Thankfully no. My school had lot of non asshole kids (I think kids are usually trained to be selfish assholes) who were kind and patient enough to socialize with weirdos (aka undiag autistic kids) like me. They were the reason I developed somewhat functional (though absolutely not ‘normal’) social life in adulthood. We are still friends, unfortunately we are spread all over the world nowadays cause life.
I think culture matters too, autistic spectrum friends of mine who went to US schools tend so say having very different experience. Opposite anecdotes were from kids in asia.
No, being a selfish asshole is instinctive for humans. Being egalitarian is what must be taught
I think both traits are taught and at the same time innate at the same time. While growing up, we learn an abstract value system that shapes when we want to be selfish and when not.
Have you taken any developmental psych courses?
Yes, in uni.
Ok then you should know that there is a fucktonne of research about behaviors before values are capable of being learned
I totally know. What I said is what ‘I think’ not what I ‘discovered’. There’s isn’t more science in it than in an educated guess. Taking a course doesn’t make me a behavioral scientist and even then claiming what I know is absolute is pure bs.
… ok so then you know that without social training humans don’t really have a value system besides ‘make sure my needs are met’…
This is where having a twin worked for me. Until they fucking split us up like assholes! (It helped though, at least for me. I had a friend in elementary)
It got better as you figured out how to mask. But it never got all the way better because you didn’t know why you had to act differently than you felt.
I always knew why. Everyone else was usually a dumb ass or too immature.
Too real, I always felt and still feel like I’m wearing a mask. And one i don’t particularly want. I always felt like I was on the outside among everyone, like I was there but unable to connect. I don’t even try anymore
My primary school had bolted some tractor tyres on their sides to springs and placed them in the play area.
They were nice and warm in the sunshine so I would curl up inside them and rest.
I was somewhat of a loner.
We had them too but they were full of redback spiders
This sounds so nice, I want to go there right now.
At school? How about now?
Whilst online meme-posting is rarely enough to stave off loneliness if you don’t have access to an understanding community in real life, I hope that you are able to find some solidarity and comfort in online communities like this one.
Because yeah, you’re right that many of us still are still tremendously isolated. It sucks.
You had swings?!
There are several peer-reviewed studies that show neurotypicals rate even just the TRANSCRIPT of autistic people’s speech as 30% less favorable across all social classes and segments.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5286449/
And worst of all: the subjects couldn’t even tell why they did it, they literally hate us instinctively.
No the transcript was the only one where the results between the ASD and NT groups were within error margin
See figure 1
You forgot the part where the other kids pelt you with wood chips
our playground had those chunks of recycled truck tire rubber, so kids pelted you with carcinogens
Fully
Or just any unpopular kid
Nice pair of jeans, though…
“Why aren’t you out playing sports???”
I heard it many times.
i would walk around in big circles, which coincided with the walking pattern of the surveillants (or whatvere you call the in english), so we started talking.
this did not help beating the “teacher’s pet” allegations.
The school district I grew up in called them ‘monitors’. It’s always neat when languages line up like this, because ‘surveil’ and ‘monitor’ mean the same thing in english.
Hey, btw did that one random kid who showed up and tried to be friends with you help? I have an autistic sister and knew other autistic kids as well growing up and i always tried to include everyone in my recess activities and friend group so nobody would feel left out. Hope others also had friends like this or were the friends themselves. At least i know i made some peoples days better. Its a long road to get people to tolerate each other but a worthwhile one.
I just sat under tree. Just waiting. My God i hated the waiting.
