You’d be kind of a cunt to joke about something that someone might actually be insecure about. That’s the only difference. You don’t jab where skin is thin, you congratulate. Measuring yourself against others and improving or accepting yourself is the core of interpersonal relationships.
And sorry to double reply, but I feel like I missed this. (I have a tendency to ramble, I should probably refine my responses before sending. Eh.)
Why would you make fun of them if you don't think these traits are bad?
As another autistic person, I didn’t understand this instinctively so I can actually articulate an answer for you.
The reason you make fun of your friends is to reinforce the shared understanding that you are friends.
I’ll try and come up with an analogy.
There is a king who keeps very tight security around him at all times. Everyone must be disarmed before they enter his chamber, because he doesn’t trust anyone. Except for one man. There is a knight in this king’s court who is allowed to wear his sword into the king’s audience chamber.
Why? Well, because it is an honor to be trusted to this degree. And why does the knight bring the sword in? Because every time the king chooses to allow the knight’s sword into his presence he reinforces his own trust in the knight. He reinforces the pathways in his brain that consist of this trust.
That’s the knight’s reason.
Why does the king allow the knight to bring the sword in? Because every time the knight chooses not to draw that sword and kill the king, he reinforces the part of his brain that is loyal to the king. That is the king’s reason.
The king and the knight both benefit from their relationship; they both want it to be strengthened.
So they allow the creation of a situation that only works if they’re friends, because this disambiguates the relationship in their mind.
I know it’s not the best analogy. But it’s about competing narratives in the brain, and how presenting a scenario whose resolution into one decision or the other reinforces the narrative that matches the decision.
If we are friends, and we’re hanging out, and I say something insulting to you, I’m doing that because the insult gives you an opportunity to reaffirm our friendship by choosing to take it lightly and laugh at it. The word “reaffirm” here encapsulates the logic in the last three paragraphs preceding this one.
The insults are the sword in the audience chamber. They are a threat. By dismissing the threat, one reaffirms the relationship.
It makes more sense in the context of demonstrating to a third party that two people are friends — say if that third party was thinking of playing them against one another — and to apply it to two friends alone you just need to remember a human brain runs thousands of little minds in parallel.