this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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I mean, on various scales that's what everybody does.
Yep, everyone has to make adaptations, compromises and has to deal with things that are not ideal. However, this is often easier for neurotypicals than it is for neurodivergent and often on a less frequent basis. As in all things both have to make adjustments and both need to understand that the others have needs. The art is in finding what works for you, what does allow you to live your life in the best quality while limiting the impact on other peoples needs. Goes for everyone neurotypical or not.
We live in a society
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The point is that both neurotypicals and neurodivergent have to adapt to the same things, but neurodivergent are unable to adapt to some things that neurotypicals are able to adapt to.
That is why neurodivergent are sometimes labeled as "annoying".
So claiming neurodivergents are constantly tolerating things is missing the point.
The difference in severity is literally why masking in autistic people is a symptom and something that often negatively affects us, while for non-autistic people it's mostly kinda whatever. It's totally possible to not be autistic and heavily mask to the point where it's negatively affecting you too, but when you're autistic that's the norm and you're the lucky one if you never experienced it.
Tbh, neurotypical or not, everyone is masking constantly. That's what everyone has to do.
Everyone has annoying coworkers, everyone's stuck in traffic or transit. Everyone has to deal with shit all day. That's what happens if you have people around.
Everyone needs to shut up when they'd much rather just shout at that idiot who makes their lives difficult. Everyone has to sit down and do their work, even if they are in a work environment that appears to be specifically designed to prevent concentrated work. That's why everyone uses noise cancelling headphones in an office, because they can't work otherwise.
Yes, my point was that the degree of that just differs. People that truly don't mask at all are usually insufferable, autistic or not. Autistic people however often need to suppress most of their entire personalities. For example many people will react to you negatively for not making eye contact when talking, which for most autistic people is not something that comes naturally. They will also interpret things into your words based on facial expressions. When I'm talking to someone and they can see my face I have to constantly consider where to look (can't just stare them into the eyes either) and what to do with my facial muscles (which still doesn't guarantee I'm doing the right thing for the other person to understand my actual feelings). From everything I've read, neurotypical people don't have that issue. (And this is the masking we mran that can destroy you and feel like you lose your real personality if you never get lucky enough to find people you can be more relaxed around - especially when in school it mostly just means being bullied)
And then there are sensory issues (thankfully I mainly struggle with scents and some textures, which are overall not an issue that often, but many struggle with noise) which multiply all the annoyance that anyone has from loud noises, bad smells or whatever tenfold. And you also get annoyed at a far lower threshhold that neurotypical brains just filter out automatically.
The masking pressure autistic people have to deal is just more constant and more consistent, but of course everyone has their own shit to deal with.
Some of these posts reminds me of how 4chan talks about "normies"
maybe because a lot of those spending most of their time on a forum are autistic? who would've thought?