NT model for an Aspie life

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We're so different from NTs that our whole lives should be organized totally different from theirs. We have different needs and desires. And different strengths and weaknesses.

The big mistake is that we model our lives on NTs' needs and desires, and strengths/weaknesses. It's as if, packing for the Pole, we took our cue on what clothes to bring from how Hawaiians dress.That's a perfect recipe for failure in life. That's how we set ourselves up for depression.

If I were the parent of an Aspie child, I'd focus my main efforts regarding him on helping him build a life according to an Aspie model of success and not an NT one.

I agree with you that just adapting standards and ideals from someone else/a culture is not honouring the individual, no matter whether it's a child or an adult.

But I do not think that to take these ideals from the autistic community rather than the non-autistic community. An autistic child may feel as alien and pressured about adopting the standards/stereotypical ideas of the autistic community as they feel about adopting the standards of the non-autistic community.

Or I'm misunderstanding you (by being too literal?) and you're saying that because a person is autistic, they should consider how autism among other things changes them and changes how they life in this world and then accept and integrate this difference into their way of life. Not trying to be a person who they're not.

Yet, whatever a person does, an autistic child is going to live in a society that is not autistic.

There have to be some factors being adopted and integrated that come from the society a person is living in or going to live in. It's necessary to be able to communicate, find orientation and be successful as opposed to just trying to survive.

What's appropriate and what not, how to keep up with socialising, how to be able to integrate into a certain par of society. If a child can learn, they should be taught that something they do not know or cannot understand exists and how it works - just as everything is alien to any baby, no matter whether it's autistic or not - to widen the range of choices they're going to have when they grow older and face the world without the shelter of parents.

For example, I don't have too many desires different from mainstream. I like partying, hanging around with people, being funny and talking about nonsensical stuff and all. But not because somebody taught me to have them but because I was given the chance to try and find my own feelings about it without being pressured into one way or another. When I as a kid, my mom was always keen on letting me have the choice on what I wanted to do. That wasn't always good and I was sometimes looking for guidance, but nowadays I sure think it was great to have this opportunity of being able to try lots of things.

There's a NT model of success?
They seem to have as amorphous goals as everyone else, or no goals at all.

Yes, trying to live an NT life turn us a fish out of water.

[quote="Smelena

Would you describe an Aspie model of success please?

[/quote]

, Normal for AS is AS....not NT.
a successfull aspie, is in my opinion free to act AS, but has learned to adapt to NT ways.

force the As out of an As kid and force them to be/act NT....is a bad recipe.

Agreed. Don't try to solve autistic problems in an NT way.

I once spent probably a week longer than I had to in a psych ward because people assumed I was neurotypical and depressed rather than Aspie and depressed. They thought that because I was in my room writing in my journal, I was "withdrawing from society". The problem is, this was perfectly normal Aspie stress-reduction behavior; but nobody knew that because at the time, nobody, including me, had any idea I was autistic.

Once I realized that I was autistic--I owe thanks to a certain psychiatrist with an Aspie son--and how much stress feeds into depression, and how much autism can cause stress, I started to find solutions to problems that didn't presume that I was neurotypical... and wonder of wonders, actually started solving them.

The majority- whatever it may be- will always be the model by which others are measured and judged.

I am still struggling with why it's so damned important to seperate ourselves: NTs versus AS and the myriad of other disorders; whites versus blacks/mexicans/hatians,et al; republican versus democrat, straight versus gays. What is the big push to further alienate each other? What next? Male aspies versus female aspies?

I mean, I do appreciate the information I've learned from this website the short time I've been here. But honestly, it favors divisiveness. Our world is plagued (and in my opinion will ultimately succumb to) by the division WE CREATE AMONGST OURSELVES. If you're claiming to be so very different from NT's, why not start by working on bringing people- ALL PEOPLE- together?

A lot of us have been badly hurt by people who try to make us feel inferior because we are different. I think in many cases we are still getting to the point of realizing that our differences do not make us inferior. Only when we accept that we are different, when we take pride in our differences and the way they make us individuals, can we begin to accept others' differences as well.

I was raised to form part of our extended family community. The emphasis was on the relating aspect of one's life, as the be all and end all. Get my needs met and my satisfaction from family, friends, partner, children - relating, relating. What a waste of my resources, what a recipe for total failure for an Aspie.

You were as successful as the relations you had to show for yourself. A doctor's wife was a success in the family, while a notary niece was nothing special.

I'd encourage an Aspie daughter to build a basis for independent living from relations, rather than to depend on that which is precisely her weakest point.

I'd seek together with her the skills she has that could give her an occupational edge with little competition, rather than gear her towards a generic occupation where millions could do her job, and those with the most social savvy keep their jobs (secretary, etc.)

I'd commend examples of people who did wonderful things and/or made money by means of their strong focus, depth of analysis and verbal abilities, rather than women who landed socially prominent husbands by wearing the right clothes, using the right manipulations and acting the right social part.

I'd teach her how to get by with NTs, rather than to see as her life goal the success in that society (many friends, being popular, etc.)

I'd teach her what types she has more of a chance with, rather than put down and alienate her "weird" friends because they don't fit the socially successful or conventional model and help her make yet more efforts to fit in with the "in" crowd (who will never accept her, anyway).

I'd invest in her studies to maximize her independence from relations, rather than in owning a home in the most socioeconomically priviledged neighbourhood to maximize the quality of her relations.

I was a cat raised to bark. I never learned how to bark, but now I can't meouw either.

Maybe today's Aspies, since they're diagnosed early, are all being raised in the Aspie model and this thread is pointless to the majority. I don't know. I'd post this in a "Pre-diagnosis era Aspies" forum, but there isn't one.