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xatrix26
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20 Oct 2017, 8:10 am

Broken Sun Beam wrote:
Ragnahawk wrote:
Broken Sun Beam wrote:
Been talking about issues with bullying with my husband and my family a little and I'm a bit frustrated because they don't understand.

They like to say "I know how you feel I get bullied too." And by no means do I mean to suggest they don't feel that kind of pain or that it doesn't hurt them. However they've never been so massively singled out by a large number of people to the point that they were forced to resign from their jobs or blatantly fired.

And it's frustrating because they want to argue with me that they do understand. I don't want them to try to understand because they won't. I want them to understand the degree of loneliness that I feel because I don't know anyone else in person that faces this struggle.
Someone that has aspergers and gets singled out because of it. Gets taken advantage of because of their communication issues.

I always find myself wondering what people's real motives are and if I can trust them because I feel like the only friends I make are people who need a ride to work.

My mom and husband keep telling me it's going to get better and I get SO SICK of hearing it's going to get better. It's such BS. I know it's not going to get better. I Have to live with this because it's been this way for 26 years and it hasn't gotten better. I just want someone to understand it's not getting better and to just accept it with me and just lend an ear. But everyone keeps feeding me the same lines that I've heard since grade school and I've heard all of it and I just don't want to hear it anymore...

These people aren't trying to change you! Don't associate good will towards you as your father's abuse!! ! How can you be unfair to them when you have been simple your whole life? You always give the same responses. If you want to continue down this path of blame.. your just a aspy version of your father at that point. Yeah it's disgusting medicine, I know. I hurt people for them. Now take a deep breath, reanalyze the situation with the new information and have more respect for your husband's intent. I have respect for anybody that tells me it will get better. Because maybe they think I have heard it before and maybe I'm a little too stubborn it won't get better. That maybe I have been to lazy to fix it.

Also I like undertale too. Great game.



I appreciate what you're trying to do... but I don't think you know what you're saying when you go around comparing people to their abusive parents... and it's not helpful...


I agree with Sunbeam. Careful Ragnahawk, this is a very tender subject for both of us.


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20 Oct 2017, 11:04 am

I was lucky; I had parents and grandparents that understood (even if they didn't know what it was they were understanding). I had an aunt that had way more issues than me to "break-in" Grandma. I had a mother who quietly studied all the problems her sister and her father had and made sure I was dealt with in a way that at least tried to pre-empt the consuming self-hate they carried. I had a father who didn't know it was called "autism" but knew I was like-him and openly, generously, deliberately, consciously shared his ways of coping with life with me.

I had a loving home. I had teaching and acceptance and support instead of "beating the autism out."

And I STILL feel you. They know what it's like to struggle, to be rejected. They don't know what it's like to struggle with the same things for so long that you're left so far behind nobody cares anymore. They don't know what it's like to be rejected so thoroughly, so resoundingly, and so frequently that the message you internalize is "I'M BAD," that your very survival depends on your willingness to comply with any demand at any cost to yourself.

They don't know what it's like to have someone's life or safety hanging on YOU getting the words right so people will listen, and you know before you even start that nobody's going to listen when you talk. Nobody believes you, and sure enough, someone ends up dead and/or abused because nobody would listen to you and nobody believed you enough to help you talk.

And then they look at you and say, "You're much too anxious. There's nothing wrong with you. It's all your imagination."

I could scream.

I see you. I hear you.

I wish I could tell you that it really DOES get better. It doesn't. Hasn't. Not yet.


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shilohmm
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20 Oct 2017, 11:49 am

Broken Sun Beam wrote:
They like to say "I know how you feel I get bullied too."


It makes me insane when people tell me they understand when it is ragingly obvious they don't get it, not even remotely. I have taken to telling myself that the "I understand, me too" thing is some weird kind of bonding ritual that I just don't get, because otherwise that becomes the issue instead of what I was originally talking about. I have no idea if this is true, or if NTs feel understood when someone says they understand or what the deal is, but just putting it into "NT ritual I will never understand" box enables me to move on, y'know?

But I'm talking about when the "I understand" thing derails me. When understanding really is the issue, and they obviously don't understand, but they won't listen to me because they've already decided they do understand, that approach doesn't exactly work, and it sounds like what you're dealing with, alas.

Broken Sun Beam wrote:
I want them to understand the degree of loneliness that I feel because I don't know anyone else in person that faces this struggle.


I don't think it's possible for some people to understand the profound isolation of no one ever understanding your or how you think at all, because it's simply so far out of their experience. Everyone knows what feeling misunderstood feels like. But few people understand what it feels like to be misunderstood every minute of every day for years on end, because that experience is so far out of their ken they can't even relate to it. Most NT people have someone in their life that generally understands them, often a lot of people. Very few people on the autistic spectrum can say the same, because even most people who have learned to understand a lot about them, don't understand "from the inside" the way two NTs do.

For most of us, the best we'll ever get is a learned, intellectual understanding, not one that is instinctive or natural. And by no means am I trying to put down learned, intellectual understanding -- that is a hugely valuable thing, and I appreciate anyone who'll work at it. But it just is not the same thing as thinking or feeling like the person you're trying to understand. People on the spectrum are lucky to have the first. NTs generally have the second, in spades, even if they feel they don't get it much. Because not having it much (i.e., only having it in a few relationships), and not having it at all are worlds apart.

If "home is where people understand me," then many of us literally have no home. That's what a lot of NTs just don't get. That's the part that will never change, I think. Yes, I can develop better coping skills. Yes, I can shift the balance of people in my life when it comes to those who use me and those who are kind. Yes, "things will get better" when it comes to a few things. I think for a lot of NTs, adolescence is a time when they wail, "Nobody understands me!" and then they grow out of it and realize how many people have been through the same experiences from the same perspective and find people who "get me", so they think that's how it is for those on the spectrum.

But that's not how it is for most of us. Maybe the rare person finds another person on the spectrum with a similar perspective and collection of experiences and they become friends in real life and honestly do understand reality in the same way, I don't know. But for most of us, it's just not going to happen. I'm never going to find someone whose brain works the same way, and who has faced the same sort of abuse, and who has the same fundamental beliefs. So I'm never going to find someone who instinctively or intuitively understands me.

The ironic thing is sometimes people tell me I understand them, because I can tell them about how they feel and what they're experiencing and things, but in reality it isn't that I understand them the way they think I do -- because I have been through it and feel the same about it -- but rather because I have known people with similar personalities in similar situations and I have an intellectual understanding of where they're at and how they're likely to feel about it. So even when NTs "feel understood," what they're feeling may not have much to do with reality.

OTOH, it's always been a situation where I felt compassion for the person, so maybe telling someone you understand them is code for 'I care about you'? I personally would rather be truly understood by someone -- which requires they listen, yo! -- but I think some people are less interested in being understood than they are that someone feels caring toward them. So when you say, "I want you to understand," what they hear is "I want you to share my pain and feel bad about this and sad I had to go through it" -- which they do -- so the real problem is miscommunication?

Although even if you sit someone down and say, "I don't care what you feel about it, I want you to truly understand the situation I'm in," often as not they still aren't going to get it, because they simply haven't experienced anything that compares, and most people aren't in the habit of understanding people in an intellectual way, because they just don't need to -- their respective experiences are close enough to most people's that they don't have to develop that skill, because they can find enough points of contact it isn't necessary.

I'm not sure this is helpful, but some random thoughts for what they're worth. :oops:



Ragnahawk
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20 Oct 2017, 12:25 pm

xatrix26 wrote:
Broken Sun Beam wrote:
Ragnahawk wrote:
Broken Sun Beam wrote:
Been talking about issues with bullying with my husband and my family a little and I'm a bit frustrated because they don't understand.

They like to say "I know how you feel I get bullied too." And by no means do I mean to suggest they don't feel that kind of pain or that it doesn't hurt them. However they've never been so massively singled out by a large number of people to the point that they were forced to resign from their jobs or blatantly fired.

And it's frustrating because they want to argue with me that they do understand. I don't want them to try to understand because they won't. I want them to understand the degree of loneliness that I feel because I don't know anyone else in person that faces this struggle.
Someone that has aspergers and gets singled out because of it. Gets taken advantage of because of their communication issues.

I always find myself wondering what people's real motives are and if I can trust them because I feel like the only friends I make are people who need a ride to work.

My mom and husband keep telling me it's going to get better and I get SO SICK of hearing it's going to get better. It's such BS. I know it's not going to get better. I Have to live with this because it's been this way for 26 years and it hasn't gotten better. I just want someone to understand it's not getting better and to just accept it with me and just lend an ear. But everyone keeps feeding me the same lines that I've heard since grade school and I've heard all of it and I just don't want to hear it anymore...

These people aren't trying to change you! Don't associate good will towards you as your father's abuse!! ! How can you be unfair to them when you have been simple your whole life? You always give the same responses. If you want to continue down this path of blame.. your just a aspy version of your father at that point. Yeah it's disgusting medicine, I know. I hurt people for them. Now take a deep breath, reanalyze the situation with the new information and have more respect for your husband's intent. I have respect for anybody that tells me it will get better. Because maybe they think I have heard it before and maybe I'm a little too stubborn it won't get better. That maybe I have been to lazy to fix it.

Also I like undertale too. Great game.



I appreciate what you're trying to do... but I don't think you know what you're saying when you go around comparing people to their abusive parents... and it's not helpful...


I agree with Sunbeam. Careful Ragnahawk, this is a very tender subject for both of us.

My heart is tender too. That's why I gotta stand up for the type of people I used to hate. So you don't regret it later on.


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Ragnahawk
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20 Oct 2017, 12:38 pm

If you have issues with understanding don't tell them you have Aspergers. Instead enlighten them by telling them where the disconnected.
"DUDE I do not see it like you, you read people's eyes and can guess what they mean. I can't do that."
"I'm not really interested in the same stuff as you. I got kind of a one track mind. What I mean is I'm not really into anything other than special interest."
"I suck at talking, so I need your help."
"Look I don't like being wrong. There ain't much else to it. I don't like these social events either. Sorry. "


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I've migrated over to autismforums. PM me for anything, although I'm better contacted over at autismforums.


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20 Oct 2017, 1:36 pm

I always love the "everyone gets bullied" line. So, you got teased for 10 minutes in Grade 5? I had 8 kids repeatedly corner and beat the piss out of me (I was covered head to toe in bruises) and NOBODY other than my family believed me. In fact, I believe in hindsight they though *I* was the bully. My mother had to drive me because anytime 3 or more of them saw me alone I was attacked. The police's response? "That's a school problem".

How about "you should have just fought back and they would have left you alone". Yeah, I tried that once and I was labelled the aggressor and got in trouble for it (and the zero tolerance policies came shortly after). It's just like those idiots who seem to think that if a gunman started opening fire in a crowded building they would heroically tackle the same gunman while everyone else cowered in fear. :roll:

I have learned to accept that N-O-B-O-D-Y, not even my own wife understands what I had to endure as a child. For example, the last time I saw a therapist, I walked out and said "you mean well, but you clearly have absolutely no idea what I endured." Sure, I didn't grow up in a war zone as a refugee but few people can relate to the loneliness and isolation I felt.



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20 Oct 2017, 5:13 pm

GiantHockeyFan wrote:
I always love the "everyone gets bullied" line. So, you got teased for 10 minutes in Grade 5? I had 8 kids repeatedly corner and beat the piss out of me (I was covered head to toe in bruises) and NOBODY other than my family believed me. In fact, I believe in hindsight they though *I* was the bully. My mother had to drive me because anytime 3 or more of them saw me alone I was attacked. The police's response? "That's a school problem".

How about "you should have just fought back and they would have left you alone". Yeah, I tried that once and I was labelled the aggressor and got in trouble for it (and the zero tolerance policies came shortly after). It's just like those idiots who seem to think that if a gunman started opening fire in a crowded building they would heroically tackle the same gunman while everyone else cowered in fear. :roll:

I have learned to accept that N-O-B-O-D-Y, not even my own wife understands what I had to endure as a child. For example, the last time I saw a therapist, I walked out and said "you mean well, but you clearly have absolutely no idea what I endured." Sure, I didn't grow up in a war zone as a refugee but few people can relate to the loneliness and isolation I felt.


Funny you should mention "not growing up in a war zone." I didn't grow up in a war zone either. The worst years for me were preschool-eighth grade, and I note that one of the things I related to most in high school were Vietnam veterans' stories of the war and trying to re-integrate into life in the States afterward.

ASD Childhood: If You Didn't Go, You Just Don't Know.


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21 Oct 2017, 7:20 pm

BuyerBeware wrote:
I was lucky; I had parents and grandparents that understood (even if they didn't know what it was they were understanding). I had an aunt that had way more issues than me to "break-in" Grandma. I had a mother who quietly studied all the problems her sister and her father had and made sure I was dealt with in a way that at least tried to pre-empt the consuming self-hate they carried. I had a father who didn't know it was called "autism" but knew I was like-him and openly, generously, deliberately, consciously shared his ways of coping with life with me.

I had a loving home. I had teaching and acceptance and support instead of "beating the autism out."

And I STILL feel you. They know what it's like to struggle, to be rejected. They don't know what it's like to struggle with the same things for so long that you're left so far behind nobody cares anymore. They don't know what it's like to be rejected so thoroughly, so resoundingly, and so frequently that the message you internalize is "I'M BAD," that your very survival depends on your willingness to comply with any demand at any cost to yourself.

They don't know what it's like to have someone's life or safety hanging on YOU getting the words right so people will listen, and you know before you even start that nobody's going to listen when you talk. Nobody believes you, and sure enough, someone ends up dead and/or abused because nobody would listen to you and nobody believed you enough to help you talk.

And then they look at you and say, "You're much too anxious. There's nothing wrong with you. It's all your imagination."

I could scream.

I see you. I hear you.

I wish I could tell you that it really DOES get better. It doesn't. Hasn't. Not yet.


That was so inspirational I feel like it should be in a book or on a buliton or something. And that describes exactly how I feel every day. You're right. Perhaps I should give them a little more credit. I feel like those were the words I need to share to help them understand. I'm very grateful for your reply. ^_^


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21 Oct 2017, 7:36 pm

[/quote]
My heart is tender too. That's why I gotta stand up for the type of people I used to hate. So you don't regret it later on.[/quote]


Don't compare people top their abusers unless you knew the abuser personally. Second I have not raised my fist, voice or called them names or asked them to do anything they weren't comfortable with.

The situation isn't comparable at all. I'm fact you're completely off topic. I don't appreciate it at all. And I'm very offended. I know you don't care that I'm offended because you very boldly state that you don't care in your signature. And you somehow feel that it's your job to be rude and offensive but I'm telling you anyways.

You're completely out of line. Please don't comment further. I'm not your responsibility. Go away. You're not a nice person and you're not doing me any favors. Rude rude rude. Go away you're not my friend. Bye! :x :x :x :x :x


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21 Oct 2017, 7:52 pm

shilohmm wrote:
Broken Sun Beam wrote:
They like to say "I know how you feel I get bullied too."


It makes me insane when people tell me they understand when it is ragingly obvious they don't get it, not even remotely. I have taken to telling myself that the "I understand, me too" thing is some weird kind of bonding ritual that I just don't get, because otherwise that becomes the issue instead of what I was originally talking about. I have no idea if this is true, or if NTs feel understood when someone says they understand or what the deal is, but just putting it into "NT ritual I will never understand" box enables me to move on, y'know?

But I'm talking about when the "I understand" thing derails me. When understanding really is the issue, and they obviously don't understand, but they won't listen to me because they've already decided they do understand, that approach doesn't exactly work, and it sounds like what you're dealing with, alas.

Broken Sun Beam wrote:
I want them to understand the degree of loneliness that I feel because I don't know anyone else in person that faces this struggle.


I don't think it's possible for some people to understand the profound isolation of no one ever understanding your or how you think at all, because it's simply so far out of their experience. Everyone knows what feeling misunderstood feels like. But few people understand what it feels like to be misunderstood every minute of every day for years on end, because that experience is so far out of their ken they can't even relate to it. Most NT people have someone in their life that generally understands them, often a lot of people. Very few people on the autistic spectrum can say the same, because even most people who have learned to understand a lot about them, don't understand "from the inside" the way two NTs do.

For most of us, the best we'll ever get is a learned, intellectual understanding, not one that is instinctive or natural. And by no means am I trying to put down learned, intellectual understanding -- that is a hugely valuable thing, and I appreciate anyone who'll work at it. But it just is not the same thing as thinking or feeling like the person you're trying to understand. People on the spectrum are lucky to have the first. NTs generally have the second, in spades, even if they feel they don't get it much. Because not having it much (i.e., only having it in a few relationships), and not having it at all are worlds apart.

If "home is where people understand me," then many of us literally have no home. That's what a lot of NTs just don't get. That's the part that will never change, I think. Yes, I can develop better coping skills. Yes, I can shift the balance of people in my life when it comes to those who use me and those who are kind. Yes, "things will get better" when it comes to a few things. I think for a lot of NTs, adolescence is a time when they wail, "Nobody understands me!" and then they grow out of it and realize how many people have been through the same experiences from the same perspective and find people who "get me", so they think that's how it is for those on the spectrum.

But that's not how it is for most of us. Maybe the rare person finds another person on the spectrum with a similar perspective and collection of experiences and they become friends in real life and honestly do understand reality in the same way, I don't know. But for most of us, it's just not going to happen. I'm never going to find someone whose brain works the same way, and who has faced the same sort of abuse, and who has the same fundamental beliefs. So I'm never going to find someone who instinctively or intuitively understands me.

The ironic thing is sometimes people tell me I understand them, because I can tell them about how they feel and what they're experiencing and things, but in reality it isn't that I understand them the way they think I do -- because I have been through it and feel the same about it -- but rather because I have known people with similar personalities in similar situations and I have an intellectual understanding of where they're at and how they're likely to feel about it. So even when NTs "feel understood," what they're feeling may not have much to do with reality.

OTOH, it's always been a situation where I felt compassion for the person, so maybe telling someone you understand them is code for 'I care about you'? I personally would rather be truly understood by someone -- which requires they listen, yo! -- but I think some people are less interested in being understood than they are that someone feels caring toward them. So when you say, "I want you to understand," what they hear is "I want you to share my pain and feel bad about this and sad I had to go through it" -- which they do -- so the real problem is miscommunication?

Although even if you sit someone down and say, "I don't care what you feel about it, I want you to truly understand the situation I'm in," often as not they still aren't going to get it, because they simply haven't experienced anything that compares, and most people aren't in the habit of understanding people in an intellectual way, because they just don't need to -- their respective experiences are close enough to most people's that they don't have to develop that skill, because they can find enough points of contact it isn't necessary.

I'm not sure this is helpful, but some random thoughts for what they're worth. :oops:


You're post is a mess because it's very helpful because that's exactly how I feel all the time. LOL. I love you thanks for commenting. :lol: :heart:


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21 Oct 2017, 9:48 pm

GiantHockeyFan wrote:
I always love the "everyone gets bullied" line. So, you got teased for 10 minutes in Grade 5? I had 8 kids repeatedly corner and beat the piss out of me (I was covered head to toe in bruises) and NOBODY other than my family believed me. In fact, I believe in hindsight they though *I* was the bully. My mother had to drive me because anytime 3 or more of them saw me alone I was attacked. The police's response? "That's a school problem".

How about "you should have just fought back and they would have left you alone". Yeah, I tried that once and I was labelled the aggressor and got in trouble for it (and the zero tolerance policies came shortly after). It's just like those idiots who seem to think that if a gunman started opening fire in a crowded building they would heroically tackle the same gunman while everyone else cowered in fear. :roll:

I have learned to accept that N-O-B-O-D-Y, not even my own wife understands what I had to endure as a child. For example, the last time I saw a therapist, I walked out and said "you mean well, but you clearly have absolutely no idea what I endured." Sure, I didn't grow up in a war zone as a refugee but few people can relate to the loneliness and isolation I felt.


Omg that's terrible! Yes I've had schools turn against me like that even when I followed their instructions exactly! It's like they've already decided they don't care if you're good or bad. T^T :(


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