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Stereotypes people thought you'd have (autism)

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gc1ceo
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
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19 Aug 2011, 7:11 pm

Disbelief is often first, I'm not as obvious as I once was.

Then comes...

"So -thats- whats wrong with you"

"How are you able to go to college"

"Aint that mean some kinda ret*d"

"Bet you real good with numbers and counting"

"Ooohhh.. *slowly backs away*"

"Well aren't you special sweetie?" and then being called kiddie names like sweetie, huney, etc especially by women. Basically they address me like a child more or less. Its ok sometimes, but otherwise its very annoying.



TB
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20 Aug 2011, 6:22 am

Asp-Z wrote:
Peko wrote:
They've thought I hit myself/bang my head a lot/self-mutilate, am a masochist, and can't love (and the last one was also an aspie guy :roll: ).


So, we're all masochists now? Never heard that one before...

Anyway, when people find out I'm on the spectrum, they seem to either be surprised because their knowledge of autism consists purely of the movie Rain Man - and those are the people who come out with the stupid stereotypes - or they'll actually know about the autism spectrum, so they won't be surprised at all because they'd have seen my Aspie traits ages ago anyway.

I've been lucky, because I seem to know a fair few people in the latter group, so I haven't heard too many stupid stereotypes as a result.

I have heard someone in one of my classes say that someone in a younger year who's very smart academically "must be autistic", which I thought was quite good as far as stereotypes go TBH :P


I have been jokingly called autistic to my face for getting high grades, it was pretty funny because he was right and would never know it. Anyway its also somewhat offensive, like your accomplishment does not take the same amount of studying as anyone else would. Having autism does not give you a free pass for high grades, you have strengths that others do not but you also struggle with basic things that others find easy. In the end the effort is the same.



Sora
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20 Aug 2011, 7:09 am

Recently:

My employers know I have AS and seemed certain that I must be

* often immersed in thinking,
* must sometimes/often be slower to react because I must be thinking so much,
* must be soft-spoken,
* considerate
* and won't jump (mindlessly) into action.

That's not necessarily a bad stereotype at all, I'm glad I can appear this nice and smart, but I am not like that naturally. I live for action thankyouverymuch.


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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett