[Helpful Resource] A Field Guide to Earthlings: An Autistic/Asperger View of Neurotypical Behavior
A free ebook written for autistic people that describes the neurtotypical world. It can be funny and quite insightful!
https://pdfcoffee.com/ian-ford-a-field-guide-to-earthlings-an-autistic-asperger-view-of-neurotypical-behavior-pdf-free.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
16 replies
I learned all my social norms by reading philosophy books, and totally fucking myself over because normal people don't want to have lengthy talks about that stuff.
It's seriously a wonder why my parents never got me tested.
My (autistic) wife studied philosophy to better understand humans (she didn’t get tested either until I got tested a year ago, we‘re both 30+ now)
I love this book! Not only was it useful at understanding how neurotypicals think and behave because it's written by an autistic person, but it also helped me understand myself better by comparison.
Here are some quotes I highlighted:
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That is how I think lol. Can't count the number of times I have said something like "... is only a thing because someone a long time ago decided it is a thing and can easily no longer exist if we decided so". Most people completely miss the point when I say that. I think those ideas also apply to the lgbtq+ quite well because being gay wasn't weird entail someone decided it is weird.
Right‽ I love that someone pointed it out to get a better awareness of ourselves and potential differences from others.
As someone who's neurotypical, that mode of thinking is just as foreign and annoying to me
Which mode? The social reality pattern?
Yes
I agree. It's confusing and annoying (maybe insufferable sometimes) to me.
Is this why people insist on asking questions I can't possibly know the answer to (for eg, about future events or causes behind psychological states), and then get mad when I tell them I don't know?
I have no idea if that's what's happening in your case, but I have noticed that allistics tend to behave like they know something when I think they don't. I think it's a matter of how we define knowing something. For me, knowing something means that I am fairly certain that I understand the details, connections, and am confident in how I obtained the knowledge. For allistics, it's more about sharing that they have heard about it and that people agree with them. Additionally, while autistics may feel comfortable openly sharing that they don't know something, allistics see this as a sort of weakness or embarrassment. Since knowing could mean your guess, your friends may be asking you for your opinion, not your certain knowledge, so they could feel that you are withholding it. Additionally, since knowledge is socially constructed for allistics, you not engaging in the topic prevents them from creating knowledge, you're deciding to not engage in their concern, and they feel disregarded and vulnerable not having "knowledge" on whatever they're concerned about, whether validly rooted in objective reality or socially constructed.
Disclaimer: These are generalities and every person, allistic or not, has their individual idiosyncrasies.
Not to be confused with Earthlings by Sayaka Murata (but which covers similar themes)
Is the link broken? I'm getting 404s
Works for me! Could it be a network setting or your location??
Well now looking at it from my desktop it's no longer a 404. It's an SSL certificate first and a broken XML right after. Whatever that book is, the tech gods don't want me to view it.
I sent you a Matrix dm