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I just got the "you can't possibly have autism" line

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CockneyRebel
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08 Mar 2016, 1:11 pm

That person doesn't know what they're talking about.


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AspieUtah
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08 Mar 2016, 1:22 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
That person doesn't know what they're talking about.

I was just going to add that thought! Hehe.

When someone states that another "can't be autistic," I hear them saying actually "I don't know enough about autism, so I am going wholly on my learned stereotypes about autism, and you don't show those stereotypes."

I also hear "I knew one autistic person and that person was extremely arrogant/hostile/rude, and you aren't like that."

In other words, people who say that others "can't be autistic," they are announcing to the world that their opinion is baseless and usually ignorant of reality.


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08 Mar 2016, 1:30 pm

For some reason it bothers me when someone suggests violence for autism. Throwing a chair across the room? I can't really blame her for saying it because of the ugly stereotype. It just shows me how people easily connect violence to autism and they jump to that diagnoses quickly which offends me.


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08 Mar 2016, 3:19 pm

BeaArthur wrote:
Irony, sarcasm, and appreciation of the absurd were coping mechanisms for survival in my family of origin, a hotbed of mixed (and missed) diagnoses.

Just wanted to share an example of this. Noticing today is International Woman's Day, I emailed my former stepmother, who is Russian by birth, as follows:

Dear _____,
Happy International Women's Day. This holiday always sneaks up on me because it is not widely celebrated in the US... and besides, I didn't grow up with it. (Old dog, no new tricks.)
Anyway it always makes me think of you. I hope you are doing well.
Best wishes, ____

And for a reply, I got:

Old dog should be wiser and kinder. It’s OK for your country to have KKK and not celebrate the IWD. PS You have many other Days to celebrate in this country, e.g., the National Bacon Day. And, yes, believe everything your mass media says and writes about Russia and the Russians. We are evil by default. Forget about truth. And, yes, you, Americans, are the best, “the most democratic country in the world” with the largest prison population in the world, and, whom shall we invade next? Are you a swinger?

How should I read that, other than with laughter? (Highly recommended.)

Sorry for being off-topic...


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08 Mar 2016, 9:25 pm

I actually do not have much trouble with sarcasm and never did, my issue is remembering to think of other peoples intentions and emotions and reading their actions accordingly

My family is a bunch of smart asses, i was taught sarcasm at a VERY young age

But these types of comments really bug me, they take something that is completely unrelated to autism and is just common in autistic people and make it a distinguishing characteristic

"What's that? you have extreme obsessions, severe sensory issues and cannot talk?? but, you understand sarcasm so that MUST mean your not on the spectrum!"

But it goes the other way around too.

"I have perfect social skills, no sensory issues and am a very flexible and adaptable person with multiple interest but sometimes i cant understand sarcasm, so i must be on the spectrum!


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08 Mar 2016, 9:43 pm

I got that a few weeks ago from one of my neighbors, she was looking at my autism alert card and on the back it says something about having social communication difficulties, I think it more that she misinterpreted what it means becuae she said you talk you me and your friends with no difficulty, but shes never seen me what im like if im in a room full of complete strangers and expected to do "small talk"!

Sometimes I get sarcasm but sometimes I don't, its a bit weird that.


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08 Mar 2016, 10:01 pm

Yigeren wrote:
How can someone "seem NT" online? It's only text. There's no eye contact, facial expression, body language, tone of voice. There are just words on a page. A person can take as much time as needed to articulate what he or she wants to say. That isn't possible in real life.

On a forum we have time to process things, and figure out what people mean by their statements. We can practice writing things in a way that is clear, and appropriate for the thread. We can look at what we've written, and decide whether or not it "sounds" the way it was intended to.

With all of that, how can anyone tell if anyone else is autistic or not?


Without nonverbal cues, there is still a lot of verbal, so it is possible there is difference in how autistic people appear online.


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08 Mar 2016, 10:47 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Yigeren wrote:
How can someone "seem NT" online? It's only text. There's no eye contact, facial expression, body language, tone of voice. There are just words on a page. A person can take as much time as needed to articulate what he or she wants to say. That isn't possible in real life.

On a forum we have time to process things, and figure out what people mean by their statements. We can practice writing things in a way that is clear, and appropriate for the thread. We can look at what we've written, and decide whether or not it "sounds" the way it was intended to.

With all of that, how can anyone tell if anyone else is autistic or not?


Without nonverbal cues, there is still a lot of verbal, so it is possible there is difference in how autistic people appear online.


That may be so. I can't tell myself, however. Maybe it's because many "autistic" habits when communicating seem normal to me, because I have them, too. And NTs seem normal as well because that's what I'm used to.



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08 Mar 2016, 11:42 pm

Yigeren wrote:
btbnnyr wrote:
Yigeren wrote:
How can someone "seem NT" online? It's only text. There's no eye contact, facial expression, body language, tone of voice. There are just words on a page. A person can take as much time as needed to articulate what he or she wants to say. That isn't possible in real life.

On a forum we have time to process things, and figure out what people mean by their statements. We can practice writing things in a way that is clear, and appropriate for the thread. We can look at what we've written, and decide whether or not it "sounds" the way it was intended to.

With all of that, how can anyone tell if anyone else is autistic or not?


Without nonverbal cues, there is still a lot of verbal, so it is possible there is difference in how autistic people appear online.


That may be so. I can't tell myself, however. Maybe it's because many "autistic" habits when communicating seem normal to me, because I have them, too. And NTs seem normal as well because that's what I'm used to.


To me, some people on wp seem more autistic, and others seem more NT, based on their writings.
The ones who seem more NT seem to be less literal, use more idioms, make social comments more, express emotions more, and go back and forth with people more like reinforcing what each other is saying more, want and give more social emotional support.
Possibly they are better at these things online than face to face with people.


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09 Mar 2016, 1:03 am

I used to not get sarcasm and idioms. But however I am able to use it myself so someone once thought online that if I can be sarcastic, then I was being literal on purpose by missing it when others would use it. I think I have gotten better at picking up on it and sometimes I still have a hard time with metaphors. But my mother told me I didn't get sarcasm because I wasn't exposed to it and didn't have experience with it. But I am sure I have been around sarcasm and I just didn't pick up on it. I was around normal kids. The earliest sarcasms I knew from when I was 8 and 9 was "oh great" and "yeah right" because it was what kids always said when they didn't like something. Then I started using it without any understanding when I didn't like something. Then there was "it was so funny I forgot to laugh" and that was some thing going around when I was eight so I say it one day at home and get in trouble. I have not said it since and still don't to this day and I have no idea why it's said. But it's something I hear from my dad a lot.


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09 Mar 2016, 1:06 am

btbnnyr wrote:
To me, some people on wp seem more autistic, and others seem more NT, based on their writings.
The ones who seem more NT seem to be less literal, use more idioms, make social comments more, express emotions more, and go back and forth with people more like reinforcing what each other is saying more, want and give more social emotional support.
Possibly they are better at these things online than face to face with people.


I will have to try to take notice from now on. Would you say I seem more NT?



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09 Mar 2016, 1:17 am

League_Girl wrote:
I used to not get sarcasm and idioms. But however I am able to use it myself so someone once thought online that if I can be sarcastic, then I was being literal on purpose by missing it when others would use it. I think I have gotten better at picking up on it and sometimes I still have a hard time with metaphors. But my mother told me I didn't get sarcasm because I wasn't exposed to it and didn't have experience with it. But I am sure I have been around sarcasm and I just didn't pick up on it. I was around normal kids. The earliest sarcasms I knew from when I was 8 and 9 was "oh great" and "yeah right" because it was what kids always said when they didn't like something. Then I started using it without any understanding when I didn't like something. Then there was "it was so funny I forgot to laugh" and that was some thing going around when I was eight so I say it one day at home and get in trouble. I have not said it since and still don't to this day and I have no idea why it's said. But it's something I hear from my dad a lot.



I don't remember being unable to understand sarcasm. However, my parents use sarcasm a lot and also they have a good sense of humor. I was exposed to these things early.

But I am not good at picking up on more subtle sarcasm. If it's something that someone is saying that is clearly of the opposite meaning, I get it. Tone of voice is important, too. I can easily understand sarcastic tone of voice, even when I don't understand the sarcasm. But often the sarcasm is not obvious, and the right tone of voice is not used. But other people seem to get it.

The same goes with humor. I often can't tell if someone is serious or not. If they use a serious tone, but are joking, I often won't understand. Even if what they are saying is somewhat ridiculous, I tend to believe that it's meant seriously.

Could you give an example of not understanding metaphors?



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09 Mar 2016, 1:28 am

Yigeren wrote:
League_Girl wrote:
I used to not get sarcasm and idioms. But however I am able to use it myself so someone once thought online that if I can be sarcastic, then I was being literal on purpose by missing it when others would use it. I think I have gotten better at picking up on it and sometimes I still have a hard time with metaphors. But my mother told me I didn't get sarcasm because I wasn't exposed to it and didn't have experience with it. But I am sure I have been around sarcasm and I just didn't pick up on it. I was around normal kids. The earliest sarcasms I knew from when I was 8 and 9 was "oh great" and "yeah right" because it was what kids always said when they didn't like something. Then I started using it without any understanding when I didn't like something. Then there was "it was so funny I forgot to laugh" and that was some thing going around when I was eight so I say it one day at home and get in trouble. I have not said it since and still don't to this day and I have no idea why it's said. But it's something I hear from my dad a lot.



I don't remember being unable to understand sarcasm. However, my parents use sarcasm a lot and also they have a good sense of humor. I was exposed to these things early.

But I am not good at picking up on more subtle sarcasm. If it's something that someone is saying that is clearly of the opposite meaning, I get it. Tone of voice is important, too. I can easily understand sarcastic tone of voice, even when I don't understand the sarcasm. But often the sarcasm is not obvious, and the right tone of voice is not used. But other people seem to get it.

The same goes with humor. I often can't tell if someone is serious or not. If they use a serious tone, but are joking, I often won't understand. Even if what they are saying is somewhat ridiculous, I tend to believe that it's meant seriously.

Could you give an example of not understanding metaphors?




I used to not understand "slower than molasses in January" because the January part would confuse me because it wasn't January. I think now it just means you are going too slow and taking too long so I ignore the month part.

I can't think of any other examples but I will ask what it means when someone uses a metaphor if I can't understand it. Online I will just look it up to see what it means to figure out what the person is saying.


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09 Mar 2016, 5:22 am

Yigeren wrote:
League_Girl wrote:
But I am not good at picking up on more subtle sarcasm. If it's something that someone is saying that is clearly of the opposite meaning, I get it. Tone of voice is important, too. I can easily understand sarcastic tone of voice, even when I don't understand the sarcasm. But often the sarcasm is not obvious, and the right tone of voice is not used. But other people seem to get it.

The same goes with humor. I often can't tell if someone is serious or not. If they use a serious tone, but are joking, I often won't understand. Even if what they are saying is somewhat ridiculous, I tend to believe that it's meant seriously.

Could you give an example of not understanding metaphors?



Totally agree with this, even when it is my wife speaking I get confused. I often take her jokes literally, which can cause minor spats. She often tells me that her sarcasm is often wasted on me but I do get some of it.



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09 Mar 2016, 6:34 am

You're married! You can't be autistic!



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09 Mar 2016, 7:16 am

League_Girl wrote:
I used to not understand "slower than molasses in January" because the January part would confuse me because it wasn't January. I think now it just means you are going too slow and taking too long so I ignore the month part.


'In January' is used to modify the speed of the comparison even more. Molasses flows slowly. Cold molasses flows even slower. In the northern hemisphere, January is one of the colder months of the year.

'Slow as molasses' means you're doing something slowly, 'Slow as molasses in January' would just be to drive the point home further (i.e. 'You're not just slower than molasses; you're slower than slow molasses'). The same as comparing 'Slow as a turtle' to 'Slow as a one-legged turtle': you're not just slower than this slow thing, you're slower than an extremely slow version of that slow thing.