NT's stereotyping Aspergers.

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At work last week my manager was talking to me about a person she meet with Aspergers. She said she was fascinated with his conversation about trains. She said he lives at home with his parents because people with Aspergers can't work. I could not believe what she just said. I have been working with her for a little over a year and she just said this. Why do most NT's think that people with Aspergers can't work and only talk about there special interest. I wanted to tell her I had Aspergers but in the past people dismiss me. They don't understand that not all people with Aspergers are the same. When you know one Aspie you know one Aspie.

She was talking about him but she should have only talked about him than starting to generalize people with it. It's true that most people with it can't work or is that all wrong in books and webpages?

Yes this is true, but she stated that people with Aspergers can't work. If she had read some books and did more research she would have learned that there are people with Aspergers that can work. I can work and so can two of my co workers who have Aspergers . My co workers and I are all very different. I can preform cashier functions and they are better at being door greeters.

People are super ignorant of what Aspergers is and how people behave when they have it. As the mom of a kid with high functioning Aspergers, I've learned so much about this but also realized that the general population still has very far to go. They simply don't know what they don't know. There is a reason why it's called "The Spectrum" but I think a lot of people, NTs especially, don't understand what that means. I don't think it would be a bad thing to say something like "actually, there are so many people who have Aspergers and lead completely fulfilling lives, including good jobs, spouses, kids and such. There is a wide range of functionality..." And then maybe just walk away. At least that would get this person thinking... If you are close enough to her you could add that you yourself have it, and then she could gain some much needed knowledge and understanding. But, that's obviously up to you. It's not your job to educate her, but it might feel good to say something that might make her think twice than to make huge generalizations.

In situation like this I'm not able to respond quickly enough. By the time I'm ready to respond they have either walked away or have moved on to a new topic, Because she is my manager I don't want to come off as rude by interrupting her to give a good response to her statement. I could tell her the next time I talk to her on Tuesday. Maybe I should say " I have been thinking about our conversation in regards to the person you talked to with Aspergers " There are many people with Aspergers who have jobs and are able to function well enough to live alone.,be married, have a family.

Most people are only familiar with people on the spectrum who need help with daily activities. Those of who don't are invisible. Most of the time when I've disclosed by mistake people either don't believe me, think I'm making it up for attention or lying.

It is true that most people with autism do not work or need supports to work. Perhaps around maybe 10% of us can work, and of that 10% I'm betting more than half of us work for ourselves or independently somehow. I'm getting to the age to start my business and will have one or several by the time I'm 40. I cannot stand working for others much longer, it's always the same old s**t.

I've had conversations like that. I've had people saying negative things about aspies to me and they didn't even know I was aspie but you know what the good thing about that is? It proves that aspies are good enough that they don't even know we're aspie.

I had a professor explain to me that he used to teach a class of aspies and then he explained to me what aspergers is. He didn't know I already knew what it was because he didn't know I had it.

It take it as proof their negative stereotypes are wrong because if their stereotypes were right they'd be able to tell we've got it.

Wait. What?
You mean I should stop feeling ashamed that at my age I've never had a full time job?

You can't argue with sick logic. It would be like saying that a bank robber had red hair so all red haired people must be bank robbers.

I have Asperger's and I don't work (for money). It's not just because I was a failure at school with not even a high-school diploma, or because most work environments would have me dissolve into tears, fly into a rage, or just sit there daydreaming about making my own animated cartoons or video games like I really want, but because there is nothing here. Every person I grew up with had to leave to find work as soon as they were done with school. My brother graduated from high school and moved to Ontario where for the next year or the only job he had was at a McDonald's, he had to go without food or even a haircut in a roach-infested apartment and wash his clothes in the bathtub. If I was in a situation like that better put my plot in the nearest cemetery because I'd be dead in a week. My brother has been going to university for what seems like forever, worked for a short time back here at a short-lived animation studio that he told me I probably wouldn't enjoy working at because all he basically did was color in animation by computer for the For Better or For Worse cartoons, and then he moved away again and made computer software for casino machines in Las Vegas and even had trips there where he got to show his work to people from Russia and even brought his family along, but that wasn't something he wanted to do all his life so he went back to school and was doing stuff in theater and drama and he graduated this year. He seems determined to be the most if not only well-educated person in our whole family who once commonly made a living mostly by fishing at sea and believed that somehow it would always be like that. I love my brother but I feel like I'll always be a failure compared to him no matter what my parents or anyone else says.

A lot of people have a limited mental capacity. It's difficult for them to hold in mind the symptoms of Asperger's while simultaneously remembering that there are other components of the personality that interact with various levels and combinations of symptoms to determine one's level of functioning.

Also, often people spew nonsense just for the sake of talking. The point of the interaction is to interact, and relating accurate information is secondary, so they get sloppy and thoughtless with what they say, and they are particularly unmotivated to speak carefully because it's so often socially unacceptable to correct them.

Before you dog pile  the woman...

Most articles quote a 20% employment range for folks on the spectrum. And they state most of that 20% are  things like shelter jobs, or jobs that cut the ASD employee a huge amount of slack (office charity case), or part time hovering  around minimum wage jobs. The under employment for ASD people is stunning.

Out of twenty people in my husband's  ASD group, 1 has a true profession, 1 has a minimum wage part time job, and the rest would be considered unemployed. The ages run from 20-60 ish.

I wouldn't  say the ASD people can't  work, but there  are many reasons that make getting a *you are competing with everyone else in the job market shark tank* is more difficult for someone on the spectrum.

Most people, I have met, who have ASD, will give you a monolog on their special interests. My husband included. It's not the special interest that is the problem, but the lack of pragmatic speech and social skills.

You took a generalization and made it personal.

I get *all bipolar people are shopping fanatics* when manic. That is absolute not true during my manias. It's even in the DSM. While, it must be true (as that fact is used as diagnostic criteria), it isn't for me. I could get all butt hurt about that, but life is too short.

Sorry you felt attacked and stereotyped. Small talk has a way of morphing into that.

When I'm dealing with school staff who I can tell are making assumptions about my spectrum son, mentally placing limits on him etc., I like to casually bring up my brother, who, while on the spectrum himself, also is married, owns a home, works and pays taxes etc. It tends to amuse me how surprised some of them are, and/or unable to hide their surprise, like, "WHA????? He is.... MARRIED?!?" I mean, come on. People are so ignorant.

I also like to nudge people out of their ignorance when they are talking to me and thinking of me as "eccentric" but basically "normal", and they ask me about my son, and I will say something like, "yup, he on the spectrum.... JUST LIKE ME." And they will do a double-take, because apparently I didn't "fit" with their stereotypical view. I like shaking up their preconceived notions... or make them realize that they even HAD preconceived notions. Most of these people are not jerks, but they're still incredibly ignorant, and it can be hard not to take it personally.

People who engage in small talk like to show that they have extensive knowledge about a subject which they have very little knowledge about. The reply to this lady deserves a prompt, "what ever".

NTs stereotype Aspies.
Aspies stereotype NTs.

Everybody stereotypes everyone else. When somebody doesn't do this, they have made a conscious decision not to.

I've come across multiple people with Asperger's in a short amount of time. The more my boss talks about this subject, I get the idea that she thinks it is 1) Overdiagnosed, and 2) Prospects for treatment of those who really need help have been bastardized by privileged parents wanting a fashionable label for "children simply born with low IQs" (that's what she said). The Asperger's diagnosis saves them embarrassment, supposedly.

I may sound bitter, but I noticed that in college, Asperger's syndrome was suddenly this ultra cool thing because of that damn show, The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon Cooper became this chic character that people wanted to be like, if only for a while. Then they went back to scapegoating awkward classmates, making school shooting jokes, etc. It was messed up. I think this show has to do with the condition being "in vogue."

Anyway,

I have never met an unemployed person who confirmed he or she had Asperger's syndrome. A handful of them are in their late to early thirties and live with Mom and Dad while working. Some live by themselves. Some are married, or were married (I wouldn't know why they got a divorce). A handful do work as cashiers (That's not a bad thing. It is a job) and I only came across maybe one or two professors (isn't that the stereotype, the "little professor"?) who may likely have it. I don't think the professors were blunt or jerks. They were very nice, compassionate people who were very knowledgable of what they taught and wrote about, and it wasn't the same topic over and over again. I will say that most I've met kind of had this monotone element to their voice, but it wasn't bad.

Now, in documentaries, I only see unemployed people with Asperger's syndrome, living with their parents well into their forties, having multiple degrees but no job. But that's a messed up assumption to have of all those with this condition. I've also noted the misconception that people with Asperger's are home-schooled, and that it was the home-schooling that created the condition.