I’m asking out of genuine good faith.
The simple answer is that their brain doesn’t work the same as a neurotypical person.
The question is like asking why driving a motorcycle is different than driving a car. They just function differently.
Why are autistic people so odd??
Submitted 1 week ago by clareisabear@lemmings.world to [deleted]
Comments
BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Because fuck normal. Oooooh, look at me, I’m going to go to walgreens and buy an eyeglasses screwdriver, and then flirt with the 16 year old casheer despite the fact that I’M in my 60s! Like a NORMAL person would do!
Or, you could say fuck that, I’m wearing a pacman costume today in the middle of March. No reason. Fuck the world!
Who do you think is having more fun in their day? The 40 year old dressed up like pacman walking around the city going WAKA WAKA WAKA WAKA, or the 60 year old trying to get teenage pussy and creeping EVERYBODY out?
ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 1 week ago
Username
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’ll give you a head start, and then I’m coming after you as a ghost!
immutable@lemm.ee 1 week ago
I’m neurodivergent, let me take a crack at this.
First off, disclaimer, autism is a massive spectrum so this whole thing is a gross generalization.
Neurodivergent people act differently than neurotypical people for 3 broad categories of reasons
- different stimuli processing
- different thinking patterns
- different skills
First, is stimuli processing. Have you ever been in a crowded room and there’s lots of people talking but your brain does you a cool favor and ignores all that noise so you can focus on the person in front of you? Did you do anything to make that happen, probably not. It’s just a thing your brain did for you when processing all that stimuli, you placed your focus on the speaker in front of you and your brain filtered the rest. What if you couldn’t do that?
Stimuli processing issues can present in both dimensions, both over processing and under processing. Neurodivergent people are often placed into situations that are relatively easy for neurotypical people to process but can be very challenging for neurodivergent people to process. If you want to do a thought experiment (or actual experiment) select a stimuli you can’t ignore, pinch yourself hard every few seconds and try to carry on a conversation. You will notice it takes a lot more energy to focus on your tasks and ignore this unwanted stimuli.
Second, different thinking patterns. We all process the world differently. Neurodivergent people can have very different ways of processing information, I know first hand of three patterns that are common and that I exhibit.
- Perseveration. Perseveration is when you can’t stop thinking about a topic. Kinda like getting a song stuck in your head, but for me it’s having a difficult technical problem and literally being unable to carry out other functions because I can’t keep my brain from working on it. I wake up at 4am thinking about technical problems and then can’t go back to sleep. A puzzle might be a fun diversion for you, it can be a dangerous trap for me where I know my brain will continually turn it over again and again no matter what I want.
- Hyper literal thinking. I think about things in very black and white terms. It can be very frustrating for things to happen outside of the rules I’ve established. There are rules that make obvious sense and the contravention of those rules is distressing. For example, you aren’t supposed to hurt people’s feeling but you also aren’t supposed to lie, this makes white lies distressing (I find all kinds of deception distressing, and it’s amazing how much you are just supposed to lie to people in many social situations).
- Hyper focus. Neurodivergent people often have special interests that they can focus on for extended periods of time. If people were to leave me alone, I could write code for days, only stopping when hunger or some other undeniable physical pain occurs.
Third, different skills. Frequently neurodivergent people find social skills difficult. I said to someone recently that neurotypical people seem completely insane to me. The complex web of contradicting rules make little sense. On top of this, rules are often predicated on being able to ascertain the feelings of the person you are interacting with. Many neurodivergent people find this difficult to impossible.
The best I’ve been able to come up with is it’s like being color blind. I struggle with understanding facial expressions, body language, tone, etc. I also have problem displaying the correct things in kind. To operate in the world, many neurodivergent people adopt a system of “masking” where we learn what we are “supposed to do” and carefully study people and make sure to make our faces look right and make our bodies look correct. This is extremely taxing even if you get it right, so neurodivergent people end up sometimes getting it wrong and also spending a huge amount of energy doing this.
So to sum up. Neurodivergent people are asked to operate in a world that is constantly bombarding us with negative stimuli, spending extra energy trying to understand social signals that come naturally to others but our brains don’t pick up. Following these weird scripts requires a ton of energy and it’s easy to mess it up and then someone wonders “why are autistic people so weird?”
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 week ago
Brain broke. 🤷🏻♂️
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 week ago
I would say that neurotypicality is a mental disability characterized, in part, by a limited ability to comprehend and tolerate neurodiversity.
jamie_oliver@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Maybe you are odd to us! I think many neurotypicals are odd, but not because they are neurotypical specifically.
People are different and it is generally a bad idea to assume it is because of some diagnostic they got or not.
I think the more you get to know most people they seem stranger and stranger, especially as you grow up and start to understand the reasons people value what they value and just how different everyone is.
Nemo@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Because they have been traumatized, usually, and people with trauma behave erratically.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I think you should talk less and listen more in this thread. There is a lot for you to learn.
xc2215x@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It is tougher for them.
TheBananaKing@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Only half of them are.
The rest are even.