I wonder what being NT feels like?

[AffIt]

I'm mostly quite happy in my autistic headspace, but every now and again, when I'm having a bad day, I wonder what it's like to be 'normal' and not have a head which feels like a sack of cats.

Take yoga: apparently, yoga is brilliant, but it just makes me angry and then to want to go to sleep, which I can do at home for free, so I resent having to pay for it, which then makes me more angry, and annoyed at not being very bendy.

It must be lovely to just be able to switch off your brain, or, at the very least, just live with it.

It was a rhetorical question, not a question for NT people to tell us what it's like. Starting to get really pissed off at the ablism on these boards. There are so many other boards, can't we just have our own space where we can be open without being told we're wrong?

I agree with @Plexie. I read a lot of ND threads because I want to educate myself, not because I want to minimise any concerns anyone has @BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation.

I love your user name BTW.

I certainly wasn't minimising. I almost never post here but read a lot as a person who works with children who are ND, raises my own children who are ND and was raised as a child by somebody who is ND. I'm always careful to be respectful.

I don't think anybody wanted to minimise, rather they were responding to the notion of what being NT feels like.

Of course if the preference is that NT people never engage with their experiences at points when you're discussing them/wondering about them, that's fine but I'm pretty sure people didn't intend to minimise and I apologise if I appeared to do so. I think people were trying to be reassuring in pointing out that clearing a brain of thoughts isn't exclusively NT.

My niece has spent a lot of her adolescence pondering this question and her conclusion ATM is that she prefers being ND. Her dsis (also ND) is awaiting the invention of a wiring chip so she can actually experience both before making up her mind!

We're going to have to be careful about how questions are phrased in the future.

And add a reminder about how we don't need to be neurosplained to by people who have nothing to do with us.

You have no expertise in this area just because you have a niece with ND and other 'experience'. You do not live with being ND. It is a totally different perspective. We do not need NTs coming here sharing how they feel about ND.

Ffs! Is this fucking place even FOR us or just bloody about us?!?!

Eh? Seriously?!

I wasn't explaining what it felt to be ND at any point. I commented on how it felt to be NT. And shared my niece's recent comments as they were interesting and she specifically asks me to describe an NT experience to her.

I was merely responding to the question about how it feels to be NT. I've apologised, pointed out I meant nothing which minimised and acknowledged that if you'd prefer that people who are NT never comment when they are being discussed, then that's fine too.

Again, we're more than happy to answer questions, but this is the board for US. You wouldn't go on to another board and tell a black person, religious person whatever how they should think and feel because you know someone. This is OUR safe space to discuss OUR issues and lives. Please just let us have this. Life is difficult enough.

And I never claimed expertise either.

Nobody but nobody has told anybody how they should feel or experience the world.

I shall not post in this area again. Perhaps MN should change the header from "primarily" for people who are ND to "solely" for.

Again, I apologise. I won't post again.

And add a reminder about how we don't need to be neurosplained to by people who have nothing to do with us. The thread title literally has a question mark and concerns NT people. Not only that, but the comments by NT people were not rude or condescending. Let's not be rude and unwelcoming to people for no reason at all, when they're just chipping in with their own experiences that are directly relevant to the question posed in the title. This isn't Mean Girls. It's also not a competition to show who suffers the most!

Also, the ability to do yoga and mindfulness is not an essential life skill. Its no different to playing tennis, doing gymnastics, or playing chess. Some people can do those things, and enjoy it, some people can't, or don't enjoy it. Just because yoga and mindfulness are trendy activities among a certain demographic, you're not really missing out on anything important by not partaking in these hobbies, and if it's the therapeutic benefits you're after, pick something that actually works for you or is enjoyable for you, and not just the trendy thing that everyone else thinks is amazing.

I'll tell you how it is.

This thread isn't about yoga or some other frivolous reason. People who are living with ND don't go through life with trivial wonderings about whatever it is we struggle with. Most of us are living with very serious difficulties and just because a thread sounds lighthearted does not mean that it represents the entire experience of being ND! We post causal wonderings and discussions about what it is to live in a NT world because we're sharing a common experience. ND cannot be reduced to the trivial which is what NTs think it is about! Can't cope with noise, can't eat certain food, can't do this or that. NO! It's far more than that. A lot of us are living ruined lives, with mental illness and a reduced life span. To have NTs coming on here and saying "oh, it's okay, I experience this too" is unbelievably insulting.

They have 99.9% of the boards🤦‍♀️

But nobody has told you how you should feel. They just commented how they, as an NT person, feel. It seems that most people's heads are full of uncontrollable thoughts too, so maybe ND and NT people are alike on this issue and both are struggling to attain mental peace. Why does that make you feel unsafe?

Duh, because it trivialises our difficulties?

I mean, black people don't struggle really because white people can suntan and perhaps both groups are just trying to achieve a nice look.

Inappropriate?! Yes of course!

Well the same goes for us.

Anyone can post. There’s no point asking I wonder what it feels like to be NT if you just want a chorus of yes I wonder, yes I wonder, yes I wonder.

People who are NT are answering saying there is no solid NT experience the same as there is no general ND experience. If you don’t want public replies don’t post on a public forum.

I don't think anyone can make the comparison, because no one can change how their brain is wired.

I know how I navigate the world, but NT people are not clones.

So as an NT person, I cannot tell what it is like to be Autistic or ADHD etc etc.

I would think vice versa applies too.

With the greatest of respect, sometimes we do just want a "me too" as this is the board for neurodiverse people to share their experiences and difficulties. If you don't like our responses, well, go to one of the other boards.

If NT people are going to start neurosplaining to us and telling us what we can and can't post here what's the point of the board at all?

This thread really highlights the difficulties we face.

This is the ND area. You are being incredibly rude by coming on here and interfering with support threads.

Do you do this in the black mumsnetters area? It's an open board after all.

Why don't you pop over to WP and share your pearls of wisdom there?

Doesn't it just 🤦‍♀️

Apologies. Maybe op should have added that she wasn’t interested in anyone’s views or then offering support and was more looking for every poster to just say yes me too must be great to be NT and have no thoughts/no distractions and be great at yoga. Then people would have known.

I've reported your very rude post.

And it’s not been incredibly rude at all. I was supportive and adding to a discussion I found interesting being a mother to NT kids, not barging in being rude. I wasn’t mean at all to the op.

How is another ND person supposed to answer what it is like to be NT?