Kevin Davy on Nostr: npub1mewd5…etau6 I once described my life as "it's not that I didn't know I was ...

npub1mewd58tz390gcnw0ml99alkzzgcuj2yg9tdsjwt45zga54rtsj8qketau6 (npub1mew…tau6)
I once described my life as "it's not that I didn't know I was different, I did, it's that I thought I shouldn't be."
And in trying to be, I learnt to mask, to pretend, to hide my differences deep and more or less function in the allistic world in a way that, in a dim light and with possibly fading eyesight, passed as normal. But what I could never grasp or understand was the way allistics would often be prompted into expressing empathy/sympathy. I knew many times it was about group support, with making sure someone didn't feel alone. Yet the application of this principle never seemed consistent. There were times when someone clearly emotionally struggling was left alone and other times when someone barely, or not even really, struggling was surrounded by love and attention and it never seemed to be based on any pattern I could perceive, of status or even aspiration. It was as if there was some code in their manner or speech that prompted this flocking around and of course it was a code that I could never break and so I was constantly guilty of getting it wrong, not to mention doing it in the wrong way. And so in the end I just gave up and that led me to being seen in a certain light, as cold and harsh and eventually even to me doubting my own emotional health.
But now I know my ability to feel empathy and to be sympathetic is as real as anyone's, just expressed differently. This is classic "double empathy". But what it means in practice is that it is always a one-way street. Whilst we can sometimes struggle to understand theirs, we can still see it. But because we don't do it their way, they will never see ours at all.

#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic