A discovery I made today

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I was watching the office today, it was the Good Bye Toby episode where they introduce the character Holly to the show. In that episode Dwight tells Holly Kevin is mentally disabled and she talks to him like he is mentally slow and everything he does no matter how mundane is something that is it is worth praise. I have had people act like this in the past towards me but I never put my finger on why they were doing it until I watched this episode of the office. Have anyone else here ever had someone act like this towards them? Like saying I didn't know they let people like you own a firearm or is it ok for you to be out this late? I was cutting cellery really fast in the resteraunt I worked at this new waitress made a big deal about how I shouldn't be allowed to cut things because I might cut my fingers or poke an eye out. All I know is the next person who does this to me I will make it my mission in life to make that person look like an idiot or at least as dumb as they thought I was. I wish I never seen this episode its making me have these little horrible flashbacks of all the times people treated me like that..

Con-descension topic

Yes.

I would just throw some of those right back at them. "Isn't it late for YOU to be out?" That'll set them straight.

I'm not sure if this is related but I've always felt strange and uncomfortable when receiving compliments. For example, when I was around 10 years old I drew a lot, to the point where I had practiced enough to produce sketches which were comparable to a university-level art student, and any time someone commented on my drawings with "wow, that's amazing, how do you do that?" I'd always become very suspicious of their motivations for complimenting me.

It wasn't a case of them "praising the ret*d" since no one was aware that I had aspergers at the time, and not to boast but my drawings were of a quality which would undoubtedly be surprising for a 10 year old boy so I don't believe that the praise was fake. It's just that, due to being so accustomed to my own level of skill that I didn't find it commentworthy, and due to autistic social ineptitude, I did not know how to deal with compliments or understand their purpose, and that made me somewhat anxious and suspicious. Confused.

What I'm trying to say here, or what I mean is, if you have experienced moments throughout life where you have been praised for things which you thought weren't particularly deserving of praise, perhaps this could be the reason? Perhaps it is not that they were "praising the ret*d", perhaps it was just that you were unable to fully understand the meaning or purpose of compliments in general (or perhaps other kinds of comments), and that's why they seemed peculiar and out of place?

Sorry if that's just me, I thought it might be worth a mention though.

On the other hand though, YES, I have received very condescending treatment. Regardless of being notably more intelligent than those around me throughout my life, and in spite of the fact that people have always acknowledged this, my opinion has consistently held less weight than the opinions of less intelligent people. My decisions and claims are always more open to question than those of others, no matter how many times those others are proven wrong by the outcomes and consequences of their decisions etc.

aww

The thing I like the most about this genre is you get a little glimpse of someone's thinking process. I love minds, just the way everyone processes information differently. Your mind is awesome, don't dwell on those that haven't been able to know or experience it. Sometimes I think of us with AS as just minds walking around in these bodies trying to figure out how to do regular tasks. I guess whoever might have watched me do my job might be saying the same things. Don't think on it Todesking, doesn't matter what those without knowledge of your wonderful mind think about whatever your body was doing.

The few people who have ever had such notions about be very quickly found themselves feeling like idiots.

I do not understand why they don't understand that AS is not synonymous with mentally ret*d or emotionally needy.

Yes I have. And the people I'm talking about didn't know anything about my AS. I didn't even know.

I didn't get it until other people explained it to me. It took me years longer to finally come up with a come back for it.

"I see you forgot to take your pills today."

I haven't been treated like a ret*d or like people were surprised I could do a certain thing based on their impressions about my about my intellect/normalcy, but I've been called crazy and weird a few times. Both stung like a b***h, even though their issuers didn't really mean them as insults, just untactful observations.