Except when you do the same it's wrong
The appropriate amount is somewhere in between and no they won't tell you where exactly
2 to 5 seconds, followed by a rapid shift away, preferably to some object you're talking about, according to my acting classes.
I sort of figured this balance out on my own, I just have to remember to look at their face every so often and keep myself laser-focused on whatever it is we're supposed to be talking about
it is necessary to engage in The Rituals no matter how fucking boring and tedious they are. Call and response, small talk as a preamble to serious topics, near-mandatory exchange of pleasantries. It's a semi-rigid structure that I once thought came across as artificial due to the structure, and not my delivery of it, and thus disregarded for a time. Kind of makes me think of being in church as a kid, now that I think of it.
Like I'm aware of how weird and overwrought this thinking would seem to an NT but at the same time how the fuck do people go around not examining things they use every day, like conversations, even once? They don't see how boring it can be to use the same structure for every conversation and cover the same old topics over and over again, or how boredom can be painful for ADHD folks and lead to odd tendencies of avoidance.
Wait we were talking about eye contact :side-eye-2: :side-eye-1:
No no, this is all correct. One thing I've noticed is that some non-NT people think this is all intuitive and natural. Some is, but NT people also think these structures are artificial and ritualised, they just like it and are used to it. Societal rituals work to make NT people not have meltdowns. You can see this because when they break down in a crisis NT people tend to freeze up while non-NT people often keep functioning to some extent.
Small talk, for instance, makes people feel safe, like breaking bread in a hosts house used to. Coming in immediately with the serious topic is seen as a desperate emergency and indicates shit has hit the fan.
What is intuitive and natural for them, from my perspective, is paying attention to and noticing and being in tune with the rhythms of these things. But you pointing out that they like them honestly hasn't crossed my mind as often as it should. That creates a natural reinforcement that makes it easier for them to learn, as their brains don't zoom around in constant search of the biggest source of dopamine. They fall into the natural rhythms of it with a bit more ease than ADHD or autistic folks. Same for people with depression and anxiety, lenses which discolor everything that passes through them and turns them from behavioral guideposts into shrieking demons that make it so you can never actually trust your own emotions completely. Fun times.
I fully understand the point of small talk now. It is not at all about exchanging information, it's a ritual of social bonding. Feeling out the other's personality and seeking harmony through an established ritual, just one which happens to get old quickly for people like me. I had to learn to focus on the unspoken parts and tell my brain to shut the fuck up for a second so I could actually listen, no matter how boring it is, and formulate an equally boring response. I had to pay a professional leading group social skills coaching to learn that properly, as the way you actually learn it is not by going down rabbit holes on the Internet, but by talking to other people in a loosely-guided, welcoming, and forgiving environment. One you really can't expect random strangers to provide for you.
Yeah, I was never diagnosed so who knows what the fuck is wrong with me (likely some modest form of AuDHD I guess) but acting helped, alot.
Especially pre 20th century acting where the point was less being the character and more communicating the character. The movements and the posture and the colouring of words for affect.
And as you mentioned a place where you can fail safely.
There's a flipside to this one though, they're completely incapable of making eye contact correctly with cats for some reason
I usually use casual agreement/affirmation as an excuse to stare off wistfully
a disabling inability to see beyond their own cultural context unless it gets beaten into them
can decide to work on something and actually does it :agony-wholesome:
Everything social comes naturally and intuitively for them to the point that behavioral introspection seems to be something they only need to do occasionally and as such they are resistant to doing so
Whereas NDs like me have to constantly monitor our thoughts and behaviors and "acting naturally" is like the worst thing we can do
And so there's a massive disconnect in experience and perception to the point that interaction with an NT is genuinely stressful because they just roll with the natural assumptions and rhythms that carry them through socialization and get upset if you're out of sync and ask for clarification or try to explain your alternative thinking
Makes it feel like they have no empathy for us and ironically results in projection and accusations that we don't care when we're trying our best not to upset people and hope against hope we went with the right assumptions this time, because holy fuck do they get upset otherwise
generally not trying very hard to understand or empathize. getting pissed at or disappointed with you when your condition makes it hard for you to be nice and conforming. trying to explain usually sucks. you either get the glassy-eyes treatment or they'll just go "oh yeah I have that too haha" as a way to subtly guilt trip you into dealing with it for their sake.
or they’ll just go “oh yeah I have that too haha” as a way to subtly guilt trip you into dealing with it for their sake.
So, I'm neurotypical (I think :hyperflush: ) so I haven't had any experience with this situation and I don't know the full context behind you saying this, but is there any chance "I have that too" is an ignorant but well-meaning attempt to relate to you or make you feel at ease as opposed to a way to guilt trip you? Because I can totally see myself saying something like that while thinking I'm being nice lmao.
I have ADHD, was diagnosed just over a year ago and it's been non-stop "oh shit so that's why". However the amount of people telling me it's not a real thing or "everyone has those struggles" is frustrating.
But I'm always open to talk about it with others and talk about "hey I do/have/struggle with that too" because... it's exactly what made me search for a psychiatrist which lead to my diagnosis. Like most subjects, it depends on context and how you are approaching the subject. And maybe just try and make your intentions clear and upfront.
Like "I have that too, what do you do to try to circumvent it" is very different than "I have that too, everyone does, just XYZ"
it depends on context. and with the company I keep there's a big likelihood that when I describe, say, noise sensitivity to people, they actually do experience exactly when I'm talking about. it's just a bit effacing when someone who I know has absolutely zero issues with crowds and background noise says this to me, after I just explained that I literally can't track a conversation with someone right next to me when it gets bad enough.
I know this sounds like whinging but minor frustrations over the course of decades tend to turn into big frustrations :yea:
Generally speaking in very unclear and misleading ways, overly obsessed with bizarre social norms that don't make sense
I'll give you stupid, but dangerous? Worst thing that could happen is what? A bruise from a bucket taped to the end of a broom?
Boys: Absolutely insufferable buffoons who do stupid, dangerous shit
God, I love boys
lots of em get super uncomfortable in discussions about disability and will try to self-soothe with weird tone policing about ability/disability/wellness that actually silences disabled people :shrug-outta-hecks:
neurotypicals love nothing more than to blast music at nuclear volume and scream for hours on end and then say it was a calm party and that they liked it
Oh god. What is the point of a party where you can't hear anyone, there's no dancing, and there's no singing?
Me, upvoting everyone ITT, wondering if it’s okay to think that I might be a little neurodivergent despite never being diagnosed, also feeling nothing but love for disabled comrades and rage toward all those who mistreat you.
Neurodivergence is like thirty separate, sometimes-crossing spectrums where if you're too far from the middle of one or more of the spectrums, you have some degree of dysfunction relative to everyone else.
Having been diagnosed in my late twenties, I don't think the American health care system can be relied on to make this call. It's such a crapshoot, and so many people are denied regular access, I don't know if there's even much of a point in being diagnosed.
Also, based purely on anecdotal evidence, it seems like if you think you might be then the odds are good that you are.
There's the issue of not having healthcare or parents that would care enough to see if the issues you're having are neurodivergence. Like I've definitely got something or another but I don't know that I'll ever have an opportunity to get diagnosed.
They are unable to communicate directly and instead expect you to figure out things they haven't actually communicated. And they will try to do the same with you, reading random, unrelated, or even completely opposite meanings into what you said and how you said it.
Really proficient at small talk. Actually, always and exclusively engaging in small talk. Only areas of expertise are the few socially acceptable subjects to know about, like cars, pop music, big-budget movies, celebrities.
Getting ready to leave for work in the morning, and grabbing their keys from the place where they always put them as soon as they come in the door, instead of tearing the house apart in a panic because you can never find your fucking keys...
omg is this a symptom? I always wondered how most people seemed to be so well organized
The NT Zoomers where I live are made up of a bunch of old money jackasses who all wanna pretend to be hard working rednecks who live off of hunting instead of already having net worths beyond what I could ever achieve through their allowance from small business tyrant parents. Don’t know much about non-SC zoomers though. This is also the only generation with many ND people I make contact with.
There aren’t really that many millennials I regularly encounter, but I can divide the subcultures I’m familiar with into obnoxious stoner West Coaster Rick and Morty fans, Gentrifiers who are “spiritual, not religious”, Acela corridor podcast listeners, and internet-savvy chuds who either join the libertarian party or a front for atomwaffen.
Gen Xers/Xoomers in my region have this weird Lynchian aura to them, moreso than any other age group. They seem completely fine with shitty cookie-cutter tv shows and living in endless suburbs. If they have younger children, they’ll just hand them an iPad with some overstimulating games with ads littering the screen and call it a day. I have no clue how they’re ok with living like this.
Boomers across the country can be separated into angry small-town residents who get angry at whatever culture-war issue they last heard about on facebook, urban residents who miss the 70s of wherever they live and donate their life energy to Joe Biden, and suburbanites who are split between twitter-addicted libs and golf-addicted hogs, who are in peace only due to not being aware of one another’s ideology.
My grandma is the only silent generation person I know but she’s pretty nice ig
