Summary

The website content discusses the challenges autistic individuals face in managing behaviors and emotions that allistic (non-autistic) people may find annoying or difficult to tolerate, emphasizing the need for understanding and acceptance rather than expecting autistic people to suppress their natural tendencies.

Abstract

The article titled "Annoyed With Autistics? We Know" addresses the frustration that allistic individuals often experience with autistic behaviors, such as self-stimulatory actions (stims), strong emotions, and rigid behaviors. It acknowledges that while some autistic people can mask these behaviors in public, others struggle to do so. The author explains that autistic individuals are aware of the social friction their actions may cause, but they cannot easily switch off their feelings or stop themselves from talking about topics they are passionate about, even when they sense disinterest or irritation from others. The piece underscores the difficulty autistic people have in reading social cues and the discomfort they experience when expectations are not met or when they are misunderstood. It also highlights the effort autistic individuals put into trying to fit into social norms, often leading to feelings of awkwardness and stress. The author suggests that instead of autistic people constantly adapting to allistic standards, there should be a mutual effort to understand and accept each other's differences.

Opinions

The author believes that allistic individuals are intolerant of autistic stims, which can cause discomfort or embarrassment.
There is an acknowledgment that autistic people are often expected to suppress their natural behaviors and emotions to avoid annoying allistic people.
The article points out that autistic individuals are conscious of the social tension their behaviors can create, despite not always understanding the specific triggers.
It is expressed that autistic people have strong emotions and a need for predictability, which can lead to intense reactions when expectations are not met.
The author indicates that autistic individuals may talk excessively about their interests, finding it difficult to stop even when they notice disengagement from others.
The piece conveys the opinion that autistic people's ways of expressing empathy, such as sharing personal stories, are often misunderstood and met with negative responses.
The author suggests that the social masking autistic individuals perform to fit in is akin to suppressing a fundamental aspect of their identity, a task that is both challenging and stressful.
The article argues that allistic individuals should make an effort to understand and accommodate autistic behaviors and emotions, rather than expecting autistic people to always adapt to allistic norms.

Annoyed With Autistics? We Know

We can’t always stop ourselves and we shouldn't have to

It’s well established that Allistic people feel we are annoying for very specific reasons. Well, one really, we aren’t allistic, but if I get specific about the details (which we autistic folks are very good at), it boils down to behaviors and traits that you find insufferable.

One is stims or self-stimulatory behavior. I don’t know if it is embarrassing for you or if the movement makes you anxious and so it annoys how you much our movement bothers you, but for whatever reason, you’re hugely intolerant of it. Many autistic folks who mask can stop stimming for a time, while in public to not annoy or anger you allistics. I am not one of them, but many autistics can.

The behaviors or traits that I want to talk about are the ones that are a bit harder for us to hide. The ones that some of us realize bother you, but which we are unable to stop. Because yes, we don’t read social cues the way you do, but we do know we annoy you. We just don’t always know how not to do so.

We are aware that our strong emotions and rigid behaviors make us the subject of ridicule even when you are not actively bullying us to our faces. We do not want to be going thermonuclear over the fact that somebody innocently ate our chicken nuggets when we were expecting to have them. We know this is a disproportionate response to the situation, but it isn’t only an unexpected change that can trigger us, but the thwarting of expectations. I’ve had more meltdowns over expectations that were dashed than I probably have ever had over changes in my routine. It’s one of my huge triggers, along with being misunderstood or perceived to be manipulative or rude. You see some autistic people can read social cues. At least some of them some of the time.

Just because we can’t read all of your nonverbal social cues, doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of times when we know that what we’re doing is annoying. I can’t stop feeling what I am feeling even when a situation is resolved or an apology is forthcoming. I will still be fuming if I am angry. I don’t switch gears that quickly, and I am terrible at hiding my true emotions about situations. I try because I am a people pleaser, but I usually fail. My brain doesn’t work that way. It is the same for many autistic people. We are not deliberately acting like brats, we just need things to be predictable and we have strong emotions which make for a powerful negative reaction when things don’t go according to plan.

We are also aware that you feel that we talk too much about ourselves or topics that are dear to us but which you find extremely boring. I can be talking and talking and talking about something with an allistic person and I can see that something is going on with you, that you’re getting distant and perhaps your expressions are suggesting you might be irritated, or extremely bored. And yet I cannot stop myself I have to keep going until I am finished with what I am saying. It almost physically hurts my brain if I stop before a thought is complete, the feeling is that intense. So I keep going.

Or, because I have learned to pick up on some social cues, I can see that something is going on with you but I don’t know what is triggering your negative response. Are you upset with me about what I’m talking about? Are you upset with me because I’m talking about it too long? Or are you upset with the fact that I might be bouncing while I’m talking to you or have suddenly started rocking a bit? Maybe my inconsistent eye contact is setting you off. Or perhaps it’s a myriad of other reasons and I am just not sure which one it is.

I don’t know for sure if you’re irritated or bored with what I’m talking about or if something else is going on with you, so I just keep talking because I don’t know if it is my talking that is the problem. I keep talking because your response is making me anxious and my anxieties are driving me to continue talking because the situation has become incredibly awkward and I don’t know how to walk away from conversations anyway especially awkward ones. I don’t want to be an asshole and I don’t want to be perceived as an asshole if I just walk away from you. Sometimes I keep talking because my mouth simply doesn’t have an off switch sometimes.

When an allistic person is in distress and sharing that distress, I know nine times out of 10 that if I share a personal story that is similar to something they’re talking about that I am going to end up with a negative response. And yet I cannot stop myself from doing that very thing. Why? Because it’s how I express empathy. It is hardwired into me to do that. I have to resort to Sisyphean efforts to keep myself from doing it. I mean think about it. Think about something that you do all the time. That is your natural way of interacting. And then think about holding that back. It’s like holding back a tsunami sometimes.

Think about walking up to someone and not asking them “How are you?”. Think about not asking them “what do you do?” Meaning what do they do for a living. Think about being in social interaction and not saying those things. Think about holding those things back. Doesn’t that seem hard? I assume that it probably does. If you were in a social situation and you were not allowed to make any small talk whatsoever that would likely make you feel awkward. Does that make you feel stressed? Does that task feel impossible?

That’s how autistic people feel in social situations all the time. Take something completely antithetical to how you are and apply it to yourself. Let’s say you are a sports fan but you can’t be an open sports fan so you have to pretend that you love science fiction and comic books. You have to go around pretending that graphic novels are your favorite and that the latest sci-fi blockbuster was your favorite. Instead of simply talking about your favorite sports team and the latest game that you watched. You have to make up details about how you love Neil Gaiman and hate Disney Star Wars. That is a fraction of the effort we put into masking our autism to try to not make you uncomfortable or annoyed with us.

We know you’re annoyed at us for the fact that we sometimes have intense phobias that aren’t rational to you. We might be afraid of bridges and we’re making you go out of your way when driving somewhere to avoid a bridge.

We know we’re annoying you when we ask for the heater in the car to be turned down because it’s making us too hot and sensory overloading us. We know that all of our sensory issues irritate you. We simply cannot help it. We can’t stop the dishwasher sounds from causing us to want to go into a meltdown. We can’t stop being startled when you touch us out of nowhere and we didn’t realize you were there. Because we’ve been hyper-focusing so intensely we turned our hearing off.

Maybe just maybe instead of us doing all the work in trying to hide our emotions by pretending that you eating our chicken nuggets doesn’t bother us, maybe you could try to combat what you’re feeling and challenge it and say this person is autistic and this particular situation is hard for them so I need to stop feeling annoyed and stop feeling angry. It’s not so easy, is it? But we do it all the time and so can you.