People knowing your autistic makes no difference

Post Reply New Topic

I woulda thought that when people know you've aspergers they'll understand why you prefer to be alone doing your own thing than sit around "socializing" with them but that doesn't seem to be the case at all. My family all know I've been diagnosed but still they seem to try and make me feel guilty for isolating myself. The make it out like solitude is a bad thing. What the hells wrong with solitude? Its a good thing in my opinion. I wonder if they understand that thats just what I like to do or not. My stepdads a real social bastard and one day he kept saying he doesn't believe me when I said I like being alone then I said "I'm autistic thats its not that uncommon for autistic people to prefer solitude" and he said something like "if you use autism as a crutch again I'll come down hard on you". I was actually about to beat the living crap out of the guy because I lived 20 years not even suspecting I had autism suffering because I was different in a world were the common belief is that if your different there has to be something wrong with you and heres him telling me I'm using an autism diagnosis as a crutch. I just don't get it. Do they not understand that people with mild autism have different mindsets or something?

Your stepdad doesn't sound all that smart, to be honest. If he can't accept that autism/AS involves people having different mindsets, you ought to try to get him to explain to you what he believes that autism/AS involves. Then perhaps he will have to think a little bit about your challenges/preferences and about his attitude towards you. Try to be patient - perhaps he is a slow learner.

Basically your family sounds really stupid. If you are old enough to get diagnosed on your own I'll assume you do not live with them in which case just ignore them. Your stepfather does not seem to know what using something as a crutch is, for what is gained if you ignore your family yet LIKE socializing? That makes no sense. He's an idiot.

As for your generalization on "people" knowing not making a difference, I do not agree.

Sure sounds like he doesn't get it. I'd bet he's thinking of it as some minor thing, like maybe when he ran track in school (or whatever), and he tried a little harder, and then won the race. He's not realizing AS is more like having a bad knee, where just blindly trying harder doesn't make things better.

He'll probably interpret that as an excuse for "giving up" (or a "crutch") but it's not -- it's a matter of managing problems smartly or dumbly.

That doesn't mean one can't work on skills and go outside the comfort zone once in a while. It's just when you do (to continue my corny analogy) you ice up your knee beforehand, and heat it after (or whatever), wrap it in some tape, and stop pushing it when it hurts too much. (IOW, can attempt some socializing, but also need a lot of solitude to recover.) What's he proposing is ignoring the problem and running on the bad knee with no thought -- that'll just just lead to failure and pain (and possibly damage).

Maybe if you showed him in a book (like Tony Attwood's "The Complete Guide...") about how socializing is possible, but very very stressing, he might get it a little better. There's a radio interview of Attwood on the web by the Asperger's Women Association where Attwood talks about this. It's about women & girls, but the point applies to AS guys as well -- can socialize some, but it's majorly stressing, leading to needing breaks/solitude to recover. I'll try to find a link to that show...

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/aspergerwo ... es-of-fema

It's the part where he's talking about going to a social event for say 20 minutes, and that that caused a huge build-up of stress, which requires going off and reading for a bit or going for a walk or so forth to relieve it -- IOW getting some solitude. Maybe it'll help your step father understand a little better.

Anyway good luck.

Sometimes we have to do things we don't like doing just to make other people happy. I'm not talking about making your step dad happy but your mother, I doubt he'd be making such threats unless your mother was upset about your behaviour. Nowhere in the literature does it say aspies can't do things they don't like doing just that it's very difficult stressful. In a way you are using it as a crutch.

I found out recently all you need to do is make the effort to be there and your family really appreciate it. You don't need to be there the whole time or say much or even listen, just nod smile and be polite. When you get tired out just say so and go do something else and maybe come back later when recharged. You get more used to this kind of thing the more you're exposed to it and making that bit of effort really makes life easier.

I don't understand why families expect their loved ones to be with them all the time. That is needy. If you're in the room with them on the computer, that is being with them and if that isn't good enough for them, they are needy. If you go out with them to places and that still isn't good enough for them, that is needy.

I think everyone has every right to be alone and spend their time however they want it.

Hey there are even people off the spectrum who also like being alone. They are known as introverts. I consider myself one.

::Ahem:: (potentially offensive diatribe ahead)

Well let me fill some gaps in your literary education, ZM - there most certainly are things those with AS cannot do, and often the level of functionality varies literally from one hour to the next. I have had entire days during which it was critical that I make a particular 'simple' phone call and my ability to perform the task was no different than if I had been gagged and tied to a chair. Crutch, my @ss.

Any so-called expert who makes claims that Aspergians can, with time and Behavioral Therapy transform themselves into a Shiny Happy Neurotypical Citizen is a quack looking to turn a quick buck from gullible parents who have bought into Autism Speaks' pogrom of annihilation and are desperate to 'fix' their child, lest he/she do something autistic in public and HUMILIATE them. Over time we can learn to mimic typical behavior enough to pass as relatively 'normal', but it will not change the neurons clicking away inside your head impelling you to do something entirely different.

If you're not affected by these limitations, good for you - you probably don't have AS, or you're at least high functioning enough not to need any form of help or support. Don't assume everyone at all other points on the spectrum is so fortunate. The truth is, the problem Horse is running into at home (and now from you), is all too common. People simply have no clue what autism is - they hear the word on television all the time, but because of messages like those promoted by Autism Speaks, they just assume its basically the same thing as Downs Syndrome retardation and don't bother to think any further.

When they actually encounter a teen or adult with High Functioning Autism, first they're shocked and suspicious that someone who can walk, talk and dress themselves can even claim to have what they believe is a DISEASE that makes CHILDREN stupid. They then decide that if you can communicate at an intelligent level and go to the potty on your own, then you must be lying, faking or some sort of hypochondriac using Autism as a crutch to avoid doing things you don't want to do, or to make the world pity you.

Even if they recognize that you're unusual or downright weird, they just can't wrap their heads around the idea that someone who's not physically malformed or a drooling idiot can possibly have any kind of real handicap. So they begin to treat you with disdain and contempt, because they think you're either a whiner or a con artist.

Since they can never live inside your head and know what its like to feel drained by a simple conversation, or be ordered by a teacher or boss to do something and find yourself frozen by an invisible force-field that literally will not let you do what you've been asked - at least not by the methods demanded - they don't have a clue what feels like to live your entire life being screamed at, taunted, bullied and abused by people who are convinced that you're being intentionally insubordinate and stubborn, when in fact you HAVE A F**KING HANDICAP!

Been there, done that. For fifty years now. And not one minute of it was self-pity or excuse making. I was never allowed the luxury of using AS as an excuse, because until a couple years ago neither I nor anyone in my family had ever heard of it.

I know exactly what Horse is going through and its one of the horrors of living an entire life in a brain with an alternate wiring diagram. Unfortunately Horse, I'm afraid its never going to change much. Most people are too intellectually lazy to bother reading a book about about a disorder than doesn't affect them (or their own biological child) personally (Crike, most people are too lazy to read any book). If the public at large understood AS at least as well as they understood dyslexia it might help, but AS is more complicated and harder to fully grasp.

My family is the same way. They've known me long enough that a diagnosis of a brain disorder was probably more of an amusement than a surprise. In spite of that, I still hear, everytime I attempt to explain AS: "But everybody does that..."

Well, maybe so...but not everybody is so rigidly defined by it that they can't hold a job for more than 15 months without it getting them fired for being 'difficult', or 'out of touch', or 'antisocial', or 'not a team player'...

AS is a handicap - a Federally recognized DISABILITY. Anyone who ignores that or treats you as though you're a pain in the @ss because of it, is guilty of discrimination.

But good luck finding anyone to defend you from that.

jaydee: I wouldn't call it stupid just misinformed. Not everyone reads about autism unless they have a good reason (i.e. their child is autistic or they're autistic themselves). If my judgement is correct I'd say he thinks I'm just not trying hard enough which is most likely true but why would I put extreme effort into socializing all the time. I don't see the point.

buryuntime: I'm in college at the moment so I do still live with my mother. My family aren't stupid they just have differing outlooks on life. The same could probably be said about 80% of the people in this world considered stupid though haha. I don't like socializing either. I like talking when the other person is talking about something interesting but talking for the sake of talking is torture to me.

Apple_in_my_Eye: I think your spot on. The bad knee analogy isn't a bad one. The damage done would be to self esteem. I lose a lot of self respect when I try my hardest to socialize normally with no signs of progression. The sensible approach to a problem like that would be to focus on an area where your not lacking such as a sport that requires mainly good arm movement. In my case I put all my focus on doing what I like to do. Learning physics. Its debatable whether having a good understanding of physics is more beneficial than having good social skills but given the choice I'd take the physics knowledge.

Spokane_Girl: Dead true that. I don't personally demand any time from anyone else but unfortunately (well perhaps fortunately) not everybody is like me.

Couldn't agree with you more. I've never pondered a lot of what you said and it would certainly explain a lot. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 21 but I'm still glad I did then because at least now I'm not as hard on myself as I had been up until the diagnosis. Unfortunately I did care about having good social skills my whole life so it was a real pain in the arse being so far behind everyone else despite constant effort. I hear this "But everybody does that..." stuff a lot too. If everyones like that why would people diagnosed be such blatant outcasts despite their best efforts not to be I wonder. I suppose it all boils down to one thing. Misunderstanding of the fact that everyone has a different mindset e.g. some people are biologically depressed so you cant expect them to be cheerful and optimistic all the time.

Wait... a crutch for what? Why would anyone want to be left alone for extended periods of time without socializing? I don't know of a single NT who would prefer to be alone rather than socialize for so much time. Even the most introverted NTs I know need to socialize. It's like their fuel. So I don't see why your dad would say something like that. Isolation is usually something to be avoided for NTs, and makes them feel deprived and miserable, while for people on the spectrum, it is something that recharges them. My mom doesn't understand why I like spending most of my time alone, but she thought for the longest time that it makes me lonely and bored. It took me a while to convince her that I actually enjoy my time alone. There's, however, nothing desirable about my lifestyle for an NT. NOTHING. All NTs thrive on the drama of social life. Even the most introverted ones I know feel a need to keep themselves in the social millieu. So really, why would you make excuses for subjecting yourself to a lifestyle that would be torturous to an NT? Logically, if you were only using your AS as an excuse, there would be no reason for you to do so, if socializing is what you needed to be happy.

I love this!! !! !! !