"You weren't given the manual"

Imagine if you will, a control panel with lots of unlabeled buttons, everyone has read the manual except you, so you wing it. You press some buttons, and someone yells at you, saying you're not meant to press that button. You avoid pressing that button, and someone yells at you for not pressing it after pressing a certain sequence, or during a certain time.

You are told to press all the red buttons. You press them, and also press the fire alarm, emergency shutdown, seat ejector, and self-destruct buttons because they were red. You get yelled at for pressing the wrong red buttons.

Instead of trying to figure the buttons out, you look to your neighbor, and press the same buttons he does. You get yelled at because you're not allowed to press those buttons, only he is. You ask why, and you're told "That's just how it is".

You continue to press the safe buttons and your boss walks by, and yells at you for pressing a certain button, saying "You don't use that button anymore".

You notice that one of the buttons doesn't actually do anything. You stop pressing it, and you get yelled at for not pressing it. You try to explain the button doesn't do anything, but they don't accept it.

You set up the buttons so you can easily press them in sequence. Everything is going great, and it's decided without your input that some buttons are to be switched. They are switched on your layout without your knowledge, and you don't know why it's different.

You find a sequence of buttons that are better than the one you're using, so you use it. Your boss yells at you, saying that you're not meant to know that sequence yet. You see your neighbor press the same button sequence, and he is praised for it. You ask why, and you get yelled at.

There is a button you press in a specific context. You are then told not to press it, and to instead press another. A short while later, you are told to press the original button and not the new one. This goes back and forth and both buttons have different people yelling at you for being wrong.

There are buttons you're allowed to press for fun. They yell at you for pressing them the way you want to press them. It's not hurting anyone, or bothering them, but they still yell at you for pressing them differently from others.

There's a button that you like. You know its size, shape, what variables it changes, the pressure needed to depress it, you know more about this button than anyone else in the world. They yell at you for obsessing over the button.

They realize you weren't given a manual, and make you think it's your fault. They segregate you, punish you, and talk down to you, even though it's not your fault for not having a manual. They disrupt your use of the control panel, have someone supervise your use of it, and they constantly berate and insult you in front of everyone else.

Every time you make a mistake, it's because "You weren't given the manual", when you ask for the manual, they say "You should've started with one". When your mistakes are from your own errors, it's because "you weren't given the manual". If you find a clever sequence through experimentation or luck, it's because "It's not listed in the manual".

When you get angry, it's because you "don't have the manual". When the stress boils over to breaking point, you're "just angry that you don't have the manual".

They lump you in with everyone who didn't get a manual. Ones who destroy their machines, spread their feces on it, and you, all lumped into the same group. When you protest this, they don't listen, and the boss simply tells people you "weren't given the manual."

They teach you how to use the control panel, but it's everything you already know. You tell them you know that part, and they ignore you, because their manual on what to do with people who don't have the manual dictates what to do. They try and point out other people who succeeded despite not owning the manual or completely fictional characters who didn't own the manual, even though there's no proof they didn't have the manual.

You barely know how the panel works, you have a funny way of doing things, your experimentation is punished, your skills are lackluster, and you are rightfully depressed, miserable, and angry. But everyone else who had the privilege of owning the manual thinks you're an idiot.

You write up a piece of work that uses a simple metaphor to describe how you feel, and instead of people taking it at face value and realizing their incompetence, you are told "People who haven't read the manual can't write this kind of thing."

This is what it's like to live with autism.