Ah yes, the old Cartesian demon who holds your consciousness imprisoned in a dream world making you question whether or not you exist at all. Thatās actually a very good, if not the perfect example of what I mean. Iām not sure how familiar you are with Descartesā Meditations, but outside the well-known realization of āI think, therefore I amā, the method by which he defeats said demon is actually precisely the sort of thing Iām proposing.
I havenāt read meditations, but from what I have heard he defeats solipsism through an appeal to god. Appealing to a being you have no evidence for it not empirical or logical in my eyes. This increasingly makes me think
Humans CAN be wildly illogical, thatās true, but you can choose not to interact with such people (at least on the Internet, IRL it can of course sometimes be more difficult to do). Just like Descartes tests his demon, you can administer tests to them to see if theyāre willing to agree on some sort of shared ground rules for having a discussion that may be of mutual benefit, like we did in the previous comments and are continuing to do right now.
There is a difference between being able to perform logic either verbally or to solve a specific situations or puzzle, and actually being logical in general. Plenty of people can act logically in one scenario, then spend most their lives doing the exact opposite.
This actually ties well into talking about autistic people, as some of us are highly logical, to the point of seeming unemotional and cold. Others are not rational at all and are highly emotional. I suspect one could theoretically occupy different extremes at different times in their life or under different conditions. As someone who used to be of the more logical variety, I will tell you now that people are not logical entities in general, and treating them as such only made working with them more difficult. I am beginning to think you donāt actually have the people skills to see this.
To be more practical, what I was trying get at is basically the difference between having and being. Anything you have is likely to be temporary. Anything you are is likely to be constant. So you might ask yourself, are you autistic or do you have a condition called autism? If you can see the difference in perspective each statement offers, then youāll understand what I was on about.
The autistic community has spent some time pushing for identity first language such as saying autistic people instead of people with autism. While I do understand the differences in statements I still donāt really get what you are on about. A lot what you have said has been fairly condescending, using non identity first language, and over-medicalised language that the autistic community has worked hard to get rid of.
I really donāt think you understand what special interesests/hyperfixations, stimming, echolalia, and so on are. Those are examples of ārestricted interestsā and ārepetitive behaviorsā. I made the same statement repeatedly as a result of you saying things which show your ignorance of neurodivergence in general and the autistic community specifically.
Again, a language model doesnāt do that, it operates based on the rules it learned from its training corpus, and those are fairly fixed until you do another round of training that incorporates new information. Autism appears to be somewhat similar in that regard, in the sense that prior knowledge about how the world works (i.e. past exerience) is overweighted in comparison to whatās actually happening (i.e. current experience).
See now this kind of makes sense, though this isnāt necessarily the same as how LLMs manifest this. Some autistic people cling to sameness and things they have experience with, and avoid novelty. LLMs canāt avoid novelty, they just donāt always respond well when it happens. There are cases of autistic people using something in a new scenario that worked previously and failing when exposed to novelty, but so do most NT people funnily enough. Everybody has some degree of established coping mechanisms. I would hazard a guess that the reason autistic people are known for it is their choice of coping mechanisms being unusual more than them repeating past strategies and coping mechanisms in and of itself, as NT people are prone to keep using maladaptive coping mechanisms long after they stopped being effective too. Trying to generalize something from a previous situations isnāt illogical either, the illogical part is sticking to it long after itās clear itās not effective.
Which means that with the right meds and/or mental effort, it may be possible to overcome it or at least greatly reduce the severity of its sypmptoms.
Fyi you donāt and canāt overcome autism. Itās an inherent characteristic like being male/female, having a missing leg, being black vs white, etc. It comes down to brain structure and genetics. There is limited medication for autism specifically, but even for labels like ADHD where more medications are effective, they donāt eliminate the condition anymore than giving someone a prosthetic stops them from having a broken leg or covering someone in paint could make them black. ADHD meds also donāt exactly stop all ADHD symtoms, they reduce some for a certain time, but they can also trigger new psychiatric and physical symptoms.
This why I am saying you are ignorant, and being unintentionally offensive, because even if you have some autistic traits, you havenāt actually spent time interacting with the community or the content and ideas they produce.
You say you have had some strategies for āovercomingā problems associated with autism. Aside from this being a very white night type statement to make, I am interested in exactly what you are talking about. There is a fair bit of bad advice out there, and some āmedicalā treatments that turned out to do way more harm than good over the decades (ABA anyone?). I am somewhat concerned that you could cause damage to yourself or somebody else.
I havenāt read meditations, but from what I have heard he defeats solipsism through an appeal to god. Appealing to a being you have no evidence for it not empirical or logical in my eyes.
Itās been a while since I worked through them myself, but IIRC he does so by observing a sense of continuity in his experience, something a thoroughly evil demon would certainly not allow. He does so by observing the flame of a candle and noticing that it keeps burning more or less undisturbed, turning the hard wax into liquid and eventually consuming it. A thoroughly evil demon obviously would not allow something like this, which gives him reason to believe that either that demon does not exist, or he is at least not thoroughly evil.
There is a difference between being able to perform logic either verbally or to solve a specific situations or puzzle, and actually being logical in general. Plenty of people can act logically in one scenario, then spend most their lives doing the exact opposite.
Right. This is basically what I referred to in my other comment, that logic is a great tool but alone, it is not sufficient in order to live life, and that consequently, there might be value to allowing a certain amount of irrationality to exist. And perhaps this is something that overly rational people (like those with autism) can learn from NT people, who seem to be able to manage to live just fine in a world where not everything is perfectly explainable.
This actually ties well into talking about autistic people, as some of us are highly logical, to the point of seeming unemotional and cold. Others are not rational at all and are highly emotional. I suspect one could theoretically occupy different extremes at different times in their life or under different conditions. As someone who used to be of the more logical variety, I will tell you now that people are not logical entities in general, and treating them as such only made working with them more difficult. I am beginning to think you donāt actually have the people skills to see this.
Iām certainly guilty of clinging too much to rationality as a way to see and explain the world, and insofar you are right āĀ there are skills I am lacking when it comes to dealing with people, and it frequently seems to come down to dealing with their irrational impulses, which often tend to make me anxious or afraid. However, this appears to be an argument for religion if anything āĀ at least to me, it strongly calls to mind Galatians 3:11:
But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for āthe just shall live by faith.ā
If we assume that āthe lawā means logic in this case, then this is simply saying that you cannot live by logic alone, and you must accept some irrationality in order to make it āĀ in other words, some unproven belief, such as āGod not only exists, but He is fundamentally good and does not want me to perish despite all evidence pointing to the opposite at the momentā.
The autistic community has spent some time pushing for identity first language such as saying autistic people instead of people with autism. While I do understand the differences in statements I still donāt really get what you are on about. A lot what you have said has been fairly condescending, using non identity first language, and over-medicalised language that the autistic community has worked hard to get rid of.
Well, like I said before, I cannot promise to never say anything hurtful or offensive, all I can do is ask for mercy when I do, and continue to work as hard as I can on demonstrating that I donāt do so from a place of hatred or ill will. In that regard, I shall take your feedback to heart and simply observe that we seem to have a disagreement here, but I will refrain from pressing the issue.
I really donāt think you understand what special interesests/hyperfixations, stimming, echolalia, and so on are. Those are examples of ārestricted interestsā and ārepetitive behaviorsā. I made the same statement repeatedly as a result of you saying things which show your ignorance of neurodivergence in general and the autistic community specifically.
Like I said, I havenāt met anyone with an official diagnosis of autism IRL, so you are probably correct here. All I can say is that I have observed similar behaviors in myself, and that my parentsā occassionally forceful attempts to shut them off hasnāt proven particularly effective, so if I have said anything that might imply that autistic people could simply choose not to do it, Iād like to apologize for that.
See now this kind of makes sense, though this isnāt necessarily the same as how LLMs manifest this. Some autistic people cling to sameness and things they have experience with, and avoid novelty. LLMs canāt avoid novelty, they just donāt always respond well when it happens. There are cases of autistic people using something in a new scenario that worked previously and failing when exposed to novelty, but so do most NT people funnily enough. Everybody has some degree of established coping mechanisms. I would hazard a guess that the reason autistic people are known for it is their choice of coping mechanisms being unusual more than them repeating past strategies and coping mechanisms in and of itself, as NT people are prone to keep using maladaptive coping mechanisms long after they stopped being effective too. Trying to generalize something from a previous situations isnāt illogical either, the illogical part is sticking to it long after itās clear itās not effective.
Thatās a good point, and it seems to provide some evidence for my suggestion that a perfectly rational world is impossible, because without a source of randomness, we would all be cursed to living entirely predictable lives for all eternity.
Fyi you donāt and canāt overcome autism. Itās an inherent characteristic like being male/female, having a missing leg, being black vs white, etc. It comes down to brain structure and genetics. There is limited medication for autism specifically, but even for labels like ADHD where more medications are effective, they donāt eliminate the condition anymore than giving someone a prosthetic stops them from having a broken leg or covering someone in paint could make them black. ADHD meds also donāt exactly stop all ADHD symtoms, they reduce some for a certain time, but they can also trigger new psychiatric and physical symptoms.
Perhaps you canāt, but does that have to mean you shouldnāt even try? Inasfar as I have similar symptoms, I certainly tend to find them excrutiatingly difficult to bear at times, and I would literally give anything in order to be relieved from them. Therefore I personally find it necessary to ignore such statements in order not to crush my hopes of one day being free from this burden. Iām not suggesting that you have to do the same, all Iām saying is that it works for me.
This why I am saying you are ignorant, and being unintentionally offensive, because even if you have some autistic traits, you havenāt actually spent time interacting with the community or the content and ideas they produce.
That is a valid and fair criticism, and the only defense I have to offer is the point Iāve made above āĀ basically, inasfar as there IS a sense of fatalism within the community (i.e. a belief that āweāll be stuck with this foreverā), I am wont to reject it. And I DO in fact have some valid evidence for this, even if it only comes in the form of personal experience, because I have been able to achieve far more than I ever thought possible as a result of ignoring such thoughts for a while. However, I also ended up paying a heavy price for this, so Iām certainly not going to pretend that I have all the answers, or suggest that anyone follow my example.
You say you have had some strategies for āovercomingā problems associated with autism. Aside from this being a very white night type statement to make, I am interested in exactly what you are talking about. There is a fair bit of bad advice out there, and some āmedicalā treatments that turned out to do way more harm than good over the decades (ABA anyone?). I am somewhat concerned that you could cause damage to yourself or somebody else.
Well, I suppose the best advice I have is to try not to be fatalistic about the situation, but to continually try and look for ways to extract some sort of good from it all, even if it seems excessively difficult at times. Personally, I found that reframing it from identity-based based language (i.e. āI am autisticā) to non-identity based statements (i.e. āI have a disease called autismā) helps me in that regard, especially since ādiseaseā can further be reframed as ādis-easeā (i.e. something that merely indicates having difficulty instead of impossibility). If that doesnāt align with the current medical advice, then I apologize for getting your hopes up, and if that further means you wonāt be interested in continuing a conversation, I totally understand, and will additionally apologize for wasting your time.
Itās been a while since I worked through them myself, but IIRC he does so by observing a sense of continuity in his experience, something a thoroughly evil demon would certainly not allow. He does so by observing the flame of a candle and noticing that it keeps burning more or less undisturbed, turning the hard wax into liquid and eventually consuming it. A thoroughly evil demon obviously would not allow something like this, which gives him reason to believe that either that demon does not exist, or he is at least not thoroughly evil.
This is more picking apart the particular framing than actually addressing the problem of framing. Maybe the demon isnāt evil but constructing a simulation for your own good or for the good of others. Who knows you could even be the dangerous/evil one in this scenario. Maybe the simulation is a way to keep you contained while still having some kind of life.
Perhaps you canāt, but does that have to mean you shouldnāt even try? Inasfar as I have similar symptoms, I certainly tend to find them excrutiatingly difficult to bear at times, and I would literally give anything in order to be relieved from them. Therefore I personally find it necessary to ignore such statements in order not to crush my hopes of one day being free from this burden. Iām not suggesting that you have to do the same, all Iām saying is that it works for me.
I am curious what kind do symptoms you are talking about? I havenāt had anything that problematic thatās completely attributable to autism. In fact a lot of problems I have had could be other disorders I havenāt been diagnosed with yet, or are attributable to the situation and world I have found myself in. Iāve had to deal with a lot of immature people and assholes in my time, and some people who were honestly suffering and couldnāt help themselves, so ended up making it other peopleās problem (intentionally or otherwise). Sure thatās might be easier for a neurotypical to deal with, but that doesnāt mean I am at fault or that autism is the problem there.
It also sounds like you could be masking here. Masking isnāt a great strategy and could be part of the reason you are suffering. You may want to read up on this phenomenon for your own good. Being able to āovercomeā (i.e. suppress) a symptom for a given length of time isnāt really evidence that you have found a way to beat autism, any more than walking on a broken leg heals the broken leg, it just makes it worse in the long run.
Well, like I said before, I cannot promise to never say anything hurtful or offensive, all I can do is ask for mercy when I do, and continue to work as hard as I can on demonstrating that I donāt do so from a place of hatred or ill will. In that regard, I shall take your feedback to heart and simply observe that we seem to have a disagreement here, but I will refrain from pressing the issue.
Iāve done and said things thay are also ignorant or bigoted before. Itās not like I am claiming to be perfect in any way. The important thing is realising when you have made mistakes and doing better next time. Saying nuh uh that isnāt bigoted, and also I hate that word, then doubling down isnāt a good thing. Maybe you donāt do too well learning that maybe your the bad guy. Which isnāt really even the case, itās not your fault you werenāt educated on these things very well. In fact a lot of this conversation makes me think āthe systemā and probably your parents too have failed you big time, and that you need some kind of help.
I think you havenāt had the kind of support, education, and therapy you need as many of the undiagnosed havenāt, and that you might want to go and do something to rectify this.
This is more picking apart the particular framing than actually addressing the problem of framing. Maybe the demon isnāt evil but constructing a simulation for your own good or for the good of others. Who knows you could even be the dangerous/evil one in this scenario. Maybe the simulation is a way to keep you contained while still having some kind of life.
Well, the impression I had was that even just proving that the demon (if he indeed existed) wasnāt entirely evil was already enough to dispell him completely, and hereās why:
Letās assume, for the sake of argument, that the demon IS thoroughly evil and simply allows you to have a short experience of continuity because he enjoys the sadistic pleasure of you getting your hopes up only to crush them again when he removes it. Would that not be a torture worse than complete uncertainty and delusion?
On first examination, one might say yes, but then again, even if that candlelight is all you ever get, itās certainly better than eternal darkness or terror. So as frustrating as the situation might be IF that was all youād ever get, Iād argue that the sadism is less evil than no continuity whatsover. A perfectly evil demon could certainly not allow this to happen, because each time you have that experience, you could use it to illuminate more of his work, and pretty soon you might end up kindling a fire big enough to dispell him entirely, at least for a while.
And isnāt life kinda like that, ulimately? Some days you suffer and others you canāt do no wrong, some days youāre at peace and others youāre at war. But even the most blessed among us arenāt spared hard times, and the best you can hope for is to receive pain and pleasure in equal and managable proportions.
I am curious what kind do symptoms you are talking about? I havenāt had anything that problematic thatās completely attributable to autism. In fact a lot of problems I have had could be other disorders I havenāt been diagnosed with yet, or are attributable to the situation and world I have found myself in. Iāve had to deal with a lot of immature people and assholes in my time, and some people who were honestly suffering and couldnāt help themselves, so ended up making it other peopleās problem (intentionally or otherwise). Sure thatās might be easier for a neurotypical to deal with, but that doesnāt mean I am at fault or that autism is the problem there.
My biggest issue by far has been social interaction, which never really came easy to me. I often either miss social cues entirely or misinterpret them, and I have a strong tendency to overanalyze, as well as occasionally blurt out inappropriate things. In particular, I seem to have a knack for pointing out things that people donāt want to hear (as perhaps you might have noticed) āĀ and itās often not so much that they are fundamentally untrue, but that they require a generous amount of diplomacy to communicate without coming across excessively offensive.
It also sounds like you could be masking here. Masking isnāt a great strategy and could be part of the reason you are suffering. You may want to read up on this phenomenon for your own good. Being able to āovercomeā (i.e. suppress) a symptom for a given length of time isnāt really evidence that you have found a way to beat autism, any more than walking on a broken leg heals the broken leg, it just makes it worse in the long run.
Yeah, thatās very likely the case, because my parents were unfortunately not particularly helpful in coaching me towards better social behavior. They often took just as much offense at my words as random people did, and instead of teaching me how to make my points in a more measured or diplomatic manner, they would simply tell me not to talk like that at ever, period.
Itās taken me a long time to realize that this self-censorship wasnāt very helpful either, and even longer to dig out my original personality from underneath the rubble in order to find ways to communicate more honestly, but without repeating the mistake of simply blurting it out. Itās an ongoing project for me, and this conversation is hopefully a good testimony to that.
Iāve done and said things thay are also ignorant or bigoted before. Itās not like I am claiming to be perfect in any way. The important thing is realising when you have made mistakes and doing better next time. Saying nuh uh that isnāt bigoted, and also I hate that word, then doubling down isnāt a good thing. Maybe you donāt do too well learning that maybe your the bad guy. Which isnāt really even the case, itās not your fault you werenāt educated on these things very well. In fact a lot of this conversation makes me think āthe systemā and probably your parents too have failed you big time, and that you need some kind of help.
I appreciate you for saying that. And yes, my parents probably did fail me, but everyoneās parents eventually do. In my case, it unfortunately was compounded by the fact that my whole extended family, as well as their church (which should have acted as a secondary support sytem) failed me as well. Perhaps society did, too, but at that point in time I did not want to risk being disappointed again so I did not even try to rely on them for support.
I think you havenāt had the kind of support, education, and therapy you need as many of the undiagnosed havenāt, and that you might want to go and do something to rectify this.
Youāre probably right, but I honestly wouldnāt even know where to start.
I havenāt read meditations, but from what I have heard he defeats solipsism through an appeal to god. Appealing to a being you have no evidence for it not empirical or logical in my eyes. This increasingly makes me think
There is a difference between being able to perform logic either verbally or to solve a specific situations or puzzle, and actually being logical in general. Plenty of people can act logically in one scenario, then spend most their lives doing the exact opposite.
This actually ties well into talking about autistic people, as some of us are highly logical, to the point of seeming unemotional and cold. Others are not rational at all and are highly emotional. I suspect one could theoretically occupy different extremes at different times in their life or under different conditions. As someone who used to be of the more logical variety, I will tell you now that people are not logical entities in general, and treating them as such only made working with them more difficult. I am beginning to think you donāt actually have the people skills to see this.
The autistic community has spent some time pushing for identity first language such as saying autistic people instead of people with autism. While I do understand the differences in statements I still donāt really get what you are on about. A lot what you have said has been fairly condescending, using non identity first language, and over-medicalised language that the autistic community has worked hard to get rid of.
I really donāt think you understand what special interesests/hyperfixations, stimming, echolalia, and so on are. Those are examples of ārestricted interestsā and ārepetitive behaviorsā. I made the same statement repeatedly as a result of you saying things which show your ignorance of neurodivergence in general and the autistic community specifically.
See now this kind of makes sense, though this isnāt necessarily the same as how LLMs manifest this. Some autistic people cling to sameness and things they have experience with, and avoid novelty. LLMs canāt avoid novelty, they just donāt always respond well when it happens. There are cases of autistic people using something in a new scenario that worked previously and failing when exposed to novelty, but so do most NT people funnily enough. Everybody has some degree of established coping mechanisms. I would hazard a guess that the reason autistic people are known for it is their choice of coping mechanisms being unusual more than them repeating past strategies and coping mechanisms in and of itself, as NT people are prone to keep using maladaptive coping mechanisms long after they stopped being effective too. Trying to generalize something from a previous situations isnāt illogical either, the illogical part is sticking to it long after itās clear itās not effective.
Fyi you donāt and canāt overcome autism. Itās an inherent characteristic like being male/female, having a missing leg, being black vs white, etc. It comes down to brain structure and genetics. There is limited medication for autism specifically, but even for labels like ADHD where more medications are effective, they donāt eliminate the condition anymore than giving someone a prosthetic stops them from having a broken leg or covering someone in paint could make them black. ADHD meds also donāt exactly stop all ADHD symtoms, they reduce some for a certain time, but they can also trigger new psychiatric and physical symptoms.
This why I am saying you are ignorant, and being unintentionally offensive, because even if you have some autistic traits, you havenāt actually spent time interacting with the community or the content and ideas they produce.
You say you have had some strategies for āovercomingā problems associated with autism. Aside from this being a very white night type statement to make, I am interested in exactly what you are talking about. There is a fair bit of bad advice out there, and some āmedicalā treatments that turned out to do way more harm than good over the decades (ABA anyone?). I am somewhat concerned that you could cause damage to yourself or somebody else.
Itās been a while since I worked through them myself, but IIRC he does so by observing a sense of continuity in his experience, something a thoroughly evil demon would certainly not allow. He does so by observing the flame of a candle and noticing that it keeps burning more or less undisturbed, turning the hard wax into liquid and eventually consuming it. A thoroughly evil demon obviously would not allow something like this, which gives him reason to believe that either that demon does not exist, or he is at least not thoroughly evil.
Right. This is basically what I referred to in my other comment, that logic is a great tool but alone, it is not sufficient in order to live life, and that consequently, there might be value to allowing a certain amount of irrationality to exist. And perhaps this is something that overly rational people (like those with autism) can learn from NT people, who seem to be able to manage to live just fine in a world where not everything is perfectly explainable.
Iām certainly guilty of clinging too much to rationality as a way to see and explain the world, and insofar you are right āĀ there are skills I am lacking when it comes to dealing with people, and it frequently seems to come down to dealing with their irrational impulses, which often tend to make me anxious or afraid. However, this appears to be an argument for religion if anything āĀ at least to me, it strongly calls to mind Galatians 3:11:
If we assume that āthe lawā means logic in this case, then this is simply saying that you cannot live by logic alone, and you must accept some irrationality in order to make it āĀ in other words, some unproven belief, such as āGod not only exists, but He is fundamentally good and does not want me to perish despite all evidence pointing to the opposite at the momentā.
Well, like I said before, I cannot promise to never say anything hurtful or offensive, all I can do is ask for mercy when I do, and continue to work as hard as I can on demonstrating that I donāt do so from a place of hatred or ill will. In that regard, I shall take your feedback to heart and simply observe that we seem to have a disagreement here, but I will refrain from pressing the issue.
Like I said, I havenāt met anyone with an official diagnosis of autism IRL, so you are probably correct here. All I can say is that I have observed similar behaviors in myself, and that my parentsā occassionally forceful attempts to shut them off hasnāt proven particularly effective, so if I have said anything that might imply that autistic people could simply choose not to do it, Iād like to apologize for that.
Thatās a good point, and it seems to provide some evidence for my suggestion that a perfectly rational world is impossible, because without a source of randomness, we would all be cursed to living entirely predictable lives for all eternity.
Perhaps you canāt, but does that have to mean you shouldnāt even try? Inasfar as I have similar symptoms, I certainly tend to find them excrutiatingly difficult to bear at times, and I would literally give anything in order to be relieved from them. Therefore I personally find it necessary to ignore such statements in order not to crush my hopes of one day being free from this burden. Iām not suggesting that you have to do the same, all Iām saying is that it works for me.
That is a valid and fair criticism, and the only defense I have to offer is the point Iāve made above āĀ basically, inasfar as there IS a sense of fatalism within the community (i.e. a belief that āweāll be stuck with this foreverā), I am wont to reject it. And I DO in fact have some valid evidence for this, even if it only comes in the form of personal experience, because I have been able to achieve far more than I ever thought possible as a result of ignoring such thoughts for a while. However, I also ended up paying a heavy price for this, so Iām certainly not going to pretend that I have all the answers, or suggest that anyone follow my example.
Well, I suppose the best advice I have is to try not to be fatalistic about the situation, but to continually try and look for ways to extract some sort of good from it all, even if it seems excessively difficult at times. Personally, I found that reframing it from identity-based based language (i.e. āI am autisticā) to non-identity based statements (i.e. āI have a disease called autismā) helps me in that regard, especially since ādiseaseā can further be reframed as ādis-easeā (i.e. something that merely indicates having difficulty instead of impossibility). If that doesnāt align with the current medical advice, then I apologize for getting your hopes up, and if that further means you wonāt be interested in continuing a conversation, I totally understand, and will additionally apologize for wasting your time.
This is more picking apart the particular framing than actually addressing the problem of framing. Maybe the demon isnāt evil but constructing a simulation for your own good or for the good of others. Who knows you could even be the dangerous/evil one in this scenario. Maybe the simulation is a way to keep you contained while still having some kind of life.
I am curious what kind do symptoms you are talking about? I havenāt had anything that problematic thatās completely attributable to autism. In fact a lot of problems I have had could be other disorders I havenāt been diagnosed with yet, or are attributable to the situation and world I have found myself in. Iāve had to deal with a lot of immature people and assholes in my time, and some people who were honestly suffering and couldnāt help themselves, so ended up making it other peopleās problem (intentionally or otherwise). Sure thatās might be easier for a neurotypical to deal with, but that doesnāt mean I am at fault or that autism is the problem there.
It also sounds like you could be masking here. Masking isnāt a great strategy and could be part of the reason you are suffering. You may want to read up on this phenomenon for your own good. Being able to āovercomeā (i.e. suppress) a symptom for a given length of time isnāt really evidence that you have found a way to beat autism, any more than walking on a broken leg heals the broken leg, it just makes it worse in the long run.
Iāve done and said things thay are also ignorant or bigoted before. Itās not like I am claiming to be perfect in any way. The important thing is realising when you have made mistakes and doing better next time. Saying nuh uh that isnāt bigoted, and also I hate that word, then doubling down isnāt a good thing. Maybe you donāt do too well learning that maybe your the bad guy. Which isnāt really even the case, itās not your fault you werenāt educated on these things very well. In fact a lot of this conversation makes me think āthe systemā and probably your parents too have failed you big time, and that you need some kind of help.
I think you havenāt had the kind of support, education, and therapy you need as many of the undiagnosed havenāt, and that you might want to go and do something to rectify this.
Well, the impression I had was that even just proving that the demon (if he indeed existed) wasnāt entirely evil was already enough to dispell him completely, and hereās why:
Letās assume, for the sake of argument, that the demon IS thoroughly evil and simply allows you to have a short experience of continuity because he enjoys the sadistic pleasure of you getting your hopes up only to crush them again when he removes it. Would that not be a torture worse than complete uncertainty and delusion?
On first examination, one might say yes, but then again, even if that candlelight is all you ever get, itās certainly better than eternal darkness or terror. So as frustrating as the situation might be IF that was all youād ever get, Iād argue that the sadism is less evil than no continuity whatsover. A perfectly evil demon could certainly not allow this to happen, because each time you have that experience, you could use it to illuminate more of his work, and pretty soon you might end up kindling a fire big enough to dispell him entirely, at least for a while.
And isnāt life kinda like that, ulimately? Some days you suffer and others you canāt do no wrong, some days youāre at peace and others youāre at war. But even the most blessed among us arenāt spared hard times, and the best you can hope for is to receive pain and pleasure in equal and managable proportions.
My biggest issue by far has been social interaction, which never really came easy to me. I often either miss social cues entirely or misinterpret them, and I have a strong tendency to overanalyze, as well as occasionally blurt out inappropriate things. In particular, I seem to have a knack for pointing out things that people donāt want to hear (as perhaps you might have noticed) āĀ and itās often not so much that they are fundamentally untrue, but that they require a generous amount of diplomacy to communicate without coming across excessively offensive.
Yeah, thatās very likely the case, because my parents were unfortunately not particularly helpful in coaching me towards better social behavior. They often took just as much offense at my words as random people did, and instead of teaching me how to make my points in a more measured or diplomatic manner, they would simply tell me not to talk like that at ever, period.
Itās taken me a long time to realize that this self-censorship wasnāt very helpful either, and even longer to dig out my original personality from underneath the rubble in order to find ways to communicate more honestly, but without repeating the mistake of simply blurting it out. Itās an ongoing project for me, and this conversation is hopefully a good testimony to that.
I appreciate you for saying that. And yes, my parents probably did fail me, but everyoneās parents eventually do. In my case, it unfortunately was compounded by the fact that my whole extended family, as well as their church (which should have acted as a secondary support sytem) failed me as well. Perhaps society did, too, but at that point in time I did not want to risk being disappointed again so I did not even try to rely on them for support.
Youāre probably right, but I honestly wouldnāt even know where to start.