> life is full of subtle social contracts that mental illness often causes people to flout. Mental illness (in many cases) makes people less predictable and reliable. Harder to deal with.
it's hard to accuse someone of 'flouting' a contract which isn't written down anywhere. that's what i think causes a lot of problems for people with mental illness.
it took me years to learn things like "people often think things and but don't say them", "eye contact and facial expressions convey a lot of information" and even "it's important to think about how other people percieve you."
there are no classes in these things; no one teaches you this in school. most people "pick these thing up on their own" - but most people also struggle like hell with math and coding. i learned coding, math and physics quite easily. i 'picked them up' because they made sense to me, while i had to work really hard as an adult to learn basic social skills that most people seem to learn in grade school.
if we were more open about all the implicit social contracts we have in the world, people wouldn't break them so often.
it's hard to accuse someone of 'flouting' a contract which isn't written down anywhere. that's what i think causes a lot of problems for people with mental illness.
it took me years to learn things like "people often think things and but don't say them", "eye contact and facial expressions convey a lot of information" and even "it's important to think about how other people percieve you."
there are no classes in these things; no one teaches you this in school. most people "pick these thing up on their own" - but most people also struggle like hell with math and coding. i learned coding, math and physics quite easily. i 'picked them up' because they made sense to me, while i had to work really hard as an adult to learn basic social skills that most people seem to learn in grade school.
if we were more open about all the implicit social contracts we have in the world, people wouldn't break them so often.