Saw a young man with Autism, today

Post Reply New Topic

Poor little guy! I know how he feels, I was called "ret*d" constantly.

What I think is really bad is that "ret*d" should even be an insult at all. It implies that people think that those who have low IQs have some kind of essential inferiority, to the point that it's an insult to say that someone is part of that group. When I hear someone called a "ret*d", my immediate thought isn't, "What a mean thing to say," but, "That shouldn't be an insult!" Because it really shouldn't. Who the heck cares what your IQ is? I sure don't.

The same can be said for several insults.

For example: Why is bastard an insult? It simply reffers to a person born from 1 or both parents out of wedlock.

The problem is that the meaning of words changes over time. Meanings get added, subtracted or changed entirely. Simply because you (or whoever) disagrees with an established meaning of a word does not change it's deffinition, you would need a majority to make an impact large enough to change a word's meaning. And the ignorant have always been, and will most likely continue to be the majority.

I probably would have asked him who called him ret*d, then sent him a letter saying "it's been taken care of" while on my way across the border.

I love doing that! I don't let other people see it, but it's so satisfying. and there's nothing random about it, I need my hands to move in an exact manner, or as close to the way as possible.

I got called mong for most of my late teens early twenties

well, kids do WORSE, even to seemingly normal people. Sensitivity training would just be laughed at, and possibly be ANOTHER reason to atttack.

Maybe if people figured out WHY they were called a name such as "ret*d", they could change or cover that aspect. It is like me in a store. Sometimes I may take a couple seconds to go through everything I need, and how to get it, mentally. This is complicated because the type of item might dictate the order. I may be RIGHT NEAR the icecream, for example, but get cereal before the icecream. Still, I don't stay in onee place too long. Luckily, most of the other things I do in stores are either easily explained, or not very obvious. I USUALLY doo it in my car. Anyway, I am not about to just stand in the store like a statue, so I keep moving.

I haven't been called "ret*d", but I HAVE been hit, teased about my name(They took a name that really had nothing silly about it, slightly tweaked the pronunciation, and added another word to make it sound embarrasing), etc... Kids can be a nuisance! It has been an accepted "fact of life" since long before I was born. TODAY they may talk about such things like it is a NEW occurrence.

People are afraid of what's different. This is human nature, and goes for everything, whether it's kids making fun if Aspies or a whole industry scared of new technology.

I don't see why they do it, what's the reasoning behind all this insulting that happens? Is it fun for them, it does nothing except make someone else's life miserable.

Is it in the nature of people to put others down to rise themselves up? It could be, that's why the most popular of all have no need to insult. Or at least, no need to insult the least popular people.

At least Amajanshi posted something relevant to the thread.

It's impossible. Not because you couldn't change some aspect of your behavior (many things, you can change) but because once you do, they just grab something else. You mentioned they made fun of your name--you think changing your name would've stopped it? Nope. They just used the name as an excuse. They were making fun of someone who is different. If you can completely hide your AS from everyone, to the point that they don't think you're different at all, I doubt you have AS at all. They're always going to get the "different" vibe from us, just like people are always going to be able to tell the difference between black people and white people. The only way to stop the abuse is to get the differences acknowledged and accepted, not hide them. Hiding only turns you into a neurotic NT-mimic.

Hearts to Callista for saying this. It is the elephant in the room. There is an assumption- bolstered by the high IQ scores of many people with Asperger's Syndrome- that the worth of a person can be measured by how smart they are. It's at the core of every NT bashing thread: "we're better than them because we're smarter than them". It's at the core of this and other threads where literally the worst thing that can be said about anybody is that they are ret*d. But what of people who actually are ret*d? Is all the negativity then justified? When this point gets raised (almost always by Callista ), the usual defense is "I never said ret*d people don't have as much right to live as anybody else", as though being taken off the genocide list was compensation enough for presumed inferiority.

I'll go on the record to say, that I remember how people in my elementary school often called me ret*d and in fact, there are still some people that do it today but, not as often though.Anyways, CockneyRebel I think there are a great many children out there whom act in a cruel-hearted manner towards those whom they don't understand be it from a physical manner or mental one etc so, all we can hope for is that parents become better at teaching their children to not act so in-human and to instill a sense of humanity in his/her child's life overall..

Aww, that's so sad. Even without seeing the boy myself, I still feel sympathetic towards him...

I saw a kid with what I think was a carer, whilst I was on tills in a store. He went " hey fatty bum bum" in a deep vibrating voice. It made me laugh because it came out of no where. he made my day. he might have been autistic, can't say for sure.

I think you can tell when a person's autistic when they come into the store with whats probably their parents, and just act shy and nice. theres one guy though that talked but I couldn't really understand his pronunciation.

Theres also another who comes every so often, who looks like he hasn't had a wash in a decade(along with his clothes, and bad dandruff, bad skin, smells )can't really talk properly, and hobbles along. I really fell sorry for the guy, I don't know if he's been left to fend for himself.

nothing about tha says he had it

I understand that but "ret*d" is quite a new insult and at least to me it still seems quite personal. Words like 'bastard' have become very distanced from their old meaning--we don't call illegitimate children bastards anymore--but we still call ret*ds ret*ds, so it still seems like those who use it as an insult are consciously attacking all ret*d people.