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Neurotypicals - Is it rude to share a similar story after you share something that might be emotional or traumatic? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I keep hearing that this is frowned upon, but I cannot help it. After I share, I circle back and explain how and why I connected the two stories to try to recenter the other person. Is this annoying? How do you want ND people to respond in that case?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Context might matter.

For an event that just happened, maybe the person is looking more to be the center of attention than looking for a person with a shared experience. Same might be applicable if a person is acting upset.

When the even has happened farther in the past it is probably more likely (and more appropriate) to share your story/experiences as an act of comiseration.

Even among n'typicals we don't really know how to handle things.

One of my parents died years ago while I had a full time job, so I gave HR a heads up that I might need to do some short warning "I'm not going to make it to work today to go deal with beauracracy" call-ins. HR let one of my bosses know and they tried to talk to me about it but just kept awkwardly repeating how much it would devastate them if their parent died. While understandable it put me in a situation where I didn't really know how to comfort them being upset that my parent's death got them thinking about their parent hypothetically dying. I just politely nodded until they decided to go away. It was a... very... long five minute interaction.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh wow that is SO AWKWARD. Yeah, I definitely know better than your boss to do something like that. Even if they didn't spin out I feel like saying "I don't know what i would do if..." can already turn the attention around so I try to avoid it

I think I tend to connect with people Moreso on past events than current ones, but a good rule of thumb to try to keep in mind

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

It is definitely easier to navigate a situation were the ratio of Emotion to Experince is closer to 1:1 instead of 10:1.