In some ways, this post is a follow-on from my post "There Are Always Those Who Don't Try". If you want to fully understand this post, I would recommend reading that first.
Anyway, back to the subject matter. In the other post, I focused on the necessity of non-autistic people being understanding to the issues that autism, but there is another side to this. It is equally important for the autistic people to be understanding of the non-autistics. I have been told that very often, it is very easy for a non-autistic person to think that autistic people are very immature or even deliberately making life difficult for themselves and others. While in the vast majority of cases this is highly untrue, there are certainly many people who don't make life any easier for the others in their lives.
There is a solution though - self-growth. If an autistic person shows themselves to be growing, or even making a real and conscious effort to improve themselves, I can almost guarantee that non-autistic people will be much more understanding of the problems you face. Take my word for it, there will be people who do not care, even if you try your very hardest, as I said in the previous post. Having said that, I feel that it is highly important for autistic people to try as hard to blend into the non-autistic world as it is for the autistic world to adapt around autism.
This means changing the parts of yourself that you dislike, however it also involves being understanding of non-autistics. It is clear to me that it is very difficult for a non-autistic person to understand why an autistic does things differently from others. An autistic person is very likely to misunderstand the signals an a non-autistic will portray, but it is equally easy for a non-autistic to misunderstand the signals an autistic will portray, or even fail to portray. This can mean that it is highly likely for a non-autistic to become infuriated with an autistic. This probably leads to the majority of arguments between people. I myself have had several of these arguments.
But there is a solution. Change. Improve. Grow. If you can do all of these things, people will be able to see that you are actually trying to stop these arguments, they will probably reciprocate and learn to accept those flaws you cannot help. The understanding side of things consists of acknowledging the difficulties associated with dealing with an autistic person, and trying to reduce these difficulties. It has worked for me, it can work for you...if you give it enough time and energy.
Sorry for the shortness of this pot, I am on holiday at the moment and I wanted to get this written so I wrote this quickly. I shall very likely return to this topic later. Any comments on this post or the blog in general are more than welcomed!
Anyway, back to the subject matter. In the other post, I focused on the necessity of non-autistic people being understanding to the issues that autism, but there is another side to this. It is equally important for the autistic people to be understanding of the non-autistics. I have been told that very often, it is very easy for a non-autistic person to think that autistic people are very immature or even deliberately making life difficult for themselves and others. While in the vast majority of cases this is highly untrue, there are certainly many people who don't make life any easier for the others in their lives.
There is a solution though - self-growth. If an autistic person shows themselves to be growing, or even making a real and conscious effort to improve themselves, I can almost guarantee that non-autistic people will be much more understanding of the problems you face. Take my word for it, there will be people who do not care, even if you try your very hardest, as I said in the previous post. Having said that, I feel that it is highly important for autistic people to try as hard to blend into the non-autistic world as it is for the autistic world to adapt around autism.
This means changing the parts of yourself that you dislike, however it also involves being understanding of non-autistics. It is clear to me that it is very difficult for a non-autistic person to understand why an autistic does things differently from others. An autistic person is very likely to misunderstand the signals an a non-autistic will portray, but it is equally easy for a non-autistic to misunderstand the signals an autistic will portray, or even fail to portray. This can mean that it is highly likely for a non-autistic to become infuriated with an autistic. This probably leads to the majority of arguments between people. I myself have had several of these arguments.
But there is a solution. Change. Improve. Grow. If you can do all of these things, people will be able to see that you are actually trying to stop these arguments, they will probably reciprocate and learn to accept those flaws you cannot help. The understanding side of things consists of acknowledging the difficulties associated with dealing with an autistic person, and trying to reduce these difficulties. It has worked for me, it can work for you...if you give it enough time and energy.
Sorry for the shortness of this pot, I am on holiday at the moment and I wanted to get this written so I wrote this quickly. I shall very likely return to this topic later. Any comments on this post or the blog in general are more than welcomed!