I find autism advocacy extremely triggering
I am not sure how this will come out because it's hard to cohesively describe the issue - but at the core of it I am finding myself incredibly triggered by all the Autism Advocacy people on social media. I guess I'm hoping the people here might understand and be able to provide some feedback and help articulate these comments a little more clearly.
My sister was diagnosed with AuADHD as an adult, during the diagnosis and the research we all did it became very apparent both my mother and father are also Austisc. Myself, I track strongly for ADHD, but not Autism.
I genuinely feel grateful for my family, and get on well with my parents, we do have challenges, but I've never doubted their love and commitment to me. That said my sister and I barely had a relationship until we moved out of home and the space gave us a chance to connect without pressure. However, the relationship crumbled significantly during a chat in which she told me about her diagnosis, my reaction was not good and I was INCREDIBLY triggered by it.
This led me to doing some research to try and work out why, which led me to the Autism advocates.
The first significant trigger was when one advocate was describing the autistic sense of justice as such - they were building something on the floor, Johnny accidentally walked through it and destroyed it, in return they destroyed his art piece he was working on. The thing is, they argue we should consider they were doing this because it felt like justice, so we should be considerate about that. But what if Johnny is actually their brother, and for every accident or mistake he is punished, how is Johnny going to grow up feeling about himself? Because, it is in fact punishment not justice.
Another recent one was a post from a different advocate stating 'much of auststic communication issues could be overcome by a little empathy, but hey we're the ones who don't have empathy '. To be honest we should all give each other the benefit of the doubt. But other neurodivergent people, and neurotypical people also have biological imperatives and cognitive inflexibilities that don't just disappear when we speak with Autistic people. My example is with Dad, he's an amazing person and I love and respect him which means when he makes comments in a way that I find challenging or problematic, I remind myself he isn't attacking me but that we just aren't connecting. However, I've been through the most exhausting and long three months of my life recently, I haven't slept through the night in ~5 years and it's been worse the last 3 weeks. When he makes remarks that are problematic, I'm still required to do all the cognitive and emotional gymnastics of putting it in a different context and reminding myself that he believes he's making a comment/observation not a criticism. I just do not have the capacity for it right and it's more draining than ever. But as the advocate said 'dont hear what I didn't say', so we should easily just turn off all the sensors and context processing neurons we've spent our whole lives developing and conditioning. Easy.
The final trigger for this discussion is 'the world wasn't made for us'. Like WTF, the world was certainly made BY you and many of the unhealthy contributions are driven by autistic or ND people. Yes, NT may adapt better, but the only people think world was 'made for' are the ultra rich who can pay to avoid all the shit. NT people just suffer differently, the lack of connection and community, the constant targeted media and advertising they are more vulnerable to.
I guess all of this sums up as, we've all been conditioned by Autistic parents and family members to meet their needs, at the cost of ours. We have needs too.
Anyway, thanks for letting me rant.
Posted Nov 1, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC