Tag Archives: agendas

Recognizing Good Relationships is Important When Networking

It’s important to recognize the people willing to help us after we have helped them. It’s important to know what encourages us to network with people who are willing to walk a two-way street with us. Autistic people tend to not be able to recognize those people who are not willing help one another. Instead, we tend to do too much for a person with nothing in return a lot of times. In return, we learn from that situation that relationships are one-way. However, that is not the way relationships run smoothly.

Because we don’t recognize a true relationship, we tend to embark on people that don’t want to help us in return. Everyone has an agenda and wants their agenda taken care of. Many people don’t really care about any one else’s agenda unless, everyone else’s agenda is the same as there’s.

When getting involved with researchers who do research about Autism, a lot of researchers have an agenda that typically is not the same as what most Autistic people want and feel too. Researchers tend to try to promote their studies because they have an agenda too, to sell. If you get involved with a researcher, you should know what you are getting involved with and if you can gain something from it. For example, if it affects you, go for it! They want to better understand Autistic people, but you always need to analyze the situation.

Needless to say, we need to be prudent with potential new networking opportunities. For example, I have networked with many people for the past few years and have grown to know a lot of new people in my life. However, now it’s time to start growing that population of people I know into a fulfilling two-sided relationship. I have known a lot of people for a while, but have not really known what they can do for me and what I can do for them. It is nice to know people, but it’s important to recognize what the two people can do for each other. I think I have grown a lot as a person and being the adult I am now, I realize I need to focus on what I believe in not so much of what others believe in.

My belief is in Neurodiversity and the social model of disability. This does not mean that I don’t believe in medication helping many people already, it just means I believe in people putting work into their own development toward self-determination even if that means that they need medication to help with that. Any one should be able to do that without other people’s criticisms. Medications can help people, but it’s not for everyone. A lot of Autistic people have already compensated for doing things on their own without medication, but a lot of Autistic people do still need medication to help them through their daily lives for various reasons. The medications typically relieve anxiety and depression related to trying to adapt to society’s standards, but there are other medications people take too.

By being a self-determined person with or without medication, we need to recognize who will do for us and in return do for them. Not everyone will be willing to do for me or you because not everyone believes in the same things. There are many people who have different agendas and a lot of times they conflict with ours. The idea is to find the right people who have similar agendas so that our work can be done.

I have found that I have been in relationships with people in the past, who just wanted to take advantage of me. When it was time for those people in the relationship to do for me, I was ultimately buried in the ground. It took me time to get myself up and going, but here I am moving along with self-determination for the past few years. I continue to learn about relationships.

A lot of people who say they want to learn more about Autistic people and teach Autistic youth, asking an Autistic adult for help, actually don’t want to compensate or help the Autistic adult’s agenda in anyway who graciously helped them in their struggles who learned more about autism. It makes me more cautious in wanting to help these people who ask for my help now. Many people in general, really don’t care about a two-way relationship I’ve noticed. People in general just want their agenda in action and when their agenda has been taken care of, they really don’t want to help the other person’s agenda. Autistic people generally become very confused by this approach in society because we expect something in return. It should be an honest exchange between people and caring about each other.

I have noticed some Autistic people I have met who take advantage as well because they learned from society that this type of one-way exchange is appropriate. However, by changing society, we can create situations where everyone no matter who you are, helps each other without taking advantage or bullying. Thankfully, I starting working a job now where my relationship with the job and myself help each other. It’s definitely a two-way street. Life teaches us certain things where people want to take advantage of others, but once you start recognizing the one-way relationships, you get to recognize the two-way relationships more.

Happy Networking!