Regular reminder that being an asshole is not a symptom of any form of neurodivergence. (You can replace “neurodivergent” with depressed, anxious, bipolar, etc. and the diagram works equally well)
ETA: social faux pas, awkwardness, and genuine symptoms of neurodivergence don’t make you an asshole. I shouldn’t have to say this? An “asshole” is someone who enacts a pattern of abusive, controlling, harassing, and/or harmful behavior with no remorse or concern for how other people are affected.
If I had a nickel for every time someone says “this person’s being a huge jerk to me but I think they might be neurodivergent”
Then I would have zero cents
Yeah, but how many nickels would you have?
As it turns out, also zero.
The trick is to divide by 5. The trick of that is double it and divide by 10.
Neurodivergent people: Trying their best to fit into society
You: Fuck those assholes.
As someone who is neurodivergent and operates at an engineering level, when I’m under pressure I can sometimes be an asshole unintentionally. I try my best to recognize when I do this and apologize when I can. It’s not something I can help. It’s impulsive which means it’s hard to control.
Here you are telling everyone that I am not deserving of compassion or understanding and should be written off as an asshole.
Do you know what it’s like being neurodivergent? How people treat you when they find out? I now have to be on my best behavior at all times or I could get labeled an asshole and therefore deserve nothing according to you.
Sometimes mental illness is like having a stab wound in your gut and you have to act like everything is fine. It’s not always possible in all situations.
To say this post lacks awareness is an understatement.
Man I got NPD and even I would find it weird for people to like me just because they know I have NPD like you don’t gonna deal with the shit, if they can’t help being assholes then step it up
Sorry but I don’t understand what you are saying with your first point. Is your second point literally “you need to step up your mental illness game?”
I think a lot of people here found it a bit caustic. But I don’t necessarily disagree with the point I think you might have been trying to make.
There’s a line that’s pretty easy to draw involving intent and behavior. However the actuality is the world isn’t made for us and this is as much an accessibility issue as it is anything else.
This is pretty clearly demonstrated in the show House. There’s at least one episode where House is in a wheel chair and he illustrates how he can use that wheel chair to get away with a lot of intentional behavior masked as accidental or otherwise unintentional. At one point I believe he even makes it clear it was intention and able bodied people give him a pass because “you wouldn’t hit a guy in a wheel chair”.
When people think each incident is unintentional they are more likely to be willing to compromise their irritation or boundaries. When they feel the incidents are intentional they feel righteously angry and are less likely to fall back on social norms. However they still generally default (for people with physical disabilities) to compromising their boundaries in order to be socially accepted or not look like the bad guy. This is part of the problem with the whole thing.
This is part of the problem with this discussion. The main assumption here is that each party is operating on the social norms laid down by NT people and nobody in the thread seems to be readily able to agree on what specific behaviors make you an “asshole” because it’s subjective and ND do not generally have the same reference baseline for what is acceptable.
This is not making excuses. It’s laying out facts.
There’s a lot of anecdotes here in this comment thread. There’s a lot of personal experience that is valid but does not necessarily equal the experiences of even a marginally reasonable subset of the population to make an analysis of what constitutes an “asshole”, or what behaviors specifically are NT or ND.
But it seems we can mostly agree that deliberately using the condition of being neurodivergent as a shield for behavior we know is not acceptable is wrong.
The scale by which we measure that isn’t decided by ND people though. It’s decided by a society of mostly NT people. And because society by and large doesn’t even necessarily acknowledge those differences and make boundaries based on facts and education rather than feelings we end up with this hodgepodge of badly enforced boundaries, unhealthy masking that does real damage, and under/overreaction.
But people still deserve empathy. That empathy doesn’t mean you should abandon or alter your boundaries to accept unacceptable behavior.
Everyone is trying their best, even neurotypicals.
Doesn’t give you a free pass.
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Neurodivergence is not metal illness. You can not “cure” what is not broken. Trying to do so is what causes serious childhood trama. Neurodivergence is tied to communication differences and a differences in how the brain works.
For more information look up the double empathy problem.
Neurodivergence comes part and parcel with mental illness for some people. Depression is a mental illness that a lot of ND people suffer from. It has a direct effect on how we communicate especially when compounded by other ND traits like hyper focus or anxiety (the latter of which is also considred a mental disorder).
It’s reasonable for someone who is ND to be experiencing mental illness that may compound behaviors that society as a whole doesn’t condone.
Yeah I have two childhood friends that are brothers. Their other brother is very autistic. When we were kids a lot of people didn’t understand autism enough to get that while yes, his autism did affect the way in which he was a tremendous asshole, it didn’t cause it. He happened to have a shit personality and disability level autism
When they ramble on about something you don’t care about or actively don’t want to discuss, say “Hey I don’t like this conversation, can we talk about something else?”
Yellow: “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Red: “What? Why don’t you wanna talk about this, is it because you secretly hate me or are hiding something? Now I know we need to talk about it until I’m convinced you’re hearing what I have to say on this topic.”When I realize I’m dominating a conversation I will try to give other people space to talk and also let them know they can tell me to shut up. I won’t take it too personally.
Even if you let them know they can say shut up whenever, they likely won’t. The best bet is to do the first option all the time, because even with permission, most people still wouldn’t do it though they may want to.
When they ramble on about something you don’t care about…
Or, hear me out, you could listen to them infodump because it will make them happy?
You do not have to be friends with anyone! :D
I thought what we had was special 😢
This looks like a MasterCard. I can’t unsee it.
Credit companies are indeed assholes
But are they neurodivergent?
The diagram also looks like a butt. Assholes confirmed.
I just clicked this post to write this 😭 🙏
Preach
To an extent ya. You need to take responsibility for yourself. But also if I interrupt someone constantly that’s not bc I want to
Everyone is an amateur psychologist now
I was in a coffee shop a few years ago and a guy in line was wearing an O.G.R.E. shirt, a way old computer game from 1986.
I said “Nice shirt! Never played that game, though.”
Completely delighted, he ranted about his love for the game until my order was ready. And it was a bit hard to get away from him afterward.
This is definitely someone who could’ve fallen into that category.
But I don’t see it that way because I’m also neurodivergent and know people never engage with us like that. Might have made his day.
Just a little story from that borderline in the Venn diagram.
Sounds like you touched on their special interest. You almost certainly made their day, even if you felt a little awkward. I have autism and my special interest has changed several times, but that passion usually remains (especially if it lasted for a year or longer). It’s taken my entire adult life to figure out when people no longer care
I didn’t think anyone would have considered that asshole behavior. Annoying, maybe, but that doesn’t come across as mean.
I think a better example would be something like a coworker saying “You said you’d send me that information yesterday” which can be interpreted as “hey can you send me that information you mentioned?” OR “hey fucko, you lied to me”
That’s not asshole behavior. That’s called autistic infodumping.
Basically autistic people get dopamine from talking about there special interests. It is like riding a roller coaster and sometimes it is hard to stop.
A business is not obligated to tear out every stairway to make a ramp because some of its users require a wheel chair. In the same vein, not every social interaction where a person who is neurodivergent (diagnosed or not) hurts the feelings of another person is necessarily them being an asshole. Another commenter said something about how intent matters. They’re right. It does.
However it matters for both parties. It’s situational and it’s important to remember that a lot of social interactions involve misunderstandings because there is a lack of communication from both sides and a set of different expectations on both sides.
I don’t necessarily think it’s fair to view every social interaction through the light of who is the injured party. We don’t do that to people with physical conditions. You wouldn’t accuse a person in a wheel chair of being an asshole for having an expectation of accessibility. But that’s because society as a whole has come to an understanding (by force) that accessibility for these physical conditions is important.
I don’t think society has come to that realization about ND people, nor do I think that the average person looks at ND behaviors and adapts to them in a meaningful way.
So when people have an expectation based on Neurotypical behavior and a ND person doesn’t meet that expectation, do they recalibrate at all to temper the expectations?
One of the commenters here gave an example about working with a ND person and the response the rest of their co-workers had to another person calling them out for it in a fit of anger. The thing is, it should not have gotten to that point. And it’s not just because others should have been setting good boundaries in a healthy way about that behavior. It’s also because they should have been tempering their expectations and not overcompensating for that ND person in an unhealthy way.
Part of the problems we’re seeing between NT’s and ND’s have a lot to do with communication and an inability to compromise or at the very least try to find resolution in healthy ways.
This is just an ad for MasterCard; change my mind.
You got me. Mastercard: the credit card for neurodivergents, assholes, and everything in between
“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s neurodivergence.”
Yeah I’ve got plenty of issues but I manage to not be a dick, kinda feels like those are separate categories as far as the whole mental space goes.
I think a fair number of self-proclaimed “neurodivergent” folks just like it because: a) They think it’s a free pass to be an asshole b) They think it indicates some sort of superpower with no downsides and that they are superior to “normal” people.
Knowing some clearly sincerely neurodivergent people I tend to be highly skeptical when people assert that status in an interaction where I wouldn’t otherwise be able to tell.
I’m ADHD and probably on the spectrum. Most of my friends are some level of both too.
There are still assholes who are also neurodivergent. I’ve met some. I avoid them. I will generally get along with other neurospicy people, especially if their combination is closer to my own, but an asshole is still an asshole.
That hasn’t been my experience but the demographic I hang about still has some stigma associated with being ND, so they wouldn’t “admit” to it unless it was relevant/apparent.
Curious if it’s regional or age related.
For example, at work where there’s a lot of 50+ people shaping the culture, I don’t think ND would be seen as an asset.
However, to me those that grew up when Asperger’s first hit the scene seemed more likely to treat it as “cool autism”, and migrated over to “high functioning autistic” when the DSM ditched it as a distinct diagnosis. I seem to recall some commentary at the time that the Asperger’s as a distinct diagnosis was more detrimental due to its popularity, and while formally the criteria for Asperger’s versus Autism would be similar, there was a sense that people should be more reluctant to diagnose as autistic than they were to diagnose Asperger’s.
I don’t think ADHD ever enjoyed status as a “cool” diagnosis though, but certainly in the mid 80s was overdiagnosed in children.
I don’t think ADHD ever enjoyed status as a “cool” diagnosis though
the last couple years on tiktok, but its tiktok so whatever
Masking exists you know. Just because you can hide it doesn’t mean there isn’t more under the surface. This is more of a Autism thing but I think some ADHD people also mask.
So, for some honesty, I feel like there’s been a culture of folks treating “neurotypical” almost like a slur, like “neurodivergent” means better and thus folks thinking they need a diagnosis.
I know someone that self-diagnosed as autistic and was very excited to “finally make it formal” and shopped for a therapist that was qualified to diagnose and had even diagnosed a friend of theirs as on the spectrum. They were so pissed when after a couple of months of sessions the therapist continued to decline to issue a diagnosis. They couldn’t just be normal. I think most people I’ve heard personally declare themselves to be neurodivergent to be roughly in this camp.
I think popular internet culture is teaching people that a normal person has zero struggles with things like getting out of bed in the morning or being on time, and that if you have any whiff of not liking to do some unpleasant part of daily life then you are neurodivergent. It also tends to teach that neurodivergent people are smarter. I think this serves to dilute the reality of those with more serious issues. Similar to how a flood of “service animals” has diminished the experience of those with sincere need for them.
It isn’t possible to fake being ND. Faking it would require someone to mask like a ND person does which doesn’t seem likely. Any therapist who still is going off of dated information and stigmas should lose there ability to practice.
The point of that story was that someone I knew that saw an actual therapist still said they were ND and denied the therapist’s opinion that they were NT. They had a friend that did receive a diagnosis from that same therapist and based on my interactions with that friend, I could definitely understand. They went shopping for what they thought was an easy diagnosis and failed to get one, but declared the therapy just isn’t good and they were done with therapy and they will continue to declare themselves to be ND anyway, because they know they are.
I strongly suspect a lot of self proclaimed ND folks are declaring so without any diagnosis or even against a professional opnion to the contrary. There’s too much romanticism of it and of course it causes some people to gravitate towards it. The end result being a dilution of societal accomodations toward ND born out of skepticism of some generally obnoxious folks.
Self diagnosis is completely valid. I’m pretty sure NT people aren’t going around trying to be ND. At the end of the day if they relate to ND they probably are one. I think ND people are much more common than society wants us to believe
Prior to the 90s, I think your perspective is correct, that no one would go out of their way to claim a condition they did not have.
But the 90s blessed high functioning autism as Asperger’s, and a bunch of smart computer people at the same time started getting rich. The popular take away for the random person was that Asperger’s meant:
- You are smarter than other people
- You can’t be expected to be considerate to others or consider their viewpoints, because that’s just the way you would be
- You can’t be expected to really talk to people you don’t feel like talking to at all
So now you had a condition that confers intelligence at a time when computer nerd was suddenly respectable, and a condition that allows one to fully cave to discomfort that almost everyone feels to some extent (though the intent was to describe people utterly incapable, the practical result has been a lot of people having normal levels of discomfort wallowing in it).
Plus the modern terminology of “typical” versus “divergent”, where people naturally want to be “divergent” (so long as they are divergent just like everybody they like) and people generally don’t like the sound of being “typical”.
Again, this is not the professional perspective, it’s the layman’s perspective that drives people to self-diagnose as a path to superiority and/or not dealing with fairly normal levels of discomfort when dealing with other people.
What do you even mean? Of course its possible to pretend and fake being neurodivergent, many many people do. You may not fake it correctly, and that’s why these people might not be able to get a real diagnosis
neurotypical feels like a slur
Genuinely, as someone who’s been on both the moderating and recieving end of communal moderation as a traumatized trans and disabled person, this topic is an iceberg. Social osratcization and bannishment shouldnt be weilded heavy handedly.
If you feel so oppressed, be glad that people empathize with you for your congruence with mental state, brain chemisty and so much more that we barely even have words much less proper understanding at large for, which is all lumped in to “neurodivergent”, and that your every choice is not medicalized and psychoanalyzed for being so bold as to be out about it.
Im over the respectability politics ☮️
You hit the nail on the head IMO, basically if someone says they are neurodivergent or brings up a mental issue they claim to have for no reason at all, like just to tell you hey I’m neurodivergent, I typically assume they aren’t and just pretend to believe them.
You’re right, but also there are still a ton of people that pretend or think they have some type of mental condition when in actuality they don’t.
I have diagnosed OCD (by a medical professional) and I’ve only ever told about two friends in my entire life because the millions of gross people around the world that say they have OCD for the most normal fucking things that everyone In the world can relate to.
Somebody saying they have OCD is so fucking cringe to me now because of these morons that I’m scared to tell anyone even if I’m close to them.
That’s fair honestly as a lot of people think they relate to OCD. I’ve even been called OCD even though I’m very sure that’s not something that impacts me.
It’s weird to me though because I’ve had a psychiatrist tell me I probably have ocd, but left it as just an anxiety disorder unspecified (ocd thought patterns that spiral into panic attacks), but I find a lot of these people are more thinking of feeling uncomfortable with any mess rather than spending your entire vacation worried you left the door unlocked or struggling with anxious thought loops that you can’t force yourself to stop thinking about.
I’ve been called an asshole many times. I think most people think I’m a nice person, but to the wrong person I’m a complete asshole. If I find out you support cops I’m suddenly the biggest asshole alive. If you’re a capitalist? Guess what, asshole mode wants to turn on.
That’s fine in echo chambers, but when you’re in a diverse group? I had to learn social skills early on as a kid, and not every autistic child learns how to adapt to a social situation. I put my example as a hard truth: We can’t applaud people being assholes to certain people and then be appalled when assholes remain assholes to those aren’t the acceptable group of people to be an asshole to. If I want to remain socially acceptable around cop-supporters, I have to adopt different social ‘postures’ like respectfully disagreeing instead of calling them boo-tlicking piggies. My tolerance for respectful disagreement only lasts so long, though, when my under-the-breath stuff starts coming out and then I know I can’t be around people if I want to be accepted.
What gets rewarded gets repeated.
I try not to be an asshole.
The problem is I am direct and do not sugar coat things. I treat others how I would like to be treated which can be seen as rude. I make an effort to not be that way but it ends up the same.
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Sugar coating things is not what I do naturally but I can force myself to do it. The problem is that people get mad either way.
FYI “not sugarcoating things” is the asshole’s mantra for saying anything they want with callous disregard to how its received. Based on displayed attitude in your comment, I sincerely doubt you are as kind as you think.
I’m Autistic which means I tend to miss a lot of social context. It isn’t a intentional behavior and I work pretty hard to think though if something might be offensive to someone. I don’t like to upset or annoy others it is really bothers me if I upset someone. Most of the time I end up over thinking social interactions which leads me to just sit quietly and avoid talking.
As a person with a grab-bag of disorders, I do get it.
I have been on my own journey of going from a great technical communicator, to a great human communicator. There’s a big difference that I wasn’t able to see before.
One of the things I’ve discovered is that in irl interactions there is an undesired aspect of “heavy lifting” that has to be done on “your” side. That involves a lot of “listening” to how what you are saying is being received, and then on-the-fly recognizing and adjusting to that.
I used to resent that and feel I shouldn’t have to and that other people should be able to “hear” me “plainly” without transforming it through their own emotional framework first. I’ve since learned that was naive and self-centered of me - A denial-based assumption on how communication works, that honestly for me looking back, was me being lazy.
I think this overlaps with neurotical v neurodivergent, but also “ask vs guess culture” can be a source of conflict
