Confronting my internalized ableism and neurotypism - LONG

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I haven’t been here in a while because of some difficult circumstances in face-to-face life, and I’m a little afraid to post now because I don’t want to upset anyone, but I have to work through something and don’t know where else to go.

I’m really struggling with being too critical of others and myself, and I think it’s rooted in internalized ableism and neurotypism, and also just plain old-fashioned fear.

I’ve gotten pretty good at masking my symptoms, mostly by necessity but partly by choice. Being sober and on the right psych meds helps. When I encounter people who are less successful at masking their symptoms, I get irritated. I tried mental health support groups, but people who were obviously “sicker” than I was upset me, to the point where I would lash out and be mean to them. I avoid one of my writing groups because of someone who goes there who annoys me; even his voice sets me off. I’m sponsoring (I’m in a 12-Step program) someone who is also autistic, and I dread talking to her when she calls.

I also struggle at work with people who are less competent than I am. If someone’s new or new to the particular task, no problem. But if it’s someone who I think “should” know better, I get annoyed. I hate answering the same questions from the same people all the time. I hate when people make their poor planning my emergency. I make extra effort to help my teammates and get pissed when they don’t do the same. A week ago I spent 10 minutes being irritated by someone who misspelled my name; I’ve been at my job for five years and he’s been there almost as long.

And then I get pissed at myself for being so impatient, intolerant, and (occasionally) snarky. Even if I don’t say anything, I hate that I even think so unkindly of people.

As I type this out, I’m realizing how horrible I must sound, and I will completely understand any negative responses and not reply in kind.

Thanks for bearing with me so long. What can I do to help me be kinder to myself and others?

I can share part of a process that I'm going through to help with fragmentation related to CPTSD. This part is an internal dialogue as such and I found it deeply uncomfortable for months. I mean changing a lifetime unhelpful, self harming habit takes time and perseverance.

To pinpoint the issue in my case... its self hatred. Where it came from... interesting story, but not very relevent when moving forward.

Self care in the broadest sense for almost a year has softened the voice of my internal critic.
Actively but gently reprogramming my every internal self hating assertion.

Eg "I'm such a idiot, how could I have been so stupid, I always do this, why do I never learn" etc.
Response is the mindful approach of letting this voice speak without judgement, observing it as such. Following it with a kinder self talk response.
"Ah I know what this is and why you speak like this, it's ok, this is the only way youve known.
There is another way you've learned about now though, a kinder way, let's try a self care alternative statement(adapted to be fact based)...
This situation is on your doorstep now, self hating will knock your confidence to deal with this effectively. You can face it, you have a proven track record of overcoming difficulties, youve deep reserves and relatively speaking have faced much worse than this. Focus on your strengths, facts and reality."

A somewhat thrown quickly together dialogue but I hope the approach makes some sense.

Some years back I realised the things that set off a critical voice of others was in this case a familiarly with their way of being. A recognition of something I hated about myself in another.
That was my problem to own, not theirs and I had had enough of projection onto me, I hated it, why would I do that to another.

Edit to add
The decisions I make, the actions i take etc go through a similar process, if it doesnt align with autistic self care then it gets revised to be more in sync with my personal values.
I also found it helpful to develop my own definition of autistic self harm. Like intense masking for an event, it has negative personal costs for later that day or the next few days. If its important for me to push myself to attend this event, I have to engage in after care as a priority. If this care isnt possible afterwards then I cant knowingly make a choice to do harm to myself and it's better to not attend the event.

I don’t like the term “ableism”—and I’m not too keen on “disabled,” either.

There’s nothing wrong with being “able”—and most “disabled” people are able in many ways.

The way I see it - you've built elaborate castle of perfect performance to hide and compensate for your struggling, confused self. Maintaining such a castle is a constant work of quickly reacting to any imperfection.
It became your unconcious, automatic, constant activity.
But as your constant scanning for your imperfections became automatic, other people also can get detected by your scanner and trigger its alarm. Unfortunately, you don't control other people, so you are in the alarm mode but can't process to the next step of handling the emergency which would turn your alarm off. And that's frustrating and enraging.

Obviously, it's only my intuition and I might be completely wrong about you.

I have never seen myself described so accurately. I am amazed. Now what’s my next step.

Lol, should I start a career as a fortune teller?
Unfortunately, your next step is up to you.
Learning to love your imperfect self is a long and painful process of facing all your demons you've been hiding from.
To you have access to a good therapist? In my case, therapy helped a lot but only my third attempt succeeded.

First of all - hi from another Clevelander (southwest Cuyahoga here).

Also - I don't know if you've had a similar kind of social conditioning, whether getting dx'd early or late, but essentially figuring out over time that in real life people don't care about disability status - ie. that they're trying to knock each other down and that admitting to a disability is tantamount to admitting weakness and that the hierarchically predatory nature of so many social interactions puts this in a place where the underlying tenor isn't tolerance, it's who can put their foot on whose head to gain a bit more social status.

Another area of potential bitterness for those who mask well - this kind of intolerance is very limited when it comes to people with blatant outward disabilities. There's also an uncanny valley effect where if you're like 98% normal but your eye contact isn't quite right people are much quicker to assume the worst than if you have a lot of traits hanging out and then they just write it off as 'your weird' (no matter where I was on my developmental curve I was never in a place where that sat comfortably, people we're always trying to dominate my identity out of me, and so I had no choice but to run full-throttle at masking - if I wanted any right to my own autonomy).

I will occassionally work with people, not even autistic, who'll start howling with laughter over something they're listening to on the internet and part of my mind rings out all kinds of alarm bells - ie. I'd get my throat cut and thrown out the door if I did that! but then... I really think about and it well, okay, I really want to see people lighten up a bit more and if that person can get away with it without getting smashed, better that then the sort of tyrranical environment where if you so much as pick up a pen or pencil the wrong way (staying within tolerance of non-absurdity) people assume you're a cannibal.

Hi from the west side!

What you said makes so much sense to me. That’s exactly how I feel, but you, just like Magz, said it better.

Although I always knew on some level that I was different, I didn’t consider AS as a possibility. I didn’t even know the term existed till I met a friend who was married to an Aspie. I just knew I was weird and I had to hide my weird in order to function. Sometimes I was good at it, other times not so much. I hated when I wasn’t good at it and would be ostracized or punished as a result.

That's exactly where I have been, too.

In this post: viewtopic.php?t=384951#p8454772 I extracted a list of coping strategies from research about it. Abilities from the bottom half of this list (deep compensation & accommodation) may be worth learning.

Example: I sort of use "foreign disguise" on the subculture level. I intentionally look geeky. I find out, people give me much more leeway for my faux pas when I look geeky than they used to when I tried my best to look "normal". Sometimes forcing other people to accept your eccentricities is the best option.

That. Exactly that. I am up in the middle of the night right now b/c of that.

Last night my partner asked me how I could stop feeling bad about feeling bad (I internalize) and my thought was to get really angry at everyone else (externalize). The middle ground eludes me.

An example of my thinking: This shows again that I am an expert at this, yet I am paid less than my inexperienced (or otherwise incompetent "peers") despite my significant efforts to be paid fairly. So either I am not really an expert or I am being played. WHICH? I don't know how to handle this and I CAN'T STAND THIS (cue: bury big feelings). Or: I want a job where my skills are appreciated and utilized (cue: standoff with big anxiety).

It's similar with my NT partner. I can see an incident where his behavior is "off" --- I mention it (in the heat of the moment) so he can make a course correction and he gets defensive and then I think he's rejecting my input --- when he just feels bad, I guess. If instead of taking it on myself (am I wrong? did I say it wrong?) or putting it at him (why can't he understand and appreciate it?), I imagine I would feel better if I thought something gentler (he's not ready for this, give him a little bit). What would that be called?

So at work it's similar, instead of taking it on (am I wrong?) or putting it on them (are they idiots?), I imagine it would be nice to find some middle ground --- but the strong internalization or externalization of upset are knee-jerk reactions. To not be so upset? To be confident and calm? Hmmmm….