And the problem is compounded by the fact that we’ve spent most of our life living in some form or another around other atypical people who couldn’t always tell either, and so weren’t necessarily reliable third-party sources to confirm that “everything this person is doing is really screwed-up.” Sometimes we would be getting screwed along with *them* and neither of us could tell it. (And sometimes we made the mistake of thinking that someone couldn’t be abusing us because someone else was abusing *them,* as though this prevents you from being abusive.)

We’re willing to do a lot in attempts to make people like us, too. We’re not as extreme about it as we used to be, but we still go into a blind panic when worrying that people might see us as a “nasty and unpleasant person.” (This isn’t always unreasonable, as we’ve run into some disability services people whose view of us suddenly and abruptly changed 180 degrees when we were being openly angry instead of “nice.”) In practice, when dealing with others, we’ll do a lot of things in an attempt to make them “like us” when, if we had just considered all those same things as purely hypothetical scenarios, we would have been able to say “No, it really wouldn’t be a good idea for us to do that.”

This is… a big aspect that really isn’t addressed at all by most programs, books, etc, we’ve seen designed around teaching people to keep themselves out of “bad situations”: the fact that, in theory, many people can often identify a potentially dangerous or exploitative situation and say “No, if it happened to me, I wouldn’t agree to do that/go with those people/etc,” but when it’s actually *happening,* they don’t see the wrongness of it, or are thinking in terms of something far more immediate like pleasing another person. I’d be willing to bet this happens to non-autistic people, too, probably just not to the same degree. But… well, to give a personal example, during adolescence, we read several books and articles on “how to say no in a sexual situation” and “how to set your own limits and stand up for your rights,” and even *after* reading such things, and comprehending them, it still didn’t stop us from getting into situations in which we were sexually abused by people we knew. We understood the theory, but didn’t understand the practice, or we had too many conditioned instincts to “obey people,” or maybe both.

And if programs and books designed to teach people how to avoid abusive situations can’t find some way to address the fact that for at least some people (I can’t begin to estimate how many, but I’m sure it’s not an insignificant percentage), there’s a huge gap between the understanding and practice of the methods they teach, then… those programs and books are not doing an adequate job. We’re not claiming we have a ready answer for it, because we don’t, but if people think that just “knowing the warning signs” and “knowing how far you’re willing to go” and “understanding that you have the right to say no” and similar will prepare everyone to be able to actually do these things in a real, non-hypothetical situation, there’s a problem there.

The problem really is that I never see those assumptions coming. I’m pretty certain that’s what keeps getting me fired. By that I mean, not that they keep assuming I’m hitting on my coworkers, but that my bosses make poor assumptions about my motives which basically amount to expecting me to behave the way they behave and be motivated by the things that motivate them and frequently come to the conclusion that I have ulterior motives that I don’t have.

I really don’t have an answer to the problem of trusting people. I apparently have no clue how to do it myself. I’m just grateful to know that I’m not alone — maybe someone will figure it out and explain it in a way that makes sense to me eventually.

But I also wanted to mention that I had just posted a blog entry in which I mentioned you. I was going to send you a private email to let you know but couldn’t find an email address, so I figured as long as I was going to comment here I would let you know. Not that you had to know or anything, but I thought it would be polite to let you know that I had mentioned you and give you the opportunity to offer any additions or corrections you might like to see in my entry or get me to change how I’ve linked to you (if you’d rather I link to Ballastexistenz instead of the Amanda Baggs Non-Site).

Thanks

In my case, the way that I have begun to recognize when I am likely to fall into this is by looking specifically at how I think of the other person’s motivations. If I believe the person is genuinely acting in what they believe are my best interests, this is when I now know I need to apply maximum caution in my words and my dealings, and to err on the side of my being too forceful with my own opinions rather than on being mistreated and led as I was before.

I would rather come off as a bit strong-willed rather than be taken as a weak, submissive person to be taken advantage of.

Cliff

I tend to assume this kind of thing as well. It took me a long, long while to figure out that sometimes people weren’t interested in possibly looking beyond their pre-existing viewpoints.

However, learning that not everyone is truly interested in information-exchange did not compel me to change my approach to discussion (I don’t even know how to approach discussions differently). I still tend to give people the benefit of the doubt at first, often unconsciously so, and only revoke it when it becomes obvious that productive discussion is pretty much impossible.

E.g., when I first discovered “internet trolls” I didn’t realize what they were doing (trying to incite argument deliberately), and I would often respond to them in ways that they probably found highly amusing. But over time, I figured out how to tell when someone was just responding in a repetitive pattern without actually thinking about what anyone else was saying, and I learned to avoid getting into endless circular debates that way.

Professionals and bureaucrats are especially fond of this, and I have a theory why. Long ago, the priests of the medieval Church were the only ones who could read, and they used their knowledge to tell the peasants and serfs what the Bible said. Through the language they used, they separated and put themselves in a position of superiority and authority in the human “pecking order.”

I have noticed that many staff and professionals, even without meaning to, have acted like these medieval clergy. They feel they must have a way to separate themselves from the “clients”, a definite and concrete way, and so they talk in “alphabet soup” acronyms and medical jargon. They also don’t tell the clients what they really think, or else they hide certain truths from them (like the real inadequacy of disability services or why they REALLY can’t move out of their day programs, their group homes, or institutions.)

And, I’m just as guilty of this myself of not being clear and direct. I’m a staff member (thought not a direct-care staff) at my agency, and there’s a “client” with a crush on me the size of Alaska. Any “client-staff” romantic relationships are strictly forbidden because of the potential of abuse, and besides, I don’t like the guy THAT way anyway. So I hem and haw when he calls me pretty because I don’t want to hurt him.

He’s so kind, but I don’t want to break his heart.

We’re vague because we’re afraid, want to keep our authority and hierarchical position above someone, or else (and this is worst of all) it’s like a reflex for us. We do it sans thinking.

Axinar, I would just like to point out that “neurotypicals” are no more of a homogenous group than autistics. It’s pretty personally hurtful to me to say that ALL NT’s prefer to be ambiguous. Being honest and genuine with people is something that is incredibly important to me and something I’m really passionate about. Not that you shouldn’t say it just because it’s hurtful, or even that you shouldn’t be wary of people as a rule, but it’s just not accurate. We come in a bunch of flavors.

She had gone to a bar with a friend from highschool…..and there were other people there. The dude was a total stranger……she came home wondering why she hadn’t attempted to knock a few of his teeth out, tried to choke him…..or at the very least told him to f*** off. The first two most likely didn’t happen because we were in a public place.

Weird huh?

TI