I’ve spent my life trying to explain to normal people why their lifestyle of punishment and authoritarianism is insane. The idea that only I could see it has been very hard to understand and accept, it seemed obvious, there is language, isn’t there? We can learn things, can’t we? Surely if I spell it out for them?
So I’ve been doing that for most of my life, I even tried having kids of my own, surely they could understand it, being half me and if I could arrange that they weren’t brought up to be that way on purpose, that would help, but I’m afraid that didn’t work out their mother was very much a normal person in that regard, she never got the idea, never relinquished her need for authority and control and it seemed they were raised that way and/or they are normal and also just do not get it. The kids have let me know they are certain that I too was normal and secretly arranged for my authority and their punishments behind their backs or something.
Of course that’s not true, but I guess it tells me things were going on behind people’s backs and that they must have had their threats and/or punishments and lived subject to authority. It has been automatic for me that when a child says “I was hurt,” I believe them and side with them, so it happened to them. The one that speaks to me seems normal, that is, aggressive, uh . . . strong. In my worldview that means something happened to them. Somebody fought with them, taught them to fight.
Wasn’t me, I never would.
So, life is trying very hard to change my mind, to convince me it can’t be done, that normal people simply haven’t got the hardware for anything but the Nineteen Eighty-Four shit they do, that this violent blindness is normal, neurotypical, and they’re born with it. Not a coincidence that my entire thesis is exactly the opposite of that, that nobody is born with nothing except genetic potential and that it’s their lifestyle that activates it. I intuit that normal people raised without abuse might see it – same experiment I already tried and failed at in my own life, mind you. Life is winning this argument the way normals do, with brute force.
By the way, I have recently decided I am not neurotypical, this year, I’m retired, and I’ve been saying “normals” since I had kids, the mid-nineties, meaning spankers, people who parent with authority, people who do what they’re told and tell others what to do. I’ve always tried to have the lightest of touch on people, “normals” crash around like peacetime were wartime. I haven’t closed the door on it, I never do on anything, but so far, I’m still using this definition and unless the conversation is specifically about brain science, I’m going to keep saying “normals.”
I like that it suggests “norms,” which is more about lifestyle than born with brain types, which, natures and types is not helpful – politically not helpful. The world is a far better place if against all odds I win this argument. Identity has a very dark side. Especially in a world where abuse is invisible.
So, this is my impossible quest, my special interest. As I suggested on Twitter yesterday, I am feeling a little burned not to find I have some near magical savantic ability to make it happen, or any gift at all. If my fellow autists do not find themselves on my side of the above definition, if they are not all anti-punishment, anti-authority sorts like myself, which I am still assuming they are, if this special interest isn’t just autistic rationalism, if even among autists only I see the damages normals do to one another – then perhaps just seeing it is my gift?
But I suppose trying to make something of it is my curse, I’m almost sad to say, I shall keep at the impossible bit, using the warrior’s language to try to pacify him, trying to reach across the gulf. Once more into the breach and all that.
Jeff
June 27th., 2022
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