Do Autistic People Think In Black & White? #actuallyautistic #latediagnosedautistic #audhd

Why do I think in black and white?
Why do I struggle with nuance?
Do autistic people think in binary?
Do autistic people not understand nuance?
Do autistic people not see nuance?

#audhd #autismawareness #autismpride #latediagnosedautistic #asdawareness #actuallyautistic

[drachnae]

The way the therapist character consistently makes appeals to authority as a means of trying to convince the client character (i.e. “I’m your therapist” and “it’s in the DSM5”) is … exhausting. Incredibly reminiscent of too many of my own therapists. It’s absolutely wild to work with an autistic person and expect them to accept appeals to authority 😅 like there’s just a fundamental disconnect, despite autistic people’s need for detailed explanation rather than just “trust me I’m the expert” being well-documented 😬

[kngjulien_]

i don't struggle to seeing nuance, i only see nuance 😭😂
so yea i struggle with black/white thinking because nothing is ever black and white lol

[thecavephilosopher]

The way the therapist keeps doing exactly what he's patronisingly accusing the patient does is extraordinary

[towzone]

It is easier to deal with ambiguity when you are used to continuously jumping to conclusions and unconcerned with accuracy.

[henryholden]

EVERYONE does black and white thinking. Folks will say they are open minded and chill - but that's about things they don't care about. I'd argue the REAL questions IS - why don't allistics CARE about more things? Or why don't they care that other are running around with bad info that's causing them to make uneducated choices.
OR - is the perceived level of rigidity solely based on the packaging of who we express our black and white thinking.

Ex:
Allistic feels strongly about which gas is best. Another person comes along and recommends a different one. Our hero is polite and feigns considering to change but has no intention of doing so and will not do further research, in fact, they won't think about it ever again - just conducting a neutral/polite convo.

Autistic feels strongly about which gas is best. Another person comes along and recommends a different one. Our hero sees someone else has also thought about it enough to recommend, sees that person might not have ALL the info since the gas they recommended is actually NOT good because the autistic has done research, and tells them as much. (OR, after the convo, the autistic goes home and does 24 hours worth of research to see if they should change their mind or not)

[ADHD_PLUS]

7:10 I made this same point to someone when they accused me of "black & white thinking" based solely on my comment about an issue. They stated that because I had 'opinion A' it proved that I am a specific type of person. I argued that that wasn't neccessarily true. They told me that ANYONE who says 'opinion A' is thinking in black & white. I pointed out that they hadn't even heard WHY I think 'opinion A' before jumping to their conclusion of the type of person I am, and that they automatically assumed it was because I was a B&W thinker. I asked, "Isn't that just another way of B&W thinking?".

**Then, they proceeded to explain to me "black & white thinking " in very black and white terms 😂
Maybe the idea that "black & white thinking" could be used in different ways was too nuanced for them. 🤔

[prn]

Ohhhh this therapist character pisses me off. It’s like he’s not even listening to what the client is saying. The elaborations sound like the exact opposite of black and white to me? Like exploring the nuances of something and then being told you’re being rigid is such a cognitive disconnect

[marianaguzman-bdbj]

Why don't you get a different therapist. This one is very rigid and biased. He doesn't even try to understand what you're explaining. 😊

[leenaparsons]

I want to scream from how accurate this is.

[eschient]

I think this sometimes goes hand in hand with bottom up thinking. I've reached "Particular Conclusion A" based on way too many long-collected data points and their webs of connections that I've had to weigh and prioritize under unspecified guidelines in a currently developing environment. That environment is usually dictated by a top down thinker who hasn't yet collected or considered those same data points and relationships. As the top down thinker gains that nuance, their thinking comes into a more defined focus. As the bottom up thinker gains that nuance, we drop that focus and recalibrate. Problem is we often gather so much information and see so many connections and options, it's often difficult to get legitimately new information from a generic conversation with a top down thinker, which makes us look stubborn and if we try to explain the connections and information we've used to draw our conclusions, we look like we're being obtuse.

Or I could be overthinking.

[SamuraiPipotchi]

In my experience, Ive always found that neurotypical people are more likely to be black-and-white thinkers. Autistic people aren't trying to identify if something is black or white - we're trying to identify WHICH shade of grey it is. Grey isn't just one colour for us - it's every value in between everything and nothing.

[ashleya]

The way "nutritional legal gummy bears" was said gave me a laugh!

This debate sounds awfully familiar -- not the specific topic, but the going round in circles because the 2 parties defined black-and-white thinking differently.

One of my friends likes to argue and our debates are a lot like this... Another example is design discussions at work that become frustrating, only for us to realize that we were both pushing for the same solution but with different words.

[Nebby_]

I think generally neurotypical people make decisions based more on social influence, while autistic people rely more on reasoning. That could be where some of the perception of "black and white thinking" comes from. As in, you're not willing to be swayed by the opinions of the people around you without reasoning it out, which seems inflexible. These are flawed generalisations of course!

[thecuriousboardgamer]

I'm with the guy on the couch. I just wonder if it's an outdated, overly generalized quality of autism, i.e. - one that is significantly less common than previously thought. I don't think anything is black or white, therefore my struggle is with having a hard time picking black or white when I see all that gray in the middle.

[winterroses]

This is honestly groundbreaking. It makes so much sense, but I am still trying to process it. PLEASE do more on this topic.

[Labbfreak]

Such an interesting example/demonstration of difference versus deficit and external perception versus internal experience for autistic people. Thanks for creating and sharing!

[probsnooneyouknowtbh]

6:38 This is what my mom has never understood about me. She'll make a statement that I see some potential problems with. Then when I voice that I get told "so you're accusing me of lying?" Or "I'm older than you. You don't know what you're talking about." Or simply "I know I'm right." None of which addresses the problems. I've learned to pretend I agree and go along with things she says while internally not buying it at all.

[kairon]

This sort of reminds me about that saying where someone "can't see the forest through the trees." I think it's an analogy of seeing the wider/bigger picture.
Or another way to say having mindfulness?

For me I'm too busy seeing each different leaf and mossy section on the trunk, the colour of the leaves and texture of the trunk.
So I'm lucky if I even notice there's more than a dozen or so trees among all this detail, which I assume Neurotypical people take for granted.

Meaning their default zoom level is trees and forest. If I try to zoom out on that level my brain gets fuzzy on the details people are asking me to look at.

So basically I often don't even make it to the wider forest view that neurotypicals are talking about.

[CriloseLycron]

the end of this had me screaming, THAT, THAT RIGHT thank you !

[SeeingBackward]

It's not PROCESSING the ambiguity that autistic people struggle with, it's ACCEPTING it as "truth" when it clearly is not.

I imagine that animals cannot have experiences which did not directly occur to them transmitted to them by language, and so they literally don't know what they're missing.

If our ancestors existed before language, they'd be in a similar situation.

I'd not expect such a being to need to "understand" how the universe works in order to "live" in that universe, which also explains the cruelty of nature.

They're hungry: they eat. They're angry: they hurt. They're randy: well, you get the picture.

As humans evolve language, we can start sharing "truths" but the "source of truth" is still difficult to discern.

The easiest thing for most people to do in that case is simply accept the most confident person as correct, especially if that person will also hurt them if they don't.

If they seem incorrect at times, it's not because they're wrong: stuff is just "ambiguous" sometimes.

But then when we get to a point that we can truly "understand" how the universe works, we "understand" that "ambiguity" is a gap in the memory's "understanding" rather than existing in reality.

Except that everyone around us tells us that we're wrong.

We're wrong because everyone accepts that the confident, violent person told us that when stuff doesn't work the way they said it does: it's just "ambiguous" and we don't want them to hurt us.

And propagandists, marketers, political parties, cults, and narcissists all use exactly that ambiguity to elevate themselves over people who live in a culture those symbols resonate with, rather than people who live in the universe of facts.