this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
35 points (100.0% liked)

Autism

6867 readers
4 users here now

A community for respectful discussion and memes related to autism acceptance. All neurotypes are welcome.

We have created our own instance! Visit Autism Place the following community for more info.

Community:

Values

  • Acceptance
  • Openness
  • Understanding
  • Equality
  • Reciprocity
  • Mutuality
  • Love

Rules

  1. No abusive, derogatory, or offensive post/comments e.g: racism, sexism, religious hatred, homophobia, gatekeeping, trolling.
  2. Posts must be related to autism, off-topic discussions happen in the matrix chat.
  3. Your posts must include a text body. It doesn't have to be long, it just needs to be descriptive.
  4. Do not request donations.
  5. Be respectful in discussions.
  6. Do not post misinformation.
  7. Mark NSFW content accordingly.
  8. Do not promote Autism Speaks.
  9. General Lemmy World rules.

Encouraged

  1. Open acceptance of all autism levels as a respectable neurotype.
  2. Funny memes.
  3. Respectful venting.
  4. Describe posts of pictures/memes using text in the body for our visually impaired users.
  5. Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
  6. Questions regarding autism.
  7. Questions on confusing situations.
  8. Seeking and sharing support.
  9. Engagement in our community's values.
  10. Expressing a difference of opinion without directly insulting another user.
  11. Please report questionable posts and let the mods deal with it. Chat Room
  • We have a chat room! Want to engage in dialogue? Come join us at the community's Matrix Chat.

.

Helpful Resources

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
35
Help on how to interact with my brother. (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I have a little brother that is on the spectrum and he is obsessed with meme culture and memes to the point that he cares about nothing else. He can't talk about anything else and always tries to say memes without context and understanding hoping to make us laugh. I would not have a problem with this unless it was not the only thing that came out of his mouth. I am worried about his future. He won't be able to live with just memes. He maybe sometimes plays minecraft and that is the only creative thing he does. He is great but he will do some pretty upsurd stuff like, he will avoid his friends just because they bought a memed soft drink. He hates talking unless it is memes. He doesn't like questions. He hates thinking. What do I do? I literally can't connect with him. Once I will give him a piece of advice, like, "maybe find a better time to say the jokes so that they land better" and "please try not thinking about memes all the time" and he will say yes and proceed to ignore whatever I said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How old is your brother? I've been hella awkward until about my mid 20s (there were complicating factors delaying my social development) but I'd like to think my social gaffes are a lot less intense now. AFAIK many autistic people adapt a little more with age.

I like what others said about learning how to communicate in memes to connect with your brother. Memes might be his native spoken language. It can help him a lot if he isn't the only one speaking that language.

The tips you gave him probably don't make sense to him. Trying to find a better time when he probably doesn't understand social context well might have gotten translated to "wrong time of the day, try this one after 1pm". If he is interested you could explain social context to him on a case by case basis an explain why sometimes things are funny and sometimes they aren't. But it's exhausting work.

If memes really are his native spoken language you asking him not to think in memes might have sounded to him like "don't think in words" (because he doesn't know another way to think) which is a confusing request and he probably only agreed to make the confusion go away.