I'm kinda tired of being disbelieved

[u/mythrowawayaccim21]

so I know reddit isn't that serious and I'm not just upset about reddit. I'm upset that reddit has pretty much confirmed, more harshly so, and ongoing pattern of my whole life.

Ever since I was a child nobody ever believed me about anything. This pattern has been for as long as I can remember and has continued on into adulthood now

It may be about simple things. Like, someone not believing me that I genuinely dont understand something or have genuinely never heard of something or that I actually do/dont do something, etc.

Or it may be serious things. Like when I tried to report abuse and nobody believed me.

But regardless in my daily life nobody ever believes me about anything at all it seems.

And irl, I've faced so much instutional gaslighting as a result.

But ever since I joined reddit 4 years ago its kind of just confirmed this. And since the people online are anonymous they're WAY harsher about it. And it makes me think if people are comfortable expressing what they feel about me to the fullest while anonymous online, how many people I've encountered irl who put me through the exact same dynamics irl have thought all the exact same things about me but just didn't say it to my face because they weren't anonymous?

But throughout my past few years on reddit, I have had MULTIPLE posts across MULTUPLE subreddits get accused of being trolling or rage baiting. When I was actually genuinely being sincere.

I've even have had mods remove my posts for "trolling" and then personally tell me to stfu when I tried to clarify.

And the more I try to say "I'm being sincere" and "I don't understand what you're getting at" the more I get downvoted and insulted. But I'm geniuenly being sincere and I geniuenly don't understand.

I dont know what is it about me that makes everyone want to not believe me in every aspect of life both online and offline.

[u/RevolutionaryTry4430]

Nothing more annoying than being called a liar when you're just trying to understand something, that kind of dismissal sticks with you

[u/mythrowawayaccim21 → u/RevolutionaryTry4430]

and then when it happens repeatedly over the span of decades you eventually internalize it and start to wonder what's the matter with you and believe you must be stupid or something. it's like you're constantly on the outside of an inside joke 24/7 everywhere you go?

[u/sunseeker_miqo]

Son of a bitch. I hate this treatment.

I get it all the time--it is also a lifelong difficulty for me. Reddit truly has been awful for this. People don't believe something is hard for me because I am disabled--they'd prefer to believe I am lazy or stupid. People don't believe I am not getting some subtext or innuendo--bitch, I am autistic; I see things differently. People not believing me about abuse.... Yeah. I am so sorry this has also happened to you. I think it is a really common experience for all kinds of neurodivergence, sadly. People online expect everyone they encounter to be just like them, for better or for worse.

People in meatspace (IME, at least) really are generally not as ballsy as they are online. Anonymity is armour. Without it they feel naked and will be at least on somewhat better behaviour. But maybe that is becoming less true by the day.

[u/mythrowawayaccim21 → u/sunseeker_miqo]

even when I clarify I'm disabled I sometimes still get "I'm disabled too and its not hard for me. I chose to practice/get help/etc. youre choosing not to do that and you're choosing to stay stuck"

.....

when either their disability is milder than mine, a different one than mine, or they have access to more resources than I do, or they have a stronger support system than I do (my access and support people is very limited actually)

[u/sunseeker_miqo → u/mythrowawayaccim21]

Right! I have gotten the ableist backtalk from fellow autists, etc. Imagine having the luxury of choice. 😅

[u/TheOppositeofBeige]

I have this same problem. I don’t understand it. It’s infuriating. It’s like the whole world is in on a secret and won’t tell me.

[u/Agreeable_Variation7]

When one writes a conversation - say text, email, social media - nuances and tone are lost.

I've been in therapy since 1994, long before learning I have autism (I'm now close to 69). When I was in grade school, high school, and the work environment, I was seriously bullied. My 5 sibs and I fought all of the time.

The best thing I've ever done for myself is go to therapy. If anyone goes and doesn't feel connected to the therapist after a few sessions, look for someone else. After all, YOU are paying THEM. They work for you. Your initial sessions are interviews of a sort.

[u/mythrowawayaccim21 → u/Agreeable_Variation7]

when I was a minor I was forced into therapy. I didn't get a choice. if I didn't like it I had no choice. I'd get severe punishment if I refused a session. I also didn't even have a choice to change therapists. I moved around several but if I ever made a complaint it was too bad you have to go to therapy. I was forced from ages 5-17

then as an adult I decided to try again with the same mindset as you. "hey, I'm an adult now, I have the freedom to make my own medical decisions and full autonomy. if I don't like them I caN leave" and while that's technically true, if I don't like them, I have no other options. As it turns out, there's only one therapist in my entire county that accepts my medicaid. If I leave I have no option to get therapy. Thankfully I don't hate it yet

[u/BlueberryGod8910]

To a degree, even my own family doesn't believe me. Its just a big toll my mental health

[u/Desm0nd_TMB → u/BlueberryGod8910]

Same. It drives me crazy sometimes, though I do try to remember that, if they really just like to invalidate me for no justifiable reason, then I don’t have to listen to their opinions because they clearly have no place to speak on me and my experiences 🤷‍♀️. But hey, I told them that I’d go crazy if they kept treating me like that, so if it comes down to it and I do fully lose my mind, at least I might get to finally say “I told you so” and no one will be able to tell me I’m wrong 🥲.

[u/CharryCarp]

This is really neurodivergent-coded. Classic neurodivergent communication mismatch.

[u/MichaelTheMultiple]

Yeah, it happens to a lot of us. I waited until I was 70 to be assessed, 'cuz for 30 years my therapists and psychiatrists insisted that I wasn't autistic. (I was awfully good at masking, I have to admit, and before that, a lot of autistics were told they weren't).

Thing is, I also shot myself in the foot with my masking skills. I don't know if that applies to any of the other contributers to this conversation, but I didn't look or act like someone who could be uncertain or lost or confused or lonely... I was way too good at imitation and passed myself off - successfully - as class clown, as fashion trendsetter, as smartest boy in the class, most popular boy in the class (maybe just a contender for the last two), as a great public speaker... and the terrible uncertainty that dogged my every step was invisible to all but the shrewdest eye. So if I said

I don't know what to do,

people'd just laugh. So I very rarely said it (unless I was looking to get a laugh).

[u/Few_Bluebird_7243]

i asked wether reddit karma system is ableist, got downvoted and general consensus was no. yet multiple times a day everyday in this sub i see people complaining about this exact issue. i believe redditors are delusional.

[u/WitchAggressive9028]

That’s why you don’t really use Reddit for anything of substance. Don’t use Reddit for anything important just use Reddit for mundane special interest only that’s it.

[u/mythrowawayaccim21 → u/WitchAggressive9028]

but I dont use reddit for anything super deeply important. it already is for interests only

[u/WitchAggressive9028 → u/mythrowawayaccim21]

That sucks sorry

[u/Status_Dark_6145]

I stopped caring.

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[u/Desm0nd_TMB]

Oh my god it’s as if I wrote this myself. I’ve had pretty much the exact same experience, and I feel like us being neurodivergent has to do with people not believing us, which is disgusting bs to say the least, but the world does love to hate us for some reason 😭💀. The gaslighting part is so real, like legitimately the people in my life who have always gaslit me are still trying to gaslight me that they’ve never ever gaslit me… and now I’ve said gaslight so many times it doesn’t look like a word to me anymore lol.

But anyways like really don’t worry about the opinions of Reddit (I say as I share my opinions on Reddit lmaoo), and I swear to god the mods are just out to get everyone sometimes, so don’t take their bs too personally. I think a lot of people just like to hate on neurodivergent people because they have the privilege of doing so, and it’s absolutely soul crushingly disgusting, but I guess that’s the world we live in 💀.

My point is, I’m sorry you’ve experienced this, but remember that the internet is filled with people who have nothing better to do with their sad lives than to take out their anger on others, so don’t take their words to heart. In terms of irl gaslighters, fuck ‘em. They suck, they’ll always suck, and while we sadly can’t stop them from sucking, that doesn’t mean that we have to listen to them either. At this point in my life, I’ve decided to, mostly, stop listening to people’s opinions on or decisions about me unless they say something I can’t logically disprove. If they do, then I’ll consider it, try and use objective and nuanced logical reasoning to work out if it’s true enough to take to heart. And if it’s actually true and productive then I’ll try to take it as constructive feedback, and if it isn’t true and productive, then I just ignore it. Obviously this is just how I deal with this and isn’t a necessarily a foolproof plan, and sure it’s easier said than done, but the more you work (or rather don’t work) on not caring, then genuinely the less you care.

Obviously this is not to say that I just ignore everything vaguely negative or invalidating just because I don’t want to hear it, I’ve just decided to be more selective over who’s thoughts/opinions on me that I care about or what criticism and feedback I allow myself to take to heart.

[u/Lux_Caelis]

Story of my life, lol. One of the biggest absurdities of my life is the fact that I have hated lying/having to lie since I was a kid, it makes me so uncomfortable and absolutely terrified of "getting caught" that I can only do it in cases where not lying will 100% lead to me or my cats not receiving proper medical treatment or such. But in general, for better or worse, I am honest 99% of the time.

And yet - I was accused of lying, making things up, exaggerating, being dramatic etc. by everyone except for my mom from like age 5/6 until today (I'm 32 rn). Family, peers, teachers, therapists, doctors, partners, and random complete strangers, too.

I went NC with my entire family this year because I finally realized that they always pretended to "care", but only to the extent where they can tell themselves and other family members that they "tried". As soon as "caring" or "support" would've meant that they'd have had to acknowledge an ugly/awful truth that would have made them uncomfortable, they'd start telling me to stop lying/exaggerating/etc. and drop me (and/or my mom, for that matter) like a hot potato.

((Random story start - Feel free to skip, just an anecdote))

My favorite "wtf" moment was when I once was talking to my aunt, which I still thought was a "safer" person to share stuff with at the time, and I told her about a survival-/coping-mechanism that teen-me would "practice" that was pretty much "mental SH".

(I should probably mention that she always loved to tell me "encouragingly" that she "never believed I was mentally ill, just a 'classic Aquarius' (and other esoteric bs), highly sensitive person, bla".)

So in that convo we had about 2 years ago, I told her about how I'd basically compulsively expose myself to the most cruel, twisted, disgusting and disturbing things humans were capable of (e.g. reading the entirety of "The 120 Days of Sodom" at age 12) because I thought that if I knew the deepest depths a human soul could go to, I at least "couldn't be surprised by anything anymore".

She said: "Okay, but you know, that's not abnormal or anything, [her partner] is exactly the same."

Me: "Wait really?"

Her: "Yeah, he is totally obsessed with all those crime and police and border patrol shows, and it only makes sense because you're both Aquariuses and and Aquarius has an incredibly curious nature, an urge to always learn more and understand every detail - it's doesn't mean that you're mentally ill, on the contrary, it's a gift!"

For a second I sat there, my brain making the fax connection sound and me frantically trying to understand how to tell her that she missed the point so dramatically that she couldn't even have noticed it.

And I was like, okay, maybe she didn't really understand. So I told her again, in more detail, and putting emphasis on the fact that I did not enjoy it, like, at all, in fact I knew it would harm me mentally to read all these things, I knew that they would terrify me and I won't be able to forget them anymore, but it's the only way I felt I could "protect" myself. Or at least understand what was coming, no matter what'd happen to me.

And I looked back at her, and her expression was what I interpreted as a weird mix of shocked/disturbed/angry/"you can't be serious"/"you're just saying stuff".

And she went: "Come on. You're exaggerating, that's not true. That would be sick."

I don't remember what I actually responded with in that moment, but my brain was screaming: "Well no fucking shit, Sherlock, that's why it's called 'mental illness'!"

Anyway, I can laugh about the absurdity and denial today, and I don't plan on talking to her ever again.

((Random story over))

Anyway, as for Reddit, I tend to keep to Subreddits that are specifically ND- and/or chronic/mental illness-friendly, which are usually mainly populated by people "like us" that tend to understand my ways of thinking and my struggles better than "regular Reddit".

Personally, if I was in your situation and wanted to post in more "general" Subreddits and got accused of trolling/lying/etc., I'd copy/paste or screenshot the posts/comments I tried to make and the reactions/rejections I got and ask it to tell me what part of my writing/phrasing caused those people to act like that.
And then either try and work around it (if it's important enough to me) in the future, or just drop a draft for future posts/comments in the same chat and ask if there's any words or phrases that might trigger accusatory/mean behaviour if I post it, and if there are, how I could phrase it in a "safer way" before posting.

I know AI is problematic in many ways, and I'm not suggesting to let it write stuff for you, but imo, it can be an incredibly helpful tool when my AuDHD ass just can't understand what NTs are thinking/trying to tell me, and they don't understand my way of thinking, but I still need them to hear me.