Can we put "how much time do you spend worrying if you are being misunderstood?" on the list of autism diagnostic questions?
Being misunderstood is my greatest fear in life, & I'm pretty sure autistic trauma is why.
"How often do you feel like you need to clarify things you say with very specific language?"
Here's a good one: "Do people often claim that you said something which you *definitely* did not say & get mad at you, even though you chose your language very specifically to try to make your meaning *abundantly* clear?"
"Do conversations with a single individual sometimes feel like a game of 'telephone' because the other person keeps incorrectly paraphrasing things you say?"
I have no idea how many hours of my life I have spent explaining to people that I didn't say the thing that they are saying that I did, but it's fucking stressful as hell.
Among other things, people seem to think all words with an overlapping semantic range are interchangeable, so you'll choose to use one that is specific to what you mean & then they substitute a different word with significantly different connotations & don't even seem to notice.
I wish I had known when I was younger that my brain was just working differently & more sensitively tuned to some things allistic people miss & less capable of picking up other things which allistic people do pay attention to.
It's fucking hard to be painfully sincere & honest & then despite your best efforts be accused of trying to manipulate a conversation.
It would have been nice to know it's not a character flaw.
You are completely correct in your observations.
Speaking as a mostly allistic with some ND traits, I hate being misunderstood, or worse, "accused" of saying that which I specifically did not.
The feeling is real.
Best I can offer in terms of explanation is that allistics use lossy compression all the time without realizing it.
Both their speech, yours, compression artifacts abound and compound with each turn of conversation.
It's assumed efficiency at a cost in accuracy.
I don't know where I fall. I think I'm an allistic but I'm definitely quirky so who knows?
But I do know how I process/ recall conversations/ altercations - if there is any emotion to it, that's what gets remembered. It's never the actual words - it's just "the feels". I have been aware of this for many years now and I still can't recall specific words/ phrases even if I try to remember them at the time. It is emotional fuzz for me.
So perhaps it is not that people are trying to be more efficient but simply that their emotions are getting in the way of accurate memory/ recall.
Of course if they don't recognize or abettor that possiblity, it doesn't really help anything but I'm sharing my thoughts and lived experience in the hope that it helps us all see/ reach each other better.
Artemis
Pseudo Nym
Jennifer