Tres annoyed.

[conuly]

We've all seen this, right?

Well, somebody posted it in asperger. And I replied, pointing out things I thought were useful (noticing when your kid is likely to go into meltdown is a Good Thing, for example), the ones I thought were tragically misguided (not every autistic person is visually oriented, and pretending that this is the case is damaging to those who aren't, no matter how good your intentions), and, of course, commenting on the ones I thought were dead wrong (you know how I feel about person-first language, right?).

She deleted her post, didn't reply to me.

Okay, fine. That's her perogative.

What I didn't realize until today was that she followed this up by posting one of those "I'm leaving!!!!" posts afterwards. I really hate those. In the course of this post, she called us sour, judgmental, intolerant, angry at the world... well, she called me that, I suppose. Whatever. That's pretty much par for the course with these posts, so, while I'm irked, and perfectly willing to argue with her (hey, I might as well get some use out of this nasty mood... that's probably a bad sign, come to think of it) I'm not especially upset.

But then she tells me that I was unnecessarily rude in my reply to her, and that if I can't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything at all.

WTF?

She's nice, but I'm horribly rude (and judgmental, and sour, and angry at the world, and a host of other bad things)?

See, now I'm actually pissed.

Comments

[dkmnow.livejournal.com]

Are you saying you don't like being referred to as a "person with femaleness" (http://web.syr.edu/%7Ejisincla/person_first.htm)? :-p

Seriously though, I don't think I could stand to read that one again, even despite its occasional accidental factualness. IIRC, aside from the general saccharinoid drippiness, what really heebied my jeebies was the all too familiar presumption/pretense of the martyr-for-the-helpless class: "We must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves." Sounds oh-so-noble, but rarely serves anything other than the egos of those who proclaim it.

It's a pretty universal human failing that we fail to recognize the value of any mode of communication beyond that which we ourselves have assimilated. But neurotypicals are rarely forced to confront or even question that failing within themselves. Their bias against the unfamiliar or stigmatized goes unrecognized and unchallenged, and is thus that bias left to rule their interactions. We all have to grapple with such things, of course, but most spectrumites eventually find it impossible to survive without confronting such biases within themselves. Most NTs don't bother - because they don't have to.

For me, any neurotypical who purports to "speak for autistics" had better be prepared to demonstrate that they have, in fact, learned how to listen.