[241/365] I think I am one

[cosmolinguist]

Part of my job is making phone calls, and today's was kind of frustrating. I couldn't do the simple admin thing that needed doing.

L smiled ruefully at me afterwards and said, "Thanks for trying. I'm sorry you had to deal with neurotypicals." I just nodded in acknowledgement. This is a very commonly used phrase at my job. But this time he went on. "I mean, I know that you think you are one..."

That made me laugh a lot. The first part I expected but this was new.

I told Andrew about it when I got home. "You don't have the neurotypical communication disability," he said. "But you are neurotypical."

"I know!" I said. "I do think I'm neurotypical! Because I am!" This is why it was so funny to hear it phrased that way. I like to think that many years of autistic partners and friends, and especially fifteen years with Andrew of course, have made me much better at accommodating autistic people. And really it's sad that this is so rare they expect anyone who can do it to be some kind of neurodiverse. But the unexpectedness of this comment provided a much-needed laugh on a tough day.

Comments

[miss_s_b]

People who can cross the communication barrier from the neurotypical side are like fucking gold dust, and I love and appreciate you for your ability to do so.

[cosmolinguist]

The rewards, like getting to be liked and trusted by such good people as your fine self, are very rewarding indeed. <3

[miss_s_b]

Love you <3

[barakta]

A newish to me autistic friend was absolutely convinced I was also autistic (in a complimentary way) until I did one of the autism tests on reading social skills and aced it (to my surprise). I have autistic family members, and certainly have traits but I honestly don't think I am actually autistic.

I'm deaf, I can't reliably hear tone, I sometimes miss cues, I don't give a fuck about social norms cos I was never permitted access to them anyway - too spacky - and I like autistic norms of generally clear communication and having to manually calibrate stuff cos automatic assumptions don't fucking work.

You are visually impaired, you can't read people's body language or facial expression reliably. You need people to use their words. You use your words. You are very caring and care more about words than any assumptive wossnames. You are also "not from the UK" which means you have different ingrained social norms from upbringing, you can see a lot of stuff UK neurotypicals generally don't see and in leaving your home country, you have had to explore and examine the social norms of your family and country of origin.

There are lots of reasons you and I have many autistic and neurodiverse people in our lives! :)

[cosmolinguist]

Yes when I was first helping Andrew do an online diagnostic test years ago, we both thought I'd come out reasonably high on the autism scale too. So after we did his we tried it on me and I did get a score right on the verge of autistic. But we both agreed that it was largely because of blindie stuff -- not being any good at facial expression/body language, as you say, but also preferring familiarity and struggling to go new places etc. There's a ton of overlap.

And yeah, I think the rest can be explained by being an immigrant. :) I read in a review of a book about a mathematician who was likely what we'd now consider autistic, that he'd married someone from another country and it mentioned in passing that lots of autistic people end up in relationships with immigrants because they can share that experience of finding everyone around them a bit weird and baffling! I don't know how scientifically evidenced that is, but it certainly seems true for Andrew and me.

[barakta]

Yeah I score on a lot of autism points for socialising and noisy places funnily enough. There is actually work somewhere about the overlap or not between deafness and autism. I know non-autistic deaf folk who've been assumed to be autistic, but also deaf women who have been assumed NOT to be autistic cos deaf, when they are autistic AND deaf... People can have multiple things shocker ;)

I have heard the autistic folk being drawn towards relationships with "forrins" trope before and it wouldn't surprise me if it's true, cos it does eradicate at least one layer of social norms/expectations...

[lilysea]

I've seen several people on the internet say that

neuroatypical is a broad umbrella that includes not only autism but ADHD, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety and more.

That all neurotypicals are allistic [allistic = not autisic]

but not all allistics are neurotypical.

[cosmolinguist]

I've seen that definition too, but my local autistic (Andrew) doesn't like "allistic" and uses neurotypical to mean not-autistic. As in fact do the people I work for, who are also both autistic.

I sorta see the point about mental illness like anxiety or depression being part of neurodiversity, but I think it's useful to have a specific word for "not autistic" distinct from or whatever, because conflating them blurs the lived experiences of people who have both autism and mental illnesses/PTSD/etc.

And I know Andrew doesn't like "allistic" because it defines itself as opposed to autism and autism is a word foisted on autistic people from an ableist point of view. He's willing to accept autism since it's embedded as the term for that thing now, but doesn't like neologisms to be based on it.

But I know others strongly prefer the other usage and respect that. These are just my reasons for using the language I do.

[lilysea]

*nods*

I'm not autistic, but as someone with

aphasia
brain fog
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which causes neurological symptoms
short term memory issues [because chronic fatigue syndrome]
selective mutism
migraines
Anxiety
PTSD

I refer to myself as "neuroatypical"

[theandrewhickey]

Holly's explained part of it very well -- and "allistic" *is* a word I loathe, because it means, basically, "other-oriented" as opposed to "autistic"s "self-oriented", and that reinforces a *lot* of very negative stereotypes about autistic people.

But there's also another part of it. The term "neurotypical" was coined in the nineties *by autistic people*, specifically to mean "people who aren't autistic". The first use of it came from The Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical -- a website that was a rage-fuelled parody of the way neurotypicals talk about us (a mirror of which can be found at http://erikengdahl.se/autism/isnt/ ).

The changing of the meaning of the term to mean only "brains which are absolutely typical" is an example of the co-opting of a piece of minority culture and watering it down into meaninglessness (after all, *no* brain is absolutely typical). It's taking away a good, useful, word, coined out of a sense of outrage at our dehumanisation; and replacing it with a word, "allistic", which reinforces the very negative stereotypes which "neurotypical" was coined to attack, is not to my mind an adequate substitute.

[cosmolinguist]

Thanks for explaining the part I hadn't. <3

[barakta]

I didn't know that about allistic, it's not a term I'd use normally and will make a point of avoiding it given its history and context.

I think neurotypical is interesting cos it's recognising difference in neuro-diverse/atypical as a statement of thing with less judgement. I see it more like cis/trans or disabled/non-disabled...

Language is interesting, I like it when people can explore and discuss terms sensibly AND recognise that sometimes terms become "in use" even if not perfect.. Or in the case of deafness, some are hated, but kinda have to exist cos some people use them, but *wince*... My wince term is hearing impaired, loathe it, most deaf communities loathe it, but the medical and disability access bods love it *barf*...

[swingandswirl]

This made me laugh, and also super happy that your neuroatypical friends have you.