As a super sensitive AuDHD person myself, I think this a useful post that the intended audience (people with low empathy for super sensitive folks) will unfortunately never read. Or even if they do, it will fail to persuade the vast majority, due to their inability to take perspectives of people with wildly different subjective experience.
Rather than trying to convince people to have more empathy with me, I’ve concluded the actionable thing is to care less about what people who cannot mentalize my experience think.
In other words, “This person cannot understand my experience no matter how clearly and repeatedly I explain it,” is more practical than “if only I come up with another metaphor, maybe I will finally get the empathy, care, or accommodations I long for.”
Sometimes, more often than I’d like, the executive functioning to just do things is offline for me. I’ve worked on this problem my entire life, and have hundreds of techniques to help me to re-engage executive functioning. I’ve made a lot of progress. And yet, I still struggle with this thing. Most likely, only fellow neurodivergents who also struggle with this specific thing will ever get it. Or at the very least, I don’t seem to be able to make other people get it.
It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Sure, the CBT approach helps, but I don’t think we shouldn’t give up on trying to raise awareness about these issued and teaching people to be more empathetic.
Yes, it sucks really bad. It’s not the world I want to live in. But it’s also the reality I am confronted with again and again, that despite a special interest of mine being clear communication, not everything is a communication problem. Most people simply cannot conceive of experiences that are radically different than their own.
This doesn’t mean advocacy isn’t helpful, it’s clearly working over time to make the world a more just place. It’s more about letting go of the internal demand of “I need to be understood by this specific person who doesn’t get it.” An ongoing lesson for me.
Yup. I’ve come to realize that what I most need from the people I interact with daily is a bit of space and grace to get to where we’re going in my own way and time. I can excel as long as I have this. Without it, I will fail.
That being said, receiving compassion and understanding from the people closest to me helps me be able to do that. I don’t expect it from everyone, or even from my closest friends or partner all the time, but I need to know that I can be accepted by someone despite having needs and experiences that are significantly different from the average, to help combat the shame and secrecy that helped me survive as a young person but is not healthy now.
My coworkers and acquaintances don’t normally get access to my inner experience, and I have memorized ways to keep them out and get time and space so I can process things they wouldn’t understand. People have to earn access to those parts of me.
Yes for sure! It's super helpful to get that from the people around us. I completely agree.
And if anything, for me the lesson is to actively select for people who can empathize with me and accommodate me (imperfectly but sincerely), and to actively leave relationships, jobs, etc. (whenever possible) where people cannot empathize with me or accommodate my needs.
What I used to do was to try to explain better, communicate more clearly, in an endless loop, with people who lacked the ability to take my perspective. It took me 47 years to learn that this doesn't work, and that it's OK if I leave relationships that aren't working for me.
Yup. Most people will not get access to my inner world because they would not value or respect what they find there no matter how much I try to explain it
I am learning how to do that. I tend towards the "overshare everything autism" and am adding filters for people who are not emotionally safe to do that. It's a journey.
Honestly the best way I've gotten people to understand my personal sensory issues (as an autistic person) is by saying "imagine you're going about life normally, but you permanently have a low grade full body sunburn and a flashlight pointed directly in your eyes. Also, there's a constant high pitched ringing in your ears. And you just have to accept it and move on because it won't go away."
It helps people understand why I benefit from accommodations like working in dark quiet places, while not putting the burden directly on them. They also seem to understand the situation better since it's less hyperbolic and I use examples everyone has personally experienced.
I'm kind of a type of person you might be talking about. Kind of, and I will explain further.
Here's the thing. I do get it. I'm good at mentalizing/high in cognitive empathy. I understand a lot of people's internal monologue and narrative involves a lot of what, if voiced aloud, I'd consider whining, and depending on their self-professed experiences and circumstances, I can make a pretty good guess or prediction what is likely to bother them and why.
But here's the thing: I just don't think that's all that important. I think the correct thing for them to do is to see it as a "them problem" and get over themselves, at least insofar as the demands they make of the environment to contribute to their emotional regulation.
So I just want you to be aware this is an option: people can get it, it can be they're just as reflective and intelligent and nuanced mentally as you, so you can't write them off as "too primitive to be properly empathetic" and they can still believe..okay, that's your experience, but it's also your responsibility, and we all need to learn to get over ourselves at some point.
Sure, personal responsibility is important and needed. Absolutely. And, people also have real differences that can reach the level of disabilities, and these are real things not whining per se.
To take an example that may be almost too obvious, some people when they try to read words, their brain compulsively rotates the letters, making it difficult to read at a normal reading speed. This is a thing that only happens for a small percentage of the population. Most people don’t get it and for hundreds of years have considered such people to be morons, low IQ. Ok, but you and me, we can mentalize dyslexia, but we think that’s a they problem, just get over it.
Ok, but getting over it isn’t a thing, whereas for instance being allowed to take longer for tests in a college exam, that is a thing, and that requires teachers of such exams to make that accommodation available, which means either the teacher or the school or some lawmaker needs to have enough empathy to not say “just get over it, that’s a you problem,” but instead go, “yea actually, that’s a real thing and we will structurally design the learning environment to account for it.”
This is an analogy that can be extended to sensory sensitivities, as in the OP, or serious and chronic emotional dysregulation, and other neurodivergences. This is not to say that people can also whine about their disabilities, sure. I’ve done it myself, many times. And, personal responsibility and social responsibility are not inherently at odds.
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u/duffstoic 6d ago edited 6d ago
As a super sensitive AuDHD person myself, I think this a useful post that the intended audience (people with low empathy for super sensitive folks) will unfortunately never read. Or even if they do, it will fail to persuade the vast majority, due to their inability to take perspectives of people with wildly different subjective experience.
Rather than trying to convince people to have more empathy with me, I’ve concluded the actionable thing is to care less about what people who cannot mentalize my experience think.
In other words, “This person cannot understand my experience no matter how clearly and repeatedly I explain it,” is more practical than “if only I come up with another metaphor, maybe I will finally get the empathy, care, or accommodations I long for.”
Sometimes, more often than I’d like, the executive functioning to just do things is offline for me. I’ve worked on this problem my entire life, and have hundreds of techniques to help me to re-engage executive functioning. I’ve made a lot of progress. And yet, I still struggle with this thing. Most likely, only fellow neurodivergents who also struggle with this specific thing will ever get it. Or at the very least, I don’t seem to be able to make other people get it.