Well, yeah but also no.
Is it really "hardline absolutist" to accurately predict a negative outcome? Sure sure, you can affect the outcome to some degree... Still if you tell somebody "it's a bad idea to rely on me for this, because knowing myself the thing we want to avoid is the most likely outcome"; imagine how it would feel to first hear you didn't want it enough, "fail" "inevitably", and then hear you didn't try hard enough... All you could think to yourself in such a situation is: "doesn't seem like you tried to listen at all".
I wish we could finally establish what really constitutes this phenotype, on a neurological level... Like we have those gross oversimplifications: serotonine equals happiness, thus depression is a lack thereof. It's dumb it's not a linear relation, you won't simply get happier the more serotonine you have, absolutely not, but at least it's some attempt at an explanation... If we had something like: yeah autism is an affectation of the gamma-blablatine system, which is largely responsible for how we regulate shifts of focus in attention; which closely relates ASD ("disorder" of executive funtion), to ADHD ("disorder" of regulatory function) and anxiety disorders (amygdalic component). You know something like that that would make it easier to grasp, even if it's not, can not, be entirely accurate (because brains are the most densely ramified organic material that is "known", and also plastic af and also a muscle that is able to compensate for it's own lack of function...).
It's not like anybody could predict how all the different drugs that affect the dopamine system feel, hearing about their functioning in detail kind of makes it sound like they all do more or less the same, which doesn't correspond to our subjective experience of them at all. But try to describe and classify ASD and it keeps slipping from your fingers... "They can't read emotions" - "No actually some excell at it...it's complicated" - "They're solitary" - "No actually if you look closely most rely on some kind of support, it's complicated" - "so they're just shy?" - "you'd think a shy person would have some serious inhibitions to do some of the stuff they do, it's..." - all the "gifted" stereotypes and the inherent ableism associated to the unecessary distinction between the aspergers and
the others... Autism is just annoying to put a finger on and if you somehow managed, it probably wouldn't appreciate being touched anyway
.
As it currently stands I have my doubts that a diagnosis has any major benefits, lest you be utterly priviledged. With the crushing pressure to perform any person that isn't free from material concerns, so basically everybody feels nowadays... What margins are there remaining, in which accomodation could realistically happen. What can even be accomodated for? Heh, even in some cockaigne like switzerland, I'd be concerned to let any insurers know about ANY mental deviation, their entire business model is making the coldest bets ever. Dating is a marketplace, what hasn't been commidified? To be realistic about the impact of ASD on quality of life is to acknowledge that you have a competitive disadvantage in general, socially. To say ignorance is bliss is such a clichee, but it can feel like you are surrounded gold-fish, that for some inexplicable reason get to make-up the rules as they go. The real disadvantage isn't that there is more work involved, which I guess on some imaginary checklist substracts you some scorepoints; but that's irrelevant because there are too many surprises and irrational preferences along the way... The real disadvantage is when masking you're basically swimming in their soup, (which can also be navigated (hear mitigated) through intuition), and then when you return to baseline, you get to discover your actual feelings and the problem with that is that your day is also only 24 hours long, just as theirs. The infamous vulnerability to being exploited that is sometimes brought up in discussions about autism. I think that's only a subsection, it can go many ways, and most will have developped coping strategies at ... >an< age. Aaah my goal really isn't to point any fingers, just some general piece of advice before I move on, I would advise refraining from advising to any autist that they make any drastic changes to their social surroundings, difficult to predict the complex loyalty trades that happened up to that point, (since as elaborated from before pure market logic is insufficient), and who's had it up to where, there are legitimate concerns that are just as legitimate to hurl back. I mean realistically a relationship built on long term loyalty and generous quid pro quo, could take a punch, but it might be allready strained.
My current hearing problems reminded me of an episode in my life that should serve as a neat example: as an "adult" I get to indict the other party of being wrong, that is certainly not how it went the last time... My ears are plugged m'kay? You know when you got like water in your ears and you hear what happens inside your skull very loud, like chewing and such, but you hear badly, and escpecially higher frequencies, yeah that... Spend more than a month like that and then tell me you still have high confidence in the volume you're picking to talk... and so since I err towards softspokeness out of precaution, people constantly forget I'm starting to be seriously hearing impaired, which results in some cruel twists of irony... I have to repeat myself more often than they do, BECAUSE I CATEGORICALLY REFUSE TO START EVERY SENTENCE WITH A SUPERFLOUS INTERLOCUTION THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BOOTSTRAP YOUR ATTENTION, "HEY NAME, *insert sentence", yeah no FUCK THAT
PAY ATTENTION, DO YOU HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA HOW HARD I AM CURRENTLY TRYING?
And yeah that brings me back to being in kindergarden, ears plugged (otitis and such), and I'm trying to get my kindergarden teacher to speak up and she is too self-absorbed and needs to act performatively like fucking whispering half the story she's reading to us sitting in circle and stuff like that... and then you get accused of not paying attention, and in the end when the doctor clears it all up you don't even get a valid apology. I think that encapsulates it pretty nicely,
my stupid life and it's tendancy to keep arcing back to this litterary quality, honestly it sounds made up.I hope you recognize, senior roberto roboto, that whenever we react, it is usually out of a genuine concern for your well-being.
Just a tiny addition that to me seems hugely important and that a NT would probably reject out of prejudice.
I CATEGORICALLY REFUSE TO START EVERY SENTENCE WITH A SUPERFLOUS INTERLOCUTION THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BOOTSTRAP YOUR ATTENTION, "HEY NAME, *insert sentence"
Why not aren't you making life intentionally hard for yourself?My sweet child I see you have never been through this: How long before that doesn't suffice anymore either.... Or god forbid the worst possible offense that should be penalized through means of instant lynching: they start mocking you for allways using that same phrase, that you were only using to lubricate the exchange.