Regular reminder that being an asshole is not a symptom of any form of neurodivergence. (You can replace “neurodivergent” with depressed, anxious, bipolar, etc. and the diagram works equally well)
ETA: social faux pas, awkwardness, and genuine symptoms of neurodivergence don’t make you an asshole. I shouldn’t have to say this? An “asshole” is someone who enacts a pattern of abusive, controlling, harassing, and/or harmful behavior with no remorse or concern for how other people are affected.
Everyone is an amateur psychologist now
Being an asshole is occasionally a symptom of me not being consistent enough with my anxiety meds though unfortunately. But I’m generally really apologetic afterwards when I realize and it doesn’t happen often and only for a few days typically.
I have an overwhelming urge to shop now.
This meme brought to you by pɹɐɔɹǝʇsɐɯ
“I don’t care what’s wrong with you. If you’re an asshole, you’re an asshole”
This has stuck with me for about 15 years now. A neurodivergent stage crew member who was consistently an asshole was being an asshole again, so this other kid just yelled at him and told him off. Everyone in the room gave him the shocked Pikachu face because he yelled at the ND kid. Someone said “dude, you cant yell at him” and then he laid down this quote.
Don’t yell at people. The right answer is to tell them that they are a problem privately.
@5oap10116 @isaaclyman Being diagnosed with all kinds of crap before they finally settled on AuDHD, I’ve always sworn by “Diagnosises can be an explanation but never a shield.”
Own your shit.
I feel like I’m missing something here.
Something many groups need to hear, not just the ND crowd.
Damn right.
The sentiment is right, but using the phrase wrong with you, might be a little harsh. There’s nothing wrong with them, they are who they are.
None of that excuses being an asshole though.
Wrong with you would be more like if they’re going through a breakup and they aren’t themselves, or going through grief over something etc.
But directed at a ND person where it can come off as being about their ND isn’t good.
Edit: “I don’t care what’s going on with someone, if they’re an asshole they’re an asshole” would be a better option
I don’t go around as a 30 something saying the words of a 15 yr old. Yes it is not as tactful as it should be and I understand the nuance but the idea is the same and I’m not going to change what happened.
I’m not going to change what happened.
Thats also fair. It’s a story you’re telling and it’s what happened.
I guess MasterCard is either autistic or asshole now
Definitely asshole at the very least
This drives me bananas.
On the one hand as someone with ASD, yeah, I would have loved to have a little more understanding growing up but on the other you do not get a free pass just because you are some flavor of “special”. Everyone is special. Everyone is a weird combination of neurotypcial and neurodivergent it’s just a matter of degree and how it’s all put together. When you say someone is neurotypical… how do you even know?
When you say that something is not your fault because you are neurodivergent did you even try to find a work-around? Did you try to find away to make the other person more comfortable? Did you try to exercise the understanding you demand of others? Or did you just say you don’t have to?
I hate that some people call ASD a disability. Sure it might be disabling at time but you shouldn’t use that as an excuse not to work hard and be successful. There is no reason that I need to walk around telling people I’m disabled. I realize some have it much harder than others but I think we all should work hard to try to be better especially since unemployment is so high.
I hate that some people call ASD a disability.
100%
Different people have different challenges. For me ASD is both very challenging at times but also a superpower.
since unemployment is so high.
It’s not though. Currently 4.2% which is on the low end of historical averages and what is considered “normal”. Not to discount your point but just to counter the ongoing narrative - largely false - about the current economy.
It is somewhere around 85% for autistic people
Preach
A business is not obligated to tear out every stairway to make a ramp because some of its users require a wheel chair. In the same vein, not every social interaction where a person who is neurodivergent (diagnosed or not) hurts the feelings of another person is necessarily them being an asshole. Another commenter said something about how intent matters. They’re right. It does.
However it matters for both parties. It’s situational and it’s important to remember that a lot of social interactions involve misunderstandings because there is a lack of communication from both sides and a set of different expectations on both sides.
I don’t necessarily think it’s fair to view every social interaction through the light of who is the injured party. We don’t do that to people with physical conditions. You wouldn’t accuse a person in a wheel chair of being an asshole for having an expectation of accessibility. But that’s because society as a whole has come to an understanding (by force) that accessibility for these physical conditions is important.
I don’t think society has come to that realization about ND people, nor do I think that the average person looks at ND behaviors and adapts to them in a meaningful way.
So when people have an expectation based on Neurotypical behavior and a ND person doesn’t meet that expectation, do they recalibrate at all to temper the expectations?
One of the commenters here gave an example about working with a ND person and the response the rest of their co-workers had to another person calling them out for it in a fit of anger. The thing is, it should not have gotten to that point. And it’s not just because others should have been setting good boundaries in a healthy way about that behavior. It’s also because they should have been tempering their expectations and not overcompensating for that ND person in an unhealthy way.
Part of the problems we’re seeing between NT’s and ND’s have a lot to do with communication and an inability to compromise or at the very least try to find resolution in healthy ways.
This looks like a MasterCard. I can’t unsee it.
Credit companies are indeed assholes
The diagram also looks like a butt. Assholes confirmed.
But are they neurodivergent?
I just clicked this post to write this 😭 🙏
Reminds me of once when a friend told me a story how someone watched his dick when he was peeing. When he got angry someone calmed him by sayong “Don’t worry, he is just gay.”
Yeah, why does this make sexual harasment any better?
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Jokes on you I don’t have to be friends with anyone
To an extent ya. You need to take responsibility for yourself. But also if I interrupt someone constantly that’s not bc I want to
Neurodivergent people: Trying their best to fit into society
You: Fuck those assholes.
As someone who is neurodivergent and operates at an engineering level, when I’m under pressure I can sometimes be an asshole unintentionally. I try my best to recognize when I do this and apologize when I can. It’s not something I can help. It’s impulsive which means it’s hard to control.
Here you are telling everyone that I am not deserving of compassion or understanding and should be written off as an asshole.
Do you know what it’s like being neurodivergent? How people treat you when they find out? I now have to be on my best behavior at all times or I could get labeled an asshole and therefore deserve nothing according to you.
Sometimes mental illness is like having a stab wound in your gut and you have to act like everything is fine. It’s not always possible in all situations.
To say this post lacks awareness is an understatement.
Everyone is trying their best, even neurotypicals.
Doesn’t give you a free pass.
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Neurodivergence is not metal illness. You can not “cure” what is not broken. Trying to do so is what causes serious childhood trama. Neurodivergence is tied to communication differences and a differences in how the brain works.
For more information look up the double empathy problem.
Neurodivergence comes part and parcel with mental illness for some people. Depression is a mental illness that a lot of ND people suffer from. It has a direct effect on how we communicate especially when compounded by other ND traits like hyper focus or anxiety (the latter of which is also considred a mental disorder).
It’s reasonable for someone who is ND to be experiencing mental illness that may compound behaviors that society as a whole doesn’t condone.
Man I got NPD and even I would find it weird for people to like me just because they know I have NPD like you don’t gonna deal with the shit, if they can’t help being assholes then step it up
Sorry but I don’t understand what you are saying with your first point. Is your second point literally “you need to step up your mental illness game?”
I think a lot of people here found it a bit caustic. But I don’t necessarily disagree with the point I think you might have been trying to make.
There’s a line that’s pretty easy to draw involving intent and behavior. However the actuality is the world isn’t made for us and this is as much an accessibility issue as it is anything else.
This is pretty clearly demonstrated in the show House. There’s at least one episode where House is in a wheel chair and he illustrates how he can use that wheel chair to get away with a lot of intentional behavior masked as accidental or otherwise unintentional. At one point I believe he even makes it clear it was intention and able bodied people give him a pass because “you wouldn’t hit a guy in a wheel chair”.
When people think each incident is unintentional they are more likely to be willing to compromise their irritation or boundaries. When they feel the incidents are intentional they feel righteously angry and are less likely to fall back on social norms. However they still generally default (for people with physical disabilities) to compromising their boundaries in order to be socially accepted or not look like the bad guy. This is part of the problem with the whole thing.
This is part of the problem with this discussion. The main assumption here is that each party is operating on the social norms laid down by NT people and nobody in the thread seems to be readily able to agree on what specific behaviors make you an “asshole” because it’s subjective and ND do not generally have the same reference baseline for what is acceptable.
This is not making excuses. It’s laying out facts.
There’s a lot of anecdotes here in this comment thread. There’s a lot of personal experience that is valid but does not necessarily equal the experiences of even a marginally reasonable subset of the population to make an analysis of what constitutes an “asshole”, or what behaviors specifically are NT or ND.
But it seems we can mostly agree that deliberately using the condition of being neurodivergent as a shield for behavior we know is not acceptable is wrong.
The scale by which we measure that isn’t decided by ND people though. It’s decided by a society of mostly NT people. And because society by and large doesn’t even necessarily acknowledge those differences and make boundaries based on facts and education rather than feelings we end up with this hodgepodge of badly enforced boundaries, unhealthy masking that does real damage, and under/overreaction.
But people still deserve empathy. That empathy doesn’t mean you should abandon or alter your boundaries to accept unacceptable behavior.
When they ramble on about something you don’t care about or actively don’t want to discuss, say “Hey I don’t like this conversation, can we talk about something else?”
Yellow: “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Red: “What? Why don’t you wanna talk about this, is it because you secretly hate me or are hiding something? Now I know we need to talk about it until I’m convinced you’re hearing what I have to say on this topic.”When I realize I’m dominating a conversation I will try to give other people space to talk and also let them know they can tell me to shut up. I won’t take it too personally.
Even if you let them know they can say shut up whenever, they likely won’t. The best bet is to do the first option all the time, because even with permission, most people still wouldn’t do it though they may want to.
When they ramble on about something you don’t care about…
Or, hear me out, you could listen to them infodump because it will make them happy?
I’m pretty sure it is a symptom of BPD.
