Aspies and feeling entitled.

Post Reply New Topic

Just read the explanation - I'm sure your sister will move on from this. I remember having very extreme views when I was her age. If I'd known I has aspergers when I was 13, I might have thought similar things.

Hopefully she'll keep hold of her sense of confidence, whilst becoming a little bit more understanding, and feel like she deserves friends and a great job and all the things normal people have when she gets older. Because most adult aspies I've known have had no confidence and no sense of entitlement to anything!

I feel entitled to engage in my special interests and listen to British Invasion music on YouTube all day, if I wish. I feel entitled, after a rough childhood and adolescence, living with parents, who thought that it was unhealthy to have special interests, that I liked to engage in, to feel protected. I feel entitled to wear the logo of my favourite band, every day of the week. I feel entitled to be in love with the 60s, all because of the not so stellar way that I was raised.

Why should I "bend, twist, and distort" to accommodate NTs? Just because there happen to be more of them? No.

I don't think Aspies have a corner on that market.

I do know of some cases where an Aspie has been treated like a hopeless cause. I'm all for appropriate accomodation but if you totally overlook a person's abilities and treat them like they are completely disabled just because they are different in some ways, your doing nobody any favors.

Some folks are just lazy and will glom onto any label they can use to get away with as much as possible, not especially Aspies, just people.

I understand that it must be very upsetting for you to be dealing with a behavior from your own sister that you find difficult and frustrating. But this thread is only about your sister, it has nothing to do with any particular way that people with AS are. Your generalizing comes off as prejudice and is disrespectful to all the people here who do not go around feeling entitled, and who you are unfairly lumping into your own personal perspective that is bothering you because of a personal matter. People with AS feel no more entitled than anyone else.

If you go to any support group for any disability or physical difference, or any other difference, including sexual orientation, joblessness, etc., there will be people who are venting and who will talk about how frustrated they are that society's prejudice or indifference makes it even harder for them than their particular disability or their belonging to a disenfranchised group does already. But that's not feeling entitled, it's just speaking from the heart. That's what these support groups are largely for: a safe place to vent. I can guarantee you that any impressionable 13 year old attending such a group will take these things too literally (and people with AS are particularly prone to taking things literally) and start acting out in ways that will annoy the people around him/her. It has nothing to do with people with AS feeling "entitled". You're just barking up the wrong tree here.

KoS, I don't think you are trolling or 'bullying' people with AS, but as you've seen already, this can be a touchy issue here.

Personally, I prefer people to ask questions like this here, rather than rant about it elsewhere (look up urban dictionary's definition of aspie if you want to see how we're commonly percieved). Jumping down the throat of someone asking a genuine question isn't helping anything.

I think your sister's probably just being a typical teenager, in that they will always try to push boundaries. Up until recently, she's known her role/rights and probably felt more than a bit inferior to everyone else. Now suddenly she's met a group of kids who are telling her she can get away with murder... it mightn't be pretty, but what self-respecting teenager wouldn't? Your school aren't made of money/patience so she'll hit a brick wall eventually.

I have a brother with dyslexia. He doesn't make a big deal of it, but my mum always has and she milks the school for every possible support going to get him to pass his exams (irregardless of the fact that he puts no effort into study himself). He's going to get a transcriber for his handwriting and grammar, extra time and probably his own laptop eventually... all the while, he just sits at home playing the xbox. He's a very nice kid, but like you, I feel sorry for all the other kids who are getting by with just hard work and spelling practice. (yes, slight sour grapes )

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go at people with dyslexia, or aspergers, or anything. I'm just saying that I understand why you're peed off.

I don't think it's your sister's fault (or my brother's). If the Powers That Be pamper them and tell them they're special, then of course they'll grow up thinking that way. As someone else here said though, they're in for a nasty shock later on. On some levels, they probably know this, which is why they are so demanding now.

The superiority itself though is just an immaturity thing. Teenagers feel superior over lots of things, and aspies can be more immature than others for their age. She'll probably get sick of it later on, or the whole clique will eventually unravel.

In the meantime, sit back and try to let it wash over you. You'll be painted as the villain if you object (exhibit A= see right here) so there's no real point doing so unless you want to vent (and for your own sanity, WP is probably not the place to do that).

Actually, one last thought; high school is a complete social mine field, particularily for girls. Your sister may need this group and feels that becoming like them is how she'll get acceptance. Since she may find it very difficult to fit in with NT girls her age, she may feel these are her only lifeline at the moment.

What makes it inane? Off topic, yea, but it's a sensitive issue for me. You don't come off as the most empathetic or caring person. Are you a republican? Social Darwinist?

You say we're all self-absorbed but then ignore or don't care how you come across. Why do you ignore constructive posts and only choose to respond when you want to argue with someone? It looks like you have an axe to grind and it makes no sense to me.

You complain about aspies feeling "entitled" - what about those who feel that they don't deserve anything other than abuse because society has taught them that they are defectives in the great social Darwinist gladiator arena and that they must struggle very much for very little?

I can at least say from my own perspective that if I went around living in anger because of the way I was treated in school (which was NOT good--some didn't even believe in ADHD and thought that it was made up as an excuse for not behaving), that it would not be a good thing. That sort of thing eats you alive from the inside. That doesn't stop me from seeing that there were wrongs done...but I don't think living in resentment is physically or psychologically healthy.

We only have your vague word on this. Why aren't we getting her side of it directly from the horses mouth?

It's possible that your sister is just a typical teenager, and it has nothing to do with Aspergers at all. If she were NT such as yourself, she would likely still feel that way. There are teenagers with no disabilities who still feel entitled, but eventually they grow out of that phase. Some NT's who don't get out of that entitlement stage are the ones you see in the welfare office expecting a handout because they feel they're still entitled to it.

So, instead of those "entitled people" collecting welfare, would it be better if they just shoot themselves in the head? There was this anti-welfare type who said that when there was no work, he was just about to do just that. I find that it's cruel to force people into suicide. Never forget that Western governments abandoned full employment in 1980 and that the unemployed are there because they want it to keep everyone else's wages down. People are entitled to survive I think, more so than criminal banks and hedge funds.

The point is YOU assume way too much, as you have already made up your mind what I think and what the other posters think .You come across as saying all Aspies do this or that in a general way.
True?
The point of my first reply was " its a stereotype of all N/T's".
How did it feel? A bit defensive there?

What makes you think you can do the same, though?

What if the accommodations aren't the right ones? Isn't she the only person who could possibly know what? It's like others say, there's not enough information to judge. None of us not even you can see whether things are right for her or not. She's just at the age where she is starting to get the responsibility she will have her whole life of asking for barriers to be removed to allow her to participate.

Thats what it is by the way. Disability is not about having special needs that need to be charitably accommodated by wonderful people who do their utmost and must be rewarded for it and always looked to with gratitude. It's about a society that is systematically set up to enable people like you and barriers are left in front of people like us that prevent us from participating. Removing those barriers is a matter of the most basic of human decency, not about accommodating special needs. Being enabled their entire lives in these various ways, nondisabled people are the ones with the massive senses of entitlement.

Not that there aren't really entitled autistic and other disabled people. I have known one such person (well a few but only one closely) who basically felt entitled to her every whim. But nondisabled people are not always the best judges of who is entitled and who isn't. Because they have a level of privilege in some respects that they can rarely imagine unless they do a lot of learning, they tend to assume the moment one of us steps out of the grateful charity model of the world then we are getting way too entitled. But that's only because privilege can make the world look upside down.

"No, I'm not an uppity autie. I'm a goddamn roll-over-and-play-dead autie who's afraid to do anything other than to keep going "yes sir, yes sir" out of terror that someone may get so angry about my "defiance" that they'll start yanking away all of the "privileges" they've granted me and more, just to punish me. I could probably stand to be a little more uppity, or a lot. I wish I knew how to break the cycle of fear and being intimidated into shutting up and then not being able to do what I needed to do because I didn't get the help I needed."

A quote from:

http://www.autistics.org/library/andpeoplestill.html

OP:

you can tell people who they are ... or you can ask people who they are. i have little tolerance for anyone who prefers the former method of "understanding."

you also could: work out your issues with your sister with your sister.

Just read all of the postings. I'm not going to directly quote anyone, but some of what I say may sound like a rehash of a few other peoples' remarks (I apologize in advance, btw).

Anyone, of any age, of any group, can have a sense of entitlement.

"Minority" groups (by ethnicity, disability--physical or mental, etc.) may come to feel that way because they have been "kept down" by the majority for so long.

Some "majority" groups may think that "might makes right."

Example: look at all of the "cliques" that exist in most high schools. Each of them probably secretly (or not) thinks it's "better than" all of the others and everyone else should see that and act accordingly. Some even try to impose their will on the rest of the school (e.g., "jocks," "cheerleaders"--oops, I just stereotyped too--sorry ).

Kos, in your sister's case, I agree that she's finally found someplace she feels she belongs and, naturally, is slipping into their mindset/attitude in order to continue to "fit in." Also, being told that her "differences" mean that she should be treated better than she has been in the past (was she bullied before? just wondering) is probably a huge relief. Now she's thinking "They CAN'T treat me badly because...." Sadly, as someone else said, in the adult world she is going to be in for a rude awakening.

Finally (and this has nothing to do with anything that was said here about generalizations or stereotypes), I think you should talk to her about the way you perceive she is acting--she may not even realize it.

If I have offended anyone by what I have said, again, apologies.