ADHD and autism are both strongly correlated with justice sensitivity. If you need an explanation for what that is, here’s a quote from this article:
Justice sensitivity is the tendency to notice and identify wrong-doing and injustice and have intense cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to that injustice. People who are justice sensitive tend to notice injustice more often than others, they tend to ruminate longer and more intensely on that injustice, and they feel a stronger need to restore justice.
Do y’all experience this? If so, how does it manifest?
For me, I can’t see injustice and do nothing. Failing to stand up for my beliefs makes me hate myself, and I’ll usually do it even if I know it’s a bad idea or I’m surrounded by people who disagree–if anything, I feel more compelled to do it then. Since some of my beliefs are wildly unpopular, this often winds up in me feeling ostracized, rejected, and depressed.
I don’t know what to do about this. I can’t just not stand up for what I believe in–it’s clearly the right thing to do. But it’s a deeply unpleasant experience I keep repeating. I’ll choose standing up for my beliefs over not being hurt if I have to, but that doesn’t make it fun.
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Probably due to my own childhood experiences, it makes me very upset to see an individual or group persecuted because they are doing something or are something that is not harmful in any way whatsoever but have been arbitrarily categorized as unacceptable. I also can’t stand seeing anyone get left out for no reason, so at social events I tend to gravitate towards the orbiters or people trying and failing to get involved.
When I see banal evil, or wrongdoing committed out of apathy and selfishness, I want to shake them and explain to them that they are deteriorating the social fabric and ultimately creating problems for themselves through sheer stupidity.
Probably due to my own childhood experiences, it makes me very upset to see an individual or group persecuted because they are doing something or are something that is not harmful in any way whatsoever but have been arbitrarily categorized as unacceptable.
Holy shit, MOOD. I cannot stand people insisting that harmless things are bad just because they’re weird/they’re gross/they make them feel bad somehow. Especially from leftists like myself. They should know that that feeling is exactly the same feeling that drives conservatives to hate queer and kinky people.
When I see banal evil, or wrongdoing committed out of apathy and selfishness, I want to shake them and explain to them that they are deteriorating the social fabric and ultimately creating problems for themselves through sheer stupidity.
Right? Even if you don’t care about anyone but yourself, YOU ALSO BENEFIT FROM THE WORLD BEING A BETTER PLACE. And you can actively contribute to that!
I think the arbitrary/victimless evil is something all autistic people share rage against because a lot of us are very anti authoritarian, because we’ve had authorities tell us what to do our whole lives and it’s never made sense.
On one hand- This is a good trait, sort of?
On the other- On an aircraft, if you’re in a situation where oxygen masks drop, you’re always reminded to put your own mask on first before helping others with their own masks. If you did it the other way around you’d likely pass out and not help anyone.
I’ve been using meditation to train the less controllable parts of my brain to shut up when I need them to. It’s been said that mindfulness meditation can make people more selfish, but if I’m passing out trying to help other people, the best thing I can do for my community is to first make sure that I’m a self-sufficient human being physically, mentally and materially.
Since some of my beliefs are wildly unpopular, this often winds up in me feeling ostracized, rejected, and depressed.
In this case, the phrase “speak softly, but carry a big stick” sometimes applies. If you’re somewhere where there’s enough cultural / social resistance to an idea, particularly among lots of people, you’re probably not going to get anywhere, as you’ve already found. Potential alternatives include talking to individuals when you’re able, helping individuals when you’re able, if only by letting them know they’re not totally alone, and by operating on that oxygen mask principle again. If no one’s gonna do anything, sometimes you need to do it yourself, but it might take a long time to get there.
This was really well said. I second it.
Our society can be, at times, so unjust and irrational. Two of my biggest mental health nemesis’s in life. And two of the things my NT friends and family don’t understand why I get so fixated on. I feel like I’m screaming into a dark void when they don’t understand my concern— because, the way I see it, if everyone cared about injustice even half as much as I do/did, the world would be an incredibly kind, safe, beautiful place to be.
Before I started therapy and meds I was literally driving myself batshit insane feeling completely out of control all the time. I had to learn to redirect my energy on what I actually could control: my mental self-care, and being emotionally healthy enough to help those in my social onion layer who need it.
I’m sorry we have to feel this way. And I truly hope anyone who can relate to this finds some solace and new wisdoms about it. Much love.
Talking to myself here a bit, but one thing I’ve learned in life is to try going around the problem. Autistic people are very creative. Approach a problem from a direction no one expected. You will be rewarded.
For me that means my new hyper focus is worker coops. But just do something that acts against injustice not just dwells on it. [email protected]
Yes. That is why I am a vegan, a leftist, covid cautious and I try my best to help other beings whenever I see they are in trouble. I also have a lot of trouble with accepting the world as is. It should not be the way it is right now. We should have a world built on empathy and on scientific thinking, not on prejudice and violence. This world just makes no sense to me. Why do evil when you can do good?(this is a sort of rhethorical question)
Absolutely resonant with my experience. I see Injustice and it becomes an obsession, a “cannot un-see” problem, which my mind simply can never ignore again.
At this point in life, thoroughly burned out, I feel like one of those wizards who lost their mind while questing for knowledge.
I notice injustice, I just don’t often do anything about it because of my anxiety disorder, which makes me cry myself to sleep for six hours.
I have not been recently diagnosed with ADHD, I was diagnosed with ADD as a child and my parents could not find the motivation to get me to take my medication or take me to see a doctor in order to change the dosage/medication.
I’ve been living with ADHD for as long as I can remember, it came before GA/SA/APD.
I’m married now, got medication for GA but I have frequent episodes of SA with pretty much anyone other than my wife, and the APD is a constant plague on my life (before and after I gained awareness of it). I still don’t have medication for ADHD.
My childhood was spent in a very judgemental home with family suffering from unmedicated mental illness: BPD, Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia, Dementia, NPD, and APD, for example.
My parents were (are? I don’t know how they are, you understand) extremely bigoted and my earliest memory is of a time when I wished nothing to be out of that house.
My wife is from India and after we got married, we went to visit her friends and her (now our 🙂) family. The family I met and most of her friends were wonderful, I had no problem sitting and enjoying my surroundings while they spoke in Hindi or Tamil, they were wonderful people who clearly made my wife happy. No complaints from me.
The last two friends I met were Islamophobic, TERFs, Homophobic, and sexist.
I couldn’t take it, I had no idea where we were, I told them to stop the car, my wife and I got out (with her, reasonably, confused and trying to get me back in the car), and I somehow, meekly, stuttered out directions for the Auto driver to take us back home while arguing with my wife that I simply cannot be around that kind of… hate.
She does not share their views but that is the kind of community that she grew up in and she has maybe three friends from her childhood.
I know what goes on when I can’t see but when I see it, I nearly get sick.
I read somewhere that ADHD & ASD is not understanding or recognizing that a rule needs to be followed, then getting furious when you realize that other people aren’t following the rule.
One of the things I’ve learned is that both ADHD and ASD are highly aligned with anxiety. It can show up when something that may seem small and insignificant to others become very very important. I often express to my therapist how I envy those who can see a small slight and shrug it off, while for me it will ping-pong around my brain until I want justice and I cannot let it go.
Like you, I also stand up for issues that are still unpopular (though tides are turning) in the mainstream. Sometimes I have to back off for my own mental health, but overall I still stand up for them when I can. And it helps to find others who follow my same beliefs to at least some degree. Not everyone has to agree 100% but the baseline consensus matches.
Worth bearing in mind, “Justice” is apparently subjective, even if this is the case. I definitely experience it, though
Yeah, when I first saw the headline I thought “that’s not me at all.” But actually, there are things I care deeply about and that inform my everyday decisions, whereas I think a lot of people espouse similar priorities but their actions don’t reflect it. I wouldn’t call it a sense of “justice”, though, because I don’t care about rules–I care about expected outcomes.
Justice sensitivity made driving very hard for me, before I figured out what was happening, and trained myself to be more chill behind the wheel.
I mean, you see some Grade A, top choice weaponry piloting their fucking Audis about on the roads, driving far too fast, sticking right on people’s arses, flashing their lights, beeping their horns, and generally being copper-bottomed shitcunts. And that drives me fucking mad.
But I listened to a podcast a while ago, during which the host noted that one of the things we tend to do is get angry with others for breaking rules that we make for ourselves. My values when driving are not the same as someone else’s. Someone else believes it’s perfectly reasonable to flash their lights at someone who’s only doing 90mph in the outside lane because they want to continue doing 110mph. Me getting angry at that person form my car isn’t going to help them understand that they’ve broken one of my personal rules, so why bother?
This shift in mindset has really helped me to chill the fuck out when driving, which in turn has permeated into other areas of my life. People don’t share 100% of my values, and that’s mostly ok.
But I won’t say that I don’t get really pissy when I see injustice being perpetrated by the rich and powerful. How former Presidents and Prime Ministers keep getting away with all manner of fuckery because society is built for them. As a result, I’ve mostly taken to ignoring the news, because otherwise I’d just be angry all the fucking time.
“get angry with others for breaking rules that we make for ourselves”
Don’t call me out like that!
