About being a strong person

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I'm sure stoicism has its uses, though I think it's bad to take it too far.

In real life I've hidden a lot of pain and fear. I've never wanted to, it's just that I don't believe it usually does any good to be honest about it, especially in a world where ASD is largely ignored. Not long ago I went and ignored my weaknesses too much, and I ended up crying uncontrollably in public. The social pressures I was under had been too much for me. First time I've done that for decades. Other times I've opted out of things and then wondered whether I'd been too soft on myself. I like pushing the envelope.

I think it's best to try and work out what one can and can't be reasonably expected to cope with, and then opt out of the unreasonable stuff and focus on the strengths. But the grey area is huge, and it's often impossible to do much but guess whether a particular challenge is going to be doable. I think the better we know ourselves, the more accurate our predictions are likely to be.

I take it this talk of getting one's butt kicked is metaphorical? How might that happen? Getting shouted down or rebuked?

Standing up for myself is something I am still learning how to do in my late 50's. I had poor social skills and just thought that if I stood up for myself since I was outnumbered and I am a short person the retaliatory beatings would just get worse. I did not understand that even though I would lose the fights if I stood up for myself repeatedly I would gain "respect" of others who would eventually take my side making the bullies not me the outcasts. What makes it difficult is there is not one correct answer to every situation. If 8 guys with guns are trying to rob me fighting back would be a bad decision.

At my age it's just verbal and metaphorical but when I was younger and I stood up for myself to some people I ended up in a physical fight. It was either that or run like a b***h and I wasn't going to do that. They weren't going to kill me and even though I might lose the confrontation occasionally, I walked away with my pride and they had a bit more respect for me than they did at the beginning. Thats how it is when you stand up for yourself to some people.

To others it's just an argument or yelling or even sneaky passive aggressive BS they do to you. You can't let them get by with that because it sets a precident. Of course you don't jump on every single little thing, but when it's real and it's obvious and it can't be ignored you don't have a choice.

As for what ASPartOfMe says in the post after yours, I wouldn't stand up to somebody with a gun if I didn't have one myself or any weapon if i was unarmed. I also wouldn't stand up to a guy who was way bigger than me if I thought he had the potential to get physical over it. Usually a guy won't hit a girl if it's an argument and the fights I've been in have mainly been other girls and some of them white trash b*****s will smack the s**t out of you before you even get two words out, so you have to do something then. But I'd gladly walk off when somebody has a gun. I've ran from somebody with a gun twice in my life and I'm not ashamed. Or stupid. I ran, and I hid and I stayed gone for a minute too. Cause that is what you do then.

But I do show anger, and I show frustration and stress. I'm not saying you show nothing. I'm saying that you don't go around showing everybody how sad you are or how hurt you are etc. You get out of bed and you put your shoes on and you do what needs to be done no matter how bad you feel emotionally and it gets easier to do that over time. The point was that people think strong people don't have these feelings that keep other people from going on and getting on with things when they are upset. That's wrong, we do have them. We just do what has to be done anyway. Again, this doesn't apply if you have depression. Not at all. But overall, the best way is to keep on keeping on because that is what grows that callous on your emotions that you need to not only be able to deal with negative stuff but also to be able to blow minor stuff off and it not bother you.

I think assuming that people who don't show visible signs of pain aren't really experiencing that much pain is similar to assuming that people who aren't managing to do things they need and/or want to do are simply not trying hard enough or not motivated enough (or haven't tried for long enough or haven't practiced enough or just don't have enough confidence or whatever).

In either case, you can't know a person's inner experience based solely on their behavior/appearance and a comparison to yourself (or anyone else) when your (or anyone else's) behavior/appearance is similar -- it'll help you make reasonable guesses and assumptions but it's good to remember the limitations of what you know and to question the guesses and assumptions you make.

Yes, but I also know how very, very hard it was to force myself to do this at the beginning and how I kept thinking I couldn't, and shouldn't have to, that it was wrong, nobody could do this, etc. But I was surprised. I did it. Barely at first, but over time it got easier.

I don't think people just aren't trying. Because I know how hard that trying is and how it feels impossible. What I was saying was that I kept pushing myself even though I felt that way and finally did what I wanted to do.

Just because somebody encourages you to push through something and keep trying anyway doesn't mean they think you aren't trying or just don't want to. Assumptions work both ways.

I know assumptions work both ways. And I know that encouragement doesn't mean someone thinks I (or anyone else) am (is) not trying. (Someone telling me they think I'm not trying means they think I'm not trying; Someone encouraging me means they want me to succeed at doing something and believe I can.... someone pushing me could mean the latter or it could mean both -- although if I think about it, encouragement is the same because wanting someone to succeed and believing they can doesn't rule out thinking they aren't trying.)

My point is that ability isn't universal and everyone should question their assumptions and guesses about other people's abilities and experiences (I make assumptions and I think I should question them, even though I'm sure I don't always). I have no way of knowing whether people have the same abilities (at least when it comes to stuff you can't see directly) or inner experiences that I do -- or that people will be able to develop abilities in the same way I did, or will do best getting through experiences in the same way I've gotten through them. I may keep trying to do something, relentlessly, with very little hope, and finally succeed and maybe even be shocked that I succeeded, but that doesn't mean that anybody else who comes along with a similar difficulty (with or without a similar outlook/attitude to mine) will ultimately succeed just like I did. I would hope for them that they would succeed and I would offer encouragement and support for them to try/keep trying (maybe even push them), but if they said, "I just can't do this" I would be inclined to trust their judgement, or try to be open to that as a real possibility even if I wasn't convinced of it myself .... because I am not them and I can't know what's happening inside of their head or what they are or aren't capable of -- I can only guess and/or rely on what they say about those things.

By the same token, I may have a specific lack of ability in some skill that never improves much (or at all) despite continuous effort to do better, but that doesn't mean other people couldn't manage to get really good at that skill even if they start with what looks to me like the same amount/type of struggle that I have.

some thoughts-
some folk would much rather just die than do the arduous self-development required to get "strong." some people are congenitally incapable of being "strong" in that they are either too slow-witted, addled or otherwise genetically weak. I myself have never been able to progress beyond the "deer in the headlights" stage of development. my reflexes are just too slow and not even uncle sam's army could improve upon that. IMHO it is the noblesse oblige of the strong to remember these unfortunates and cut them some slack.

Part of applying strength responsibly is taking up others' slack. I think technology can provide a good example; software companies squeeze every last dime of work from their employees and all but inexorably produce something that reflects the breaks the people had to cut themselves in building the technology. When we're off-contract, many disenfranchised geeks spend entire years building technical infrastructure that will still be functioning a decade later.

Well cberg, I try to do that but it seems that everything I say about anything at besides "Oh, you poor thing. I am so, so sorry, and it's so, so unfair and I shouldn't be able to do this/have that/go there/etc since you can't" will get twisted into something that I didn't mean at all.

I wasn't trying to push anybody. I had simply thought that maybe some people thought they weren't strong because they were having negative feelings. Sometimes people do think that those of us who keep on anyway aren't having feelings like that and we are. That was all I was doing. Just bringing that up because of a conversation I had with my kid and I had thought maybe somebody here who said they couldn't might have misinterpreted it.

But never mind.

My bad.

Of course.

I wonder if it's possible for some people to not learn because I was at my autism group and we were talking about how we process emotions and apparently how things affect us has to do with how our emotions process. One mad told us about how he was parallel parking and some woman started screaming at him and she followed after him into a store her son worked in screaming at him and then three months later he was still upset about it and terrified and he said how hard it was for him to go back to that same spot for his band.

Another woman told a story about the time she was in college, she parked her car in the street in front of a home and some woman came out and started screaming at her and she just ran to class. Then when she had to move her car, she was so upset and traumatized she had a friend move it for her.

I talked about toughening up and not letting people get to you so you move on and live your day not have it affect you and someone said that was like telling someone to stop being near sighted. I know most people would move on if these things happened. yes it would upset them but then they would get over it fast and not still be affected by it three months later and stuff. I have noticed how autistic people seem to be more sensitive when bad things happened and they are still very upset about it a month later when most people would have moved on. But I believe this can be worked on. I suggested therapy in my group to a guy who was still upset about what happened downtown so he can learn to deal with things and move on and not have it upset him. He said he is already seeing someone so I told him if she can help him learn to deal with it so he isn't getting so upset and he can move on quicker. Some people don't know how to help themselves which is why we have therapists so they can help us work on it. I am sure this is harder for people with depression and anxiety too so it would be easy for a person to assume that person is a loser because they are still upset about it a month later let's say or three months later because they don't have that issue so they wouldn't understand.

It would be much simpler to understand with a collective theory of mind, but I'm pretty sure strenth is so ineffable and tricky to perceive that I don't know if anyone can quantify their own. Physical toughness has served me well, though the emotional callices you mentioned have done a lot more; I can back-burner pretty much anything I feel for years. While my actual conscience is another story, I'm pretty sure sparing everyone the gritty details of my upbringing & perhaps imparting some calm is more useful than just about anyhing else I know how to do. Things ususlly figure themselves out provided I'm willing to accept any & all crazy-ass precedents I encounter.

Your alliterative abilities indicate strength, AuntBlabby.

thank you, mon frère
humor has been my lifesaver, along with a skewed philosophy

I didn't think your intention was to push people (I didn't know what your intention was, except to say what you said and to talk about strong people being misinterpreted).



I totally missed that part -- it would never have occured to me that people would think they weren't strong because they were having negative feelings.



I got this part.

I said what I did because people making judgements about the inner experience of those who are strong in the way you've worked to become strikes me as a similar thing to making judgements about the inner experience of people who are not strong in that way for whatever reason(s). It's just where my brain went and I wanted to point it out.