Why is Autism the only excuse for bad behavior?

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Just the whole idea that it's not okay to have a meltdown. It is, as long as you're not hurting others.

That's contradictory to a "minor inconvenience".

Not hurting others is a far cry from minor inconvenience. I'm just trying to reconcile this in my head.

I don't quite understand what you mean.

Wow...I think both of us are lost. Never mind. I'll have to table this until I can make sense of it.

There was a kid in my brother's third-grade class who started to shake as soon as the teacher called on him on the first day of school. He said that "eplespy" runs in his family and that he felt a fit coming on. The teacher called for "quiet time" and shut the lights off while the other students put their heads down on their desks. She never called on the kid again until after the next parent-teacher conference, when she learned that the kid did not have epilepsy.

After that, he was usually the first one called on, whether or not he was prepared for it.

...

Blaming one's own bad behavior (in this case, lack of class participation) on a medical condition is simply wrong, especially when that condition is faked.

Besides, I have never seen an official "Get Out of Jail Free" card with the words "Due to Autism" printed on it.

I think it depends on what one considers to be "bad behavior." As a kid, many things that I did were considered to be bad behavior, mostly things that I was not doing purposely, or with the awareness that it was wrong. Such as unspoken rules about proper classroom or social behavior. The attitude was that these were things that I just should have known better about, and that I must be doing whatever it was on purpose.

Lately, bad behavior is being socially awkward, saying or doing the wrong things, being too honest, not wanting to socialize, being too particular about things, etc. Basically anything that makes me different from normal people is seen as bad.

What do you consider to be bad behavior? How far am I expected to go to make everyone else comfortable around me?

I just spent several hours at a family gathering, where it seemed that every little thing I did was something to be criticized and judged.

Okay, I'll give it a shot ...

I assume "bad behavior" to be any behavior that: (1) is purposely done to injure, irritate, or annoy people; (2) constitutes "bad manners", such as chewing food with one's mouth open, belching loudly, picking one's teeth at the table, et cetera; or (3) breaks the law or violates community standards.

...

Generally speaking, I've found that when someone complains about every little thing I do, it's because they just don't like me, and that they're also trying to get others to not like me.

This is a very salient question. Especially when you consider social norms change from location to location.

Meltdowns and outbursts are definitely bad behaviour, so no problems there.

It does go the opposite way though, and the fact they can do it instantly kinda makes it worse. This is what I mean:

Person A (ND) have been with Person B (NT) for a long time. Person B knows certain things that will create a negative situation and then proceeds to do it anyway with the excuse that what they were doing was 'not bad' and it's Person A's problem. Worse, I've seen it ramp up from there because Person B decides to 'win'.

Or just socially manipulating people because another person's social skills are not good enough to see that manipulation.

In those instances, the excuse is that it's completely ok and it's our problem because we don't function the same way.

Edit: I just saw Fnord's post. I'd like to clarify this"
"Meltdowns and outbursts are definitely bad behaviour, so no problems there." While it's not purposeful (Who would meltdown in a public situation on purpose?) it is bad behaviour due to the negative consequences to those around you. There, of course, be levels of acceptance due to levels of disability.

A high functioning person such as myself should be held to a higher standard than someone with more severe conditions, bad comorbidities.

"Socially manipulating people" == "any behavior that: (1) is purposely done to injure, irritate, or annoy people".

Trolling, whether on-line or in person, is social manipulation.

Then again, so is political advertising ...

That makes sense. I agree that those things are bad behavior. I do think that a medical condition should never be used as an excuse for people to do things that they know are wrong.

As for the complaining about every thing I do:

People in my family have ideas about who I am, and about my life in general, which are completely inaccurate. I'm the black sheep in the family, because I had a really hard time when I was young. I was always in trouble. And then one parent in particular would talk about me to them, about what that parent had decided was wrong with me. And it still goes on. So I get little respect, and am treated as a lazy, mentally unstable child, or a lazy, delinquent/criminal (depending on which side of the family it is). Oh yeah, and people think I'm stupid, too.

Personally, I don't attribute most of what I do, good or bad behavior, to autism.
They are more me than autism, even if they are affected by autistic traits.
I always act like myself, but this includes regulating myself and adapting to others, these things are not contradictory to being oneself.

I agree with this to an extent. I do believe that I should be held to a higher standard than a lower functioning person. But sometimes people seem to think that I have more control over my meltdowns/outbursts/whatever than I actually do. Believe me, crying in public is really embarrassing to me, and certainly not something that I want to happen. And I don't like getting upset and snapping at people, either.

However, I don't ever destroy property, hit people, or anything like that. But I wonder how much control other autistic people have over those things. Do they have control, or are they refusing to control themselves?

Can you troll a person in real life? (Somehow I'm getting this hilarious image of LARP trolling...)

I'm trying to think of concrete examples in which I excuse my own 'bad behavior':
- being in a public place, but getting overwhelmed and dizzy and huddling in a corner and crying
- not joining my family for holiday get-togethers (which they're fine with)
- not looking people in the eye, but otherwise being polite and cooperative
- awkwardly ending conversations with strangers who won't leave me alone

Yes, this behavior might annoy or inconvenience other people, but I just don't see it as hugely problematic.

Do you mean that you think causing minor inconvenience for someone = hurting that person?

Oh, absolutely not.
I'm saying they are opposite ends of a spectrum of behaviour.

Someone yells at someone = minor

Someone striking someone = Major

Let me try to clear up what I mean:

As I find things out, I am trying to figure mechanisms to put in place to prevent this from happening in the future. What are the warning signs? What can I do to control things? If I am with a companion, what should they do to help defuse the situation?

That is what I mean.

As to what other people think, that is their problem because they refuse to try.

To me, willful, uncaring behaviour is far worse than uncontrolled behaviour.

However, who is using anything as an excuse is beyond me.

It was mentioned above about trolling in real life. Had it happen to me on the streets of NY one day.

I was outside walking, smoking a cigarette. A woman walked up behind me as the wind shifted direction. She came up even with me and started to threaten me if I ever "blew smoke in her face again." I mean physically threaten me. No matter how I tried to ask how I could blow smoke in her face if I didn't know she was there made no difference. And the more I tried to speak the more angry she got. It was one of those moments I was so blown away that I was so confused about things that I didn't even get agitated.....just more and more confused. She eventually walked off when I started away at the light change.

Last edited by zkydz on 10 Apr 2016, 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with that. I just don't get what you mean in relation to my post. What did you think I meant by my post?