Tattling
At age 53, I still puzzle over the accusations from elementary school teachers that I was “tattling” when I in good faith offered information about other kids breaking the rules. I’m still unclear on what the difference is between “gossip” and “if you see something, say something” other than it being about women and men, about blaming victims or about pretending that there is a difference when actually there isn’t.
I see things clearly and easily that other people don’t see and a lot of the time, they are annoyed about me pointing it out. This happens a lot at my job. It happened in my church, until I got the message and decided that I wasn’t wanted, that me raising my hand and pointing out the elephant in the room (or the lack of elephant in that women were never in spaces where decisions were made) was uncomfortable and rude and not at all helpful.
Sometimes I mourn the pain that elementary school Mette felt when she was told that her helpful and earnestly offered commentary was not wanted. Even though the rule written right there on the door was to tell the teacher if someone was breaking the rule. Adult Mette understands now that teachers are ill-equipped to deal with every single instance of rule-breaking and actually can only deal with imminent danger types of rule breaking. But that wasn’t what the rule on the door said. And I could only understand then what was written on the door plainly and I didn’t know I was autistic and saw every single instance of rule breaking and that other people didn’t. I didn’t know that something was wrong with my detail-oriented brain, though I figured it out soon enough.
I still don’t have control over making my brain not see things that other people don’t see and don’t want to see. It seems so obvious and unavoidable but it isn’t to others. I am sometimes jealous that they get to live in a world where they don’t see injustice and cruelty from people who are in positions of power and who have stamps of “good” on their foreheads. Other times, I’m glad I’m not blind like that. But it’s not as if I actually have a choice.
I do wonder sometimes how much of the weight of what I feel is because possibly I also might be given a diagnosis of “highly sensitive person” in all my sensitivities. Mostly I just wish that what my brain does could be seen as good. It is what it does naturally and I can’t really stop it. But why is it so bad and annoying? Why is it accused of being “not helpful” or “selfish” or “not a team player?” Why is being a team player so important? Why is being a team player just about having a neurotypical brain? Why?
These are very interesting questions, however because I am also autistic I can't tell whether they are "rhetorical questions" or whether you are really looking for an answer. Which is really the whole problem. We can't tell if that notice on the door really means what it says, or whether it is school policy to display the notice. The real issue is about "wanting to belong", and for the non-autist reading the social clues in their collective behavior tells them that the teacher doesn't really want to be told about every infraction of the classroom rules. I could go into the role of the limbic system in social programming and how that is immature in tbe autist, but I have learnt that the majority don't want real answers, they just want a convenient, socially acceptable answer.
One of the many articles that try to convince me that I need to be "sucessful" in substack informed me that I need to be "relatable". What that really means, is writing how everyone else writes, because people feel comfortable with that. It is part of the comfortable social conformity that we as autists can have no part of. So embrace that difference. Be a thorn in their side, because that is why we are here.
As I was always one of the last couple of kids chosen for teams in elementary, junior and senior high schools, it's no wonder I never became a "team player". Why should we be forced to play by unwritten rules that others on the team observe while they flagrantly and blatantly ignore the explicitly stated rules of whatever endeavor in which the team is involved. No, I'm not a team player and I don't want to be. Except on the rare occasions when I get to be on a team with other autists -- then we all play by rules we mutually work out and stick with.