We are "entitled", have a negative attitude?

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I see. So if you have the bad luck to be born with disabilities, you should be thankful for whatever scraps society throws you - thankful you don't just die in a gutter someplace.

But if you have the good luck to be born with all the right genes that not only enable you, but practically compel you to become a billionaire entrepreneur, trader, hedge fund operator, etc., then you deserve every billion you get?

Is this your view?

Thanks for caring. It sounds so reasonable - it really does. Maybe your words will affect me subconsciously somehow.

I think lot of aspies are able to work but it's people at the job that make it impossible or hard for them so they end up being on disability benefits. Be on disability, people say you're lazy and abusing the system, but do go and get a job, oops you are so entitled to accommodations, get a new job or don't work at all if you can't do it. You just can't win folks. Either way is wrong.

I went on disability a year and a half ago and it has really given me a chance to learn to cope with my various problems. I don't know if I'm entitled to it. But I think it's a good idea for society to have this system in place as it stops people from living on the street. I just started a new job last week. Part-time leading to full-time. So far so good, although my anxiety is through the roof. But if I can make a living doing a job that is suitable to my disabilities I would like to try to do so.

I totally agree with this and Thomas L's anecdotal discoveries.

I've been relatively lucky, as I ended up getting laid off with my bully boss and a bunch of others from an old job where, you guessed it, I was subject to harassment and belittling behaviour to provide me an incentive to leave (where there would be little basis for a lawsuit against the company).

Most of my experiences have been positive, as I always had a few people I could confide in and looked beyond the more superficial and tribal mentality crap.

But yeah, I do believe that some unenlightened people will automatically think "entitled" when you're merely asking for the means to perform your job well, as you are by nature (WE are by nature) hard-working, conscientious, detail-oriented, bright, technically inclined, etc. In that old job I had, I'd disclosed and requested being accommodated by being given more written instructions and being told explicitly what needed to be done w/o nonverbal nuance, but I actually got the opposite! My manager claimed that she would need to step up the nuances and other challenges as it was "the only way I would learn". Which is a load of BS. Anyone who says such a thing is merely in pursuit of their own twisted and sadistic fantasies of watching the AS employee suffer.

I also hear you about the "mob mentality" - where people gang up on you to encourage you to leave - I had that to a mild/moderate extent at a job in the 2000s where co-workers would "forget" to update me on things, give me less work under the pretext that not enough was available, joked behind my back that they ignored anything I sent them via email b/c I'm "not all there", etc. Despite the fact that I had glowing and positive feedback from several people at that company. Mostly it was just 4-5 co-workers who engaged in this high school play, but I stuck it out and was eventually laid off.

In some cases, depending on where you are, you can file a lawsuit for constructive dismissal, i.e. if you can prove that an employer deliberately created a hostile working environment to essentially get you fired for declining health, you can prevail there. Look at the case of Andrew Beck in the U.K. I'm in Canada but haven't heard of any similar precedent yet; but such a law is on the books. You'd ostensibly need to get some input from a doctor and a lawyer though (in that order!)

Sometimes they'll play the democracy card, or "the fit" card - i.e. in my first job post-secondary school after my 24th birthday, I was dismissed in the first month and arbitrarily told "Some people just didn't feel like you were a fit; it's like democracy, we have to put the needs of the many over the needs of the few" (I'm sure it's no coincidence they quoted Mr. Spock on that! something that an Aspie would relate to, right? (sarcasm) ) It's like some evolutionary tribal instinct that people (NTs) just can't seem to leave behind. People used to hunt in small bands and anyone who was different was seen as detrimental to the success of the group i.e. their survival and was cast out or worse, murdered. All w/o any proof or evidence to back it such a claim.

If anything, I have a lack of entitlement - I'm not entitled to receive abuse, I'm not entitled to be ignored, I'm not entitled to be treated like a troll under the bridge (that shallow people threw me under), and I think those are reasonable demands.

Exactly, people expect us to be able to function just as well as they can, and the second we show signs that we can't they get in our face about it and make our lives a living hell.

It seems worse when you admit that you have difficulties functioning due to your condition, then you get to hear about how you're making excuses and need to just suck it up. I mean not in all cases, there are people who are considerate about other peoples difficulties but the over-all society does not come off that way.

As a child though certainly any time I had trouble with things other kids didn't they would pick on me for it....if I couldn't keep up in P.E people would pick on me for being weak and slow, if I had trouble with something acedemic and needed help I got picked on for being 'ret*d' or needing 'special help.' If I got upset over something someone said or did I would get picked on for that....where this idea to make things even harder for someone struggling comes from I don't know. I sometimes wish someone who does that would explain why and what pleasure exactly they get out of it as I've never understood it.

Agreed, people do seem to take pleasure in others' pain, especially if said person already has other issues to deal with. I've never understood it myself, and though psychologists seem to think people doing that has something to do with them not being satisfied with their own lives in some way, I think it goes beyond that, maybe even to the point of demonizing people who are different in any way (which has been happening a lot lately, especially to those on the spectrum).