Raised by Aspergers parent

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I wish I had been this concise.

Okay, I understand what you're talking about. Like ASDMommy says, context is key. The boards that you are used to is an empathy and emotional based board. The boards may offer emotional support but that is not the primary way this parenting board does things. This board is solution based. Look at the different posts. It is more about solving the problem and rectifying the issues.

I don't mind the emotional based stuff and the outpouring of love and emotional support but to me in the end it solves nothing. One has to be able to have practical and logically based solutions as well. This is what parents here tend to do. Even NT parents who end up staying in this board tend to have more solution-based thinking. Look at Janissy and Zette, if you read their posts they go more towards the logical and solution based approach. Look up Momsparky, she posts different resources and has collated them together for everyone.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt250893.html

Zette is a software engineer as you see. She is in the business of trying to find a solution. This is part of why your wires are being crossed with others on here. Honestly, the children of these parents have thrived under this sub forum's methodologies. Since you like to criticize the methodologies that we use let me criticize yours. How has your emotionally based way of doing things solved any of the parent's issues on these other boards? Look at the forum at ASPartners at Delphi.com. Most of them are divorcing their AS spouses. How has this social emotional based framework that excludes a solution-oriented framework worked out for them?

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think this is a problem along a feeling/empathy to solution/procedure axis.

I think the problem is that some of the aggrieved posters are failing to extend their facility for empathy to their entire audience. They are seeking to assert privileged status as victims and to launch attacks on a diverse group of people with impunity and to claim as acceptable disregard for the harm they do by defining those people as members of a class of victimizers.

Application of the golden rule would help.
[edited to compensate for weir iPad translation]

I will admit that the possibility does exist that my conclusions may be based from erroneous premises. If I have fallacious reasoning where is my reasoning fallacious? If I am missing premises what premises am I missing? Am I missing an underlying subtext to this?

What do you mean by "Application of the golden rule would help"? Would it help me or would it help Tarentella?

What am I missing here in all of this?

Agreed. I am not disputing that other boards probably do have a different emoting style, but if you look at the posts made by many of the members here who identify as AS including Adamentium, CubeDemon and BuyerBeware, (not even including BAP members or NTs with AS tendencies) I do not think that there is a lack of empathy or even that it is communicated in a way that is undetectable or unfathomable by NTs. The problem is that it is not reciprocated and that not only is there a lack of empathy but a lack of respect for the AS members of this board by many posters on this thread.

It also struck me later, that tarantella64 used the word "cruel" to describe constructive advice given(by an NT, mind you.) Well. "cruel" is exactly the right word I would use for people who come on an AS board, talk to people they have never met, whose qualities they are unfamilar with, and give unasked for advice, insisting they not reproduce. (TurnTheTide wasn't even diplomatic about it). If telling someone to wait to figure their own stuff out before actively seeking an SO is cruel, then how would one characterize that?

It is this double standard that really gets me.

Edited for clarity.

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 24 Feb 2014, 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am certainly not trying to be cruel, but there is an element here that I see as a reality anyone trying to heal needs to understand, and I tried to convey that tactfully. My apologies if I failed with that.

She sounded to me like she was looking for a love interest to fill in the holes for her, not a professional. Marriage and relationship experts pretty universally agree that you cannot enter into a relationship specifically looking for your partner to fix the problems left over from your childhood. Why? Because that tends to lead you to the wrong people, who will take advantage of your need. This is difficult for me to explain in writing but while in many ways the right relationship can fill in some of the holes in your life, they are often holes you hadn't been completely aware you had, not something you specifically went looking to fill.

One of the challenges my father left to his daughters was difficulty building relationships. This is an area where I actually think I have personal experience, even if my hole wasn't as big as hers. Until we filled in our gaps from within, every relationship we entered was flawed. We found the right men only after we had found confidence and completeness in ourselves.

I speak as someone who was drawn to abusive men. I wish that on no one.

This is EXACTLY why I made the point I made. There is a connection here. I have experience with abusive relationships and the women who fall into them. Forget everything else and focus on this pattern. I feel like I know where it usually comes from.

This is good advice. Things get complicated when it comes to that sentence, about parents, but definitely she needs to put herself and her needs first.

I honestly never felt like I was saying "do more." It was meant more along the lines of "think different." I spent a LOT of years single, not married until 36, and there was a LOT of energy wasted in trying to find that right person and be in a relationship. A lot of energy wasted on wondering why I was not. And a lot of time lost and damage done in picking wrong relationships. It was only when I stopped "looking," stopped worrying about, and stopped putting energy into the idea that I "must" have a relationship and, instead, put energy into really discovering and enjoying who I was, me by myself, that I started to basically fall into healthier relationships. Even then, a piece of the pattern continued, but at least by then I was strong enough to know how to handle it and draw the necessary lines in the sand. My life could have turned out a whole lot messier if I had not done exactly what I am advising.

From what I have seen in life, you cannot LOOK to have someone fill in the holes in you or your life. It does not usually end up well. Take the energy you expend on that alternative - which is usually quite a lot - and place it somewhere else.

I do have a lot of compassion for inmydreams, but sometimes compassion isn't enough, and you have to help someone in pain turn their head and look in another direction. I try to be gentle with that, but I'm not perfect, I've got my own demons to deal with, and I really do apologize if I grabbed too hard or turned too fast.

For the record, we have had that conversation on this board. Often. Many Aspies who are thinking about having children come on here to figure out if it would, in fact, be fair of them to do so. And in those threads we recognize the natural difficulties ahead, but also that knowledge and awareness can make a difference. It is a valid question for every person to ask, "should I have kids?," and the truth is that no one can answer it for anyone else. All that can be done is to point out some pro's and con's, and leave the heavy lifting to the people involved. Personally, I think it says a lot about a person that they are asking, and reduces the chances they will miss read signs in their children. The ASD parents here are quite aware of their own limitations, and all have tried to figure out ways to mitigate them for their children. They don't talk about "how to get my child to stop crying," but "how to keep my discomfort with crying from coming through to my child or from having me fail to give my child what they need." It is the people who don't know they are ASD that are most of risk for the issues you worry about, not the ones coming here, and it is fair of them to feel hurt when someone fails to acknowledge what huge steps they have already taken. The best thing any parent can do is constantly question themselves. I think by coming here we show that we are all already doing that.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 24 Feb 2014, 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not sure if you are quoting something actually written or giving an example ...

Just for clarification, the terms of service for this site, and interpretations by the moderator team, do not allow for negative generalizations about any group. It is the duty of the poster to make clear in their words that they are not talking about everyone in a category, and not the duty of the reader to figure out that they did not actually mean everyone. The moderation team tends to stay off this board unless a complaint has been filed, so this board effectively has more unintended leeway than others, but that does not mean the rules do not apply. No one is allowed to post things that are effectively an attack on whole groups of people.

I understand what you're saying and there does seem to be a double standard. There are times, it does seem like I'm dealing with those at Stormfront with the same bigoted nonsense.

My apologies if I was being a little opaque, cubedemon6073.

I am not saying you are wrong, but that you are looking at the problem from a different perspective. You accept the claim that people could reasonably expect an outpouring of sympathy after telling tales of sorrow and suffering in their childhoods with aspie parents. There have been expressions of sympathy here.

That sympathy has been mixed with rejection of the generalizations made about the defects of aspies as parents. That is not realy surprising at all, given the nature of this board as a community centered on life with ASD created by and for people with ASDs and those who care for them.

Parents who come here are looking for practical advice, because we really need it. But that does not stop us from feeling and expressing sympathy for others who post here. I see it all the time.

What doesn't work is to say "I have been hurt by an aspie, therefore I am entitled to say hurtful things about aspies and they are not entitled to respond with denial, because they are the ones who hurt me!"

We are not the ones who hurt them--some specific parent is. The rest is just not acceptable.

It is the NTs who come to accuse other aspies of being guilty of whatever wrongs their parents did them who need to apply the golden rule.

When each person comes into this community to post, it would be helpful if they asked themselves: "are you treating others as you would like to be treated? Are you refraining from doing to others what you would prefer not be done to you?"

As you once said (I think it was you), this thread is an anomaly wrapped inside an anomaly, and it was basically my decision back when I was a moderator that there was more good, long run, from allowing this thread to exist in a way I saw as useful for those drawn to it, than harm from the anger and negativity that often gets expressed. It was my sense that many of these adults need to express that anger to move past it and, so, again in what I saw as a broader interest for those with ASD, I allowed it. I think everyone posting in the thread is aware by now of the situation. Even if you keep scratching your heads over it But, seriously, as I've pointed out before, if the opinion on that changes, we can contact the current moderators for a different decision. If that isn't going to happen, though, maybe we've all got to let go a little of our own concerns when reading here.

Forget to say that I thought this was well expressed. Glad you understood where I was coming from. I was trying to be gentle with it all, give enough but not too much, etc., but ... heck, none of us are trained professionals on these extremely complex and sensitive issues.

I really do apologize if I mess up with a post, either reading into the poster's needs wrong or replying without enough sensitivity. I certainly do mess up at times, but that is a natural hazard, I've come to believe, from not being afraid to try and jump into very deep and risky waters. It may sting to have someone say they think my words were "cruel," but I would rather they say it than think it and refuse to engage further. I always worry about that when a poster has not come back. PLEASE, I want them to tell me!

It's fine.



I agree.



I do agree with the rejection of the generalizations. To me, it is based upon a fallacy called a hasty generalization. In inductive reasoning, it is considered a weak argument. Their claim would have to have more members in their respective sample space. In addition, I would want to know what their background and credentials are in statistics.



Again, I agree.



Actually, I do agree with you but for different reasons. To me, they do not have enough statistical data to back up what they say. Therefore their generalization is very weak. They would have to provide more members that fit the sample space instead of their one member which is their spouse otherwise it fallacious reasoning.



Agreed, it is fallacious reasoning.



I agree and in addition to try to improve their critical thinking skills and educate themselves on the different fallacies that exist.



I agree and in addition, examine their own arguments to determine if any one of them are based upon fallacious reasoning.

Honestly, I wish people in general would do more critical thinking. I think it would help a lot. I will admit I do have issues with critical thinking and sometimes use fallacious reasoning myself but I do try to improve this.