I need to appear more disabled

Post Reply New Topic

Not sure what forum this should be in really. I'm just musing.

I can express myself well in writing, so people are shocked when they meet me in person and I can't express myself well verbally.

I can talk eloquently on a surface level, I get jokes, I can talk about intellectual subjects, but I can't cope socially or understand hints, subtle cues etc, so people get shocked by that.

I look presentable- thin and pretty with decent clothes (apparently that's how people are supposed to look, sorry it sounds big-headed), so people expect me to be socially accomplished, wise to the ways of the world, to understand everything, so people are shocked when I am tongue tied, naïve, tactless.

I think I need to look and act more disabled so people know I'm a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but how and is it safe/ethical to do that?

I don't think that you should change your natural behaviour to accomodate people and their prejudices.

Just be you and try to come to terms with the fact that people are not necessarily going to appreciate your individual issues or disability/disabilities.

I suppose what I mean is, I should stop masking so much. I've done it for so long that I can't stop. Always trying so hard to appear normal and not 'weird.'

My daughter doesn't mask, she is much more open and honest than me, and people realise she is autistic and are more tolerant and kind to her.

People used to be like that with me but I reckon after the age of about 35, people think I should have 'grown out of it' and be 'normal.'

I know what you mean. I have an instinct to mask because of going to a mainstream high school. Twas a nightmare.

It's so odd, I hated school but looking back, I generally had a nice group of local friends, some of whom I remained friends with til I was in my 30s. There were a few horrible friends in one group so I left that and joined another group. I never had problems making friends...until I moved to this village really. Fingers crossed I can make friends when we move.

The world has definitely changed in the last decade to make people less friendly...

I agree. Society has broken down in many respects.

Yes, I don't buy it that my autism has made it hard for me to make friends. At school I always had a group of friends and had no trouble making friends. At my various jobs I made friends, even if it was only a small group. It just seemed to be after I moved into this village and became a stay at home mum, I failed to make friends.

I have a fantasy that after we move back to my home town I'll find it easier to make friends. This village is a clique, no doubt.

I know that in some ways kids are more brutal about differences but in other ways they're actually a lot more accepting of weird behaviours in their peers than adults are.

But school is weird. When else in life are you thrown in among hundreds of peers, all doing the same thing and at more or less the same stage of their lives? Never. Maybe if you end up in a retirement home.

What I'm trying to get at is that school is sort of the perfect environment to make friends. There's a lot of people to choose from, the chances of you finding someone you can connect with are high, compared to any other point in life.

Having experienced more or less the same as KitLily, i.e. a gradual encroaching isolation the older I get, I do have some sympathy for the idea that modern society is less likely to give us a chance.

But I'm also very self-critical and I do think there's an extent to which I've allowed whatever social skills I once had to become rusty. There are reasons for this that aren't entirely my fault but some of them are. I don't put a lot of effort into it any more. But you know, if you fall down every time you try to get up, eventually you stop trying to get up.

I tend to think that if the environment was right, i.e. something more like a school or work environment, I might do better again.

Moving location can completely overhaul a persons social prospects. I understand though that moving isn't always a practical option.

I'm exactly the same as you in all those points.

I was more or less accepted at school. And I was definitely NOT the weirdest of my friend group. I was almost one of the popular ones, some of my group were ostracised by classmates for stupid reasons like 'talks too much.' I was almost one of the normies at school.

You end up with a group of people at the same life stage as you doing the same things when you have a baby. Suddenly you're in this alien world of being a parent, with loads of other people doing the same thing. But that did NOT make it easy to make friends. It was VERY competitive. Who the flying feck compares babies to each other as if it's a competition FFS? Mothers a generation older than me said it wasn't like that when they had babies. The world has changed into one big competition.

I am the same, my social skills have rusted away to nothing. I have one friend who might be autistic too, I manage to communicate with her. But at the post office yesterday I couldn't express myself for toffee. Luckily the post office ladies are kind and patient.

We've been planning it for years. We are leaving this village and going back home next year come hell or high water. I'm visualising it will all go smoothly and in a timely manner

Maybe you could learn to be better at expressing yourself in person. Like admitting you don't remember faces if that is a problem for you? Normal people aren't mind readers.

I help them out by picking feminine outfits so they don't need to guess my gender. I wear a lot of pink.
Messing with their "gender calculator" shuts down their social skills and ability to think!

If my mom needed to know something she'd just ask!

Oh, okay. Good luck with your move in that case!

That's my exact problem. I can't think of the words to use and by the time I have, the conversation has moved on. I'm not good at verbal communication.

As I said above, I have decent clothes and people think I look nice. They get a false impression that I'm all put together and normal because of that. Maybe I need to look more messy and weird?

Thanks. I'm glad you haven't noticed I'm moving house because I've been going on about it for years and boring people

If the conversation has moved on, perhaps you could write down what you wanted to talk about and bring it up when there is an opportunity to do so?