A procrastination in of itself
That’s a horrible thing to do even if the kid is just being a brat.
As for freedom in relationships, the only ones with constraints are the industry relationships I have and my relationship with my family, now that doesn’t need I don’t have to be aware of everything when interacting with people, I very much do and it means I can get mentally worn out pretty quick.
There are only two people I can engage in social interaction with where it isn’t something that requires active management.
As for the discussion about individualism, I present this XKCD as relevant.[1]
That comic may have truth to it but the fact is, there are people who are very different from almost everyone else.
It's like what's been said before in this thread - the "weirdos" in high school are really just another group who have their own customs, but if a person actually comes off as weird, they get rejected by everyone.
Figure of Hourai
Individualistic just means that the society prizes the success of the individual over the group. It doesn't mean supporting that everyone should be as distinct as possible.
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I find that hard to believe considering the omnipresence of the Be Yourself aesop, particularly in American media.
edited 14th Oct '17 1:56:30 PM by PhysicalStamina
You are expected to be different, but only in a socially approved manner.
I would be fascinated by a study of how autistic people are treated in more collectivistic cultures.
Generally, people are told to be themselves no matter what others think; but not as often told to let other people be themselves.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
I've always suspected that Tommy Wiseau, creator of The Room has autism, since I read The Disaster Artist.
Which is why this description of Johnny, the character he played, jumps out at me:
Though apparently advanced in age, he displays startling naiveté at the ways of the world. He does not appear to understand that employers make empty promises, that women change their minds, that audio tapes have limited storage capacity, that people lie, and that apartments should be locked when the occupants are not at home.
Despite all this, he manages to hold down a job, support himself and his fiancée Lisa in a San Francisco loft apartment (the titular Room), and pay the tuition of Denny, a young man-boy-thing who lives somewhere nearby. He has managed to amass a large circle of friends and acquaintances despite his total lack of social skills. Johnny is even able to subdue a gun-toting drug dealer, unarmed. The other characters heap praise upon him.
In real life, Tommy's only friend is/was Greg Sestero, the secondmost important actor in The Room.
If you read The Disaster Artist, it's at times hilarious and depressing. Hilarious when it talks about the disastrous making of the movie. Depressing when it talks about Tommy's life, which involves being mistreated by people a lot, having no friends, living alone, and many indications that he has some kind of unnamed disability - like when he seems to be utterly unaware of how awful his acting is.
The book made me laugh, and it made me cry.
They fare a lot worse, at least in my country. Behaviour therapy is a common practice, but at least it lacked the horrors of ABA in the west.
That said, acceptance is slowly increasing thanks to increased awareness, but we have a long way to go.
The unaware of bad acting part gives me chills as I tend to get into trouble without me knowing it. Also, my interpretation of text can be sometimes skewed.
Case in point: a customer asked to use ID as a substitute to existing member cards because ID is free.
I interpreted this as it is since that just because member cards are no longer used doesn't mean membership fees are abolished. After all the fee covers the infrastructure and personnel maintaining it.
Upon suggesting a reply to tell the customer that we currently have no plans to do so, but will consider in the future as a way to shut the customer up, the rest were not amused, claiming that the customer wants the membership fee abolished because said customer thinks that the card is the sole source of the membership fees. They suggested that a standard reply of thank you is enough, which I interpreted as an euphemism for "we are not answering you on whether your suggestion is accepted or not", something that I consider bad customer service.
Can anyone explain why they interpreted it that way?
edited 14th Oct '17 7:46:57 PM by murazrai
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
You get customers who will literally interpret everything in the worst possible light. That person sounds like one of those. There's something sort of annoying that they aren't a fan of, so they will only be happy when that thing is gone completely.
I've had customers scream at me because I said no problem ("Because saying that implies that it's usually a problem!"), because I didn't maintain my fake smile for the entire time I was serving them, because I couldn't serve them a burger (this one was at a Tim Hortons, which doesn't sell burgers), or even because I wouldn't leave my post and give someone a guided tour of the hotel I was working at at the time, because of the gigantic line behind them.
There are way too many people who don't see customer service employees as "real" (what they think the employees actually are is rarely anything they've thought out) and who think that "the customer is always right" is completely literal.
EDIT: Oh, you were talking about other employees. Yeah, they probably think that you just gave the customer leverage for future whining and complaining.
"But that guy said that you were considering it! That means you're going to do it, so why haven't you done it yet?"
They're worried about that.
edited 15th Oct '17 5:46:38 AM by Zendervai
Not Three Laws compliant.
The third alternative, of course, would have been to make clear that the fees are mandatory, card or no.
After posting my life story to my (rarely used) Facebook account, a former high school classmate I never knew wrote that she saw a lot of herself in my story, and that she thinks she may have undiagnosed autism. I asked her what things made her think she might have it, and she said this:
Later, as I got older, I was sent to child study teams, I would pick at my skin or chew my hair when I was upset to comfort myself, my mom was always having meetings and discussing my behavior with my teachers, but I do remember her never telling me what the teacher said. She would tell me 'you march to the beat of your own drummer, and that's fine', so she didn't try to change my actions like they did to you. I think, if it was that big of an issue, she was in denial, but I know she went to my school a lot.
I always hated change, and I was always so uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations. I tended to be more immature than my peers, and I was also the fair-weather friend, and they still made fun of me even when I was the only choice. One girl used to use me just to watch tv. I would suggest other activities if she came over, but we'd always end up just watching something. I didn't like extra curriculars, I was bad at sports, except for music (I was somewhat of a savant), but that was also a solitary endeavor. I was always picked last at sports, and would never pay attention or understand the game fully.
Loud noises (people yelling, for example) terrified me, and caused me to revert inwards if I couldn't run and hide. I would cover my ears and pray for it to end while I tried to be as small and unnoticeable as possible. I was usually into the same kinds of books, Goosebumps, choose your adventure, but I would stick to the same genre. I just wish I could remember the 'annoying' things I used to do. I don't remember my school years that well.
Was reading yet another "autistics have a hard time getting jobs, but now suddenly companies want to thire them" article, and I just wanted to share this awesome quote.
Now the very reason Shawn Bolshin couldn't get a job is the very reason he has one.
I love that. The reason he couldn't get a job is suddenly the reason he has one. The article even says he's a rising star due to how well he can do a certain important task.
And this sort of thing is what, apparently, will get autistics employed and past the "omg that person weirds me out" barrier.
Now we have to figure out how to solve other forms of discrimination. I read an article months ago about housing discrimination being a huge problem for autistics. I don't know much more about it than that.
Anyway, quite vitally, the article says this:
He says it's no different than breaking down stigmas around race and gender.
"We had to do it on purpose. Someone had to stand up and say we're going to do this on purpose. Everyone can sit on the same bus. Well, this is 2017. We're starting to do something new on purpose. I think 25 years from now no one is going to think twice about it."
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. No-one wants to hire the weirdo, so they kinda have to want to on purpose or they'll pass that person over and go to someone who can talk the talk the entire workday. Stories of autistics fired from job after job - and the reasons they were fired (usually some variation of "the boss didn't like the weirdo", though sometimes it's other reasons such as having difficulty with a vital task) say it all.
I've seen it argued in the politics thread that like it or not, the most effective attack on discrimination isn't so much non-discrimination as it is reverse discrimination. I'd rather live in a world where peopel are truly judged based on what they can do and what they're like as individuals instead of what group they're in. But we're at the beginning of this movement, and so it seems that - for now at least (and hopefully NOT forever) - the way to solve this is to deliberately "hire the weirdo". And preferably not to hit some quota, but rather, because said "weirdo" is genuinely seen as valuable.
I started reading a blog called The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. It copy/pastes writings from many autistics.
This here was so screwed up I just had to share it. From the entry "Hard Truths: Disability and Poverty Go Hand in Hand".
This is why I am so stern about the incredible burden of bullying that Autistic students endure. Bullies stole my guaranteed education and my future earning potential from me. Bullies stole the life I might have had, and set me on this hand-to-mouth path, one I have been fighting for three decades to escape.
How do you feel about faking normalcy? Faking being non-autistic? What do you think of having to stifle your natural urges to stim, and things like that? Do you feel yourself smiling inappropriately and you wish you could stop it - you try to stop it? (Happens to me from time to time, and I hate it)
How do you deal with that? Do other people seem to accept or understand it?
That's called "camouflaging", right?
Yeah, I've seen that term used.
When taken to an extreme (say, on someone whose autism symptoms require tremendous effort to stifle), it can cause burnout later in life, that even makes the autism symptoms intensify.
I was under the impression that in many cases the symptoms decline anyway, as a result of a lifetime's experience in dealing with social encounters.
Visiting from the Hoag Galaxy
The human brain finishes the main part of it's development at an average age of 25 to 30..
It could be related to that.
Not Three Laws compliant.
Speaking for myself, some of my own sensitivities, such as to loud noise and bright light, decreased with age. Some of my autistic behaviors, I stopped doing as I got older because I was no longer compelled to do them. Not because I'd learned to stop.
However, a few new ones showed up to take their place. :/
After the heavy popularity of the essay "To Siri with Love", it was expanded into a book. It's about how Siri in the iPhone helped an autistic boy improve. Imma quote this article here.
Sure takes a lot of people to do that, but people have the funny habit of copying everyone else's behavior or thoughts. If most people think he's just "quirky", well, they can't all be wrong, right?
He took the iPod to the Apple Store so it could visit his friends. His love of machines as if they were living things is a big part of the book, too.
He's 13, btw. He loved women's feet... for years? Damn. That's a little early to develop a fetish.
But one day, a conductor on the New Haven Line gets the order of stops wrong, and when Gus corrects her, she first ignores, then glares at him. Gus begins to cry.
In a tone filled with the indignation that any aggrieved parent would share, Newman writes, “To that cow, I wanted to say: ‘Sure, he was crying because you wouldn’t speak to him. But mostly he was crying because by not announcing the stops and connections correctly, you were dishonoring the train.”
Like I said, he loves inanimate objects.
I was thinking recently that there's 7 reasons why no amount of punishment might change a person's behavior.
- 1) The person is a psychopath, and literally is incapable of caring about punishment at all. This would be the most rare reason.
- 2) The person doesn't realize what they did wrong, and the punishment doesn't tell them.
- 3) The person has little control over the behavior itself, and while they dislike being punished and therefore are motivated to avoid the punishment, they are unable to stop the behavior.
- 4) The punishment itself is something the person doesn't care about, or is more like a reward than anything else.
- 5) The person believes the behavior isn't that bad or isn't morally wrong at all, and/or believes the punishment is morally wrong, and therefore fights back.
- 6) The person is angry at the world and doesn't care about punishment at all, just "punishing" the world that they feel wronged them.
- 7) The person feels they'll get punished no matter what they do and the punishment can't be avoided, so they don't care about their behavior.
I know examples of 2-4.
For 2, being punished for violating social rules is a super common experience, particularly in early years, for many autistics. One woman was punished for giving totally literal answers to questions. When told she was punished for having a smart mouth, she'd say that it's a good thing that she's smart. When asked "Who do you think you are?", she'd respond by giving her full name. Her stupid motherfucking parents never figured out that, ya know, maybe she has no idea why she's being punished or what she did wrong.
For 3, I had a huge problem with inappropriate laughter in fifth grade. It just randomly started one day, and from that point on, I'd sometimes feel a "premonition" that I'm about to start laughing, and I'd try to stop it by scrunching up my face (and get in trouble for "making faces") or covering my face with my hands. No amount of punishment could stop a behavior I had very little control over and was trying to stop anyway.
For both 3 and 4, I have the example of a preschool girl not yet diagnosed with autism. She would have meltdowns caused by being overwhelmed by noisy people, and for punishment, she'd be given peace and quiet. Oops, I mean time-out. Which was what she wanted.
edited 25th Oct '17 3:29:27 PM by BonsaiForest
There's also the fact that punishment itself is a very ineffective way to control behavior. It suppresses behavior only in circumstances when punishment is highly certain, that is to say in the immediate presence of the punishing person, and creates a certain amount of emotional resentment. Rely on punishment too much, and eventually the punished person is going to start misbehaving as a form of rebellion.
Society sucks at understanding that. Changing morals is probably the best way to change behavior, and it's hard to do.
I remember many years ago a man was fired from his job for telling a woman at his workplace about an episode of a TV show where men were trying to remember the name of a woman whose name sounded like a private part (Dolores). The woman indicated she was uncomfortable, but the man didn't realize it. He continued the story.
He sued about having been fired, and he won a $1 million settlement.
Someone wrote a letter to the editor saying this was ridiculous, and it would scare other women into not reporting sexual harassment. When I'd read the story, I was like 18 or 19 or so, and I thought that man easily could have been me.
In hindsight, I wonder if he was on the spectrum or borderline.
edited 25th Oct '17 4:05:20 PM by BonsaiForest
Virile Member
"Oh yeah. As a child and a teen, I noticed the hypocrisy of us calling ourselves "the land of freedom" and punishing people for being different. How teenagers said "I'm a rebel", yet ostracized those who actually rebelled against their way of life, etc."
That observation is at least as old as Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America. He wrote that while Americans were much freer than any European people at the time, they were also more conformist.
"Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man; and his number is 0x29a."
Vox article on potential causes. I‘d underscore the „microbiome“ theory as a potentially interesting lead.
Oh yeah. As a child and a teen, I noticed the hypocrisy of us calling ourselves "the land of freedom" and punishing people for being different. How teenagers said "I'm a rebel", yet ostracized those who actually rebelled against their way of life, etc.
No, we are not individualistic, and we do not worship freedom. "Freedom" is a word whose meaning changes a lot depending on who's using it. We want freedom for ourselves to do what we want, but not for others to do things we don't like. And we sure don't like individuals who are different and weird.
A teacher made her class vote on whether or not an autistic 9-year-old was annoying.