Thanks, Ferris, that was both very funny and I recognised a hell of a lot of it. A few more of my own...
If you are sharing your honest experiences of life, and for no apparent reason, the other people in the conversation just give you blank stares or think you are trying to be funny when you weren't, remember to mark this subject as "never talk about this again to anyone, ever" - you've obviously accidentally stumbled into some kind of inexplicable taboo. When introducing new subjects which you think could possibly fall into this category, always do so as flippantly as possible, so that you can plausibly claim to have been "only joking", and always be prepared to quickly laugh along with everyone else while secretly cringing inside. "Never talk about this again to anyone, ever" should, of course, be an absolute, black-or-white category, so that you don't accidentally embarrass your doctor, counsellor or psychologist.
The sleep problems which are common for autistic people are a god-send for explaining behaviours which you have no idea might be related to autism. When faced with awkward social situations, never underestimate the power of "I'm really tired because I didn't sleep well" as a generic reason for all those frustrating lapses in social awareness. It's a big bonus if you can actually convince people to take your insomnia seriously so that you don't even have to bother explaining any more.
When people are talking to you about a completely baffling subject which you struggle to understand, just say "Mmmm", "Yeesss" and "I know what you mean" at regular intervals whether you know what they mean or not. It's very unlikely that they will test your knowledge as long as they're doing most of the talking, and it seems to make them feel better for some reason. Presumably, this is the behaviour referred to as "empathising", which is obviously idealised and exaggerated because no-one else seems to have much of a clue what I'm talking about either.
When someone asks you to do something, don't frustrate them by taking huge amounts of time and procrastination to determine what you're being asked and whether you can do it - just unconditionally agree to everything so that they go away as soon as possible. You will have plenty of time later to ponder exactly which bits of the request you might have missed completely or didn't understand, and can decide at your leisure whether to appear "stupid" by asking for clarification, "incompetent" because you did it wrong, or "lazy" because you didn't get it done in time. In the long-term, this problem will resolve itself easily enough once people stop bothering to ask you in the first place or hand you your redundancy.
If somebody suggests that you might be autistic, just remember - autism is a spectrum, so everyone is on it! Therefore, the person who made the suggestion is technically correct, but the suggestion is so trivially true that it can be safely disregarded.
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When you are fighting an invisible monster, first throw a bucket of paint over it.
02 Jul 2018, 6:51 pm
