I have heard over the years that, a lot of people hate it when you tell them you're autistic to try to ease a crisis or to ease future crises you believe might arise. People perceive it as trying to deflect responsibility or as an excuse to not make any effort.

The thing is, autistic people can actually work very hard at trying to do well in any given situation. With an absence of certain social instincts, one has to use what limited cognitive thinking skills they have to try to emulate them, and in real time too. The response is far slower, far less accurate, and much more exhausting to the autistic person. The consequences or failure may be no less negative or grave, but I don't think it can be rightly assumed that an autistic person who failed (where a neurotypical person likely would have succeeded), was not actually giving a real effort. And to presume autism is an excuse for slovenly behavior instead is like cruel social entrapment.

I know a thing or two about human nature. I know most neurotypicals who are already not personally familiar with autism, may not be able to get past their own annoyance. More critically, they may not want to. A very real component of human nature is that humans may simply not want to care at all, and nothing in the world may convince them to. When people simply don't care, this cannot necessarily be remedied, and you just have to move on.

All of this makes me, as an autistic person, determined to try my hardest, and to try never to fail. I've long felt like, the stakes are too high, and I'm not allowed to fail. And yet fail I often do. So does that mean autistic people are screwed from the get go? No, not necessarily. It can be hard, but human nature is also that not everyone is perfect. Just because an autistic person has a serious handicap, does not mean every random neurotypical person is going to be perfect and scrupulous themselves. Human beings are capable of breathtaking amounts of pettiness. Again, this is not something that can in general be solved if it is the case.

Then how does an autistic person proceed when they have a certain social blindness and may occasionally have to rely on the constructive criticism of others for insight? Very, very carefully. You can't shut down, and you still have to push forward. Even if you're feeling tired and worn and mentally injured. The world goes on with or without you.