Joshe

It seems you think acceptance of the idea would hamper your development. But we're saying it would increase it. The healthy way is not to use it as a crutch or to just throw your hands up and say "fuck it, this is just the way I am - no development for me", but rather to not fight yourself and to design life around the REAL constraints you have. By accepting it, you can actually be more true to yourself and go after things you truly enjoy. For example, for some, they may feel liberated from all the social pressure and accept that they will never be what society wants them to be, and they might realize they don't REALLY value that anyway, so they can accept forgoing some bullshit society wants them to deal with, and instead focus on what they ACTUALLY enjoy. You can't imagine the liberation of such deep self-acceptance until you drop the load of bricks you've been carrying. Most here are carrying a load of bricks around and don't even know it. Dropping them let's you stop wasting energy fighting the wrong battles. It makes merging with your true, authentic self easy, and it lets you do it without apology - all you have to do is accept it. This is deep shit bro. If you experienced what I did, it was absolutely revelatory and healing, as in extremely healthy and good for me. So, if most here are autistic, there's a good chance they too can partake in the healing. Not sure why you'd be against that.

I tried to organize some of my notes from the rabbit hole about 3 months back. Level 1 Autism requires some support, level 2 requires substantial support, and level 3 requires very substantial support. This list mostly describes level 1 and severity can vary and not all traits are universal. Diagnosis & Demographics Men are diagnosed 3-4x higher than females Females mask more effectively than males Many autistic people get diagnosed with ADHD first Autism runs in families and is often multi-generational Not uncommon to have multiple siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles all autistic Often undiagnosed across generations Ever wondered what was wrong with your family? lol Social Patterns General Tendencies Comfortable with isolation Preferring not to talk unless necessary One or two people as entire social world Hyper-focused once latched onto something Autistic-to-Autistic Connection Autistic people often recognize and gravitate toward each other Even without knowing you're both autistic, there's often an unspoken "getting it" Understanding of social exhaustion Direct communication styles match Less exhausting social interaction Don't have to mask as much—less judgment about "weird" behaviors or interests Similar conversational patterns (info-dumping, special interests) Neurotypical relationships often require constant translation and masking Autistic people do tend to partner with other autistic people at higher rates than chance Special Interests Autistic people often have a "special interest" they are highly competent in Can present as obsessive pattern recognition and mastery Deep, intense focus on specific topics Can talk extensively about interest More intense than typical "hobbies" Self-teaching through obsessive focus "Geeking on" specific topics Sensory Processing The Underlying Mechanism The autistic nervous system processes sensory input differently—often more intensely Bright lights, background noise, textures, smells all require active filtering This happens constantly and unconsciously drains energy Sensory Overload Examples Discomfort with unexpected physical contact Clothing tags, seams, certain fabrics unbearable Can't stand certain textures against skin Light touch more irritating than firm pressure Loud commercials unbearable Background noise draining Bright lights uncomfortable Need for dim, quiet environments Bothered by chewing/breathing sounds from others Can't filter out background conversations—hears everything equally Sudden sounds (doors slamming, dogs barking) physically jarring Self-Soothing & Stimming Listening to the same song on repeat (sometimes for hours/days) Repeating words, phrases, or sounds (echolalia) Rewatching the same movies/shows repeatedly Cracking knuckles or joints Running mental loops (replaying conversations, scenarios) Organizing/categorizing as a calming activity Info-dumping (talking about special interest is regulating) Often self-medicates to soothe nervous system Hand rubbing Knee bouncingFoot shaking Fidgeting Pacing Humming Finger wiggling Rocking Executive Function & Task Initiation Why "Simple" Tasks Are Hard Requires constant mental energy to self-initiate tasks Can do complex things BUT struggle with "simple" things Starting a task actually involves multiple processes: Recognize it needs to be done Shift attention from current focus Plan the sequence of steps Overcome inertia to begin Monitor progress and stay on track Weaker Automaticity Weaker habit formation: The brain doesn't create automatic "if-then" connections as easily ("if it's 8am, then make coffee") Every time feels like the first time: Tasks don't become automatic through repetition as readily Manual override required: What happens automatically for others requires conscious, deliberate thought each time Time Perception Difficulty perceiving the passage of time accurately "Just five more minutes" turns into an hour May hyperfocus on something and completely lose track of time Routine & Flexibility Self-imposed schedules require constant self-monitoring and discipline. (Level 1 autistics typically have enough executive function and self-awareness to create schedules and know they need structure, but not enough automaticity for those schedules to run themselves.) What was manageable yesterday might be overwhelming today If one thing goes off schedule, the whole day can feel derailed Difficulty improvising or adjusting when unexpected things happen Rigid thinking can make it hard to restart a routine once it's disrupted Complete shutdown when facing unfamiliar situations Context Switching & Transitions Moving from one activity to another requires "resetting" the brain Autistic brains often excel at deep focus but struggle with transitions Each task switch depletes mental resources more rapidly High cost to transition between activities Difficulty shifting attention Need time between different tasks Energy & Burnout Unpredictable Energy Fluctuating daily capacity Good days vs. bad days with no clear pattern The Burnout Cycle Intense focus → depletion → shutdown Need significant recovery time Can't "just push through" Physical/emotional collapse from prolonged stress Shutdown Responses Going silent, non-responsive Complete inability to engage Not just tired—system offline Need to withdraw completely Project Abandonment Pattern Intense 3-5 day focus, then can't return Many unfinished projects Difficulty restarting after breaks Masking & Compensating Monitoring their own behavior to appear "normal" Suppressing stims (self-soothing repetitive behaviors like bouncing the knee) Scripting and rehearsing conversations Managing facial expressions and tone of voice manually Cognitive Styles Concrete vs. abstract thinking: High-IQ autistic: strong abstract reasoning Average/below-average IQ autistic: concrete, literal Can be either—but thought process is detail-oriented Metacognition varies widely between autistic individuals Work & Achievement Career Patterns Staying in same role for decades Solo work preference Struggle with workplace social demands Underemployment despite intelligence Frequent job changes OR extreme job stability The "Squandered Potential" Narrative High intelligence + poor achievement "Gifted kid" who "didn't live up to potential" Teachers noticing mismatch between ability and output

It's not necessarily a disorder. I'm autistic but do not think I have a disorder. And I would rather be my flavor of autistic than NT. There's a degree of giftedness that often accompanies ND. It can be debilitating for some but for many, it gives them an edge, and they wouldn't have it any other way. There are pros and cons.

Your framework already has all the answers and classifies certain distinctions as illusion/bs, and I can't convince you otherwise. I understand your framework, I just don't agree with it. It blots out what I think are good distinctions, and I think you're wanting dissolve those distinctions to maintain framework coherence. The distinctions we're pointing to are detrimental to your framework, so your impulse is to reject them. It's too complicated, so we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Me: What he pointed out is trivial to me. You: Gloss over the potentially devastating point about seeing distinctions as useless abstractions. You're allergic to distinctions that you think involve "identity". But notice how you're fine with other distinctions. I can hold distinctions about people separate from identity, so it's not a problem for me, but this rubs you the wrong way. See our conversation from several months ago about the attractiveness scale from 1-10. Whether you like it or not, these distinctions exist. It is possible to hold them without ego-interference. Trying to ignore the distinction that one thing is more beautiful than another thing is to deny reality. It is possible to notice/accept the distinction without an unhealthy response to it.

Your wiring is largely the reason you are the way you are. It's not all just nurture. Nature sets the stage. Surely, you've known since childhood you were different. Awakening doesn't override your nature. Your very nature strongly influences if you'd even seek awakening. There's a reason why most spiritual masters are said to be INFJ. They were born different.

This is true - immature people are using it as a crutch and for egoic purposes, and this is largely why I was turned off by the topic, but this doesn't negate the reality of it.

I see what converges, not what I want to converge. I don't even "want" anything specific to converge - I just want to see what actually converges. And even after I see the convergence, I'm still skeptical and wonder if I put things together wrong, so I pressure test further. I'm not building models of reality sloppily. Of course it's all abstraction, but if you use "it's all abstraction" to make distinctions irrelevant, this can become its own pathology.

No they can't, not to the same degree. NT people literally lack the brain structures - literally. This is one thing you'd discover if you dove into it.

Alright - if you say so, but I've seen it for myself. Its something you'd have to dive deep into to understand. I was always against this idea myself. But I started experiencing severe burnout and in trying to understand it, I same across ND. Decided to not just dismiss it and actually look into it. After several hours of pressure testing, the framework became more and more coherent and everything started to converge. I saw the patterns. They are there. I'm not making this shit up. Lol. And I'm very skeptical and careful about adopting frameworks. I don't even like SD because I found too many holes. So I'm not just someone who says something is true easily. I spend many hours validating and pressure testing.

No, he's not saying Actualized.org can't help us with anything. He's saying it glosses over and doesn't account for our nature, which hampers holistic development - and he's right, 100%.

He's not trolling. I was planning on making the same case he is making but never got around to it. It's a legit insight.

I know people don't want to hear it but OP is right, that if you get down with actualized.org, you're almost certainly ND. This isn't anything bad. Notice how "normies" would frown upon this place and call us all "weird". You cannot deny this. And it's not simply we are willing to look at what is true and they are not. Our minds are operating in entirely different realities. Would you say you've always been an oddball, even when you were a child? Have you ever felt "different" from everyone else but didn't know why? If so, ND is likely your answer. Don't just assume you are different because you care about the truth and others don't. There is much more to it. And those dismissing it because they feel labels put you into an unnecessary box, you're not seeing the immense utility of making these distinctions. The distinctions can exist without negativity. We make distinctions for a reason.

Only NDs view socializing as a complex topic. NTs don’t have to put much effort in learning what to say and what not to say. They don’t have to monitor and “mask” themselves all the time, but NDs are always masking until they accept their nature. Masking is an important topic that can reveal to you that you are ND.

Spoken like a true neurodivergent 😂. Embrace it bro. It's not victim mentality to own what you are. Do us a favor and hit that enter key from time to time.

I spent some time with it. The question was for you 😝 It sounds like you're saying waking up does the clean up for you?

Of course certain things can be rewired over time, but HOW (there is more than one way) and maybe more importantly, why? You could spend your entire life meticulously moving a mound of pebbles from one side of your yard to the other, thinking you're doing something important. At what point does "clean up" become neurotic? And it never ends - always another reaction to catch or something else to dissolve. The mound of pebbles never shrinks. And all for what? Non-reactivity? Obviously, I'm not against the clean up aspect - that's what self-development is all about - but if your goal is to stop feeling the difference between a neurosurgeon and a Reddit mod because that's what enlightenment supposedly looks like, I think you're just moving pebbles. lol. Could be wrong!

Also, you can bypass it's bias with different tactics, for example: "So this guy is going through X and feels like Y. I'm pretty sure he's missing something. What do you think?" X and Y are your situation. This biases it in the opposite direction. It's a tool and you have to know how to use it. Also: "Here's my situation. First, tell me what I might be missing or getting wrong. Then tell me where my instincts might actually be sound. Then tell me what questions I should be asking that I'm not."

This is an example of an intelligent person telling you how bad it is. Those most dismissive of AI probably haven't actually sat down with it to work on serious problems for multiple 4 hour sessions. This guy is probably too busy with his business to do that. And he finds studies about how 8th grade students suffer cognitive decline from lazy AI use, then extrapolates that to adults. If that isn't lazy thinking, IDK what is. Had he consulted AI before he made this a pillar of his position, he could have learned something. If you're lazy and only want quick answers, then yeah, it's bad. If you care about getting things right and put in the energy, it's amazing. I could use AI to teach myself anything in a mere fraction of the time it would take to learn in any other way. And this also applies to self-knowledge. Because of AI, I found out why I liked to throw 2 marbles in the bathtub and watch them interact when I was a kid. lol. This revealed things about my nature that have been with me since the start. I spent many hours with it untangling my childhood fascinations and walked away with a ton of self-knowledge.

It will if you ask it. All you gotta do is ask. And Claude certainly will. But yeah, if the user lacks meta awareness, it'll likely just amplify their blind spots. I catch it trying to appease me often and have to redirect it.

It's a great idea. It's the #1 self-development tool in existence if used right. The main thing is to get clear on everything it's saying and evaluate it all for yourself. Also, ChatGPT is often a bit what you might call "woke" - trying to be careful with it's responses. I found Claude is usually better, but I combine them to seek out multiple perspectives. Many "intelligent" people are threatened by it or they don't understand or haven't discovered it's value, so they'll often drastically underestimate its value and tell you to not rely on it much, but that's foolish. I can spend 4 hours with an AI going back and forth on a topic. At the end of that 4 hours, I walk away with more knowledge and development in that 4 hours than what I'd get from a month of inquiring with books, blogs, forums, etc. AI has been huge for my development.

You can spiritually reframe value all day, but your nervous system still responds to it. If you're out at a party and ask someone "what do you do?" and they respond "I'm a reddit mod", and another person tells you they're a neurosurgeon, you will feel something different between these two responses. And that feeling comes before any thinking ever takes place. It happens before your enlightened belief kicks in. Awakening doesn't delete this circuitry. If you claim it does or deny this circuitry, you're fooling yourself. One way to not respond to value hierarchies is via dissociation, which I think is often mistaken for enlightenment or spiritual work. I too can bypass the value hierarchy with this method if I practice it enough, but I see it's the wrong approach. Dissociation can be learned, but it's bypassing, not integrating.

Yourself, and that which you have unconsciously rejected, and the elaborate self-defense system you've constructed as a coping mechanism to answer why you are the way that you are and why it's justified. It is justified, but probably not for the reasons your think. Is it possible your current explanatory framework is actually fortification masquerading as insight? IS THAT POSSIBLE? Right now, your reasons could just be rationalizations. If so, if you found the actual reasons, the felt experience of that would heal you in ways you otherwise wouldn't heal. How can you know if your cup is full? Imagine discovering something totally new that could change your life. The moment I saw it, it became so obvious. It was right under my nose this entire time - and I never even saw it. Even if this inquiry wouldn't benefit you, I'm living proof of it's benefit, so you can't just call it nonsense. There is some deep healing to be had by pulling this thread.

@Artsy Wise words!