So I posted in the infamous AS partners forum for NT's...

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That was before he was diagnosed. They all thought he was a heroin addict, and I was the enabling spouse. He was pale, stimming (leg bouce), and wearing sun glasses. He's extremely underweight. I was going to be placed on a ventilator, and they needed some information from my husband about me.

When he finally was diagnosed, I told my doctors.I got the near fatal eye roll, and now they treat him "nice". Like he's too stupid to do better nice.

Before they thought he didn't care, but had a brain. Now he's too dumb to care. I can't change specialists.

For some reason most of the medical professionals are really hostile to him. Other people in his support group have mentioned that same thing. Doctors getting really aggravated with them for no reason.

I have an advance directive now, so the reasons a doctor might have to talk to him are cut down greatly.

If you knew he wouldn't get it, why didn't you just tell him you wanted him to help?

You may know the difference but there are others on that forum that have made the comparison. Do you not understand why aspies find such a comparison hurtful and get upset by it?

Anyway, what I don't understand is that if the forum is supposed to be a support group for spouses and partners of people for AS and even if it is meant for venting, then why is there a need to mislead people into believing AS is something it's not. Ranting about their aspie husbands and wives does not mean that they have to spread misinformation about AS. In this particular thread that I'm about to link to now, the very fact that bstn links to an article about a sociopath and then proceeds to use it as example of asperger behaviour (even possibly knowing that sociopathy and aspergers is not the same thing) in the thread seems to me to be deliberate attempt to mislead the participants of the thread in the very least.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/aspartners/messages/?msg=13135.1

There's also the case of the "Adam Lanza" thread where ASPartners seemed to connect AS with shooting sprees when it's a proven fact that there's no correlation or link:

http://forums.delphiforums.com/aspartners/messages/?msg=13131.1

Even if you include meltdowns, it is still a proven fact that there is no correlation between autistic spectrum disorders and that specific subcategory of violence. Therefore it is not merely "propaganda" that autism advocacy organisations at the time stressed to the public that there is no link, as they seemed to suggest. I especially like bstn's comment in post number 11 of 13, where she highlighted a quote from an article that says that Adam Lanza didn't accept his aspirer diagnosis. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that not accepting your diagnosis doesn't make you go on shooting sprees either. (We don't plan for three days to have meltdowns, unlike what Adam Lanza did before his shooting spree and that's why meltdowns don't fall under the same subcategory and therefore don't count. The Lanza case was planned violence.) What was that again that you said about us not being able to contribute to the discussion?

It is a common perception of us that NT's seem to follow unwritten social rules and conventions that seem meaningless to us. However, the big difference here is that since the whole of society is, technically speaking, run by and for NT's, they do not have to fear any consequences from society as a result of any misconceptions we have about them and we do not have the power to discriminate against against NT's. Not so with regard to misconceptions about us.

Yes the pressure to act like a mature adult increases from birth until around 30 or so, naturally enough. It's almost enough to make me want to be old, when the expectations will fall again.


Stress would do that, of course. So if the stress and depression could be alleviated, he'd have a better chance of coping with / repairing the other problems. Is he still working?


Like somebody said, that was unprofessional, and it was a mistake in hindsight, but I think it was also very human. There was a guy here on WP whose wife had a miscarriage in hospital, the stress paralysed him so much that he just stayed home and played computer games. She was so hurt that she put the relationship in limbo, I never found out whether they reconciled or separated.

I think most autistic people would have performed better than that in these hospital situations, but I have to confess, although I did OK when my son was born (when I was 30), I was spared much of the challenge, because it was a Caesarian birth which they had to do unexpectedly early, and they didn't manage to call me until the crisis was over and all was well. I had been worried that I might not be able to cope with being there for the birth (it was a breech birth), I thought I might freak out - blood and guts, fluorescent lights, wife being hacked open, screaming in agony, staff I didn't necessarily trust dominating everything. In those days I wouldn't have readily conformed to the idea that I had any kind of duty to be there. I'd have felt I had a right to be there and would have wanted to be, in order to somehow protect my wife and see what was going on, but I figured I'd be powerless to do any good as the health professionals would be calling all the shots. I'd heard that it was about emotional support, but I was only just starting to explore feelings, so the idea made little sense to me consciously. Could have ended up as a perfect storm.

Does that mean its not really racist if i hate white people? Or is it still racist, but okay for me to do?

No, it means that the effects are different.

Just to be clear, I don't think that this really reflects any hatred toward NT's, just confusion of social rules. If you look at just this subforum "General Autism Discussion", there are only about 2 active discussions about NT's on the first page, the one called "Things NT's do that appear rude", the OP wants to know why some interrupting of conversation isn't considered rude and the other one entitled "Does Anyone Else Here Just Not Get Along With Neurotypicals?" is about being annoyed by NT's who are extroverted (for some aspies it does seem a bit annoying when extroverted people want to socialise with you all the time and as an aspie you're not very social, that doesn't mean that you can't get used to them though). Neither of those things really look like NT-bashing to me, just normal social stuff that aspies either get confused by or overwhelmed by and there are only those two threads.

Compare that to the ASPartners forum where almost every single post is bashing or attacking aspies or at the very least generalising all of us as abusive partners. That's only in the public folders that we can see, there's about at least same number of folders or more on ASPartners that are private which we can't read and don't know what's in them (I'm not sure that I want to know either).

That'll be their eugenics program.

Yes, very likely! You're on to them TD

I'm not saying its as bad as AS Partners. Just pointing out that it's still a problem to do the same things that we're accusing them of doing; Generalising NT's as all being stupid and frustrating and doing things just to annoy us etc.
Maz

I bugged the place while they were goose-stepping outside.

More likely, it's where they feel that they can say anything that they want to, about their husbands/wives particularly without them or anyone else who doesn't have access to those folders, seeing what they're saying.

But we're not doing the same things that they're doing. Neither of those threads are saying that NT's are stupid, neither are they generalising. Also, extroverted people can be annoying if you want to be left alone. I wouldn't give a crap about that forum if people there merely said that they can sometimes find us irritating, lots of people do that and I'm too indifferent to care about them. What concerns me about that forum is the spreading of information about Aspergers which is not true and also stigmatising as well as their apparent need to undermine our rights to have relationships.

I'm not talking about their site. I'm talking about the people here. It's easy to see the attitude I'm talking about if you want to. Otherwise I think this part of the thread has run its course.
Maz

I was also talking about 2 threads here on WP. Unless you link me to an example, then I don't know what you're talking about. Those were the only 2 threads in this particular sub forum that was talking about NT's, at least on the first page. There's no a third one from 2012 that was necroed recently but that one is talking about whether how drugs and alcohol affect aspies and NT's differently. I don't get it, if this attitude towards NT's is so pervasive, then I don't understand why you can't show me a specific example of a post that shows it.

Edit to add. I only know of one person who said bizarre things about NT's (recently at least) and that was in another thread, also about the ASPartners forum about 3 months ago.