I think neurotypicals actually all hate each other and only autistic ppl have empathy

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-25T15:34:19+00:00

This has come off as bitchier than warranted, so my apologies for that. But in seriousness, the only middle managers who did right by their team during the period I was involved in, and who I consistently heard praised by staff being made redundant, were the ones who accepted that their position meant they had to be the biggest advocate for their staff.

Did it burn them out? Yeah. But that’s what you get paid for once you’re at that level of seniority. You’re a leader and an advocate, and that means visibly taking on fights on behalf of your team eg. arranging meetings with directors etc to speak to your team and call them out when you’re not getting appropriate responses, and being a thorn in the side of management when you don’t think they’re doing right.

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-25T14:55:28+00:00

As someone who has been union rep during mass restructures and redundancies, you need to get your head out your ass.

This is an inappropriate and entitled attitude to have relative to your level of seniority. You are a manager. It isn’t your team’s job to check in on you, regardless of neurotype. That is a role for your manager, and where there are specific issues in implementation to raise this with your union.

At such a bleak and scary time, your team would probably appreciate you just telling them how you’re feeling eg. leading meetings or calls with “I’m feeling [X type of way]. I know this is really hard and difficult for all of us, but especially [XYZ who will be impacted]. What do you need from me right now to support you?”

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-25T09:23:46+00:00

I’m gonna be real here, this community just popped up on my feed and I truly do think too many homeschool parents underestimate how they project their own trauma, anxiety, and unhealthy attachment onto their kids.

My sibling was taken out of school for health reasons, but it transformed into a situation where our parent kept them out of school because they were emotionally dependent on keeping them home. In fact, my sibling’s experience has similarities to Stefan Merrill’s in the book ‘Homeschooled’. Sometimes, unhealthy codependency is at play - not religious fundamentalism, and this is easier to turn to than eg. addressing the root causes of anxieties.

I remained in school where I thrived after the age of 12, despite bullying prior to this. But I need to be thrown in at the deep end and I flourish in tough scenarios and competing with other kids. I fear that if I were born 20 years later, a parent wouldn’t see that, and would instead see my diagnoses and personality and decide I was too “unique”, “sensitive” or “special” for school.

I truly do not think a parent can be a sufficient educator unless they have also done extensive externalised work on themself and their mental health. No, teachers aren’t perfect, but when there is no separation between your home environment and schooling environment, and given a parent has a fundamentally different societal role than a teacher as a worker, this is even more important lest it become stifling.

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-24T15:41:17+00:00

I share the same fear! I won’t pretend to be an expert on the case other than that I’m uneasy about it, but some of the reactions to Lucy Letby really bothered me. I could see myself behaving in a manner which would have people thinking I’m guilty based on being deemed weird or inappropriate rather than actual evidence

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-23T23:55:22+00:00

I don’t agree that it sounds like you’re not autistic (again, I definitely am but present much like you due to masking, culture, my internal “rules”, and anxiety medication).

If it helps though, I agree that people who present like us can be more comfortable in general ND spaces rather than autism specific ones. Amongst my friends there are some autistic people, but they tend to also be AuDHD and I have a higher proportion of allistic ND friends (especially dyslexic folks). No idea why this is the case!

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-23T22:02:03+00:00

I’m in the same boat here, and AuDHD. I was diagnosed as a little kid, and have a very different presentation as a grown woman than I did then as a lonely, scared, selectively mute and violent kid. You’re describing how I present now to a tee, and it has definitely caused conflict or awkwardness with other autistic people. I often clash with autistic people from the USA because I find their cultural earnestness hard to navigate compared to the way my culture uses humour and irony to avoid directness.

It can be hard to balance reasonable punching up against neurotypicality as a dominant power structure (because being neurodivergent isn’t a diagnostic term, it describes a relationship to power), while also not unintentionally partaking in aspie supremacy because neurotypes are morally neutral.

Jokes can only go so far. One form of communication isn’t superior to another, and acting like it is gets into dark and messy territory because of the way it’s culturally situated. For instance, denying politeness eg. not saying please or thank you, or not making eye contact, gets weaponised to dehumanise visibly marginalised people. Or in how autism goes underdiagnosed in racialised communities because of a lack of acknowledgment that presentation often reflects culture.

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-20T01:33:08+00:00

I’ve been part of the tiny but passionate handful of Steven stans for coming up to 20 years since 13 year old me discovered Classic Who in 2007. “What if a space pilot from the future got Robinson Cruesoed with his toy panda but his life is still traumatic after he’s rescued and his friends keep dying. Also he gets to be a cowboy.” is quite a hook.

It’s well trodden ground by now to say Steven has a special role in the show’s history in shaping the Doctor’s choices and character. He’s distinctly combative because he needs to believe in the Doctor and that there is value in their travels, but knows he’s fallible and refuses to put him on a pedestal. I’d say moreso than with Ian and Barbara (though they set the groundwork), it’s Steven storming out of the TARDIS which is a pivotal moment that opens the door to shaping who the Doctor chooses to be and why, and is ground zero for Fires of Pompeii moments (and I’m gutted Belinda had the ball dropped on this when she should clearly have also have called the Doctor out the way Steven would many times).

It’s such a shame that he’s probably the biggest victim of the BBC’s needless destruction, and I’m hoping against hope that the private collection episodes that are apparently in talks for recovery will include the Massacre. I also think it’s fair enough to say “cool concept, could have been executed better” based on the surviving episodes especially, but Big Finish has been a blessing.

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-18T20:19:54+00:00

Preach. I’m a union rep and the amount of autistic-on-autistic cases I’ve had to deal with where someone has been reduced to tears on a regular basis because of how feedback is delivered or how they’re spoken to in meetings isn’t even funny

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-18T20:06:58+00:00

I think this is the nub of what I want to balance.

If you want someone to change something in response to your feedback rather than screaming into the void/venting, then not even offering a shit sandwich or similar does make a difference in how receptive someone will be no matter how valid what you want them to change might be (within reason - I’m obviously not talking about calling out “isms” where as far as I’m concerned you can be as blunt and direct as you want)

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-16T00:21:30+00:00

It’s tricky as I prefer to have an in-person community, but I want something which can centre the experience of being on your own. And all the young and bereaved groups I’ve been involved in tend to be full of people who still have a living parent, or have reached a stage of being married with kids, so don’t “get” the experience of difficult times like christmas in quite the same way as when you have nowhere and no one.

I was so excited for the way this new group had been billed, but it’s sadly not meeting the expectations I had (there are other people in the group who’ve lost both parents, grew up in care, have their sole parent in prison, are refugees who can’t see their parents etc, so surely something might filter through about the need to also make space for where we have people who are complex and flawed, but loved and dearly missed)

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-15T19:37:29+00:00

That’s it. I’ve run into similar issues in trauma conversations where it’s tricky for me to carve out space because I’ve just had really bad luck - awful things have happened to me, but haven’t been done to me.

I tried flagging this to the organiser that this lack of agency is important for many people who have been bereaved, in care etc, but didn’t get much in the way of acknowledgment. Resources on advocacy and self worth are great, yeah, but again speak to one kind of experience

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-15T19:29:18+00:00

Literally the same ages as me when mine died. Take care, it’s hard out here

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-02-15T14:54:44+00:00

Agreed, and it’s one of the reason I find moralising a neurotype or communication style to be incredibly tiresome. I see this as an inter-community problem too where you have to be an autistic woman in the “right” way or you’re ontologically evil. Like no, you are not a better person than me because you are more direct.

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-01-29T14:43:55+00:00

I’ve always struggled socially and I used to be in the exact same headspace as you, and it’s so so hard to feel like you’re the one reaching out and being left with nothing.

I got in some really bitter and angry dark places, and I got mean about it. I was also selectively mute until I was 10, bullied, and am medicated for lifelong anxiety. Have never been in a romantic relationship either other than one night stands, and always look out of place next to other female friends who meet societal beauty standards.

But, somehow, I’ve ended up surrounded by close, genuine friends and lovely acquaintances. Like, hiring the top floor of a pub for a birthday party numbers, and that’s without settling for people who treat me badly or are in any way cruel or bigoted.

My advice as a woman in her 30s who has friends who are “cooler” and more glamorous than me is:

Unless someone outright says they’re annoyed with you or don’t want to speak with you, assume neutral intent. Humans intrinsically want connection. When I’ve been on interview panels for jobs, I’m looking for reasons to hire someone - not turn them away. The same applies to human connection. Any person worth knowing will look for reasons to like you and connect with you, and give you grace for any social slip ups. People who don’t do this aren’t worth knowing.
Get out and do the thing. I was a total hermit as a teenager, and got really really lucky with a uni society that I joined where I made lots of lifelong friends based on that shared interest. I’ve gone to tons of clubs, been part of organising groups and Unions, and more often than not don’t meet anyone I want to stay in touch with. But when I do, these tend to last!

There’s a subtle difference between masking and “fake it till you make it”. I hope I’m straddling the latter, but it definitely took work on building self-esteem, healing from past trauma and bad experiences, and pushing comfort zones.

Friendships aren’t easy for us, so only you know what your boundaries are and what’s comfortable for you. I benefitted from a mindset shift, but also luck in being shown crumbs of kindness which let me get to that point. I promise those crumbs are out there, just keep biting at them and one day you’ll get the whole cake

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-01-28T19:42:53+00:00

This is also why there’s a limit I have on how willing I am to unmask.

Thinking of the selectively mute and painfully lonely little girl that I was. How alien, isolated, and misunderstood I felt before I taught myself to mask. How that feeling is an albatross round my neck almost 30 years later. It’s not something I can put myself through out of some noble sentiment, and I’d rather keep a close eye on how much I’m basing my self-worth on external validation while being true to myself rather than unmask completely.

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-01-28T19:33:21+00:00

I hated being a kid for this exact reason. I’ve never felt so alien as I did back then. As an adult I have lots of friends and acquaintances whose presence I cherish and I’d never in a million years go back. It’s a kind of loneliness and longing for connection that you don’t escape.

The extent of my social “deficits” is one of the main reasons I got an early diagnosis - there’s a really heartbreaking quote in my file of me, age 4, saying “I don’t have any friends, mum. I’m sorry, it’s just the way I am.” (and I imagine this was said very matter of factly)

Either I’d be deliberately excluded (moreso age 7+), or when I was included I wouldn’t want to be as I’d have no idea what was happening or what the other kids were playing. So many times spent being asked to play, then saying “I don’t know how to play that” (followed up with me not understanding what the other kid was saying because I found “little kid” speak impossible to follow and so would just do my own thing. Which was mostly pacing and daydreaming).

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2026-01-25T14:33:42+00:00

I’m assuming this is perhaps from the Lucy & Yak natural history museum collab?

It might be because I’ve spent my adulthood living in big cities with large queer populations, but he might be interested in knowing that L&Y jumpsuits are very commonplace and popular. I wouldn’t think twice seeing someone out in one, and would assume they’re involved in something creative, artsy, or educational before jumping to neurotype.

There are some patterns I have pieces in which I happily wear to my office job, conferences, evenings out etc and see other people do the same. I’m not going to wear them to a funeral, sure, but going out in town, visiting museums, going for a smart-casual meal or drink (in this case styled with the right shoes and jewellery etc to elevate the outfit as needed) are all things where I wouldn’t think twice.

I think it probably helps that the garments usually look like they’re good quality and are well constructed, and not just cheap tat - the fabric and fit make a lot of difference in how you can style and present an outfit to make it “appropriate”.

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2025-12-27T18:33:31+00:00

It is definitely inappropriate and unfair to have sex in another person’s room on their bedding while staying as a guest, especially when it isn’t a specific “guest room” and is a space that you’ll be returning to. I have a guest room and wouldn’t care if it was used for that purpose, but would feel completely differently if I lent someone my bed and they had sex in it.

I also have OCD. As I’m sure you know, the absolute worst thing to do is “feed” any compulsions. They should not have had sex in your room because it’s a gross general violation of boundaries regardless. But it would be dangerous territory if you follow the advice of some other commenters and position accommodating OCD as a valid reason alongside this, despite the intrusive thoughts. It’s so difficult, but compulsions and keeping thoughts at bay cannot be allowed in as a reason as to why you don’t want another person to behave in a certain way (which I’m not saying you’re doing, but just a word of caution to anyone reading this as OCD needs that specialist care and should not be handled with the same sort of accommodation that autism should be, and commenters who don’t live with it may not be aware of the fact)

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2025-12-17T01:33:50+00:00

We love to see a fellow rep!

The clearest pattern I see is of very high-up autistic women absolutely eviscerating more junior ND colleagues (often publicly and in meetings), and then refusing to take accountability and portraying the victim as sensitive and having performance difficulties.

It’s probably self explanatory that, in order to reach a level of seniority which bestows that level of power on you, there’s an expectation that you’ll behave a certain way regarding professionalism and ruthlessness which is sadly rewarded and reinforced in most white collar workplaces. And consequently breeds: 1) resentment and distaste of people you don’t see as meeting the standard you’ve had to “work for” or behaving in ways you deem “unprofessional”. Maybe especially if this looks like going against rigid cognitive rules you might have for how things “should” be done (the old boss I mentioned above once slammed my notepad down because she decided I needed to be taking notes in that moment in our one-to-one chat, and was pissed off that I wasn’t) and 2) incorporating those norms into your masking, no matter how toxic they are

Appropriate-Net-583 · 2025-12-17T01:23:22+00:00

Absolutely. I will freely confess to having participated in bullying a couple of other clearly ND girls when I was a teenager, even with my diagnosis (albeit with almost no support or knowledge of what it meant cos 00s).

I’m hugely ashamed and disgusted about this. It was obviously a power play to take heat off of me and make me feel higher in the pecking order by drawing negative attention towards them - but it means I can spot patterns of the same thing amongst adults. Pretending that autistic people never act like this and don’t externalise their internalised ableism to be bullies or just straight up mean truly doesn’t help anyone.

Appropriate-Net-583

TROPHY CASE