I’m a 23 year old woman diagnosed with ADHD last year, and honestly the operating system analogy is perfect. We’re not broken, just operating differently
Even the way they describe it, though, does make me feel a little broken. The UK does a better job of it, but the term that gets tossed around in the states a lot is "Neuronormative." Normative or Normal, the opposite of which is obviously abnormal, which in English carries a much more negative connotation than the opposite of "typical," being "atypical." An atypically beautiful flower is interesting and engaging. It's not better or worse, there isn't a qualitative implication. By contrast, an abnormally beautiful flower is alarming and off-putting - what is normative is safe, and so that which is abnormal by extension *isn't*.
@@SeanBoyce-gp that's sad to hear - I would have hoped to hear 'neuronormative' (if at all) to describe behaviours which assume neurotypicality and aren't inclusive, analogous to 'heteronormative'. As well as insensitive this seems like a waste of a useful word!
Honestly, my ADHD really does make me feeling like I'm quite broken. But it's *also* a different system. That's one of the things that took me by surprise when I finally tried stimulant meds for the first time (i wasn't diagnosed until I was 37) I had an idea that meds were supposed to make my brain work more like other people's. Instead I got less distraction and more periods of hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is still an ADHD trait, is still quite different from non-ADHD brains, but it's a much more useful one I now think of the ADHD as being more like an extra feature, or an upgrade that came with so many bugs that it just made life worse. I was expecting meds to work by resetting me back to a more "normal" brain. But instead it's more like they "fixed" the ADHD, and now the feature is starting to work properly
I loved Fern on Taskmaster, and discovered before the finale that she is autistic (which helped explain her wonderful fashion choices). I'm autistic, and my favourite bit of neurotypical nonsense is when people compliment me on my eloquence. That comes from a lifetime of scripting what I'm going to say before I start speaking, and making sure I appear as intelligent as possible in an attempt to be taken seriously. Doesn't discount the fact I also experience situational mutism and often can't make a coherent sound, or any sound at all. I love my hyperactive, creative brain, but I could do without the sensory hypersensitivity
I get the same compliment. It would seem in the last few years that language is being ditched in favor of little yellow circle glyphs. How expressive. I could argue in front of the Supreme Court but can't tie my shoes or hold a job. I can write a symphony or a poem and have a room of people crying but I can't put the power bill in the mailbox. God or genetics gave me vision so many woukd kill for but not the ability to utilize it. It's hard.. be well.
This is why I write well. It gives me a chance to edit, and consider my words, whereas in meatspace, I have all the eloquence of a freshly foaled giraffe.
Same! and then i forget how to say "dishwasher" and suddenly i'm an infant to them 9_9 smh but I find that a large problem of my selective mutism is when i can't remember a word or any synonyms for it without "sounding weird". so i sometimes just don't bother talking in case i mess up. but like.... reflexively? largely outside my control and an automatic body function. So i started teaching myself other languages so i had alternate words. So if i forget the word 'water' and 'drink' i can use ASL to sign 'water' while using the japanese word 'mizu' or the spanish 'agua' to communicate my thirst instead. Usually at least one person in the room will be good at charades if nobody knows the word/sign i'm using. So yeah. i suggest everyone learn more ways of saying words you often struggle to remember, it might help some?
I would like executive functioning skills and the ability to spend time around other people without needing to hide in a blanket cocoon for hours after. I’d also like if I could walk around wearing a blanket without that being a problem. Sometimes I do it anyway.
@@Amaranthyne who's hassling you about the blanket? on my grandfathers death he told me " If they don't like what you've got say( or do) FUCK EM" the first time I had heard him swear , not counting when we were on a golf course.
My favourite take on autism from The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. "The books and research papers described the symptoms of Asperger's syndrome, and I formed a provisional conclusion that most of these were simply variations in human brain function that had been inappropriately medicalised because they did not fit social norms - constructed social norms - that reflected the most common human configurations rather than the full range."
Did he also point out that the assumptions of "normal behaviour" in academia have been first laid down by European upper middle class and upper class men who had naturalised their own expectations of behaviour? That means the behaviour of women, non-Europeans and _everyone_ outside of those two social classes was aberrant and deviant despite the fact that it made up the majority of humanity's behaviour.
@Naes Galaxy You honestly think it's the under class / the obedients / the "Slaves" who lie to themselves? HA! Put down the Marx, and read some Hegel. It's the "Masters" who constantly lie to themselves, and who define themselves solely in terms of their relation to the "Slaves". The "Slaves", meanwhile, define themselves by the products of their own work (be that traditional labour, political work, artistic work, etc.). This is also why revolutions are generally pointless. The "Masters" will destroy themselves eventually anyway; we "Slaves" merely have to wait it out.
That's a cracking quote. I'm a big fan of the Social Model of Disability, which essentially argues the same thing: conditions become disabilities due to how society is designed, when in fact they're just different ways of living. Best example is stairs. Stairs make people in wheelchairs disabled. Until they encounter stairs, they are a person in a wheelchair.
That's great the way she's talking about this. We've been using the 'operating system' analogy quite a bit. In some cases, I'll try to explain it by saying 'Imagine bringing your scrabble tiles with what you think is a triple word score to a Mahjong table.' Women are often late to be diagnosed because we are so good as masking behaviours. When I was in middle school, all I wanted to do was talk about King Arthur and Merlin lore, but I had been bullied enough to know that was a bad thing, so instead, I talked obsessively about boys because that is what I thought was 'normal'. Until I got a note in my locker from 'my friends' about how they were tired about hearing me talk about my 'boyfriend' and other boys. The bulling got worse so I started carrying around books on the occult I checked out from the 'big city library'. This was in a small town during the 'Satanic Panic' of the '80s. It worked. They started leaving me alone.
I'm really sorry that you were bullied. I think a lot of us dress a bit punk/goth/emo as a way to signal difference in a way society understands and accepts more readily than our autistic identity. I've also met a lot of neurodivergent folks who love Tim Burton and the occult, too!
I’m so using that scrabble/mahjong analogy, that’s bloody perfect. And your story about taking about boys to mask and then still being clocked as different. It’s like they know we’re different, but gatekeep the diagnosis anyway. It’s cruel.
@@RickyStaines The depressing thing is neurotypicals love shit like Edward Scissorhands and Wednesday, but once the autistic-coding becomes real in a real life autistic person, suddenly they hate it.
so confused by how neurotypicals communicate everything without actually saying what they want to say, and then call us the ones with communication issues 😂
Also how we're told we "take everything literally," like yeah that's just us assuming neurotypicals are saying what they mean and yet we're apparently the weird ones for not knowing they're not saying what they mean? 😂
@@harry_page "Yeah i'm fine" can mean they're actually fine, they're not fine and they want to talk about it or they're not fine and they don't want to talk. and somehow i'm always wrong 😭
@@harry_page The actual most terrifying four-word phrase in the English language is "it's not a problem." This can mean ANYTHING on a continuum from the actual meaning of the words to "I actively personally hate you and am making it a personal goal of mine to see you fail," and people *cultivate* an affect that makes it literally impossible to know which one it is.
@@tjenadonn6158 I have a pair of seamless socks that were a Christmas gift. Unfortunately they’re made from the itchiest fabric you could imagine. They have glitter thread in them to make them look cute & sparkly, but they feel like sandpaper!
Neurotypicals _are_ weird. They'll ask how you are, even though they don't want to know how you really are. They'll say "we should get together sometime" even though they have absolutely zero intention of getting together with you. They'll smile and say "that sounds great" even though they hate it. And they think we're the ones who don't know how to communicate. LMAO
Yeah but autistic people get just as hurt when you're honest with them as neurotypical ones. I get that it feels good to punch up a little sometimes, but lets not pretend that lacking the ability to read the room makes you immune to the emotions that compel people to use their ability to read the room in the first place. This kind of mentality is often the difference between people with autism and assholes hiding behind their autism, of which there are many as well.
Any other neurodivergent folks do the thing where if someone asks how you are, you respond with 'not too bad' because it's both accurate - if it were /too/ bad, you wouldn't be talking to them, but also leaves room for the accuracy of 'it's still bad though'.
Neurotypicals: "Superman! There's an asteroid heading straight for planet Earth!" Superman: "Did you know, the poet Sylvia Plath exclusively used Sheaffer fountain pens?" Thanks Fern, I feel very seen!
I'm autistic myself. I wasn't dx until my mid twenties. I get fed up of ppl saying it's a superpower or its a complete tragedy... I wouldn't change myself. But autism isn't no gift. But there can be some positives in having autism. Like the lady said, it's about having neutrality when looking at autism - the good and bad side of autism.
I think the gift is seeing allistic social hierarchy bullshit for what it is and generally having no taste for it. We can consciously try very persistently to mask, but we'll never be into it the way they're unconsciously obsessed with it. The gift is having a choice about whether or not to perpetuate these harmful social hierarchies or challenge them.
@@wkt2506I concur. You know how much art, music, science, technology has been created by autistic people? Would we have all that without us? Maybe. Maybe not.
I find it helps you better align yoursemf with your professional purpose and put those divergent skills to great use in ways other people appreciate but are 'meh' at.
What I've found as an autistic person is that neurotypicals often find it just as difficult to understand us as the other way around, but because we're in the minority we get the blame for it. As an alternative to the operating system analogy, I've often compared the neurotypical-vs-atypical boundary as being like two different alien civilizations. There's a planet's worth of variation in thinking styles and personalities within the autistic community just as there is among neurotypicals, but there are certainly elements we have in common.
YES. this is the thing. There must be lots of unidentified neurodiversity. Also there is dyslexia and ADHD and others that need to be understood in this sense of a neurotype arena rather than pathologising.
To be fair, that perfectly sums up practically any human divide: like the gender divide, the age divide, the ethnicity divide... Whoever occupies the "dominant" position within any given dynamic gets to decide what behaviour or appearance is "normal," and then get to criticise, mock and denigrate anyone who doesn't conform, all while ALSO claiming that the denigratred are simply not trying hard enough, despite the fact the "dominant" group isn't trying in the slightest.
I'm not sure we are that much in the minority... It's just that neurotypicals have better PR and somehow have managed to fool society into thinking that their way is "typical" and ours is "divergent". It's like if brown-eyed people started saying that brown eyes are "normal" and any other eye colour is a weird quirk of nature...
BTW This book is available as an audiobook with Fern Brady herself narrating it. It's incredible. I absolutely love her voice, her sumptuously rolled Rs are like ASMR to me
My ‘favorite’ is when I express that I have ADHD and thus certain things like executive function, time blindness and related are THE BEST THEY WILL GET after a lot of effort…then someone explains that all I need to do is XYZ. Like thanks, Tips. I hadn’t thought to try just making my brain work the way it doesn’t. But NTs can’t do many things I can because of my Neurodivergence and I don’t constantly tell them they don’t function properly.
I have adhd and am going to school to understand it better and hopefully develop a prosthetic for neurodiverse people down the road. I find that the best way to shut those people down is actually dive into the subject of biological functions relating to the acquisition and implementation of dopamine and serotonin briefly and if they aren't genuinely interested they get disinterested in it fast or insecure enough that they never bring it up again. Neurotypicals use feigned mastery as a means of self preservation and self esteem so if you just show them your genuine interest and mastery of a subject it reminds them not to weigh in when they don't know what the hell they are talking about. The problem with being able to live in the illusion of the social construct is that house of cards is easy to upend simply by treating them like they aren't idiots. If they aren't, or they are emotionally mature enough to take it in stride you find yourself someone worth talking to. If not then they breeze on to the person who likes to play doctor with them.
Ah yes, the whole "oh you are time blind? How about you get more clocks, or use timers?". I have two modes when it comes to watches/clocks - either I know what time it is because I am constantly staring at the display & not doing anything else, or I'm doing something else & I don't realise any time has passed so don't even think to look at the time. Its so bizarre to me when other people instinctively seem to know what time it is or how much time has passed. To me there are only 2 times most of the time - Now and Not Now. "The other day" can mean anything from yesterday to childhood. I navigate my day based on whether its hungry time or tired time. But I am also autistic and struggle with interpreting my body's cues that its hungry/thirsty or tired. But all the advice out there is just "be more aware of time". Gee thanks! I hadn't tried that yet, not once in my 35yrs. 🤦♀️
I read Fern's book yesterday and as a 43 year old woman currently going through the process of getting an official diagnosis I couldn't be more grateful to her for adding her story to world for us all to better understand. Love Fern she's hilarious! 💜
Interested in your efforts to get an 'official diagnosis'- Why? Is it important to you? My own 'divergence' makes me uninterested in the views of others about me...
@@peskycritter79 I've noticed that British comedy shows have this ecosystem where comics are always on each others' shows, and TM is really good at pulling in comics from a variety of publicity levels.
It does depend where you live...a steam railway runs past my road, so I'm used to people who get very irritated if you confuse a small England with a Garratt
I can't tell you how much joy this clip brings me. I've never seen someone on such a large platform discuss the things she just did (by the way, one of those things is called the "supercrip" narrative if anyone wants to learn more about it). And I've never heard of Neurodiversity Celebration week! I'm so excited to tell my friends and family about it.
Yes! Very much this. Im not autistic but I am ADHD and the second I say that people start overanalyzing the shit out of me and thinking of me as a hyperactive little boy -- when thats not even the type of ADHD I have. I have zero energy lmfaoo but they start like staring at me and trying to see where I'm not "normal" and criticize the shit out of me when they weren't before. Suddenly when I get excited about something that I should be happy about - it becomes a big production of like CHILL OUT its not that cool or idk so many horrible stereotypes and its infuriating bc we share so many traits with autistics and people suddenly treat us like freaks and its like. You wouldn't have even known if I hadn't said bc we are alll experts at masking, to the detriment of our health and its just. irritating lmao
I'm not diagnosed but currently trying to get a diagnosis and this literally describes what I fear about how people may perceive me. Especially the idea that either "you can't have ADHD" because I'm not bouncing off the walls or thinking that I will somehow be incompetent because I may have it.
@@Leprecaun123 I so understand. Just remember you don’t have to disclose to ANYONE who makes you feel uncomfortable and if you want to tell people you can explain that there are different types of adhd and that while you’re not outwardly hyperactive, because it sounds like you have “inattentive” type like me, that your mind is still going a mile a minute. And also inattentive type doesn’t mean you can’t pay attention but you can look up more on that!! And if they judge you for it they’re not worth having in your life. It’s a very real neurological disorder but I doesn’t mean we are ANY less than. I cut out so many people who were close to me because they continued to harm and invalidate me and it’s not worth it having bad people around!! Life gets so much better!!!
I hope you can find some better community 💙 I have found that most people are more understanding about my time blindness etc when I share that I have ADHD, I'm sorry to hear folks encountering unhelpful reactions
Why go around telling people stuff then? Perhaps because the first delusion of a group calling other people "neurotypical' is that makes the group special. It doesn't.
I'm not nuerodivergent (I think...does OCD count?) but I still find neurotypical thinking absolutely baffling sometimes. Like when my friends used to talk about how to let someone know they had a crush on them, or that they were mad at a friend but didn't know how to deal with it. My input would always be something like "you should just tell them that you like them and would like to go on a date" or "let them know you were hurt by what they said and so you're angry at them." And I'd get looked at like I had three heads but only four eyes.
Yes, being OCD qualifies as being neurodivergent. Depression, anxiety, synesthesia, personality disorder, just about anything outside of "normal" or what's expected is neurodivergent. Welcome to the team! 😊
@@deadinthebed963 I think you might be mistaken about what neurological means... and definitely mistaken about what neurodivergent means. Neurodivergent absolutely includes anxiety conditions. Neurodivergence can be both innate and/or acquired. Having a TBI is an acquired neurodivergence. Being autistic is an innate neurodivergence. Some people have a variety of combinations of both innate and acquired neurodivergence and each qualifies them as neurodivergent.
It's true, neurotypicalism needs to be pathologised as much as autism has been. Why is manipulativeness, evasiveness, an inability to say what you mean, being judgemental, defensiveness, an overwhelming desire to socialise at the cost of productivity and self-awareness, and an inability to hyperfocus...considered superior?
God she is accurate. I stopped telling people about my autism because I was bombarded with other people's ideas of how it affected me and what they think it really is. Thank goodness we have a representative!
"Being neurodivergent is like having a different operating system." Me talking to Iphone users: "Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of! You have a super power!"
The android-iphone -analogy really made me laugh. This is actually how I've been trying to describe my struggles with getting through a "normal" day with appointments and a job and everything lately. It's like I'm a smartphone and as soon as I leave the house I have to turn up the brightness because the world outside is too bright and run extra noise-canceling because the world is too loud otherwise. I gotta run a bunch of different translation-apps in the background to be able to communicate with all kinds of different people and turn myself up to 120 hz so it looks like I'm running smoothly from the outside. All this is draining my battery way too quickly but when I need a quick recharge everyone around me only have iphone charging cables. But I'm an android phone so it doesn't work. When I'm at home I can turn off all the extra stuff and therefor save a lot of battery life and if I still need a little recharge I can just do that any time without it being too much of a bother.
In terms of OS, we're definitely Linux. Sure, sometimes it takes us ages to do what other might consider basic tasks, but once we got set up, we can work far more efficiently. Of course, we optimize our OS for different priorities which is a freedom you don't get in another OS. We don't unthinkingly follow the norm if it's a stupid thing to do and we are much more resilient against viruses and propaganda because we don't just allow any program admin access.
I think it's worth mentioning that the most recent Superman movie, "Man of Steel", played it as if Clark was autistic. We're shown things from his perspective as a child with (super-)sensory issues and the isolation that comes from him being "different" from everyone. It's done very well.
But they changed the story so much from the comics, that he's like a totally different character. In the comics, he was Superboy first in his hometown of Smallville. The world knew about him even back then. Even the first movie years ago with Christopher Reeve strayed from the comics. It showed Krypton as having crystal buildings, when the comics showed multi-colored buildings. Those changes are jarring to me, so I don't watch any of the movies with DC Comics characters.
@@bite-sizedshorts9635 The comics themselves change the story all the time. The concept of "Superboy" itself was originally a retcon about Clark's origins. That's the thing about comics: they stay around long enough, you can find *any* version of them to call your own.
I honestly can't believe you found a redeeming feature of that film, but thanks! That sensory issues scene was very relatable and emotionally impactful.for me and now I know why!
You can’t even get them to stop with the “superpower” bullshit by telling them you don’t like it. It’s like “let me patronise you but you must take it as a compliment!!!!” Like no! I’m just a variation on normal. I’ve also noticed that people feel the need to comfort me when I display even a modicum of self-awareness. So weird.
I've got to ask - if something is a "variation on normal", wouldn't that be not normal? Like, if a restaurant normally serves mint chocolate chip ice cream for their dessert, and one week they suddenly switch to strawberry, wouldn't it be fair to say that that wasn't the normal? I suppose you could call it a "variation on normal" since it's not like they're suddenly serving, idk, roasted duck for dessert, but it still just feels like a very roundabout, polite way of saying "different".
@Naes Galaxy “cattle caste”? Dude, I’m going to hope you’re young. Humanity’s greatest achievements have been because of our skill at cooperation - only one in ten thousand who go around bragging that they’re so much better than everyone else are worth anything at all. Usually they just haven’t figured cooperation out and have to believe it’s because they’re superior. My grandfather always said watch out for people who brag that they’re brutally honest - they’re usually more interested in the brutal part than they are the honest part.
The word “neurotypical” came from the autism community as a parody of doctors pathologising autism and using overly clinical terms. So we mockingly pathologised the _lack_ of autism as “neurotypical syndrome”, with symptoms like “excessive eye contact”. Doctors didn’t realise these origins and ended up adopting the term themselves 😂
_"Doctors didn’t realise these origins and ended up adopting the term themselves"_ Which, when you think about it, is a very neurotypical thing to do. I love it.
As a late diagnosis (50) I LOVE my autism (though I definitely HATE my PDA). I just want to pass that joy on to other auties and improve diagnosis wait times in the UK (3 months my arse, I've had to wait 6 years!!!). That, and to teach my siblings to accept the fact that they are ALL on the Spectrum.
Congrats on finally getting some answers and cultivating self acceptance. I'm late diagnosed too, autistic and ADHD with 2 ND kids. Thanks for sharing your journey with us
I feel the term neurotypical is a misnomer anyways, because I am pretty sure it isn't as typical as we think. Her analogy on the operating systems is spot on, and I am not convinced that Neurotypical is the Windows of neurosystems. Sure, its not Linux, but... you know... There are probably a LOT of people still walking around undiagnosed.
I would think Apple would be the neurotypical personally since it's kinda inflexible and only works for stuff tailor made for it. Apple's notorious for not working well with other operating systems, by design.
@@d-bro-sector36 Nah, I think people who haven't dealt with as much hardship can be less flexible emotionally. The average person doesn't even think much further than their front door usually. Normal people are Apple cause they kinda make a one size fits all approach to their design. Windows compensates better, and is easier to achieve a set up that works for your specific needs.
I have ADHD and autism and figuring out what my brain can do and how it works (when it feels like working) has given me some great strengths in life. I do see that aspect as a superpower. However, getting incredibly overstimulated and then having a meltdown because my sweatshirt is the wrong texture ain’t it for me fam. You can take that shit back. Bystander: Superman, help! An asteroid! Superman: WHAT IS THIS SUIT MADE OF? BURLAP?! FUCK THIS, LET IT BURN!
Meltdowns? Just DONT do that, that simple. Meltdowns are socially unacceptable and make you look weird and isolate you further, if you need to have a panic attack do it internally and separate yourself from others.
I'm not autistic but definitely neurodivergent in some form, probably ADHD, and I interact so much in nd circles that the way I communicate is basically 100% influenced by them anyway. AND I'm queer. And with all that in mind, right now I'm in a weird will-we-won't-we situation with a neurotypical straight man who refuses to commit to saying what he wants, and it's fucking infuriating. Just yesterday he said "i dont think anything between us would be a good idea", which a REASONABLE person might take to mean he's calling it off, and then we discussed boundaries. Later that night I expressed the need to stick to those boundaries because we had called it off, and he said, verbatim, _"Did_ we call it off?" I asked point blank if, when he said continuing things was a bad idea, he meant he wanted to end it and was declaring the end, or whether he just wanted me to challenge him on it. He said, "I don't know, to be honest." I want to strangle him.
Please do. He deserves it. Tbh, no matter what he says, you should leave! That's not neurotypical shit, just asshole shit. For real, that is not good behavior no matter what your operating system is. Be thankful for how boldly he's waving his red flag and go!
That just means he's unsure of his own feelings on the subject... which is fine! It's okay to be unsure of your feelings about a relationship! But it means it SHOULD be called off until you're sure of your feelings, one way or the other.
@@jamesohearn2364 you're so right. Interestingly, that conversation in fact happened this morning, but only after a strange long weekend of being FWBs, which is a long story that can be summed up in 'i told him i couldnt keep giving him this much intimacy if he wasnt prepared to respond yet and maybe that's what spurred him to start communicating what he wanted'. When in fact, again, i meant exactly that - he could keep thinking about what he wanted or wait until he had the mental energy to do so, but until then I wanted to put it on hold. That got clarified this morning. Now I guess it's on hold? Except if he comes back at me tonight saying he's totally definitely figured out what he wants and can give this time, I'm calling him out on it because I'm not going to be strung along by an older man who can't communicate lmao.
@@genuineinterestFrom the absolute surface reading. That sounds like he could have commitment issues to me. Hopefully he's not trying to act aloof, because it sounds like he's messing up this potential relationship pretty bad. Also want to clarify that just because somebody thinks or claims to be neurotypical doesn't mean it's true, or at least doesn't mean they don't have some patterns or behaviours that are more associated with neurodicergent people.Definitely rude to challenge them on that, but I feel it's always worth consideration. As much as I disagree with the intensity of the first commenters thoughts on someone they haven't met, I will say I agree with them that I wouldn't date somebody who doesn't know if they want me. But to be clear, he isn't saying that, it looks more as though he's saying that he thinks you two would be bad together for some reason, but he wants to be with you. Which is why I said commitment issues.. How do you know unless you try, but then there's a fear of losing a friend.. I'll stop yapping though, good luck in figuring things out.
@@it-s-a-mystery thank you for the insights, I appreciate the thought you put into your response! I know I was fully just dishing about my life situation, it was a lot, so seeing others comment on it objectively was actually surprisingly helpful. I'll keep the final update simple, although the situation was much more complicated: you and the others were all totally correct. He had major (MAJOR) commitment issues, was stringing me along as best he could, tried to angle for all the aspects of a relationship without the label, except the aspects that demanded emotional labour from him; used me for my body, called it off the moment he was reminded that I was a person with needs, aaaaaand there's a non-zero chance that he played in a grey space with both me and his ex girlfriend to avoid having OFFICIALLY two-timed us. Never found out bc I moved and we fell out of contact but. Yeah he was a huge asshole all along and I was young and naive enough to fall for it. Never again!!✌
I was diagnosed as dyspraxic back in primary school, and I've never really been sure how different this makes me from other people. I don't think I seem out and out neurodivergent, nor do I always feel like I am, if indeed I am at all. However, as I get older, I do feel more and more out of sync with people. I'm thirty now, and some days it does feel like people are on a completely different wavelength to me. And that whole Sylvia Plath thing, GOD I wish that were me. I so want to rant at people about my passions, it would do wonders for my psyche, but I have too much social awkwardness to not be overtly paranoid of how uncomfortable I'm making people.
I just fell in love with Fern Brady. She is describing it perfectly. I know it maybe sounds like a small thing for neurotypicals, but for a neurodivergent it means a lot that she says “an autistic person”, rather than “a person with autism”.
Note: For those of you who don't understand why saying "an autistic person" instead of "a person with autism" is important, it's because "a person with autism" can be seen as treating us like we have a disease. (At least it's not as bad as "suffers from autism")
My husband took it one further, and he would YELL at me, like what ever he was particularly mad about that day was my fault. When I would ask him to stop, he would get even madder at me, because, in his mind, somehow, it was MY JOB to listen to him yell about this thing he had heard on the news or read about that day.
@@heyysimone Probably not your birth-mother, but I can be a bonus mum, if you need one. (also, I'm sorry, but I divorced your father over 10 years ago.)
Well Superman maybe, but Jean Grey totally. Barbara Gordon probably did her thesis on father archetypes in Plath's 1960 collection, The Colossus and Other Poems .
It’s not a f**king superpower (and thanks to Fern for her point about it). I am a recently diagnosed person with Asperger’s (or whatever you prefer to call it). It makes life very difficult. However, while Fern Brady might have had the experiences she’s talked about, it’s also true that many neurotypical people are curious and want to understand, and don’t make assumptions. It’s a concern that we NDs have a tendency to stereotype the people who we wish wouldn’t stereotype us.
Asperger's is an outdated term. Its all just Autism Spectrum Disorder (or ASD for short) now. Mainly because Asperger was a nazi who split autistic people into two categories - the "useful" (to him & the nazis) and "useless" (those with intellectual impairments) and had the former experimented on, and the later sent to the homes for disabled people where they gassed them and burnt them. So like.... its not exactly the nicest thing to have a condition named after!
Neurotypicals are great, when you meet one you've met all of them. Theres no figuring out anything, just say predictable things, speak your most basic and rudimentary views on anything, talk about the inane errands you did that day, agree with everything they say, the more platitudes and tropes you attribute to the conversation the better. Job done. Watch them get all excited about absolutely fucking nothing.
As a fellow sufferer from Autism, she's right about the way people, can label you and think of you as strange, but we are all unique and we all have good things to bring to the world. She looks absolutely stunning too, by the way
Great book! I recommended it to all my reader buddies. I have high functioning autistic friends, and it's a hard life for them, especially when people don't understand their struggles
I've always thought of neuro-typical and neuro-divergent as being like computers. NT's are like the more main stream PC's while NDs are the Macs. Both are computers, but they're wired differently, and have different operating systems/software. One isn't an illness, or a disorder, just different.
Whenever I talk about my autism in public, I always get the weirdest looks from people. Like I just said I've got 6 months to live but I'm not upset at all. I'm not like, ashamed of my diagnosis. It's just something I have to live with. But you tell an NT thar you're neurodivergent and they either coddle you like a baby or call you a hero. When in reality, it's just like they're all speaking Greek and I don't have a translator.
It's so true about the different operating systems. To make things more complicated, the autism spectrum is so diverse it's like we have several operating systems, depending on the persons different parameters.
All diversity should be viewed with neutrality. Doing other wise creates all the isms. When it comes to disability, what people do when they think it's a tragedy or an inspiration, it's often ableist. It's just neutral. Like a wheelchair is just a chair that has wheels. It's not good or bad in any way. As we dismantle the societal barriers that make one state of being preferable to another, we see that its all just neutral. The way things are set up can make things easier or harder for a person, but those things change. If there was an equitable society, no state of being would be more desirable to another. As it is, I've felt a lot better in myself when viewing my disability neutrally. It dosent do any good looking it as the savior or the enemy. It's just there and it's not a big deal.
She's so right! I always describe it Autistic brains are like a circuit board that's been wired differently and things just don't compute for us. I can't stand being either treated like an idiot or patronised and told I have a super power. Those people can feck off. I'm loving the representation Fern is giving us all!
My problem with neurotypicals is that they always laugh at us when we are ourselves, I can't tell the difference between me being funny and me not being funny, they always laugh.
This makes me feel conflicted. One of my friends autistic, well not one but this one in particular. Anyway, they often say things that I find funny, either just the way its phrases, or often (they have trouble with sarcasm and irony) they respond to something I or someone else says and I think they are making a joke, and they aren't but it makes me laugh. Then they get confused. I mean, I don't think this bothers them, as they are super chill, and also they know me and my intentions. Also the things I find humour in can be a little weird, I delight in subtle wordplay. It just sort of makes me feel awkward that there's 1) A chance this does make them feel uncomfortable, and 2) that there are autistic people that this could happen with and they feel the way it makes you feel. Does that make sense?
@@it-s-a-mystery it really depends on how "adapted" they are to social analysis. it might not be apparent to them that you think/feel about it this way; but maybe they are... i can promise you that there is no harm in clearly communicating this to them; they'll most likely appreciate it
@@TollsterMensch I try my best :) I can tell they find me confusing often enough, but I know they know that I'm not malicious. They are like the gentlest most sweetest person though, very non-confrontational, so I just worry sometimes because I don't think they would tell me if I made them feel like OP said. But yeah, like I said.. I try to explain myself
@@it-s-a-mystery i go through people laughing when I 'm not trying to be funny, but I just assume they're idiots who laugh at anything I say because I'm funny.
I totally agree with her,I'm not autistic but some of the traits that she mentions such as not being able to handle flurescent lighting or loud noises or a plethora of other stimuli that apparently we as "normals"are supposed to put up with and not be disturbed by just all seem like some of the most toxic unnatural stimuli as human mind should have to tolerate. Together with the most indirect and passive aggressive ways we in particular have in the UK of communicating which are considered "normal"and where most do not say what they mean or mean what they say for fear or offending or lainating or going against some unspoken cultural norms". The norm is too often crazy and bad for our health anyway and results I think in excessibe bings drinking and lots of other toxic traits the nation is all too guilty of.Lets talk about our disordered culture rather than calling people "disordered".
I'd like to point out how she said "neurotypicals are weird too" and they all guffawed like that's such an outrageous proposition that it's surely meant as a joke
I took the laughter to be more of a reaction to the directness of the comment - in my experience neurotypicals aren't very used to being called out during casual conversations and the laughter seems to be a gentle way of soothing that feeling. I don't think they disagreed with her, just that they weren't used to openly talking about their own quirks and oddities.
I think of my differences as a super power but only for a short amount of time until it goes sideways on me. Undiagnosed adhd, anxiety, diagnosed Dyslexic, Dyspraxic and Dyscalulic. End result is I can speed through a task and then forget to eat and completely crash for a few days but I got 8 hours of work done in 4 hours at the start. So, I kind of balance it out for myself. Should be more middle ground. Definitely. I either show not enough interest or too much and what I like to do is ignored completely all at the same time. School for me was hell. Give me a quiet corner and silence any day. The effort otherwise is exhausting!
my most neurodiveristy affirming teacher also happened to be the person that was like 'its a superpower!' and told me we were gonna find out what mine was by the end of the year, and i was always super confused as to what mine would be because i like genuienly didnt think i had any, so when i had a meltdown or sensory issues or something neurotypicals would find weird i would always go 'haha, its my suPERPOWER''
"WHY WONT YOU LOOK ME IN THE EYE!" "Because, NT Karen, my ears are the organs I listen with, not my eyes. You really need to update your knowledge of human anatomy and tell the others from your planet."
As an "aspie," I know what she means. But I'm 70 and have memorized thousands of rules. So most people don't know I have Asperger's until I tell them. When I was in 3rd grade I realized that everyone else must have a secret rule book that I don't have. I have never found out how to have friends. I don't ever have visitors, and I'm never invited to anyone else's house. I have two "perseverances" as they are sometimes called, popular music and genealogy. I have almost every record that has appeared in most of the different Billboard charts since they started, and I have most of the ones that would have charted if there had been charts all the way back to 1890. I am one of the fastest genealogists around. Someone can give me their full name, and the next day I can give them their ancestors back a few generations on all lines. I have written a number of genealogy books. I hope to write one on music someday when I finish my current genealogy projects. I can talk for hours on almost any topic and can't tell whether someone is interested or not. I never lie. That means I have to really beat around the bush to avoid telling someone something I know they don't want to hear. I can learn anything from reading books or by watching videos and taking notes. I built my current desktop computer by getting all the parts at a computer store that the clerk recommended and followed online video instructions on which parts to assemble first and how. When complete, it worked perfectly the first time I turned it on. I have a very large vocabulary, but don't use most of it as most of the people I'm around wouldn't understand much. I have a really high IQ, which makes most people appear stupid to me. I try not to point that out much, but I can't help it sometimes. Most people with Asperger's have a hard time understanding humor, but I can tell where the humor is in most jokes. I just don't laugh out loud for most of them. I can see they're amusing, but not amusing enough to cause a strong reaction. I have my home office/man cave that I sit in most of the time with my computer, stereo, and all my books and recordings. Noise bothers me, but I have gotten used to being in noisy crowds of people, because my parents would take me to reunions and family gatherings from the time I was a baby. Some noises still bother me. I can't handle some textures in food, such as fat in meat. Wired Magazine had an Asperger's test in one issue a few years ago. I took the test. They said if the score was over 20, then it was pretty certain I have Asperger's. I scored 42 points. So it's certain that I have it. The main thing I have to say is that anyone with Asperger's can learn a lot of rules and eventually get by in life. There are jobs that require super attention to detail and lots of repetition, which don't bother me at all. Eventually, you get to the point where I am in that people don't notice your Asperger's until you mention it to them.
There is a species of bird in South America that eats berries. Some of the berries are red, some are green, and some are yellow. Some of the birds in the species are really good at seeing green berries, others are really good at seeing yellow, still others are seeing red., and the birds are all seemingly of the same species. The berries are a big important part of their diet, but because their brains are wired to preference different colors of berries, the birds as a group are better able to survive in large clusters. Neuro-diversity works much the same way. Neuro-diverse people are able to pick out different evolutionary advantages from neurotypical people, and vice versa. The problem isn't that neuro-diverse are disabled for surviving in the world, it is that neurotypical people tend to write the rules, and they have, rather it was their intent or not, made the rules so that they get all the advantages, and neurodiverse get none. For example, Fern Brady, on Taskmasters, typically struggled to play most of the games, but every once in a while there was a game that favored her method of thinking, and she blew the other contestants away, like when she painted a self portrait of herself with a sausage. She was also the most entertaining of the contestants by far, which in a way made her the real champion.
It's nice when I see autistic people I feel similar to. When I see people who fit closer to the stereotype, I feel like an imposter even though I have a diagnosis. Of course it's a spectrum and some people really do have what I guess you might call a more "obvious" presentation, but we do need more variety in representation! That way when I tell people I'm autistic they'll be less likely to try to disregard me and tell me all the reasons why they, someone with no education on autism outside movies and tv shows (which are probably out of date or were never accurate anyway), think I couldn't really be autistic. Despite me leading with "I'm *diagnosed* as autistic."
Yeah I'm really good at making bosses, professors, coworkers, etc. THINK I have it all together and maybe I'm a bit awkward and sometimes seems to avoid eye contact but oh well No you have not seen me at my most challenging points. Not even CLOSE
@@zufalllx No, you can't. If you don't tell people then nobody will understand why your having a hard time with anything. I once had a roommate who seemed to take care of all the cleaning around the house. For weeks I assumed he was just someone who was happy to do that because he never left any for me to do and he never said anything. He would drop hints that I never noticed until he brought them up later, and occasionally he asked me to clean every now and then, but here's what would happen. I'd say I'd get round to it, then a few days later he'd clean everything himself. So I never bothered. Eventually he exploded at me, complaining about how I never cleaned, and I had to explain that he always cleaned up before I had my cleaning day. I had to explain how I had a set day in my routine for all my housework and that it would be hard for me to change that habit because I'm autistic. I also had an employer who yelled at me a lot because she couldn't understand why I was falling behind when she was lumping a huge list of tasks on me that I was expected to do all at the same time. I cannot multi task and I cannot take the initiative very easily. That's part of my autism. It had said on my CV I was autistic so I didn't tell her, but eventually when I sat her down for a word it became clear she didn't know. You should always tell new people you're autistic, its something that needs to be communicated so others can understand how you work.
Counterpoint: being able to monologue at length on a subject without considering the interest level of the listeners makes you a Uni professor, not autistic.
pretty on spot. neither a gift nor a tragedy. pros, despite being repeatedly humiliated by one of my middle school teachers, i have actually never noticed and never suffered from it. cons, i've had many fights and arguments with my closest friends because of misunderstandings.
@@lexib671 I’m a performance poet & I wrote a poem for a gig last year about all the cliched ableist things I’d heard neurotypical people say. “Aren’t we all a bit autistic?” was on there 😂
The most common comment I get is "you talk funny". I notice that Divergents tend to be more honest & less violent than Neurotyps. Learning to read body language is a big help if you can manage it.
Thankfully my parents have been cool about me being autistic. Actually my mum appreciates me pointing out signs of ASD in her bc she knows it's hereditary and she finds it very interesting. She's not defensive at all and in fact found it really funny that I got diagnosed bc she said, "I thought that because we [my family] were all the same, we were all 'normal.' But maybe we're all just autistic!" I gave her the analogy that it's not a software bug, it's a hardware difference (or OS difference in this case). ASD is correlated with synaptic underpruning, so it very well could be, genuinely, a hardware difference. It has advantages and disadvantages. But if the world is made almost exclusively for (using her analogy) iOS, then Android users will suffer for it. Disability is contextual. Let me find the stuff I'm good at. Everyone just needs a bit more flexibility within society. All this focus on speed and racing to get the most profits (instead of thinking about consequences of actions or treating people humanely) really hurts everyone and has unseen consequences
I have bipolar and ADHD and of the ~5-6 different subjects I've "studied" for like 2 semesters in school, Computer Science was one of them. I support the operating system analogy completely.
I have adhd and i will never understand neurotypicals inability to hold a conversation without prompting. If im actively talking to you then clearly im interested in what you have to say, why do you need me to ask you a question in order to know that you can speak? If you have something to add then say it. For some reason neurotypicals only get to that point of being able to hold a conversation once theyre friends with you. It makes it so that when im talking to a new neurotypical person i either talk the whole time n worry im annoying them or its incredibly stilted and awkward.
"Double empathy gap" is the term to google for. Autistic people understand each other fine, but don't understand neurotypicals to about the same extent neurotypicals don't understand autistic people. I think "lack of empathy" is an imprecise characterisation in the first place, because empathy can mean both caring about other people and understanding them. The autistic people I know are often painfully empathetic towards other people's suffering. On average more so than my neurotypical friends. They just have trouble discerning neurotypical people's thoughts and feelings from their language and other cues. Not to say that there aren't autistic people who are less caring, but that clearly isn't true for all autistic people.
I was diagnosed with ADHD a little over a year ago (I'm 45) and I've spent my whole life being criticized for being too detail-oriented in my speech and how I explain things to people. I'd always found that really offensive because I frequently found the majority of people (see: neurotypicals) to be extraordinarily assumptive in their speech and explanations of things, which leaves people like me looking awfully confused as to what they're talking about. I _need_ details. I don't _dare_ make assumptions about instructions I'm given, because more than once I've been yelled at (or worse, fired) for missing some crucial step and couldn't complete the task I'd been assigned. So, no. Please explain all of the steps to me (especially if it's a new-to-me task or idea) because it'll be easier in the long run for both of us, I promise you. Granted, since my diagnosis and beginning medicative treatment, my compulsion to give someone every little, teeny-weeny, inconsequential detail has gone way down, however I still will explain every step in a process to you if you tell me you've never done it before, because I want you to succeed in completing the process. It's a fine line.
I mean I’m all in favor of neuro-positivity, hell I’ve moved so far away from the infirmity model I’ve been accused of being an “aspie supremacist”, but the inability to read paralinguistic social cues is not a super power. And that’s not a co-occurrence or a societal thing, that’s just inherent to the way our brains process detail.
That Superman film would be a pretty good watch. But yeah, so many neurotypicals treat neurodivergence in such odd ways. I have so many people try to tell me that I see the world differently and it makes no sense to me because I just see the world as it is, how can that be different to how others see the world?
I have no issue with people using condition instead of disorder for Autistic people... but shouldn't we then use it for all the other neurodiverse conditions? Why are people with OCD and ADHD disorders whilst we get to be special and called a 'condition'? I worry as an autistic person that changing it to autism spectrum condition means that this softening of language will mean that people will not take my needs as seriously when I'm asking for help. I personally feel that changing the language doesn't do much in terms of attitude if a societal change in terms of education and accessibility doesn't happen. If others feel differently, I am happy to hear other opinions.
The big problem with disability, is that the person themself isn't necessary the cause of disability. We are disabled by our environment. The lights are too bright, people in our environment don't interpret us properly, people give us looks for stimming, etc. If our environment was different, we'd be able to be happy and progress our lives with far less pain. It's the idea that we are fish being expected to climb a tree. If we are allowed to swim freely in the water without the expectation of climbing trees, we could swim the same distance as the height of that tree. We're doing things in our own way, but we need our environment to differ. If we worked in places that don't exacerbate our sensory needs, we're allowed to stim, and the social environment was accepting of our different social behavior, there'd be far less conflict. The same could be said about many other disorders, like ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, and a lot of physical disabilities. TLDR; We are disabled by our environment, not the cause of disability ourselves. But yeah... in the world we're in that isn't rapidly accepting and welcoming us, we therefore experience disorders in our mental health and are viewed as having weird behaviors that bother others.
@@twylenb I agree. But this hasn't changed all that much imo. It's changing but it's not at the point where I would say that ND and physically disabled people are thought of when people plan things. Some are really good when it comes to planning and being inclusive. However we are not at a stage in society where inclusivity is the default, it is still optional. So, until we get to a stage where inclusivity is the default and not optional, it doesn't make sense for me to single autism out as a 'condition' whilst the other NDs are still labelled as disorders.
She's right though. Neurotypicals are weird. They say dumb stuff like "It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack!" Like, have y'all never heard of magnets or metal detectors?
I think a slightly better (but nerdier) comparison would be computer OS, linux vs windows. Linux has lots of advantages over windows, but also quite a few disadvantages. Overall they balance out. Such as, most games that I run on linux are smoother and have better FPS. But, I can't play the Sims, and there are many games I can't run or don't run so well as I have to use Proton or Wine or an emulator. Arguably this is due to the world not being built for linux, just windows as the norm. You get the gist. I am an autistic nerd who knew...
I’m a 23 year old woman diagnosed with ADHD last year, and honestly the operating system analogy is perfect. We’re not broken, just operating differently
Even the way they describe it, though, does make me feel a little broken. The UK does a better job of it, but the term that gets tossed around in the states a lot is "Neuronormative." Normative or Normal, the opposite of which is obviously abnormal, which in English carries a much more negative connotation than the opposite of "typical," being "atypical." An atypically beautiful flower is interesting and engaging. It's not better or worse, there isn't a qualitative implication. By contrast, an abnormally beautiful flower is alarming and off-putting - what is normative is safe, and so that which is abnormal by extension *isn't*.
Nobody in existence operates normally. It's just a way for people to attention seek and pretend they are special.
@@SeanBoyce-gp that's sad to hear - I would have hoped to hear 'neuronormative' (if at all) to describe behaviours which assume neurotypicality and aren't inclusive, analogous to 'heteronormative'.
As well as insensitive this seems like a waste of a useful word!
@@SeanBoyce-gp I've never heard the term neuronormative in the US personally
Honestly, my ADHD really does make me feeling like I'm quite broken. But it's *also* a different system. That's one of the things that took me by surprise when I finally tried stimulant meds for the first time (i wasn't diagnosed until I was 37)
I had an idea that meds were supposed to make my brain work more like other people's. Instead I got less distraction and more periods of hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is still an ADHD trait, is still quite different from non-ADHD brains, but it's a much more useful one
I now think of the ADHD as being more like an extra feature, or an upgrade that came with so many bugs that it just made life worse. I was expecting meds to work by resetting me back to a more "normal" brain. But instead it's more like they "fixed" the ADHD, and now the feature is starting to work properly
I loved Fern on Taskmaster, and discovered before the finale that she is autistic (which helped explain her wonderful fashion choices).
I'm autistic, and my favourite bit of neurotypical nonsense is when people compliment me on my eloquence. That comes from a lifetime of scripting what I'm going to say before I start speaking, and making sure I appear as intelligent as possible in an attempt to be taken seriously. Doesn't discount the fact I also experience situational mutism and often can't make a coherent sound, or any sound at all.
I love my hyperactive, creative brain, but I could do without the sensory hypersensitivity
I get the same compliment. It would seem in the last few years that language is being ditched in favor of little yellow circle glyphs. How expressive. I could argue in front of the Supreme Court but can't tie my shoes or hold a job. I can write a symphony or a poem and have a room of people crying but I can't put the power bill in the mailbox. God or genetics gave me vision so many woukd kill for but not the ability to utilize it. It's hard.. be well.
This is why I write well. It gives me a chance to edit, and consider my words, whereas in meatspace, I have all the eloquence of a freshly foaled giraffe.
Same! and then i forget how to say "dishwasher" and suddenly i'm an infant to them 9_9 smh
but I find that a large problem of my selective mutism is when i can't remember a word or any synonyms for it without "sounding weird". so i sometimes just don't bother talking in case i mess up. but like.... reflexively? largely outside my control and an automatic body function.
So i started teaching myself other languages so i had alternate words.
So if i forget the word 'water' and 'drink' i can use ASL to sign 'water' while using the japanese word 'mizu' or the spanish 'agua' to communicate my thirst instead. Usually at least one person in the room will be good at charades if nobody knows the word/sign i'm using.
So yeah. i suggest everyone learn more ways of saying words you often struggle to remember, it might help some?
I would like executive functioning skills and the ability to spend time around other people without needing to hide in a blanket cocoon for hours after. I’d also like if I could walk around wearing a blanket without that being a problem. Sometimes I do it anyway.
@@Amaranthyne who's hassling you about the blanket?
on my grandfathers death he told me " If they don't like what you've got say( or do) FUCK EM" the first time I had heard him swear , not counting when we were on a golf course.
My favourite take on autism from The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.
"The books and research papers described the symptoms of Asperger's syndrome, and I formed a provisional conclusion that most of these were simply variations in human brain function that had been inappropriately medicalised because they did not fit social norms - constructed social norms - that reflected the most common human configurations rather than the full range."
Did he also point out that the assumptions of "normal behaviour" in academia have been first laid down by European upper middle class and upper class men who had naturalised their own expectations of behaviour? That means the behaviour of women, non-Europeans and _everyone_ outside of those two social classes was aberrant and deviant despite the fact that it made up the majority of humanity's behaviour.
@Naes Galaxy You honestly think it's the under class / the obedients / the "Slaves" who lie to themselves? HA!
Put down the Marx, and read some Hegel. It's the "Masters" who constantly lie to themselves, and who define themselves solely in terms of their relation to the "Slaves". The "Slaves", meanwhile, define themselves by the products of their own work (be that traditional labour, political work, artistic work, etc.). This is also why revolutions are generally pointless. The "Masters" will destroy themselves eventually anyway; we "Slaves" merely have to wait it out.
Yes, of course that kind of pseudo-academic crap would make the bourgeois and spoiled brat 'aspies' feel better about themselves.
💛💛💛💛💛
That's a cracking quote.
I'm a big fan of the Social Model of Disability, which essentially argues the same thing: conditions become disabilities due to how society is designed, when in fact they're just different ways of living.
Best example is stairs. Stairs make people in wheelchairs disabled. Until they encounter stairs, they are a person in a wheelchair.
That's great the way she's talking about this. We've been using the 'operating system' analogy quite a bit. In some cases, I'll try to explain it by saying 'Imagine bringing your scrabble tiles with what you think is a triple word score to a Mahjong table.' Women are often late to be diagnosed because we are so good as masking behaviours. When I was in middle school, all I wanted to do was talk about King Arthur and Merlin lore, but I had been bullied enough to know that was a bad thing, so instead, I talked obsessively about boys because that is what I thought was 'normal'. Until I got a note in my locker from 'my friends' about how they were tired about hearing me talk about my 'boyfriend' and other boys. The bulling got worse so I started carrying around books on the occult I checked out from the 'big city library'. This was in a small town during the 'Satanic Panic' of the '80s. It worked. They started leaving me alone.
I'm really sorry that you were bullied. I think a lot of us dress a bit punk/goth/emo as a way to signal difference in a way society understands and accepts more readily than our autistic identity. I've also met a lot of neurodivergent folks who love Tim Burton and the occult, too!
I just realized that all these decades what I've been doing is developing an OS emulation layer to run mainstream apps.
@@notsomeoneofnormalcy-cv3yq It's what we're good at.
I’m so using that scrabble/mahjong analogy, that’s bloody perfect.
And your story about taking about boys to mask and then still being clocked as different. It’s like they know we’re different, but gatekeep the diagnosis anyway. It’s cruel.
@@RickyStaines The depressing thing is neurotypicals love shit like Edward Scissorhands and Wednesday, but once the autistic-coding becomes real in a real life autistic person, suddenly they hate it.
so confused by how neurotypicals communicate everything without actually saying what they want to say, and then call us the ones with communication issues 😂
Also how we're told we "take everything literally," like yeah that's just us assuming neurotypicals are saying what they mean and yet we're apparently the weird ones for not knowing they're not saying what they mean? 😂
@@harry_page "Yeah i'm fine" can mean they're actually fine, they're not fine and they want to talk about it or they're not fine and they don't want to talk. and somehow i'm always wrong 😭
@@wynn6240 Yeah we're always having to guess one of those possibilities at random. The struggle is real
Oh my gosh yes. It's so frustrating.
@@harry_page The actual most terrifying four-word phrase in the English language is "it's not a problem."
This can mean ANYTHING on a continuum from the actual meaning of the words to "I actively personally hate you and am making it a personal goal of mine to see you fail," and people *cultivate* an affect that makes it literally impossible to know which one it is.
Neurotypicals: why are you wearing your socks inside out?
ASC: why do you idiots put the seam on the inside?
Do you know how hard I have to look for seamless socks?
🔥🔥🔥
@@tjenadonn6158BAM clothing do amazing socks - the best I've found in almost 40 years. You can't tumble dry them though but it's worth it!
As for the blasted labels!!! - and I don't just mean on the inner surface of the clothing. Why all the advertising? I'm not a walking billboard!!!
@@tjenadonn6158 I have a pair of seamless socks that were a Christmas gift. Unfortunately they’re made from the itchiest fabric you could imagine. They have glitter thread in them to make them look cute & sparkly, but they feel like sandpaper!
Neurotypicals _are_ weird. They'll ask how you are, even though they don't want to know how you really are. They'll say "we should get together sometime" even though they have absolutely zero intention of getting together with you. They'll smile and say "that sounds great" even though they hate it. And they think we're the ones who don't know how to communicate. LMAO
Yeah but autistic people get just as hurt when you're honest with them as neurotypical ones. I get that it feels good to punch up a little sometimes, but lets not pretend that lacking the ability to read the room makes you immune to the emotions that compel people to use their ability to read the room in the first place. This kind of mentality is often the difference between people with autism and assholes hiding behind their autism, of which there are many as well.
I've 'Liked' your comments but I actually did like it. (and acknowledge i'm weird)
Any other neurodivergent folks do the thing where if someone asks how you are, you respond with 'not too bad' because it's both accurate - if it were /too/ bad, you wouldn't be talking to them, but also leaves room for the accuracy of 'it's still bad though'.
yeah it's called being polite lol
In m opinion that has a lot more to do with UK and NA indirectness and beating around the bush than neurotpical people.
Neurotypicals: "Superman! There's an asteroid heading straight for planet Earth!"
Superman: "Did you know, the poet Sylvia Plath exclusively used Sheaffer fountain pens?" Thanks Fern, I feel very seen!
Hahahha i did know that! Jailbreaked operating system checking in…
Ooooo Sheaffer you say? Been meaning to get one of those. 🤓🖋️
Neil Gaiman swears by the LAMY 2000 fountain pen.
@@tjenadonn6158 oh man those LAMY pens write like a dream
My fountain pen people are here!!
I'm autistic myself. I wasn't dx until my mid twenties. I get fed up of ppl saying it's a superpower or its a complete tragedy... I wouldn't change myself. But autism isn't no gift. But there can be some positives in having autism. Like the lady said, it's about having neutrality when looking at autism - the good and bad side of autism.
I think the gift is seeing allistic social hierarchy bullshit for what it is and generally having no taste for it.
We can consciously try very persistently to mask, but we'll never be into it the way they're unconsciously obsessed with it.
The gift is having a choice about whether or not to perpetuate these harmful social hierarchies or challenge them.
Allistics don't generally see it as a gift though... because they don't want the responsibility of having a choice, they view it as a deficient.
Don't you think human diversity is a gift though?
@@wkt2506I concur. You know how much art, music, science, technology has been created by autistic people? Would we have all that without us? Maybe. Maybe not.
I find it helps you better align yoursemf with your professional purpose and put those divergent skills to great use in ways other people appreciate but are 'meh' at.
What I've found as an autistic person is that neurotypicals often find it just as difficult to understand us as the other way around, but because we're in the minority we get the blame for it.
As an alternative to the operating system analogy, I've often compared the neurotypical-vs-atypical boundary as being like two different alien civilizations. There's a planet's worth of variation in thinking styles and personalities within the autistic community just as there is among neurotypicals, but there are certainly elements we have in common.
YES. this is the thing. There must be lots of unidentified neurodiversity. Also there is dyslexia and ADHD and others that need to be understood in this sense of a neurotype arena rather than pathologising.
And also we understand each other just fine.
Maybe even better than they understand each other sometimes.
To be fair, that perfectly sums up practically any human divide: like the gender divide, the age divide, the ethnicity divide...
Whoever occupies the "dominant" position within any given dynamic gets to decide what behaviour or appearance is "normal," and then get to criticise, mock and denigrate anyone who doesn't conform, all while ALSO claiming that the denigratred are simply not trying hard enough, despite the fact the "dominant" group isn't trying in the slightest.
I'm not sure we are that much in the minority... It's just that neurotypicals have better PR and somehow have managed to fool society into thinking that their way is "typical" and ours is "divergent".
It's like if brown-eyed people started saying that brown eyes are "normal" and any other eye colour is a weird quirk of nature...
I blame people in Italy for not speaking English with exactly the same logic
BTW This book is available as an audiobook with Fern Brady herself narrating it. It's incredible. I absolutely love her voice, her sumptuously rolled Rs are like ASMR to me
Ahhh, such a great tip.
"You need to be pathologised more." was bang on the money. 😀
My ‘favorite’ is when I express that I have ADHD and thus certain things like executive function, time blindness and related are THE BEST THEY WILL GET after a lot of effort…then someone explains that all I need to do is XYZ. Like thanks, Tips. I hadn’t thought to try just making my brain work the way it doesn’t.
But NTs can’t do many things I can because of my Neurodivergence and I don’t constantly tell them they don’t function properly.
I have adhd and am going to school to understand it better and hopefully develop a prosthetic for neurodiverse people down the road. I find that the best way to shut those people down is actually dive into the subject of biological functions relating to the acquisition and implementation of dopamine and serotonin briefly and if they aren't genuinely interested they get disinterested in it fast or insecure enough that they never bring it up again. Neurotypicals use feigned mastery as a means of self preservation and self esteem so if you just show them your genuine interest and mastery of a subject it reminds them not to weigh in when they don't know what the hell they are talking about. The problem with being able to live in the illusion of the social construct is that house of cards is easy to upend simply by treating them like they aren't idiots. If they aren't, or they are emotionally mature enough to take it in stride you find yourself someone worth talking to. If not then they breeze on to the person who likes to play doctor with them.
Ah yes, the whole "oh you are time blind? How about you get more clocks, or use timers?". I have two modes when it comes to watches/clocks - either I know what time it is because I am constantly staring at the display & not doing anything else, or I'm doing something else & I don't realise any time has passed so don't even think to look at the time. Its so bizarre to me when other people instinctively seem to know what time it is or how much time has passed. To me there are only 2 times most of the time - Now and Not Now. "The other day" can mean anything from yesterday to childhood. I navigate my day based on whether its hungry time or tired time. But I am also autistic and struggle with interpreting my body's cues that its hungry/thirsty or tired. But all the advice out there is just "be more aware of time". Gee thanks! I hadn't tried that yet, not once in my 35yrs. 🤦♀️
Thank you for this. ❤
I read Fern's book yesterday and as a 43 year old woman currently going through the process of getting an official diagnosis I couldn't be more grateful to her for adding her story to world for us all to better understand. Love Fern she's hilarious! 💜
Interested in your efforts to get an 'official diagnosis'- Why? Is it important to you? My own 'divergence' makes me uninterested in the views of others about me...
I've become such a huge fan of Fern after series 14 of Taskmaster.
She’s our rightful queen. 👑
Same! I hadn't even heard of her until Taskmaster so I'm really grateful she was a contestant.
@@peskycritter79 I've noticed that British comedy shows have this ecosystem where comics are always on each others' shows, and TM is really good at pulling in comics from a variety of publicity levels.
So you're saying people don't always want me to ramble on about steam engines... facinating...
It does depend where you live...a steam railway runs past my road, so I'm used to people who get very irritated if you confuse a small England with a Garratt
That seems unlikely. Ramble on, friend.
That's just silly talk. Go on about steam engines please.
The OS analogy is great. The one I use is that we’re fish being judged on our ability to climb trees.
I can't tell you how much joy this clip brings me. I've never seen someone on such a large platform discuss the things she just did (by the way, one of those things is called the "supercrip" narrative if anyone wants to learn more about it). And I've never heard of Neurodiversity Celebration week! I'm so excited to tell my friends and family about it.
Yes! Very much this. Im not autistic but I am ADHD and the second I say that people start overanalyzing the shit out of me and thinking of me as a hyperactive little boy -- when thats not even the type of ADHD I have. I have zero energy lmfaoo but they start like staring at me and trying to see where I'm not "normal" and criticize the shit out of me when they weren't before. Suddenly when I get excited about something that I should be happy about - it becomes a big production of like CHILL OUT its not that cool or idk so many horrible stereotypes and its infuriating bc we share so many traits with autistics and people suddenly treat us like freaks and its like. You wouldn't have even known if I hadn't said bc we are alll experts at masking, to the detriment of our health and its just. irritating lmao
I'm not diagnosed but currently trying to get a diagnosis and this literally describes what I fear about how people may perceive me. Especially the idea that either "you can't have ADHD" because I'm not bouncing off the walls or thinking that I will somehow be incompetent because I may have it.
@@Leprecaun123 I so understand. Just remember you don’t have to disclose to ANYONE who makes you feel uncomfortable and if you want to tell people you can explain that there are different types of adhd and that while you’re not outwardly hyperactive, because it sounds like you have “inattentive” type like me, that your mind is still going a mile a minute. And also inattentive type doesn’t mean you can’t pay attention but you can look up more on that!! And if they judge you for it they’re not worth having in your life. It’s a very real neurological disorder but I doesn’t mean we are ANY less than. I cut out so many people who were close to me because they continued to harm and invalidate me and it’s not worth it having bad people around!! Life gets so much better!!!
I hope you can find some better community 💙 I have found that most people are more understanding about my time blindness etc when I share that I have ADHD, I'm sorry to hear folks encountering unhelpful reactions
@@Leprecaun123bouncing of the wall ? Lmao 🤣
Why go around telling people stuff then? Perhaps because the first delusion of a group calling other people "neurotypical' is that makes the group special. It doesn't.
I'm not nuerodivergent (I think...does OCD count?) but I still find neurotypical thinking absolutely baffling sometimes. Like when my friends used to talk about how to let someone know they had a crush on them, or that they were mad at a friend but didn't know how to deal with it. My input would always be something like "you should just tell them that you like them and would like to go on a date" or "let them know you were hurt by what they said and so you're angry at them." And I'd get looked at like I had three heads but only four eyes.
Yes, being OCD qualifies as being neurodivergent. Depression, anxiety, synesthesia, personality disorder, just about anything outside of "normal" or what's expected is neurodivergent.
Welcome to the team! 😊
@@coda3223 You know, when you put it that way, NTs really are the weird ones
@@Fern635 Exactly! They're almost a myth
Anxiety is definitely definitely not a neurological because anybody can get anxiety
@@deadinthebed963 I think you might be mistaken about what neurological means... and definitely mistaken about what neurodivergent means.
Neurodivergent absolutely includes anxiety conditions. Neurodivergence can be both innate and/or acquired. Having a TBI is an acquired neurodivergence. Being autistic is an innate neurodivergence. Some people have a variety of combinations of both innate and acquired neurodivergence and each qualifies them as neurodivergent.
It's true, neurotypicalism needs to be pathologised as much as autism has been. Why is manipulativeness, evasiveness, an inability to say what you mean, being judgemental, defensiveness, an overwhelming desire to socialise at the cost of productivity and self-awareness, and an inability to hyperfocus...considered superior?
Well said 🎉
God she is accurate. I stopped telling people about my autism because I was bombarded with other people's ideas of how it affected me and what they think it really is. Thank goodness we have a representative!
"Being neurodivergent is like having a different operating system."
Me talking to Iphone users: "Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of! You have a super power!"
🤣😂🤣 This gave me a good belly laugh, thanks!
But they're the most popular OS.
@@jasonhaven7170 Not really.
@@D0MiN0ChAn Yes, really. Where do you live? In the UK, Canada, USA, Australia, Japan etc. iOS is the most popular mobile OS.
@@jasonhaven7170 Android has 71% of the global usage share as of 2024.
The android-iphone
-analogy really made me laugh. This is actually how I've been trying to describe my struggles with getting through a "normal" day with appointments and a job and everything lately. It's like I'm a smartphone and as soon as I leave the house I have to turn up the brightness because the world outside is too bright and run extra noise-canceling because the world is too loud otherwise. I gotta run a bunch of different translation-apps in the background to be able to communicate with all kinds of different people and turn myself up to 120 hz so it looks like I'm running smoothly from the outside. All this is draining my battery way too quickly but when I need a quick recharge everyone around me only have iphone charging cables. But I'm an android phone so it doesn't work. When I'm at home I can turn off all the extra stuff and therefor save a lot of battery life and if I still need a little recharge I can just do that any time without it being too much of a bother.
In terms of OS, we're definitely Linux. Sure, sometimes it takes us ages to do what other might consider basic tasks, but once we got set up, we can work far more efficiently. Of course, we optimize our OS for different priorities which is a freedom you don't get in another OS. We don't unthinkingly follow the norm if it's a stupid thing to do and we are much more resilient against viruses and propaganda because we don't just allow any program admin access.
I think it's worth mentioning that the most recent Superman movie, "Man of Steel", played it as if Clark was autistic. We're shown things from his perspective as a child with (super-)sensory issues and the isolation that comes from him being "different" from everyone. It's done very well.
But they changed the story so much from the comics, that he's like a totally different character. In the comics, he was Superboy first in his hometown of Smallville. The world knew about him even back then. Even the first movie years ago with Christopher Reeve strayed from the comics. It showed Krypton as having crystal buildings, when the comics showed multi-colored buildings. Those changes are jarring to me, so I don't watch any of the movies with DC Comics characters.
@@bite-sizedshorts9635 The comics themselves change the story all the time. The concept of "Superboy" itself was originally a retcon about Clark's origins. That's the thing about comics: they stay around long enough, you can find *any* version of them to call your own.
I honestly can't believe you found a redeeming feature of that film, but thanks! That sensory issues scene was very relatable and emotionally impactful.for me and now I know why!
You can’t even get them to stop with the “superpower” bullshit by telling them you don’t like it. It’s like “let me patronise you but you must take it as a compliment!!!!” Like no! I’m just a variation on normal.
I’ve also noticed that people feel the need to comfort me when I display even a modicum of self-awareness. So weird.
I've got to ask - if something is a "variation on normal", wouldn't that be not normal? Like, if a restaurant normally serves mint chocolate chip ice cream for their dessert, and one week they suddenly switch to strawberry, wouldn't it be fair to say that that wasn't the normal? I suppose you could call it a "variation on normal" since it's not like they're suddenly serving, idk, roasted duck for dessert, but it still just feels like a very roundabout, polite way of saying "different".
@Naes Galaxy “cattle caste”? Dude, I’m going to hope you’re young. Humanity’s greatest achievements have been because of our skill at cooperation - only one in ten thousand who go around bragging that they’re so much better than everyone else are worth anything at all. Usually they just haven’t figured cooperation out and have to believe it’s because they’re superior.
My grandfather always said watch out for people who brag that they’re brutally honest - they’re usually more interested in the brutal part than they are the honest part.
Normal is just normal. There's no variation of. The variation happens when the stray from it occurs.
@@jamesohearn2364 A restaurant selling Italian food and a different restaurant selling Indian food are both normal but a different variation
The word “neurotypical” came from the autism community as a parody of doctors pathologising autism and using overly clinical terms. So we mockingly pathologised the _lack_ of autism as “neurotypical syndrome”, with symptoms like “excessive eye contact”. Doctors didn’t realise these origins and ended up adopting the term themselves 😂
A small victory
...at last.
Is what my Autistic friends would say.
I have always hated that rude intrusive eye contact. 😎
This is delightful :)
_"Doctors didn’t realise these origins and ended up adopting the term themselves"_
Which, when you think about it, is a very neurotypical thing to do. I love it.
Wait until you read about the origin of the word 'autism'.
As a late diagnosis (50) I LOVE my autism (though I definitely HATE my PDA). I just want to pass that joy on to other auties and improve diagnosis wait times in the UK (3 months my arse, I've had to wait 6 years!!!). That, and to teach my siblings to accept the fact that they are ALL on the Spectrum.
Congrats on finally getting some answers and cultivating self acceptance. I'm late diagnosed too, autistic and ADHD with 2 ND kids. Thanks for sharing your journey with us
I feel the term neurotypical is a misnomer anyways, because I am pretty sure it isn't as typical as we think. Her analogy on the operating systems is spot on, and I am not convinced that Neurotypical is the Windows of neurosystems. Sure, its not Linux, but... you know... There are probably a LOT of people still walking around undiagnosed.
Yep
I would think Apple would be the neurotypical personally since it's kinda inflexible and only works for stuff tailor made for it. Apple's notorious for not working well with other operating systems, by design.
@@u-mos8820 I think you mean neurodivergent. Neurotypical is people without any diagnosis, what some would call "normal", but what is normal anyways?
@@d-bro-sector36 Nah, I think people who haven't dealt with as much hardship can be less flexible emotionally. The average person doesn't even think much further than their front door usually. Normal people are Apple cause they kinda make a one size fits all approach to their design. Windows compensates better, and is easier to achieve a set up that works for your specific needs.
I just love Fern Brady's humor.
I have ADHD and autism and figuring out what my brain can do and how it works (when it feels like working) has given me some great strengths in life. I do see that aspect as a superpower. However, getting incredibly overstimulated and then having a meltdown because my sweatshirt is the wrong texture ain’t it for me fam. You can take that shit back.
Bystander: Superman, help! An asteroid!
Superman: WHAT IS THIS SUIT MADE OF? BURLAP?! FUCK THIS, LET IT BURN!
It's like a superpower, except if Superman's kryptonite was some incredibly mundane thing that's everywhere.
@@notsomeoneofnormalcy-cv3yq daaaang that’s so true, because I can do some amazing things, but tiny things throw me right off.
Meltdowns? Just DONT do that, that simple. Meltdowns are socially unacceptable and make you look weird and isolate you further, if you need to have a panic attack do it internally and separate yourself from others.
I'm not autistic but definitely neurodivergent in some form, probably ADHD, and I interact so much in nd circles that the way I communicate is basically 100% influenced by them anyway. AND I'm queer. And with all that in mind, right now I'm in a weird will-we-won't-we situation with a neurotypical straight man who refuses to commit to saying what he wants, and it's fucking infuriating. Just yesterday he said "i dont think anything between us would be a good idea", which a REASONABLE person might take to mean he's calling it off, and then we discussed boundaries. Later that night I expressed the need to stick to those boundaries because we had called it off, and he said, verbatim, _"Did_ we call it off?" I asked point blank if, when he said continuing things was a bad idea, he meant he wanted to end it and was declaring the end, or whether he just wanted me to challenge him on it. He said, "I don't know, to be honest." I want to strangle him.
Please do. He deserves it.
Tbh, no matter what he says, you should leave! That's not neurotypical shit, just asshole shit. For real, that is not good behavior no matter what your operating system is. Be thankful for how boldly he's waving his red flag and go!
That just means he's unsure of his own feelings on the subject... which is fine! It's okay to be unsure of your feelings about a relationship! But it means it SHOULD be called off until you're sure of your feelings, one way or the other.
@@jamesohearn2364 you're so right. Interestingly, that conversation in fact happened this morning, but only after a strange long weekend of being FWBs, which is a long story that can be summed up in 'i told him i couldnt keep giving him this much intimacy if he wasnt prepared to respond yet and maybe that's what spurred him to start communicating what he wanted'. When in fact, again, i meant exactly that - he could keep thinking about what he wanted or wait until he had the mental energy to do so, but until then I wanted to put it on hold. That got clarified this morning. Now I guess it's on hold? Except if he comes back at me tonight saying he's totally definitely figured out what he wants and can give this time, I'm calling him out on it because I'm not going to be strung along by an older man who can't communicate lmao.
@@genuineinterestFrom the absolute surface reading. That sounds like he could have commitment issues to me.
Hopefully he's not trying to act aloof, because it sounds like he's messing up this potential relationship pretty bad.
Also want to clarify that just because somebody thinks or claims to be neurotypical doesn't mean it's true, or at least doesn't mean they don't have some patterns or behaviours that are more associated with neurodicergent people.Definitely rude to challenge them on that, but I feel it's always worth consideration.
As much as I disagree with the intensity of the first commenters thoughts on someone they haven't met, I will say I agree with them that I wouldn't date somebody who doesn't know if they want me.
But to be clear, he isn't saying that, it looks more as though he's saying that he thinks you two would be bad together for some reason, but he wants to be with you. Which is why I said commitment issues.. How do you know unless you try, but then there's a fear of losing a friend..
I'll stop yapping though, good luck in figuring things out.
@@it-s-a-mystery thank you for the insights, I appreciate the thought you put into your response! I know I was fully just dishing about my life situation, it was a lot, so seeing others comment on it objectively was actually surprisingly helpful.
I'll keep the final update simple, although the situation was much more complicated: you and the others were all totally correct. He had major (MAJOR) commitment issues, was stringing me along as best he could, tried to angle for all the aspects of a relationship without the label, except the aspects that demanded emotional labour from him; used me for my body, called it off the moment he was reminded that I was a person with needs, aaaaaand there's a non-zero chance that he played in a grey space with both me and his ex girlfriend to avoid having OFFICIALLY two-timed us. Never found out bc I moved and we fell out of contact but. Yeah he was a huge asshole all along and I was young and naive enough to fall for it. Never again!!✌
I love Fern! She alone changed so much in how general public sees us. Feeeeeeern if you happen to read this by some miraculous chance: I love you!
I was diagnosed as dyspraxic back in primary school, and I've never really been sure how different this makes me from other people. I don't think I seem out and out neurodivergent, nor do I always feel like I am, if indeed I am at all. However, as I get older, I do feel more and more out of sync with people. I'm thirty now, and some days it does feel like people are on a completely different wavelength to me. And that whole Sylvia Plath thing, GOD I wish that were me. I so want to rant at people about my passions, it would do wonders for my psyche, but I have too much social awkwardness to not be overtly paranoid of how uncomfortable I'm making people.
"O0oouh look at me i can talk to people with constant eye contact !"
Cannot recommend the audiobook enough! Fern reads it and it is AMAZING!!! Such a fantastic book!
I just fell in love with Fern Brady. She is describing it perfectly. I know it maybe sounds like a small thing for neurotypicals, but for a neurodivergent it means a lot that she says “an autistic person”, rather than “a person with autism”.
Note: For those of you who don't understand why saying "an autistic person" instead of "a person with autism" is important, it's because "a person with autism" can be seen as treating us like we have a disease. (At least it's not as bad as "suffers from autism")
@@JHorst-r2u , exactly.
Honestly, the monolouging without knowing how disintrested you are is so fucking true.
My husband took it one further, and he would YELL at me, like what ever he was particularly mad about that day was my fault. When I would ask him to stop, he would get even madder at me, because, in his mind, somehow, it was MY JOB to listen to him yell about this thing he had heard on the news or read about that day.
@@TheAccidentalVikingoh my god thats my dad.
Are you my mum? Mum? Wtf?!
@@heyysimone Probably not your birth-mother, but I can be a bonus mum, if you need one. (also, I'm sorry, but I divorced your father over 10 years ago.)
Well Superman maybe, but Jean Grey totally. Barbara Gordon probably did her thesis on father archetypes in Plath's 1960 collection, The Colossus and Other Poems .
It’s not a f**king superpower (and thanks to Fern for her point about it). I am a recently diagnosed person with Asperger’s (or whatever you prefer to call it). It makes life very difficult. However, while Fern Brady might have had the experiences she’s talked about, it’s also true that many neurotypical people are curious and want to understand, and don’t make assumptions. It’s a concern that we NDs have a tendency to stereotype the people who we wish wouldn’t stereotype us.
Asperger's is an outdated term. Its all just Autism Spectrum Disorder (or ASD for short) now. Mainly because Asperger was a nazi who split autistic people into two categories - the "useful" (to him & the nazis) and "useless" (those with intellectual impairments) and had the former experimented on, and the later sent to the homes for disabled people where they gassed them and burnt them. So like.... its not exactly the nicest thing to have a condition named after!
Neurotypicals are great, when you meet one you've met all of them. Theres no figuring out anything, just say predictable things, speak your most basic and rudimentary views on anything, talk about the inane errands you did that day, agree with everything they say, the more platitudes and tropes you attribute to the conversation the better. Job done. Watch them get all excited about absolutely fucking nothing.
As a fellow sufferer from Autism, she's right about the way people, can label you and think of you as strange, but we are all unique and we all have good things to bring to the world. She looks absolutely stunning too, by the way
Great book! I recommended it to all my reader buddies. I have high functioning autistic friends, and it's a hard life for them, especially when people don't understand their struggles
I've always thought of neuro-typical and neuro-divergent as being like computers. NT's are like the more main stream PC's while NDs are the Macs. Both are computers, but they're wired differently, and have different operating systems/software. One isn't an illness, or a disorder, just different.
Whenever I talk about my autism in public, I always get the weirdest looks from people. Like I just said I've got 6 months to live but I'm not upset at all.
I'm not like, ashamed of my diagnosis. It's just something I have to live with.
But you tell an NT thar you're neurodivergent and they either coddle you like a baby or call you a hero. When in reality, it's just like they're all speaking Greek and I don't have a translator.
Interesting. When someone told me they were 'neurodivergent', I said 'who isn't?'. 'Neurotypical' is just as much of a spectrum as anything .
It's so true about the different operating systems. To make things more complicated, the autism spectrum is so diverse it's like we have several operating systems, depending on the persons different parameters.
her book is AMAZING!!
I just love this woman.
All diversity should be viewed with neutrality. Doing other wise creates all the isms. When it comes to disability, what people do when they think it's a tragedy or an inspiration, it's often ableist. It's just neutral. Like a wheelchair is just a chair that has wheels. It's not good or bad in any way.
As we dismantle the societal barriers that make one state of being preferable to another, we see that its all just neutral. The way things are set up can make things easier or harder for a person, but those things change. If there was an equitable society, no state of being would be more desirable to another.
As it is, I've felt a lot better in myself when viewing my disability neutrally. It dosent do any good looking it as the savior or the enemy. It's just there and it's not a big deal.
She's so right! I always describe it Autistic brains are like a circuit board that's been wired differently and things just don't compute for us. I can't stand being either treated like an idiot or patronised and told I have a super power. Those people can feck off. I'm loving the representation Fern is giving us all!
A-freaking-men!!! NTs are so WEIRD!
tell me about it
Seriously, tell us.
My problem with neurotypicals is that they always laugh at us when we are ourselves, I can't tell the difference between me being funny and me not being funny, they always laugh.
This makes me feel conflicted. One of my friends autistic, well not one but this one in particular.
Anyway, they often say things that I find funny, either just the way its phrases, or often (they have trouble with sarcasm and irony) they respond to something I or someone else says and I think they are making a joke, and they aren't but it makes me laugh. Then they get confused.
I mean, I don't think this bothers them, as they are super chill, and also they know me and my intentions. Also the things I find humour in can be a little weird, I delight in subtle wordplay.
It just sort of makes me feel awkward that there's 1) A chance this does make them feel uncomfortable, and 2) that there are autistic people that this could happen with and they feel the way it makes you feel.
Does that make sense?
@@it-s-a-mystery it really depends on how "adapted" they are to social analysis. it might not be apparent to them that you think/feel about it this way; but maybe they are... i can promise you that there is no harm in clearly communicating this to them; they'll most likely appreciate it
@@TollsterMensch I try my best :)
I can tell they find me confusing often enough, but I know they know that I'm not malicious. They are like the gentlest most sweetest person though, very non-confrontational, so I just worry sometimes because I don't think they would tell me if I made them feel like OP said.
But yeah, like I said.. I try to explain myself
@@it-s-a-mystery i go through people laughing when I 'm not trying to be funny, but I just assume they're idiots who laugh at anything I say because I'm funny.
I totally agree with her,I'm not autistic but some of the traits that she mentions such as not being able to handle flurescent lighting or loud noises or a plethora of other stimuli that apparently we as "normals"are supposed to put up with and not be disturbed by just all seem like some of the most toxic unnatural stimuli as human mind should have to tolerate.
Together with the most indirect and passive aggressive ways we in particular have in the UK of communicating which are considered "normal"and where most do not say what they mean or mean what they say for fear or offending or lainating or going against some unspoken cultural norms".
The norm is too often crazy and bad for our health anyway and results I think in excessibe bings drinking and lots of other toxic traits the nation is all too guilty of.Lets talk about our disordered culture rather than calling people "disordered".
Fern is awesome.
I'd like to point out how she said "neurotypicals are weird too" and they all guffawed like that's such an outrageous proposition that it's surely meant as a joke
I took the laughter to be more of a reaction to the directness of the comment - in my experience neurotypicals aren't very used to being called out during casual conversations and the laughter seems to be a gentle way of soothing that feeling. I don't think they disagreed with her, just that they weren't used to openly talking about their own quirks and oddities.
I think of my differences as a super power but only for a short amount of time until it goes sideways on me.
Undiagnosed adhd, anxiety, diagnosed Dyslexic, Dyspraxic and Dyscalulic. End result is I can speed through a task and then forget to eat and completely crash for a few days but I got 8 hours of work done in 4 hours at the start. So, I kind of balance it out for myself.
Should be more middle ground. Definitely. I either show not enough interest or too much and what I like to do is ignored completely all at the same time. School for me was hell. Give me a quiet corner and silence any day. The effort otherwise is exhausting!
my most neurodiveristy affirming teacher also happened to be the person that was like 'its a superpower!' and told me we were gonna find out what mine was by the end of the year, and i was always super confused as to what mine would be because i like genuienly didnt think i had any, so when i had a meltdown or sensory issues or something neurotypicals would find weird i would always go 'haha, its my suPERPOWER''
"WHY WONT YOU LOOK ME IN THE EYE!"
"Because, NT Karen, my ears are the organs I listen with, not my eyes. You really need to update your knowledge of human anatomy and tell the others from your planet."
Eyes communicate meaning, too.
Bonus points to the show for a) having a sign translator and b) showing them signing. 🤘🤘
As an "aspie," I know what she means. But I'm 70 and have memorized thousands of rules. So most people don't know I have Asperger's until I tell them. When I was in 3rd grade I realized that everyone else must have a secret rule book that I don't have. I have never found out how to have friends. I don't ever have visitors, and I'm never invited to anyone else's house.
I have two "perseverances" as they are sometimes called, popular music and genealogy. I have almost every record that has appeared in most of the different Billboard charts since they started, and I have most of the ones that would have charted if there had been charts all the way back to 1890. I am one of the fastest genealogists around. Someone can give me their full name, and the next day I can give them their ancestors back a few generations on all lines. I have written a number of genealogy books. I hope to write one on music someday when I finish my current genealogy projects.
I can talk for hours on almost any topic and can't tell whether someone is interested or not. I never lie. That means I have to really beat around the bush to avoid telling someone something I know they don't want to hear. I can learn anything from reading books or by watching videos and taking notes. I built my current desktop computer by getting all the parts at a computer store that the clerk recommended and followed online video instructions on which parts to assemble first and how. When complete, it worked perfectly the first time I turned it on. I have a very large vocabulary, but don't use most of it as most of the people I'm around wouldn't understand much.
I have a really high IQ, which makes most people appear stupid to me. I try not to point that out much, but I can't help it sometimes. Most people with Asperger's have a hard time understanding humor, but I can tell where the humor is in most jokes. I just don't laugh out loud for most of them. I can see they're amusing, but not amusing enough to cause a strong reaction.
I have my home office/man cave that I sit in most of the time with my computer, stereo, and all my books and recordings. Noise bothers me, but I have gotten used to being in noisy crowds of people, because my parents would take me to reunions and family gatherings from the time I was a baby. Some noises still bother me. I can't handle some textures in food, such as fat in meat.
Wired Magazine had an Asperger's test in one issue a few years ago. I took the test. They said if the score was over 20, then it was pretty certain I have Asperger's. I scored 42 points. So it's certain that I have it.
The main thing I have to say is that anyone with Asperger's can learn a lot of rules and eventually get by in life. There are jobs that require super attention to detail and lots of repetition, which don't bother me at all. Eventually, you get to the point where I am in that people don't notice your Asperger's until you mention it to them.
It's funny that she says that because I have Aspergers and I wrote this comment on my Galaxy A12! 😂
Love Fern Brady ❤
There is a species of bird in South America that eats berries. Some of the berries are red, some are green, and some are yellow. Some of the birds in the species are really good at seeing green berries, others are really good at seeing yellow, still others are seeing red., and the birds are all seemingly of the same species. The berries are a big important part of their diet, but because their brains are wired to preference different colors of berries, the birds as a group are better able to survive in large clusters.
Neuro-diversity works much the same way. Neuro-diverse people are able to pick out different evolutionary advantages from neurotypical people, and vice versa. The problem isn't that neuro-diverse are disabled for surviving in the world, it is that neurotypical people tend to write the rules, and they have, rather it was their intent or not, made the rules so that they get all the advantages, and neurodiverse get none.
For example, Fern Brady, on Taskmasters, typically struggled to play most of the games, but every once in a while there was a game that favored her method of thinking, and she blew the other contestants away, like when she painted a self portrait of herself with a sausage. She was also the most entertaining of the contestants by far, which in a way made her the real champion.
It's nice when I see autistic people I feel similar to. When I see people who fit closer to the stereotype, I feel like an imposter even though I have a diagnosis. Of course it's a spectrum and some people really do have what I guess you might call a more "obvious" presentation, but we do need more variety in representation! That way when I tell people I'm autistic they'll be less likely to try to disregard me and tell me all the reasons why they, someone with no education on autism outside movies and tv shows (which are probably out of date or were never accurate anyway), think I couldn't really be autistic. Despite me leading with "I'm *diagnosed* as autistic."
Yeah I'm really good at making bosses, professors, coworkers, etc. THINK I have it all together and maybe I'm a bit awkward and sometimes seems to avoid eye contact but oh well
No you have not seen me at my most challenging points. Not even CLOSE
You could always stop telling people 🤷
@@zufalllx No, you can't. If you don't tell people then nobody will understand why your having a hard time with anything.
I once had a roommate who seemed to take care of all the cleaning around the house. For weeks I assumed he was just someone who was happy to do that because he never left any for me to do and he never said anything. He would drop hints that I never noticed until he brought them up later, and occasionally he asked me to clean every now and then, but here's what would happen. I'd say I'd get round to it, then a few days later he'd clean everything himself. So I never bothered. Eventually he exploded at me, complaining about how I never cleaned, and I had to explain that he always cleaned up before I had my cleaning day. I had to explain how I had a set day in my routine for all my housework and that it would be hard for me to change that habit because I'm autistic.
I also had an employer who yelled at me a lot because she couldn't understand why I was falling behind when she was lumping a huge list of tasks on me that I was expected to do all at the same time. I cannot multi task and I cannot take the initiative very easily. That's part of my autism. It had said on my CV I was autistic so I didn't tell her, but eventually when I sat her down for a word it became clear she didn't know.
You should always tell new people you're autistic, its something that needs to be communicated so others can understand how you work.
I autistic and although i've never heard of Fern Brady i toatally agrree with her
I love fern I'm so pleased she is my sister in ASD
I totally agree. Neurotypicals (or muggles as I call them) are weird and do really bizarre shit. Some completely unfathomable stuff
Counterpoint: being able to monologue at length on a subject without considering the interest level of the listeners makes you a Uni professor, not autistic.
pretty on spot. neither a gift nor a tragedy. pros, despite being repeatedly humiliated by one of my middle school teachers, i have actually never noticed and never suffered from it. cons, i've had many fights and arguments with my closest friends because of misunderstandings.
Every time an NT person tells me my ND conditions are super powers, I think “I wish they were super powers so I could use them to zap you”.
I think the term for this is 'Inspiration Porn'? Coupled with: "but you don't even look autistic. We're all a bit on the spectrum."
@@lexib671 I’m a performance poet & I wrote a poem for a gig last year about all the cliched ableist things I’d heard neurotypical people say. “Aren’t we all a bit autistic?” was on there 😂
Being autistic is like being a person except the people around you constantly ask you why you’re doing whatever you’re doing.
...while I'm asking myself why the others are doing what they're doing.
@@SaHaRaSquad Did you know they can sit in chairs with their feet on the ground?
It’s insane.
@@brookedickson4118 Inconceivable
The most common comment I get is "you talk funny".
I notice that Divergents tend to be more honest & less violent than Neurotyps.
Learning to read body language is a big help if you can manage it.
Thankfully my parents have been cool about me being autistic. Actually my mum appreciates me pointing out signs of ASD in her bc she knows it's hereditary and she finds it very interesting. She's not defensive at all and in fact found it really funny that I got diagnosed bc she said, "I thought that because we [my family] were all the same, we were all 'normal.' But maybe we're all just autistic!"
I gave her the analogy that it's not a software bug, it's a hardware difference (or OS difference in this case). ASD is correlated with synaptic underpruning, so it very well could be, genuinely, a hardware difference. It has advantages and disadvantages. But if the world is made almost exclusively for (using her analogy) iOS, then Android users will suffer for it. Disability is contextual. Let me find the stuff I'm good at.
Everyone just needs a bit more flexibility within society. All this focus on speed and racing to get the most profits (instead of thinking about consequences of actions or treating people humanely) really hurts everyone and has unseen consequences
I have lots of non-autistic friends and they're doing so well despite their challenges :D
I have bipolar and ADHD and of the ~5-6 different subjects I've "studied" for like 2 semesters in school, Computer Science was one of them. I support the operating system analogy completely.
I like her. She's very well spoken.
I have adhd and i will never understand neurotypicals inability to hold a conversation without prompting. If im actively talking to you then clearly im interested in what you have to say, why do you need me to ask you a question in order to know that you can speak? If you have something to add then say it. For some reason neurotypicals only get to that point of being able to hold a conversation once theyre friends with you. It makes it so that when im talking to a new neurotypical person i either talk the whole time n worry im annoying them or its incredibly stilted and awkward.
Yay Fern!
Different operating systems is right - I often feel like I'm running on Windows XP these days 😅 (Adhd not ASC though)
I have used this explanation so many times to explain how my brain works differently.
"Double empathy gap" is the term to google for. Autistic people understand each other fine, but don't understand neurotypicals to about the same extent neurotypicals don't understand autistic people.
I think "lack of empathy" is an imprecise characterisation in the first place, because empathy can mean both caring about other people and understanding them. The autistic people I know are often painfully empathetic towards other people's suffering. On average more so than my neurotypical friends. They just have trouble discerning neurotypical people's thoughts and feelings from their language and other cues.
Not to say that there aren't autistic people who are less caring, but that clearly isn't true for all autistic people.
I was diagnosed with ADHD a little over a year ago (I'm 45) and I've spent my whole life being criticized for being too detail-oriented in my speech and how I explain things to people. I'd always found that really offensive because I frequently found the majority of people (see: neurotypicals) to be extraordinarily assumptive in their speech and explanations of things, which leaves people like me looking awfully confused as to what they're talking about. I _need_ details. I don't _dare_ make assumptions about instructions I'm given, because more than once I've been yelled at (or worse, fired) for missing some crucial step and couldn't complete the task I'd been assigned. So, no. Please explain all of the steps to me (especially if it's a new-to-me task or idea) because it'll be easier in the long run for both of us, I promise you.
Granted, since my diagnosis and beginning medicative treatment, my compulsion to give someone every little, teeny-weeny, inconsequential detail has gone way down, however I still will explain every step in a process to you if you tell me you've never done it before, because I want you to succeed in completing the process. It's a fine line.
I mean I’m all in favor of neuro-positivity, hell I’ve moved so far away from the infirmity model I’ve been accused of being an “aspie supremacist”, but the inability to read paralinguistic social cues is not a super power. And that’s not a co-occurrence or a societal thing, that’s just inherent to the way our brains process detail.
That was brilliant! Cheers Fern for all that you’re doing!
Totally agree neurotypicals are definitely weird. Thank you.
NT: I wonder how best to get my needs across? I know I'll hint at what I want!
Did you hear that.......That was all the chins hitting the floor, by being gobsmacked at how smart Fern Brady is.....Well, I was.
She makes a good point.
We are all a bunch of weirdos if you take 5 minutes to actually think about any one thing in any level of abstraction
That Superman film would be a pretty good watch. But yeah, so many neurotypicals treat neurodivergence in such odd ways. I have so many people try to tell me that I see the world differently and it makes no sense to me because I just see the world as it is, how can that be different to how others see the world?
I have no issue with people using condition instead of disorder for Autistic people... but shouldn't we then use it for all the other neurodiverse conditions? Why are people with OCD and ADHD disorders whilst we get to be special and called a 'condition'?
I worry as an autistic person that changing it to autism spectrum condition means that this softening of language will mean that people will not take my needs as seriously when I'm asking for help. I personally feel that changing the language doesn't do much in terms of attitude if a societal change in terms of education and accessibility doesn't happen.
If others feel differently, I am happy to hear other opinions.
The big problem with disability, is that the person themself isn't necessary the cause of disability. We are disabled by our environment. The lights are too bright, people in our environment don't interpret us properly, people give us looks for stimming, etc. If our environment was different, we'd be able to be happy and progress our lives with far less pain. It's the idea that we are fish being expected to climb a tree. If we are allowed to swim freely in the water without the expectation of climbing trees, we could swim the same distance as the height of that tree. We're doing things in our own way, but we need our environment to differ. If we worked in places that don't exacerbate our sensory needs, we're allowed to stim, and the social environment was accepting of our different social behavior, there'd be far less conflict.
The same could be said about many other disorders, like ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, and a lot of physical disabilities.
TLDR; We are disabled by our environment, not the cause of disability ourselves.
But yeah... in the world we're in that isn't rapidly accepting and welcoming us, we therefore experience disorders in our mental health and are viewed as having weird behaviors that bother others.
Autistics DON'T actually "get to be special and called a 'condition'". The DSM-5 diagnosis is Autism Spectrum Disorder.
@@twylenb I agree. But this hasn't changed all that much imo. It's changing but it's not at the point where I would say that ND and physically disabled people are thought of when people plan things. Some are really good when it comes to planning and being inclusive. However we are not at a stage in society where inclusivity is the default, it is still optional.
So, until we get to a stage where inclusivity is the default and not optional, it doesn't make sense for me to single autism out as a 'condition' whilst the other NDs are still labelled as disorders.
She's right though. Neurotypicals are weird. They say dumb stuff like "It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack!" Like, have y'all never heard of magnets or metal detectors?
fern just wanting to let the bird fly on Taskmaster now makes infinitely more sense
I wish she had gone into more detail about how neurotypical people are weird. I love her perspective, she's so funny!
You can read more about it in her book: Strong Female Character.
(It's on audible too, narrated by herself)
Tbf I’m pretty sure in several depictions of young superman (while he’s getting used to the super hearing) he’s constantly having sensory overload
Fern's superpower is to turn into a Glitterball
Im autistic and I fucking love Fern Brady ❤
I think a slightly better (but nerdier) comparison would be computer OS, linux vs windows.
Linux has lots of advantages over windows, but also quite a few disadvantages. Overall they balance out. Such as, most games that I run on linux are smoother and have better FPS. But, I can't play the Sims, and there are many games I can't run or don't run so well as I have to use Proton or Wine or an emulator. Arguably this is due to the world not being built for linux, just windows as the norm. You get the gist. I am an autistic nerd who knew...
Yeah both Android and iOS are more on the typical side. I guess my favorite phone being a Blackberry Passport was a sign all along.
To be perfectly honest, I don't know how neurotypical people manage...
I phones vs androids 😂😂😭 I’m using that to explain it for the rest of my life