"You are being deliberately obtuse!" "But I'm not a triangle?" My experience being undiagnosed in elementary school in a nutshell

I'm an english teacher, and I always teach prepositions by getting kids to sit on, under and beside their table. Which is both pleasingly chaotic and makes the concept pretty obvious. Thank God I never thought of boxes and penguins!

“It’s like being the only sober person in a room full of drunks” is an excellent description of many of our lives as autistic persons.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad when I was in the seventh grade. He had come to visit me and we were walking around the mall and talking about a short essay that I had written in class the previous week. He asks me “what did you write it on” and for whatever reason I answered, very sincerely, “paper”. Turns out he was asking me what the topic of the essay was, not how it was written

Am I made of box? Or is the box made of me? My teacher screams for she does not know.

"You're being deliberately obtuse" This bit is killing me inside because on one hand this is so very funny and on the other it is too relatable to be comfortable for me

as an autistic woman I saw this and laughed harder than I ever have at any comedy routine. inspired me to check out the rest of Hannah's work. reading their memoir right now and loving it!!!

I learned a trick to fit in in class: Just never speak.

Oh, this is stirring up old memories. I used to always do poorly in primary school activities that required an understanding of common knowledge. For instance, most people would reply “orange” if asked the colour of a carrot. But I liked to look though vegetable seed catalogues for fun as a child, so I knew that carrots can also be purple, red, yellow, and white. So I would consistently give “wrong” answers because my brain struggles to weigh information according to social use. When asked by an adult and I would explain my reasoning, they would get exasperated and say not to show off and to just put the normal answer. But I couldn’t ever seem to figure out what the defaults were. My brain couldn’t say “hmm. We have seen many colours of carrots and have grown purple ones in the veggie patch. But on cartoons, in my classmates’ lunches, etc carrots are only ever drawn as orange. So I should use that colour as my default when communicating the idea of carrots”.

the perks of an ADHD brain is that i can track *exactly* how she got to the question "can i eat the box." For any of yall wondering, im guessing (of course i can't say for sure) her child-Hanna brain connected "boxes that have names"-->cereal boxes-->cereal-->can eat cereal from box--> can i eat this hypothetical box.

Diagnosed at 37. Ladies usually get late diagnoses. Enjoying this.

I once had a verbal reasoning exam in which I had to read an extract from a story and answer questions about it. One of the questions was, "Describe the relationship between Molly and Gemma." I was confused about this but my answer was, "They appear to have a good relationship. They enjoy playing together."

"Why are they kissing? I don't like the sound..." Such a simple line, but for some reason it really hits me hard.

I am also a high functioning autistic person, and when she said “the relationship between you and the box” my first thought was, “Why am i married to a box?!”

I've always known that there was something wrong with telling a kid that they're being "deliberately obtuse," but it wasn't until I was reminded of that phrase just now that I realized what it was: Saying a kid is being deliberately obtuse is tantamount to saying, "I'm explaining this perfectly, and in a manner that everyone should be able to understand. Not only that, but I can read your mind, and I know that you do indeed understand me, and are just trying to be annoying." I guess parents and teachers are so used to any misunderstandings being the kids' fault, they don't consider trying a different explanation before getting defensive.

As an autistic person and a teacher, I completely understand and have been on both sides of this conversation XD

“I waited until she felt safe” gETS ME

I'm autistic too and this is 100% true. Teachers so often, when I asked questions, assumed I was joking or being obtuse when I legitimately wanted to understand something.

I'm a "high functioning" autistic person and I quote the first part of this bit to everyone. "It's a terrible name for what I have because it gives the impression that I function highly. I do not."

As a young child (autistic) I kept answering prepositions with this simple answer "it's there" while pointing my finger.

Imagine being a child struggling to understand and your teacher responds with: no one is that “obtuse”.

“Why are they kissing? I don’t like the sound” is so delightfully relatably autistic and I love it

All her "weird" trains of thought make perfect sense to me, but the breakfast cereal part was sheer *genius*. I would have wanted to be friends with her in school, but I would have been too shy and awkward to try.

My utterly traumatizing school experience, especially elementary school and later Latin, made into something I here cry about with laughter. Thanks, Hannah! 💝

The way she says "No, they didn't, but I had a question" kills me everytime.

Reminds me of that time when I was 4. I was yelling at the back of the car for reasons history decided to forget. But yelling with dedication nonetheless. My mom, a school teacher, trained in the arts of screaming children, was out of options, and threatened to abandon me next to a field. Alas, I was not one for understanding the concept of threats, and knew she wouldn't do that. So I kept screaming. My tired, out of options, mom wanting to be taken seriously, stopped the car next to a Field. I learned later in life, taking care of 4 years old myself, that this is usually the limit of the bluff that works, and the child calms down. But I didn't do that. My mother, now committed, took me out of the car, and put me next to the field. No objection from me. Not wanting to back down, she got back in the car and LEFT saying "I'll come back when you're calm". She came back a minute or two later, estimating that I would be taking her seriously enough to be quiet for the last 5 minutes of the car ride. She got out out of the car. I stared at her straight in the face and said "I'm not calm yet". She put me back in the car and I SCREAMED for the rest of the car ride, the end. BONUS : My seven year old sister, contrarely to me, was very impressed at my mom and was crying "please don't abandon my sister" and that's why my mom had to come back quicker than she wanted.

"You're being deliberately obtuse' I have heard that SO MANY TIMES. It angers me now.

I am married to someone who has high functioning autism and some of the things he comes out with just makes me crack up laughing - the way his mind things sometimes is so funny,

My best friend's last name is literally Box That's a Box with a name

Lol 😂 the way she says “To give you a visual..........This woman” and points the laser pointer makes me laugh every time I watch this moment. I love the way she works paintings and her art history degree into the show to support her themes.

I dont understand why people hate this. As someone with the same problem as her, I can tell you that she is absolutely spot on about the misconception that we are high functioning. Edit: Ah, the old Subjectivity vs Objectivity debate. The bane of all Art. The thing that all Artists dread the most. And people wonder why we can't have nice things. Edit 2: 69 Likes! LOL

I'm getting flashbacks to my school days. Mum sighed when she got my report card: "Aspa allows no question go unanswered..." Cut to x yrs later when I was teaching in a high school and speaking to a pupil who was high-functioning ASD. Suddenly I was looking at myself as a kid.

Boxes with names= cereal Cereal= food Food= eat Box= food Can I eat the box?

Whenever I am teaching a concept that a student doesn’t understand, I try to explain it in a different way. And if a child says something absurd, I try to figure out their line of thinking. Or I ask them what made them think of such a thing. It’s often very funny, and in many ways “logical” from the child’s point of view.

A couple of months ago, I laughed so hard and for so long at this bit that it occurred to me that I might be a little more than an ADHDer. I mean, the teacher interaction pretty much told the story of my entire school life. After a LOT of research and self-reflection, I got a clinical autism assessment. And, yes, I am also autistic. Thank you, Hannah! 💙

Im a high functioning autistc, and the wavelength metaphor is so good! I always just explain it as “I just don’t jive with people the way most people expect to be jived with”. and that tends to inform whomever Im speaking with well enough.

High-functioning autism example: in primary school, there was a teacher that genuinely did not like me. I had very good grades but never worked and would always be daydreaming, looking out the window. One time she told me "perhaps you'd like a coffee and a mars bar?" and I thought she was genuinely offering me a coffee and a mars bar and I said yes. Needless to say this didn't go down very well.

This teacher experienced what it is like to be a Dungeon Master

as someone with Aspergers this highly relatable

I have Autism and I can't stop laughing because it is all true

It’s stuff like this that convinces me that autism and ADHD are cousins. The way we get through school is so similar. And RIP to people who have both, you’re clueless and distracted and you don’t even know which one is causing it.

It’s like drax from guardians of the galaxy, when rocket says “His people are literal, jokes go right over his head” then drax said “Nothing goes over my head, I have to quick of reflexes” 😂

"You're being deliberately obtuse" omfg, that phrase is practically triggering for me, lol--I remember my mother insulting me with that phrase as a teenager when she was mad at me and I thought I was asking reasonable questions necessary for someone who wasn't a mind reader 😅

I love this. I wish there was a "clean" version I could share with my middle school students. Not only does it teach about what prepositions are, more importantly it would help teach them empathy for other people and start a conversation.

"I understand what [prepositions] are now; I'm all over it." That should have gotten a laugh but the audience wasn't fast enough 😁

I remember when I was 10, about a year before I got my autism diagnosis, my class were gonna send letters to this kid's show called Hjärnkontoret (=The Brain Office, aka a program about science and stuff). Everyone got to send in their own question so I wanted to know what the lil black part of the pencil was. Now, to understand this, you need to know this: in Swedish, that good ol' pencil that usually have an eraser in the butt is called a blyertspenna and the bly-part of it means lead. So when we were all reading our questions out loud, everyone started to laugh. The teacher giggled, from what I remember. Some of the boys shouted "it's made out of lead" and I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet, shrinking even further into my lil shell. It definitely didn't help me get over my constant fear of giving a wrong answer, so this incredibly shy, quiet child became even more shy and quiet. Today I know that the lil black part of the pencil is made out of graphite and that it contains no lead. Idk why I wanted to tell this story but I did and thus I did. Have a lovely day.

Hannah's penguin box story is what convinced me to get tested for autism, because I swear to God I was absolutely that girl in elementary school. I was gifted and a great student, but I always had those innate, automatic social gauges missing in my brain and I just couldn't understand as a child why people were angry at me all the time. I just got assessed and diagnosed with autism *and ADHD* at the age of 35.

5:49 “You’re being deliberately obtuse” Why is a teacher refusing to believe that children are capable of being stupid?

When she said "A preposition is your relationship to the box" I thought "Holy shit I'm in love with a box? That's so sweet! Must be a really special box."

"To give you an idea of what it feels like to be on the spectrum, basically it feels like being the only sober person in a room full of drunks." Speaking from experience, this is very true.

I relate to this on so so so many levels. God. Feels good to be able to relate to someone in a situation like this

I click this every time I see it and belly laugh every time! So very funny, as a teacher this is gold ❤

Headcannon: Hannah's old teacher sees this. She feels ashamed at how she treated young Hannah back then. "It never occurred to me that she could be autistic. I had no idea. It's all so clear to me now." But then it gets to the part right before Hannah asks if she can eat the box, and the teacher's shame briefly subsides. She's like, "Oh well, at least I'll finally understand what THAT question was all about." And Hannah's like, "now I don't remember my thinking behind this question..." And the teacher's like, "Oh, fuck me!"

"do you know any boxes that have names" "i started naming cereals" thats genius. the kind of thinking outside of the BOX that only someone on the spectrum can come up with. Love her

she's still 10 times the comedian Brendon Shaub is

This is so relatable!!! I don’t know if I should laugh or cry

I'm on the spectrum, and while visualizing was never a problem for me, my compulsive honesty and irritation with anything that wasted time were. As it turns out, noticing things is contrary to the public school ethos.

As an autistic person this perfectly describes what it's like for me, took my now girlfriend of four years two years for me to even realise she was into me.

When I was about 10 our family went on a camping trip. It was raining and we were hungry and whining (4 kids). My dad finally got a fire started and handed me a pot of water for pasta and said “Debbie go put this on the fire” so I did, I poured it on the fire. Boy was he mad, and so were my siblings. My mom laughed as she sipped her cocktail.

"Easy Mac? What's so hard about the regular Mac? What do they think we are, r•t•rd•d?"

"It implies im high functioning" nailed it.

My 10 year old ASD son won a ribbon at his sports carnival; I asked him what he won that ribbon for, he just looks at me as if it’s the most stupid question he’s ever heard and replies ‘winning’ lol.

One of the funny things about having autism is it’s like being a writer which I also happen to be and explaining writing to other writers or non-writers is the same thing as explaining autism you just can’t do it you got to try to figure it out as you go along and you can’t really explain it to anybody it’s the sort of thing you just got to figure out as we go along for better or for worse it has its perks it’s funny at times but you also have your struggles. It’s unique to each individual

She is as funny as a kind old lady with dimensia at a retirement home talking about when she was younger

My fiance misunderstands me alot because I have high functioning autism and he has ADHD. We both have alot of anxiety. So I will VERY often say stuff that he does not take that way I mean him to. So I try to explain my thought process and it sounds an awful lot like this. "But I'm not a triangle!" Wait....not everyone thinks like that as a kid? Like I know I'm autistic but I would've thought that was a normal response

“Boxes don’t have names.” Tell that to Tiny Box Tim

This is like someone describing a dream , it’s insufferable

This made me laugh so hard! Love it

This is a mood. I ended up turning a lot of teachers against me through sheer cluelessness. But my daughter came out with one of my favorites. So the teacher in her 4th grade class read them a story about the 3 little pigs in which, in a twist ending, the third pig ATE THE WOLF. My daughter went up to the desk after and quietly asked her whether in doing so the third pig had therefore eaten his own brothers. Some teachers break more quietly I guess because the teacher just asked her to sit back down. I think most of us can agree that this was actually a very logical question given the usual pacing of the story and I wonder that the author missed that little hiccup.

High functioning is a blessing and a curse. Blessing that you can still take care of yourself and succeed, but a curse that socially no one can obviously tell you have something you cant control so they hold you to the same social expectations of a typical person without understanding why it's near impossible for you to meet them

BWAHAHAHA!!!! ... picking myself up from the floor. As a former teacher I can't even describe how teaching shortens one's lifespan but how incredibly much fun it is, the incessant madness minute to minute day in and day out.

Awesome!! Hannah is helping me, in a very entertaining way, to understand her experience of living with Autism. Non Australians and some people who don’t have friends/family with Autism may not understand some of these jokes, but as an Aussie mother of a wonderful son (who has Autism), I laughed lots! Thank you for posting ❤️

Congrats, that is the most autistic story ever to autism. Just classic.

I remember a conversation with my then 6-year-old son who is on the spectrum: Son: Mom, can I use the vacuum downstairs? Me: You need supervision to use it. Son (looking confused): But I don't have super vision; I only have normal vision!

I had a similiar experience at school when i was a kid. I have ADD and autisme. Our teacher asked us "Who can not go to jail?", and the first thought that came to my mind was time. Time can obviously not go to jail. Time can be very cruel to people, and really should go to jail, but it cannot beacuse it's not a living thing. So that was my answer to the teacher. The teacher just rolled their eyes at me and said "No. It's the King. The King cannot go to jail." And my mind just blew up. Like why would the king do anything bad anyway? He is the king afterall, and our king is known for being well liked by my country because he is so kind. Surely time is the answer!? I never raised my hand in class after that X'D

I have a question. How many people are you hiding under your clothes?

I’m on the spectrum and I remember holding back tears and raising my hand during a presentation about the lifecycle of stars one time and just saying “It’s really sad when stars die.” I find this hilarious now but back then I remember being crushed finding out that stars do in fact, die.

As a spectrum wielder, I can confirm that is my thought process in almost any situation.

I probably would ask the teacher if she could think outside the box 😆

I can relate. I drove my teachers nuts with my questions. I drive my boyfriend nuts with them as well.. thank God he loves me. I think my questions are good. It's other's that can't see the relationship. Lol!

As a kid I thought "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" meant that not finding something beautiful would makd my eyes ugly, which I didn't want, so I tried reeeaaally hard to find beauty in everything out of fear. That was pretty cute, most of my stories were less cute and also involve mean incompetent teachers.

Almost a full day after seeing this, I only now realized her asking if she could eat the box can be construed as a funny sign in retrospect that she is a lesbian. I am kicking myself for not catching on sooner.

A few humble thoughts to all the "haters": 1. Seems like a lot of you are here because you like Dave Chapelle and maybe feel you are sticking up for him or defending him by attacking Hannah. Or maybe you are feeling defensive yourself because someone attacking a comedian or joke you like can feel like an attack on you for liking that comedian or joke. I get that impulse. But I don't think it really helps you or Dave at all. Kind of just makes you look petty and mean, in my opinion 2. We all know humor is subjective. As someone on the spectrum, I found this bit funny and relatable. If it didn't speak to you, that's totally cool. Very few jokes are universal. Except knock-knock jokes. Those always kill, am I right? We all laugh at what we laugh at. Just because it's not your jam is no need to ruin the party for everyone else. 3. Once we understand the subjective nature of comedy, we can see that the human experience itself is pretty darn subjective. This very much includes our perspectives and experiences with sex, gender, race and class. I like Dave Chapelle, but on the trans issue (and others), he is limited by his perspective and seems unwilling to expand his consciousness to see how his words impact, and even endanger, others. I think he has doubled down because he doesn't like to be told what to do. But I also believe in his (and our) capacity to grow, to broaden our scope of what a human can be, to relax and let it all be. And maybe we can start by agreeing that what is funny to some people may not be funny to you and there is no problem in that. It's actually kind of cool that the world of comedy (and the world itself) is big enough to have something for everyone. 4. Knock Knock. 5. Who's there? 6. Dwayne 7. Dwayne who? 8. Dwayne the bathtub, I'm dwowning. 9. See? Always kills.

As an autistic educator who’s been on both sides, this is my favorite comedy clip

Never heard of her until Dave mentioned how unfunny she is. Damn, he was right. This was painful to watch.

I was accidentally driving a teacher crazy once and he said “HOW do you SLEEP at night!!??” I said completely calmly and sincerely, “on my side.”

As an autistic person, the FIRST thing I thought when she said "how we relate to the box" the first thing I thought was "how the fuck am I related to a box??" .... Sigh .... Autism life 😂😂

My son is on the spectrum and yes…it sounds about right about the way he thinks.

"Does the box have a name?" Audience laughs Me: Why are they laughing?

The audience for this is the two women making angry faces at Dave when he said "that's not blood, that's beet juice".

I was taught prepositions by relations to a table instead of a box but I probably would’ve had these same questions lmao

My brother sent this to me because "she sounds like you". So, apparently all Aspies had the same school experiences ... damn, I thought I was special 🤷‍♀️. Those laughs and "ooohs" from the other kids were so addicting though, I see why she got into comedy.

I have suuuuuuuch a hard time understanding sarcasm to this day. Unless they're doing that smirk thing where they're making it obvious....i never get it. I also don't know when people are joking unless they're giving me obvious facial cues. People often think I'm being a smartass.

I had a similar interaction with Jean's and Gene's. If I'm made of jeans how I was related to jeans? If I were related to jeans why am I wearing them? Did somebody die so I could have their jeans? Yes I know my parents gave me my jeans, but where did they get them from? The string of questions were stacking up fast. The teacher got just as livid. Parents were called. Teacher made a similar claim that I was intentionally being disruptive. I don't recall what grade I was in at the time, only that I was quite young. My mum not missing a beat said do you believe my son knows this concept so well that he can thwart your teaching for the benefit of what? Did you show him the different spelling? No? As she pointed to my pants "Well what other noun sounds the same as gene"? In that instant of understanding it was something completely different broke my brain for a while.

I WAS LEGIT THINKING THE EXACT SAME THING ABOUT THE BOX OH MY GOSH THIS IS AWESOME!

This is how my brain works too 😂

"Teacher's pet to teacher's nemesis in one lesson." I know this

While I’m not autistic, I have dyslexia and ADHD and I still find this very relatable

"Why are they kissing?! I don't like the sound!" Too real! 🤣🤣🤣

I´m reading the comments here and I feel so happy to see such a beautiful family of boxes. It´s strange for them, but not to worry, we are wonderful in our own way. Love from Venezuela, cousins.