ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
Chronos wrote:
I'll start. Others may contribute.
1. Tell them that everybody has trouble socializing with the intention of reassuring them that they aren't all that different from everyone else.
You obviously do not know what you are talking about and don't understand that being different isn't some horrible, insufferable point of insecurity for us.
That particular thing doesn't irritate me, because I know it's true, up to a point. I think there is a fundamental difference in my trouble socializing and that of some others. They have this will to keep going on and on regardless, and I just don't give a flying fling. They want to attempt to improve while I don't care.
What does bother me are these broad generalizations, like, Asperger's people get annoyed when someone says to them everyone has trouble socializing.
IDK - it's the same as someone saying 'I know how you feel', when they have no experience in what you are going through. Therapists are trained to specifically NOT say those words because it devalues a person's feelings.
If someone told me 'everybody' has trouble socializing, I'd be sorely tempted to ask them to explain what trouble they have had personally. Sure, the statement is true - I think we all recognise that - but, in context it is unintentionally demeaning when the person saying it has no idea what 'trouble socializing' means to us. What a daily struggle it is. Feeling awkward at a HS reunion, for example, is one thing - avoiding every reunion for the sheer terror it invokes is another (besides, who would want to see the people that made your life hell for 4 years?).
I am constantly coached on what not to say in certain situations... I think that should work both ways. All Aspies may not be offended by that statement, but enough will be that it is probably best left out of conversation. Not that I think that will ever happen...