Aspie/NT bashing

Post Reply New Topic

I have seen threads which are basically saying "NT's suck, Aspies are better" and other threads saying that is not true, that NT bashing just drags the forum down to the level of the worst peoples out there.

Does anyone feel worse after reading these threads?
and If so why?

I have for some reason gotten the impression that these threads (the ones sticking up for NT folk) were blaming me for all the BS one encounters with them.
I reckon its just low self esteem that gives me that impression. You know when you feel insulted when people say bad things about a group you are involved in but the people don't direct the insult to you specifically?

I feel like the threads where it is just hurling insults at NT folk with no involvement in the life of the poster do drag the forum down to the level of NT folk that hurl insults at aspie folk.

But at the same time, me thinks that the some of the anti NT's rants around here are just about NT's that the OP deals with. If that is the case maybe it would be a good idea to make it clearer who the hatred is being directed at.

Take me home mama and put me to bed, I have seen enough.

(What was that phrase I just used? I just like it so I thought I'd use it, not sure what it means though)

Okay I have noticed different things going on here. The who's autistic and who isn't autistic debate back in November or so, the would you be more aspie or less aspie or be NT stuff mostly by me, the thread bumping, and now the aspie bashing debate. What will be our next moment?


Okay on with my real reply.

No I don't feel worse. I just find it annoying how people here have to assume it's an NT thing and acting like aspies will never do this or that.

The reason why some aspies may hate NTs is the years of aspiphobia that has been given. When I was a kid in the 1970's society was a lot more bigoted then in fact it could be logical to say it was a lot more aspiphobic. Even though people did not understand AS and they did not even want to. The society of the 1970's and early 1980's was a bad time to be around for an aspie and these were my worst times of my life. Actually then there was a lot of prejudice then and it was not just aspiphobia either there was racism,sexism,anti Semitism, homophobia, disablism as well as aspiphobia and most forms would have soon or later had a backlash against this. It also seems the younger the aspie the less aspiphobia he/she seems to get and also the younger the aspie the more likely the person's family will be aspiphiles the older the aspie the more likely to receive a lot of aspiphobia from neurotypical society It is not a bed of roses now but as far as Asperger syndrome awareness is society is very uneven and differing places are better than others. Where I live it is one of the worst areas to be if you are an aspie, I can't even talk to people I don't know without receiving a lot of aspiphobia and there is no AS support group within 25 miles. From my experience having to live throughout the 1970's and 1980's with a family of aspiphobes and having suffered from physical abuse from my father thoughout the institutionally aspiphobic,(disablist and racist) school system. Just because people then did no know about AS it does not mean it was not aspiphobia it was. The word was just unkown that is all. NT people could conveniently say I did not know about AS to deliberately avoid giving some form of reparation or even an apology. The ill treatment of aspies in the psychiatric system is another example then the psychiatrist or psychotherapist would accuse an aspie of wanting to be treated with kid gloves or even coming up with psychoanalytical techniques which deny the existence of autism/Asperger syndrome. There is another thing is that NTs have a habit of going Typical man/woman! or it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind and crap like that which is so common to neurotypicals.

I'm in and out, so I miss a lot of threads--some of them probably for the better. Anyhow, I've been a member of various forums that are sort of niche in their design and the same thing tends to happen there (to what degree may be another story). A punk website I used to frequent would often have periods where people would practically count, punk points and compare each other as well as compare and contrast against non-punks. Kind of silly in my opinion as I haven't the time to engage in such behavior.


Are NTs bad? Sure, some of them are and for varying reasons (some related to AS and some reasons not). That's really no excuse for bitterness and personally I find it pointless to engage in the inconsistent behavior of not accepting people because they didn't accept me.

Saying all NTs are bad because you met a few unpleasant ones is like saying all computers are crap because you've used one with Windows 95.

Of the billions of computers, only very few have Windows 95.

Same thing here.

QFT

Except I like Windows 95 and I've heard Vista is crap...

I would run a computer with windows 95 over windows ME any day. =p





Vista work has good has 7 once you have the service pack, but ya it had bad memory gestion before that service pack. But Vista is awesome over ME any day. ME was a blue screen nightmare.

and vista is a headache for us that run older games >_>

While I only date Aspies, I have no ill will toward NTs.

I can't differentiate between the two unless people tell me that they're Aspie (I've never had anyone tell me they're NT). I can make an educated guess but can't really tell who's AS and who's NT when I meet them.

Everyone has good and bad traits, everyone has a unique personality and sadly not everyone can get on with everyone else, we just need to try and stick with the people we 'click' with - if you're lucky enough to have that experience (I haven't yet) - and do your best to get along with those you don't. There's no line in the sand where we can say "that person's great" or "this person sucks" because people really aren't that black and white.

No, but I get really sick of people complaining about "NT bashing" as if NT actually designated a specific group of people. NT is only a vague way of describing those human creatures who are not specifically diagnosed as Autistic. In truth, (and I believe I've mentioned this before), it should more practically be NA for Non-Autistic.

To rant on about NTs as though they were a specific personality type, or culture, or ethnicity that can be clearly identified as standing apart from all other humanity is ridiculous, as is moaning about how mean it is to insult this imaginary 'group' of phantom persecutors. NT is meaningless except in the context of discussing Aspie life in relation to those who are not Autistic and do not understand our Autism. I have yet to see a single I'm an NT T-shirt or ball cap out in public anywhere, and I've looked.

There is no AS / NT war going on here, except in the minds of people who need something to pontificate about. Or those who are clinically paranoid.

I try to stay out of those topics... I try to stay out of most topics that end up taking on any kind of argumentative tone at all. You will not see much of me in the ppr section... that place scares me. Heh. I am not a great communicator. I am also not good at realistically assessing a situation or conversation for what it is to the others involved. I often think things are becoming possibly hostile even when the others involved only see it as friendly debate (and on the reverse, I can be oblivious to tension that everyone else is aware of). I habitually do not speak when I feel tension from others... especially when they seem to me to be overly vocal or driven to make sure they get their point across. I see no point in jumping into such talks as my voice would not likely be heard anyhow. My mantra could very well be, "I am not talking, you are not listening."

So I guess no... those topics do not make me feel worse after reading them because I do not read them.

Well about the NT bashing, I think that we should not be doing it.

I know how things can be when a group of people are defined by something, and then you have a group of outsiders. When the outsiders are seen by the insiders to do something (real or not) which threatens the interests of the insiders or goes against their moral values then trouble will start.

The insiders will tend to dehumanise or abuse the outsiders through jokes and nasty remarks. You will get things like the "story of the time the outsiders did XYZ" or "the time WE pulled a fast one on THEM". This can lead to all manner of nasty things.

Also people who are under stress tend to end up with some very black graveyard humour, the gallows humour is quite common. In some areas of my profession there is a well developed gallows humour which revolves around some rather sick and disgusting things. The problem with the gallows humour is that there is a time and a place where is might be OK and there is a time and place where is it very much not-OK. One of the places it is not-OK is in public, or when strangers are present.

I know that us aspies are not always very good at reading the mood of people or knowing when it is OK to tell a blue or offensive joke. So I would advise all aspies to refrain as much as possible from gallows humour, and I would suggest that they never post any of it on line.

One of the things we need to guard ourselves against is the "neurobigot", the problem with the neurobogit is that we can not tell who they are based on any physical different. They are the "enemy within". The nerobigot who gets the most flak around here is the NT who is doing or saying something to harm the interests of either a person with AS or the AS community as a whole.

The neurobigot with an ASD can be just as harmful to the interests of aspies and auties. Firstly some of them think that their form of autism is OK while some other form is nasty and horrible.

This is deeply wrong, what ever state we are landed with (NT, AS, LFA, HFA, XYZ, ABC ETC) is a pure lottery. I did nothing to earn the right to be born in a place, and I was not able to choose my family and in the same way I was not able to select the brain I have.

Secondly the neurobigot with AS can end up making life harder for other people with AS, if the AS neurobigot mouths off too much, rocks the boat and starts being mean to NTs then it is likely to encourage some NT neurobogots to do something nasty to us.

As a summary I would say we should not allow any neurobigots.

It's classic mob mentality, you get one group with a shared interest and "us vs them" mentality starts to kick in.
People here always winge about NTs picking on them then they bash them back, hypocitical or what. I hate aspie "elitists", well what they stand for anyway.

I find this 'NT's are so .......' bloody tiresome. The OP talks ''NT folk that hurl insults at aspie folk'' what a croc of s**t, ok I have come across a couple of nutjobs who think all aspergers males are potential rapists (dues apparently to our lack of empathy ) Other than that I have not come across any mainstream insult hurling, I would say there is a general lack of understanding of ASD, which I might add is not helped by the ridiculous rantings of 'aspie elitists'.

Aspiewordsmith talks about "aspiephobia'' I too grew up in the 70's and 80's and like aspiewordsmith had a particularly miserable time. Unlike the inventor of this term I do not blame discrimination against my condition , rather, I blame a lack of social understanding on my part, coupled with virtually no knowledge of ASD within the general population and bugger all in professional medical circles either (my mother, realising something was not quite right me took me to see a number of shrinks and drs, had various blood tests done and I got no diagnosis. so for all practical purposes I was labeled as a kid who was a pain in the ass.) It is only recently that aspergers has become so recognised.

Not recognising apsergers is NOT the same as being fearful of it, grow up!

I do get insulted when WP members generalise about people with a neurotypical personality. The friends I have are all neurotypical, and do not fit into the pathetic descriptive rantings of some on this site.

Aspergers is NOT something to aspire to, it is something to come to terms with, something to inform others about so they might make allowances for us. It does not give a person high intelligence, you would have the same IQ whether or not you had aspergers, and it is NOT up to the general population to learn and understand us, if we want to be understood it is up to us to inform others. Behaving like a bunch of spoilt, wingeing, brats, will not exactly engender empathy in the general population.