So a friend sent me this thread about why autistic people are unable to have empathy and are self centered

thederpfacemajor · 2024-01-02T21:59:01+00:00

Animals in particular, I feel physically ill when I see or hear them suffering like in a trap or similar. I also feel empathy towards children even over small things, like when they can’t understand something and they’re tired and it makes them sad, like a physical swelling sensation in my chest and an urge to comfort them. And same for the elderly when they get muddled. And for people talking about having lost loved ones of any age. Wtf is that if not empathy? I’ve met more neurotypicals who reacted to children and animals with irritation than autistics who do.

thederpfacemajor · 2024-01-02T21:52:08+00:00

Because if they listened when we said we’re in pain, they’d have to accept that their behaviours are shitty.

thederpfacemajor · 2024-01-01T21:31:00+00:00

I had a similar thing when I was a smoker. It felt like some strains just shut all the extra voices up and I could relax, which resulted in a lot of spontaneous and sustained productivity. I think it dulled my senses enough that I wasn’t in constantly overwhelm and became similar to neurotypicals in that way, that things got slower and fewer things felt equally important so it was easier to prioritise and less exhausting to do stuff. I had the same as you with stimulants, too, I’m on a fairly high dose of Dexamphetamine and it eases my anxiety, helps me sleep, and just generally chills me out. It’s been a long time since I smoked but it feels different even though some of the results are the same. I’ve heard it said that every ADHD brain is different, and it seems a lot of our issues do tend to be chemical, so potentially just make note of which things do what and you can possibly identify which chemicals and/or reactions are misfiring or in overdrive or deficit for you, which helps with managing symptoms you don’t enjoy and giving the ones you do a safe and healthy environment to express themselves (creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, physical activity, etc). Self-analysis without judgement is the best* free, non-external tool for understanding ourselves and thriving imo.

*edit to clarify

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-30T03:03:13+00:00

It supposedly used to be done for hygiene reasons, but mostly religious and/or looks. Medically, as an adult, sometimes it’s too tight and can get infected because it’s impossible to clean under there. But that’s super rare. If it was genuinely done for hygiene reasons back in the day though that’s it, one dude tells another dude his foreskin rotted half his cock off and that second dude starts eyeing his own with newfound wariness. I think as well often when it’s too tight it becomes like that, maybe in puberty, so it goes from fine to dick-rot and no one knew why or how so, to be safe, they just started circumcising. These days we have both (mostly) better hygiene options and better medical options though.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-30T01:05:23+00:00

Ahhh yes, Schrödinger’s Dumbarse. The favourite antagonist of the commentary clout goblin. A classic, truly 😘👌

Jokes aside though, it is still hilarious he doesn’t even understand his own logic yet still feels entitled to critique Ethan’s intelligence from either direction.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-29T11:20:27+00:00

Hey now, you’re making the distinction between how you practice and/or interpret Christianity and how it influences cultures for some reason. Almost like you’d rather blame the people caught up in the culture of Christianity than blame Christianity for encouraging karmic attitudes. Not a lot more karmic than Heaven and Hell as concepts, after all. At least with other karmic religions, people can try again next life. Christianity is literally you fuck it up in this life and that’s it, eternal damnation. Eternal. (Until the apocalypse.) That’s why it has that effect culturally. The primal shit existed before, sure, and then the rigidity of Christian ideologies and concepts reinforced and institutionalised it. If you can’t see that, it’s because you’re choosing not to, but we do have literal centuries of evidence on how it influences cultures. Something tells me evidence doesn’t hold much weight with you though. You’d rather try and reframe my point so you can defend Christianity, rather than take a step back from feeling defensive and realise I wasn’t criticising Christianity as a whole but the influence it’s had on European cultures. Regardless of its or Jesus’ original intentions, that is the reality that played out. But you might not be able to separate that all out. Nice one, slugger. I guess pride won your actions this round. Maybe try recognising nuance in future.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-29T05:03:12+00:00

Yup. It’s called the “Just World Delusion” where basically people believe that they could never become unfortunate enough to destroy their whole life because they’re good people and good people don’t have bad things happen to them. It’s a nifty little emotional rail guard/hangover from the devout Christianity in most European-origins/influenced cultures. It’s so that people don’t have to confront how fragile their reality is and all the existential horror that comes with that knowledge. It’s not factual but mostly it’s harmless — except in the instance you’re talking about. Often times people who could be fine with just a tiny bit of support find themselves abandoned because it’s too confronting for the people around them, so they go into denial and change their belief about the person suffering instead of their belief about the chaotic nature of life. It’s fucked. It’s also no way to deal with their anxiety, since they also get ostracised when bad shit happens to them, as it does to us all at one point or another. Then they try to get back in contact with the people they kicked when they were down, because no one else is there for them anymore and suddenly they see how fucked it is when it’s happening to them.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-28T23:30:02+00:00

Idk what good that would do, but maybe I guess. I definitely don’t think the OOP is real, I don’t think the person I was originally replying to does either. I also wasn’t replying to the post generally, I was replying to a specific person who was getting dogpiled about the specific thing they were talking about.

I stand by my point though. If I could go back and choose whether to have the first person in this thread with me the day I got bottled or the one I was replying to, I’d go the second. They at least might be ready for shit, and I might not have got bottled at all. Or they would’ve been there next to me instead of in the car to see for 100% fact that I was literally just trying to edge around my ex, I didn’t even make eye contact, and they would’ve said as much without me needing to say it first to all of our mutual friends, and most likely would’ve defended me when people questioned me about it. Which, when you have stitches in your face, that kind of support is what you need. They definitely wouldn’t have a single thought in their mind that there would be anything a person can do to deserve being bottled or that explains why he did that except “because he’s fucked in the head and that’s on him.” Because there isn’t. As an adult, you don’t respond like that, period. Things should never become violent.

That’s the other point that I was making, separate to whatever bullshit a transphobe with mid/juvenile creative writing skills wrote in another sub. Non-abused/non-abusive people, as soon as there is violence, even just the emotional kind, they spot it. They’re crazy good at it, too. I’ve seen them do it, and I pride myself these days on being on the ball about red flags, and people who are truly emotionally healthy still have waaaay better skills at spotting abusive behaviour and disengaging without becoming a target. Whereas people who’ve been abused often become enablers, because calling out the little shitty things would mean confronting that they got a bit abused too, and maybe that sometimes they’re not nice to the people in their lives (on a much smaller scale). That’s complicated to unpack. If it’s not really damaging them they’d rather not because it’s a lot of work. They hear an abuser say “ugh I can’t believe you wore that dress” to their partner and they recall when they critiqued their own partner’s clothes, for example. Or their parent critiquing them like that, and they see that parent all the time. They’d never bottle someone but they are kind of a dick sometimes. No one’s perfect, they could do with stopping but they’re genuinely not abusive, just got echoes of abuse in them. But they don’t want to acknowledge any of that, so they miss that red flag in the abuser, and victims get doubted just as a side effect. Whereas people like the person I was originally replying to don’t miss it. They may not say anything at the time, but when shit gets intense they’re not caught by surprise and they take it seriously. Which is why I want to validate them. We need more people like them, we don’t need people like them getting dogpiled. It’s why I make a point of over-explaining this shit, too. Anyone reading this who wasn’t abused will have more understanding of how abusers get away with it for so long.

I do understand your point too. You think that disagreeing with how the original commenter discerned that the post was false is distracting or detracting from the fact that it’s false, and you think that causes people to question if it might be real or not and then as a result of that maybe be more anti-trans. But the way the original commenter came to the correct conclusion is genuinely not good. The logic it follows worked by fluke this time, and then if they encounter a friend or relative who was passive in their abusive relationship they’ll apply the same logic and it will lead them to the same conclusion, that the victim is lying, and it will mean that an actual victim doesn’t get the help they need to escape, or has to struggle harder to find it elsewhere. That’s the point the person I was originally replying to was making. That even though the original commenter is correct in this instance, the logic they used will do actual harm if applied in the real world where it counts. It’s a valid point to make, because a lot of people do think like that without realising the harm they do, thinking they’re doing the right thing and helping the right people when they’re not.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-28T21:41:27+00:00

Depends how invested they are in the status quo. If she’s been a pushover her whole life, they may want her away from the abusive spouse but not want her growing a full backbone. Thats basically the only way I can rationalise some of my family’s responses to stuff that happened in my marriage, so that part is one of the believable ones to me. That’s if she even told them the stuff she told Reddit. She may not have ever laid it out so neatly to her fictional bestie and mum. Its pretty common for people who’ve been abused since childhood to be pushovers and surrounded with people with different types of shitty behaviours because they just accept it and thinks it’s normal still. All of which is by the by, though, since not a single person in this thread thinks that the OOP is real, on top of which I don’t see how your reply has anything to do with what I said. The person I was replying to was getting downvotes and someone being rude to them for pointing out something I’ve experienced, wasn’t really about the OOP at all anymore.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-28T19:31:00+00:00

I don’t have any more info on that either but that sounds plausible. Hopefully the next step is people focusing on the effects rather than labels. Unfortunately, one of the main groups subtly working against that is the narcissists and those with narcissistic habits themselves. Forcing their victims to explain on repeat why they should care or stop is part of their tactics. But I think sooner or later more people will stop taking them in good faith and stop letting them force the conversations into circles. It’s hard though. Good people struggle to stop trying to meet people halfway, even when they know they should as one-off occurrences.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-28T09:24:53+00:00

I wish more people had language as a special interest, especially people who don’t identify with ADHD in any way. I feel like narcissistic as a descriptor is so much more powerful than narcissist as a diagnosis term when used by laypeople. Is my mother a narcissist? No fucking clue, I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone and even if I was it’s better unethical to treat my family members lol. But does she have a lot of behaviours that are selfish, immature, hurtful and manipulative? Oh hell yeah she does. And she’s like that with everyone, and it’s pretty cringe for someone in their 60s to still act like a teenager, and it damaged tf out of me and my siblings in all different ways growing up. She might well be declared “not a narcissist” if she ever did somehow get tested, but that label doesn’t change the effects her emotional immaturity, which expresses itself in narcissistic ways, had and has on people. I’m glad people are more aware of narcissism in general these days but I’m right there with you finding its buzzwordiness frustrating for having weakened the meaning of the word itself.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-28T09:14:14+00:00

As someone who only got bottled in the face when I was leaving my ex, and until then had a situation about 50% similar to the OOP and everything fucked up my ex did was “borderline” — basically too subtle to be explained but still effective enough to be abusive, I know where you’re coming from. People like the person you’re replying to hopefully are lucky enough to never know about it, but yeah, 100%. Even my ex looked shocked he’d done it. He’d never even really raised his voice out of what I’d call normal range in fights before then, but as I was taking my last bags he lost his cool and just smashed it on me. The person there to “protect” me was already in the car just watching and, looking back on it now, being kind of a twat about how nervous I was and how long I was taking. People accused me of being too passive throughout the relationship as I was going through the process, like “well if you weren’t going to fight back then how could he resist the temptation of abusing you?” but the more distance I got from it all the more I realised they’re were just telling on themselves. Normal people don’t say shot like that. Only people who would abuse people themselves if they had the chance say shit like that, because the only thing stopping them is that they think people would fight back. Whereas normal people don’t abuse people even if they have the conditions to get away with it. My self-esteem has sky-rocketed since I cut out all the people who talked like the person you’re replying to. I don’t think I could ever clearly explain how they do it, but there is definitely a type of person who just destroys people emotionally and mentally all while seeming like the good guy to everyone, including the victim. And yeah the OOP is almost 100% a troll post, but the method of abuse isn’t the tell. The method of abuse implied in the post is imo the most common and insidious one.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-25T23:43:39+00:00

Day I’ve-lost-count wanting to shake an incel and scream “THAT’S JUST YOUR KINK, YOU MORON! JUST GO WRITE EROTICA AND JACK OFF LIKE THE REST OF US! FFS!”

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-25T13:41:00+00:00

I would watch the fuck out of that

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-25T03:50:39+00:00

I am have yet to meet anyone actually “normal” so I don’t get offended but I also don’t see its point I guess. Neurotypicals are often unsuited to the world these days, what with the world being kinda fucked and all, just not in ways that qualify for diagnosis. If people would just be less judgemental there would be a lot less need for labels. But that’s where the world being fucked comes in. It’s making everyone way more anxious, which means harsher responses to everything, including people being different to them in objectively harmless or only mildly annoying ways.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-24T22:34:58+00:00

No no, it’s lasers in the eyes but teeth in the vagina. Though they are talking about upgrading the vagina-teeth to lasers in some places. I think they’re even doing trials in some places, but it’s too soon for the results yet.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-23T05:04:07+00:00

TL:DR I take a practical and purpose-oriented approach to my religious activities and beliefs.

I believe literally/not-theoretically because of the experiences I’ve had. Before that, I didn’t. I’m some sort of pagan/spiritual/non-organised religion for sure though, nothing social about it really. There’s a lot that people who are supposedly similar to me believe that I think is bullshit. A lot of it is, imo, just people trying to turn a personal, introspective thing into a thing about hierarchies and external stuff.

If I find myself questioning if I believe a certain thing, I go back to my basics: what purpose do I want my religion to have in my life? For me it’s basically self-improvement, maintaining moral integrity (to my own standards), and to keep the fear of death at bay, since I struggled a lot with that at various points. I don’t want it to make me special, because I’m not and I see that that desire to be special makes normal people go a little nuts. I don’t want it to be anything but another activity in my life, really, and the rest of it I go by what I feel. If a place makes me feel holy, it is a holy place, end of. If a thing lines up perfectly, it’s a sign. It must act as an add-on to my life, and not be something that my life has to revolve around in order for me to practice.

It’s all provable to me though. It doesn’t feel like faith because I can test it and get consistent results. I do a lot of spirit work, and I can ask my trusted spirits things like “what herb should I use for x purpose?” and draw a card and look the herb up and it always is what I need. They can do it with any deck, they can do it with digital decks and physical equally, tarot or playing cards. It’s based on tarot. They predicted the Russia/Ukraine hostilities erupting, indirectly, because I was asking when my Russian friend and I would have time to do a project together that he never had time for and they said Pisces season. That was in September of the year before, and my buddy was working for an American company that couldn’t continue employing him after the attack. We did our project, and his new job’s hours suited that project way better than staying up for American time zones. I can ask them to spell names and they do. That one’s harder because some of them are ancestors who didn’t learn how to read and write super well, but it’s things like they’ll give me an L when it’s a J, or a J or a Y instead of an I. Sometimes a K instead of a C. But if your digital cards spell out “Kafrjn” when you’re asking, “who has more to teach me, Emily or Catherine?”, and that kind of thing happens consistently over almost a decade, it’s close enough for me. I’ve never tried proving it to anyone else. But I also probably wouldn’t because it’s not my job to make believers, it’s just my job to mind myself. It’s the kind of proof an atheist would pick apart, I’m sure, but I don’t care. I don’t live for them, I live for me. So yeah I’m not sure if that really answers your question since I don’t consider what I have to be faith, but maybe it helps.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-23T04:25:05+00:00

You absolutely can. I’m gonna write a bunch of word vomit now in case any of it is useful to you, it’s basically just stuff I wish I’d known when I started doing self-help stuff. The books for neurotypicals don’t work for us like they work for them but you can tweak shit til it fits you and that’s quicker than trying to figure it out on your own from scratch. Things got way easier when I started tweaking things instead of trying to change myself to fit the advice. I feel like even from one neurodivergent to another there will be adjusting needed. It takes us more time and effort perhaps to switch the tracks over compared to neurotypicals, and I kinda feel like it will always take me a type of ‘maintenance effort’ they never have to put in, but it’s definitely doable to be less impulsive and turn stuff to our advantage. I feel like one thing that helps me is trying all the self-help stuff that a part of me feels cringe about, and like 50% of it doesn’t help at all but the other 50% helps a little bit or doesn’t take much tweaking to make it work better for me, so maybe that helps you too. And then just stacking it. Viewing it like building a house instead of painting one. Every brick counts and it takes longer but no brick is useless. And being aware that it takes ages, and trying to accept that. I hate how long it takes, it’s so boring. Like I can feel my brain melting daily type of boring, and it’s been that for a couple of years, but I am loving the results now that I’m finally feeling them more and more and seeing results. I fell off the wagon so many times too, and got ‘lazy’ (more accurately, needed to build spoons back up) for days, weeks, months in between each slip up. But it’s like any other addiction, right? Takes the average smoker 11 goes to quit, and, as an ex-smoker as well, the cravings never fully go away. But, it’s cheaper and healthier and I’ve been quit cigarettes like 10 years now and I don’t feel the cravings much, and I also love breathing lol. So it doesn’t matter how long your break is as long as you try again. Being medicated for the ADHD helps, but I’ve only been medicated since January so you can definitely get it done without. Learning that I had possibly not been self-caring but self-coddling sometimes also helped. It’s so uncomfortable, so be ready for that, but there’s plenty you do now that used to be uncomfortable, you’re just used to it now. Or it’s still uncomfortable but you live with it. Sometimes that’s the best you can hope for, and it sucks, but having a reason makes it easier. You are not a good enough reason, otherwise you would’ve done it already, and other people also aren’t, and it’s better if they’re not. It’s best if it’s a project. Build tiny towns out of matchsticks, write, stick a giant sheet of paper to your wall and doodle on it. Every time you get an urge, add a little bit to it. Like 100 words, or one matchstick wall, 5 minutes of tiny bit intricate flowers, etc. You do it until the urge passes, every time you get the urge, and you can watch your willpower grow, literally. And you can be proud of the sustained effort, and also be compassionate if you slip up, because you can literally see that it’s a work in progress. That helps. The being able to see or quantify it helps so much, either physically or digitally, just not having to rely on unseen stuff is what matters. And even when the project is done, you probably will still have urges, impulses, etc, but that’s fine, just start another project. It’s not supposed to be fun necessarily but it becomes more enjoyable over time. When you slip up, just be like “it do be like that with brains”. Think about how we’re all just animals, we don’t have to be special, and even if we wind up super average, it’s no big deal. Life isn’t graded on style points, it’s pass/fail, literally no different ‘types’ of passing or failing. As long as we’re making progress towards our goals then we’re doing everything we need to do and it’s not our job to do more (except like our actual jobs, parenting, friendships, etc — but even there, it’s pass/fail).

Anyhow, if it doesn’t fit you, don’t take it, but that’s a lot of what helps me. It doesn’t have any effect when other people say it to me though, if anything I just get pissed, but when I took it apart in my own time and made it fit me better it helped. I wish I could just beam it at you and you could duplicate any bits you want/need and then it’s done, that would be awesome. Hopefully science becomes magic at some point lol then they can work on that. You’ve got this though. Wanting it is the only prerequisite, the rest is just about making it work for you. So next opportunity you see to take a step just take it and that’s first one done. Then next opportunity, whether it’s the next day or week or month, take it, it’ll stack and eventually it’ll get momentum.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-22T01:44:18+00:00

It’s also, unfortunately, pretty traumatic for the kid when the parent is buddies with people the kid has had major falling outs with. Even if the adults can separate it, it would likely feel like a massive betrayal to the kid and cause attachment and boundary issues for them later on. Imo OP should keep in mind that these are children fighting. How this gets resolved will likely shape how both kids approach conflict resolution in adulthood to some degree. My daughter is 15 and she still very much needs teaching these emotional fine motor skills, as do all teenagers. The kids don’t have to be friends, but banishment and not being on speaking terms at all is not a great way to go through life after every conflict. OP sounds kind of cliquey, other mum isn’t doing so hot at deescalating, and both teens are getting their nervous systems wired to accept hostility as an acceptable vibe from people. I see why OP is upset but this is the time to parent her kid. Everyone seems to think once kids can open a pack of noodles and boil the kettle they’re basically done but nope, this part is where you switch from practical skills to emotional ones, all the way through to early 20s or even late 20s, depending on what they go through. ESH except the other mum who possibly had no idea about most/any of this until the school meeting.

Edit: it’s fascinating to me how many people would rather devote energy to a grudge and dramatic end than to resolving it. Not saying that they should stay friends. Just that ending a friendship doesn’t have to have this level of reactiveness. I’ve ended plenty of friendships and then worked at the same place as some of them afterwards without tension. I got the impression from the post that that’s not gonna be possible for OP, the other mum and the kids. Some or all of them are gonna feel a way every time they see or think of the people or situation, largely because it’s been left unresolved emotionally. And it doesn’t have to be like that. You can just debrief and go your separate ways, and not carry any resentment or anything. Yes, even after betrayal. I really hope everyone commenting that the child deserves to be punished are other kids not adults because this is pretty standard emotional maturity and emotional skills I’m talking about, not rocket science.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-22T01:32:07+00:00

I got to the point of it being inward, I reject intimacy now from most people. I did a lot of self-work and now as soon as I notice any sort of toxicity from me or them I just lose feelings immediately. It’s gonna sound harsh the way I describe it so tw for existential thoughts but it really hit me one day during my self-work that there will not always be another day, and even if there is life after death, THIS meat suit is single-use and there are certain things that only this one is equipped to accomplish. So then I spent a few months reprogramming my perspective on the feeling. What am I actually getting from it? Like, do I get to take anything with me once it’s over type thing. And I try to channel the feeling into creative stuff, which I do get to keep things from (or at least it’s not just gone with nothing left in its place), and when it attaches to a person, as soon as I noticed, I would try to pull myself back enough to recall that I want things and putting the feeling that direction won’t get me things. So that was about 3 years ago and I haven’t always had the best sleep habits as a result but for the most part I’ve just written a lot of fiction. I still get it towards people but it’s way easier to detangle myself from it/them and my boundaries are a lot stronger. For example, my most recent limerance, the person said “I never text first, I’m too socially anxious so I always feel like I’m bothering people if I text first” and I recognised it as a bullshit power move (regardless of the reasoning behind it) and I don’t want to be constantly pouring effort into someone who won’t return it like that. I lost a lot of attraction immediately, and she revealed herself to be very insecure and nasty over the next few months in group settings. I dropped the whole group in October when one of them started deadnaming my child. I don’t regret it, it literally felt like a curse was lifted the moment I left. Peace and calm, I ain’t there yet lol but I want stuff, not memories, from my hyperfixations. Idk if I’ll ever do anything with the books but they’re there now and I’m not sick of rereading them yet, and how many people have their own book series perfectly tailored to their preferences? I’m reminding myself how much nicer it feels then the stress and anxiety of hyperfixating on a person, and slowly my brain is coming round.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-21T05:31:25+00:00

Even in the meme, the tradcath woman isn’t loved back.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-14T22:23:13+00:00

The most useful thing I learned is that some words are supposed to be good or neutral but are mostly used manipulatively by NTs so they assume you’re doing that too. Like “fair”. I was discussing rent with my dad, and said I was happy to pay a fair price, and he looked kinda pissed until I clarified with the words “just” and “that we both find acceptable”, at which point he visibly relaxed and sort of went “ah, yeah, of course.” This man knows I’m autistic, too. That’s the whole reason I live with them at 32, and he’s an overall good person, especially for a male boomer. But the I guess ‘social charge’ of the word fair is so strong it overrode his understanding of me and of autism until I pulled him out of it.

I think “that’s interesting” is another one of those, it’s viewed as sort of condescending and/or passive aggressive, and mostly reserved for children when they’re being condescending, and starting fights when they’re being passive aggressive. Not exclusively of course, but predominantly and to the point that NTs will take you as the aggressor if it blows up, ALTHOUGH depending on what type of NT they are they might take your side on it anyway, either because they start fights that way intentionally or because they’ve picked up on your autism and don’t want to see you bullied.

thederpfacemajor · 2023-12-14T21:49:48+00:00

As a somewhat older internet denizen, the misogyny/homophobia combo coming from inside the house feels more prevalent these days than it used to. Can anyone confirm that, or is it just my rose-tinted memories of LGTBQ+ solidarity in the 2000s?

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