Simply Mark - Autistic, In Flow, in Service to Allistic / Autistic Understanding...
An account of a late adult discovery of autism, deep research into the current state of misunderstanding of Autism, set against a background of a life of somatic study and spiritual practice.
A sub-set of this Podcast is a long time passion as a camp lead at Burning Man, and the discovery of a depth of sensitivity and inner peace through quantum field programming and de-programming. The magic includes the creation of subtle body controls to dial down the previously overwhelming volume of sensory data.
For Allistic people, there are resources to see Autistic people and yourself differently.
For Autistic people, there is freedom and peace in throwing off the misplaced judgements myopic worldview of our Allistic friends.
Simply Mark - Autistic, In Flow, in Service to Allistic / Autistic Understanding...
A/A Series - The Double Empathy Problem
An introduction to the double empathy problem.
Please pause this talk here…. Listen to this YouTube talk, and come back when complete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a2O3bjLrsc&t=768s
For Allistic people, imagine you are visiting Paris, France where your excessive smiling and demand for eye contact is poorly received and considered rude. Imagine your attempts to speak French are met with blank stares and disdain. Imagine your loud voice calling the attention of your waiter causes stares and disapproval and a few cruel laughs by restaurant patrons… and result in you largely being ignored by the restaurant staff.
Now picture your attempts to complain to the maître de. He refuses to accept your criticism and tells you that you are the cause of the entire problem. You storm out of the restaurant calling the Parisians lacking in any human interest, empathy or social grace. Of course, the Parisian diners would by and large judge YOU as the one lacking in human interest, empathy or social grace.
This is the double empathy problem. It occurs at the collision of two cultures.
Only its worse than that…
Imagine if pretty much everyone in your home town treated you like you were in the Parisian restaurant. Imagine if the community has made it clear to you that you were the problem. No one will actually tell you why you are being judged as having violated unspoken social “rules”.. You are simply told that you have no human interest in them, and that you lack empathy or social grace.
Autistic people don’t need to imagine. This is our home town experience today. We are told that we do not show interest, empathy or have social grace. We are also told that there is a reason we are so dysfunctional… we have a disorder.
This is not true… we simply communicate differently, and we are getting tired of being blamed, pathologized, traumatized and excluded due to the lack of awareness, empathy and tolerance among Allistics.
Having come to understand the difference between external and internal validation, and after getting clear on my internal standards, I am no longer a captive to feeling alienated at the double empathy problem.
I have compassion for the tunnel vision commonly held by Allistics that they are a certain way. This ‘fixed” sense of self, the effort to hold this self together publically and privately with all the coping and defensiveness when challenged looks to me to nothing more than a trauma response to defend this “self” from “not-knowing”.
My encouragement to Autistic people is to not judge yourself by this narrow, Allistic pattern of self, reality, communication, and relationships. We Autistics have the gift to be in flow with the “not-knowing” experience of life in a wonderfully revealed unfolding of the whole of creation.
Imagine a world in which Autistic people and other marginalized groups in society were actually valued for their differences, and allowed to participate in different types of conversations together with Allistic people. What worlds of possibilities could we open up for each other.
Can you imagine this… I can.