this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
1195 points (95.4% liked)
Autism
6899 readers
317 users here now
A community for respectful discussion and memes related to autism acceptance. All neurotypes are welcome.
We have created our own instance! Visit Autism Place the following community for more info.
Community:
Values
- Acceptance
- Openness
- Understanding
- Equality
- Reciprocity
- Mutuality
- Love
Rules
- No abusive, derogatory, or offensive post/comments e.g: racism, sexism, religious hatred, homophobia, gatekeeping, trolling.
- Posts must be related to autism, off-topic discussions happen in the matrix chat.
- Your posts must include a text body. It doesn't have to be long, it just needs to be descriptive.
- Do not request donations.
- Be respectful in discussions.
- Do not post misinformation.
- Mark NSFW content accordingly.
- Do not promote Autism Speaks.
- General Lemmy World rules.
Encouraged
- Open acceptance of all autism levels as a respectable neurotype.
- Funny memes.
- Respectful venting.
- Describe posts of pictures/memes using text in the body for our visually impaired users.
- Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
- Questions regarding autism.
- Questions on confusing situations.
- Seeking and sharing support.
- Engagement in our community's values.
- Expressing a difference of opinion without directly insulting another user.
- Please report questionable posts and let the mods deal with it. Chat Room
- We have a chat room! Want to engage in dialogue? Come join us at the community's Matrix Chat.
.
Helpful Resources
- Are you seeking education, support groups, and more? Take a look at our list of helpful resources.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
And sorry to double reply, but I feel like I missed this. (I have a tendency to ramble, I should probably refine my responses before sending. Eh.)
Why would you make fun of them if you don't think these traits are bad?
As another autistic person, I didn’t understand this instinctively so I can actually articulate an answer for you.
The reason you make fun of your friends is to reinforce the shared understanding that you are friends.
I’ll try and come up with an analogy.
There is a king who keeps very tight security around him at all times. Everyone must be disarmed before they enter his chamber, because he doesn’t trust anyone. Except for one man. There is a knight in this king’s court who is allowed to wear his sword into the king’s audience chamber.
Why? Well, because it is an honor to be trusted to this degree. And why does the knight bring the sword in? Because every time the king chooses to allow the knight’s sword into his presence he reinforces his own trust in the knight. He reinforces the pathways in his brain that consist of this trust.
That’s the knight’s reason.
Why does the king allow the knight to bring the sword in? Because every time the knight chooses not to draw that sword and kill the king, he reinforces the part of his brain that is loyal to the king. That is the king’s reason.
The king and the knight both benefit from their relationship; they both want it to be strengthened.
So they allow the creation of a situation that only works if they’re friends, because this disambiguates the relationship in their mind.
I know it’s not the best analogy. But it’s about competing narratives in the brain, and how presenting a scenario whose resolution into one decision or the other reinforces the narrative that matches the decision.
If we are friends, and we’re hanging out, and I say something insulting to you, I’m doing that because the insult gives you an opportunity to reaffirm our friendship by choosing to take it lightly and laugh at it. The word “reaffirm” here encapsulates the logic in the last three paragraphs preceding this one.
The insults are the sword in the audience chamber. They are a threat. By dismissing the threat, one reaffirms the relationship.
It makes more sense in the context of demonstrating to a third party that two people are friends — say if that third party was thinking of playing them against one another — and to apply it to two friends alone you just need to remember a human brain runs thousands of little minds in parallel.