I have yet to find a short and polite way to say - when someone is trying to help me fix a problem - that, "I know you were just introduced to this issue and that you want to try to be immediately helpful, but I could bet my life that every single possible solution you can come up with in the first 10 minutes of tackling this I tried hours ago and am only seeking for help because the solution appears to be borderline incomprehensible in nature".
I think personal labels can be useful for “there’s a word for it”, “I’m not alone”, and “oh neat, I know what to put in a search engine now” reasons, but I also think they can be troublesome.
Plenty of people won’t fit 100% neatly into a label, and when they encounter a rare exception to what is otherwise an accurate label for them, it can feel like an identity crisis.
The labels aren’t literally what you are. They’re words. They’re meant to assist communication and organization, not to control you.
There's this perception on here among neurodivergent people that neurotypical social behaviour is all fake and arbitrary. That it's a cruel, baseless game played to "weed out" ND people or to cause pain and complicate things on purpose.
This is wrong. All of those social rules and nuances ARE communication. Sorry if this is rude but it's not the NTs' fault if things don't gel- the gap goes both ways. Just because communication doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean it's random or purposeless. Remember this post?
Every interaction in an NT conversation has purpose, and communicates something, and I don't understand why nobody ever explains this to ND people. There's information on basic stuff like facial expressions, but never what any of it actually means.
Small talk about the weather isn't about the weather. It's about how nice it is to be around the people you're talking to, or feeling out their understanding of the world, or just saying that you're both present and people and you're being people together. It's not literal. The words are, but the broad scope isn't.
A conversation is not just an exchange of words, it's an exchange of acknowledgement, attention, and emotional understanding. Of course it confuses people when their part in that exchange is met with flat affect or unembelished words. It's like looking in a mirror and not seeing your reflection.
"you do not owe friends instant responses to every social message, and anxiety over not receiving the same is something for the anxious person to work on, not your responsibility to totally change for"
AND
"you have to put some effort into friendships, which can include open communication with your friends about how to make both of you comfortable re: messaging. expecting other people to do ALL of the work ALL of the time, in terms of getting in touch and carrying on the conversation, may make them feel ignored and/or and leave"
if someone talk in way that is hard understand or " word salad " , and want answer with something snarky or rude : should not , actually ! if can not think anything to say , should just not say anything .
at best , maybe engage with spam bot and get harmless laugh . but at worst , hurt actual person , who could have hard time for reasons like :
very tired
not sober
brain injury
active psychosis
active mania
AAC user ( hi ! )
cognitive disabilities in general
and more !
should just be nice . hurt very much when make sincere effort communicate , but people just point and laugh because seem loopy and broken .
Let’s work on communicating our insecurities and feelings instead of accusing our loved ones. Making accusations can damage our relationships and isn’t fair to our loved ones.
Try saying “I’m scared I’m going to be alone” instead of “you’re going to leave me like everyone else”.
Try saying “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I feel bad about it. Is there anything I can do to help make this better?” instead of “I’m such a failure and a bad person. You shouldn’t be friends with me anymore.”
Try saying “I’m feeling really alone lately. Can we talk more?” instead of “you never talk to me. You must not care about me.”
Our loved ones can’t read our minds. No matter how obvious it might seem to us that we’re struggling, it isn’t necessarily obvious to them. And there are any number of reasons that they might not notice, or might notice and not react (such as trying to respect that they think you don’t want to talk about it and will come to them when you’re ready.)
Your feelings are valid. Your insecurities are valid. But it’s better to deal with these by seeking reassurance in healthy ways or coping mechanisms like self-soothing instead of accusing those you love of bad intentions.
"Ableds shouldn't baby talk disabled people cause it's infantilizing" and "Some disabled people need things to be explained to them in an easier to understand way" are thoughts that CAN and SHOULD co-exist.
I sometimes see people argue about one of these circles as though it were all three circles.
Sometimes something can totally make sense in-universe, and fit with the themes of the story, the characters, etc... And you just don't like it for whatever reason. Maybe it wasn't done well in spite of that, or touched a nerve, etc.
Maybe you loved a story, and it was an excellent exploration of a character, but it would be totally fair to call out the technical nonsense, and how, even in-universe, it doesn't add up.
And maybe you thought this episode of a show was GREAT! But it was non-canon, nothing made sense, and, ultimately, it was UTTER NONSENSE.
And so on, and so forth. Heck, you could fairly add more circles to this. I'm keeping it simple with three.
My point is mostly that there's nuance to opinions, and sometimes, someone not liking something in a story has nothing to do with whether it made sense, or complimented the narrative.
Those things can be separate points. Stories don't have to be a failure at everything to be disliked, or succeed at everything to be liked, and arguing as though that were the case is silly.