Do you ever feel like your the charity case?

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I swear people pity me left and right, i love hanging with my brother and his gf, mainly just his gf, shes so understanding, and i dont have any friends, so i love hanging with them because of her. Well anyways my boyfriend gets along with anybody so it doesnt matter, but it seems like my brother only brings me to hang out with them because of the pity he feels for me. Growing up my mother begged my brothers to take me places with them so she could get a break, and my brothers friends loooved me, mainly because i looked many years younger then i am and i act like im 3, so people thought i was like 6 or 7 when i was really 14 or 15, so i basically was babied a lot. Anyways now my brothers gf basically begs my brother to hang with me, because she feels so bad for me. My boyfriends friends all treat me like a little kid, i mean i act like one, but i know a lot of his friends treat me due to pity. I feel like a charity case wherever I go, it sucks. If i didnt look so young, i dont think people would even bother .

All i ever hear is how I suffer from autism and people feel bad due to that. I know autism is the main reason i am the way i am, i would do anything to become more high functioning to be able to be distinquished as an NT, to be able to live life without a problem, to be able to do things on my own, but Its just that i suffer more from people not realizing that I am a human being, I am not a ret*d, and I do understand and see whats going on around me, I am cognitively aware, and thats what I'm suffering from the most, lack of understanding, ignorance, and pity people give me . Does anybody else ever feel like a charity case?

Yes I do feel like this sometimes, but more with my mental health problems than my AS. I have been overly cared for for my whole childhood and I am 18 now and still feel like I'm 15.

No, on the contrary. I wish someone ever, for once in my life, cut me some slack and didn't accuse me of my AS as a crime I commit on purpose against humanity.

I do not get treated like a charity case, but I sure could use a donation about now.

At work I feel like people tiptoe around me because when I first started working there my boss made me cry and somehow everyone found out that I have back problems and wear a back brace.

Everytime I point something out to my supervisor he acts like I am going to freak out about it. It gets under my skin.

Yeah I want people to be understand and cut me slack but I don't want people to be afraid to talk to me like a normal person.

Some people act like I am not able to take care of myself but I lasted in Boston and Washington for three days by myself.

People also treat with patronage and condescension, but it doesn't bother me.

This is a tough one. I get treated like a charity case, yes. But my case is a little more complicated than just having AS and I don't mind being treated like a charity case sometimes. Ah sheesh, if I could only convey what my life is like on here. It's so impossible! I just don't fit into any catagory. My biggest problem is that I look like a ret*d but I am far from being ret*d but people assume I am ret*d just by looking and they don't take me seriously or they think I am not capable of what I am capable of or they just don't want to deal with me at all. It's very frustrating and such a bind for me to be in and I have a tough time dealing with the situation because people make so many false assumptions about me and it drives me insane.

The only thing I can suggest is to look at yourself as a strong individual that can handle anything or anyone life throws at you. No matter what it is, you can handle it. You can handle being a charity case or not, having friends or not, being alone or not, being unhappy or not, looking like a ret*d and having people assume you are one and don't have the brains to do anything.

I am getting closer to being at that place in my life, just less and less concerned with it and valuing myself as someone who has had a very unique life experience and cherish that I can experience life differently, much unlike the norm and value the insights that gives.

You might be able to discuss your discomfort with feeling like a charity case with your family. If they aren't aware you feel this way they might not realize it bothers you.

My brother's relationship with me seems to be based on his feeling sorry for me, rather than seeing me as a fun person to socialize with. And I guess at this point I keep in touch with him in case I need support from him rather than because he's a fun guy to socialize with. I'm not sure which of us changed first, but I think it might have been him feeling sorry for me first. Normally I'd drop someone who feels that way about me, but in his case I really do need to keep in touch in case of emergency (plus who else will tell me if my parents die?).

I feel more like a burden in many ways [as I'd like to do far more than what I'm capable of]; I don't go out much, so people don't have time to put any emotion on me.

I'm sure I'd draw the pity if I wanted to go out, and my difficulties showed themselves to people if I did.

The title of the post is grammatically incorrect.

Your is not the same as you're

you're = you are

I don't feel like I am a charity case.

Si, nosotros sabemos hahahaha
Yes, we know

This post is also politically incorrect.

Hell/ Ive felt like n charity case all my life h5tough Ive strived n suppassed many others.

Ive always been my boss.. I think

I hate pity, received or given. It extinguishes true compassion and makes the object of that pity into something less than human. Pity is an affirmation of a shortcoming and the identification of a person with that shortcoming. Pity marginalizes people who could otherwise overcome their disabilities and realize their full potentials.

"Oh, don't mind Fnord, dear. It's a real pity, you know ... he's an Aspie and doesn't know what he's saying, so just ignore him. Now run along before he upsets you ..."

Must.
Control.
Fists.
Of.
Death.

Like I said I was my own Boss
'n other like the other girls 'round me
I didnt go hang with the other street kids
In there dirty squat out sleepin n eatin scaps off the floor
throw in a few good men
Like my best friend decided 2 go when she got kicked out
Last I saw her she got knifed sleepin on the floor with her BF n a hundred other drop outs
'n where was I
In a ROYAL hotel being fine, wined n dined
I WAS THE BOSS

'n for the record Ive always wanted to be a FAMOUS Actress

Hollywood phoned me today 'n offerin me a promotion workn with Charlize Theron (LUV HER)

Not sure if I'll take it yet.. might have to give it a few more classes

Workin my way to the top

FAMOUS *HOLLYWOOD* STAR see me on the big screen soon!!

Yeah.

When I was in a residential facility, this girl went out of her way to make friends with me, she was always genuinely nice to me. And then my psychologist told me that there was no way she would ever be real friends with me, that I was not the sort of person that she would be friends with if she was not living in the same house as me, and that basically she would be embarrassed by my lack of social skills in the "real world" and would never take me out dancing or anything else she might like to do with her "real" friends.

But she never treated me like a charity case, this psychologist just tried to convince me that I would never have friends who were really my friends and not just pitying me.

But I've had the experience so many times of being the person people drag along with them.

I even once got told that someone else didn't want me to come with them (as a group, on a trip for fun) because my behavior was too weird.

I've often been the "Do we have to take her?" person.

And I loathe that position. I loathe the idea that I'm just some pitiable thing or object that everyone passes around as a 'responsibility' but not as a person they like as an equal.

One time a person had acted like she was my friend, and it turned out she wanted to rescue me. And everyone had known this but me. And her friends had told her she shouldn't 'rescue any more broken baby birds' by which they meant me. And it turned out the entire thing was a sham, an act put on because they pitied me. I'd known something wasn't right, but nobody told me about it until they got incredibly angry at me for, as far as I could tell, discussing my life at the time (which included various aspects of poverty that I'd come to see as ordinary and non-alarming) in a frank manner that shook up their attempts at living in a pristine middle-class bubble or something. And they didn't get that the rescuing thing was condescending even when I explained I didn't need a rescuer and was not broken.

They even told me that I shouldn't react like this after "all they'd done for me," and it turned out "all they'd done for me" meant that they'd accepted me to socialize with them the same way they socialized with each other, despite the fact that I was poor and autistic and had a psych history. I'm sorry but to consider simply treating someone equal as "all you've done for them" and like they owe you gratitude for it, blech ick yuck, that's not equality it's totally fake.

I am lucky I do have real friends. But most of them are either autistic or disabled in some other way, because they're the ones who tend to understand where I'm coming from. It's not that I want mostly autistic friends, or that I don't have non-autistic friends, but it's just turned out I mostly get accepted (with no strings attached) by autistic people or other disabled people who like me for who I am, not because they feel guilty for not including me, and not because they see me as an inferior who needs rescuing.

I also remember someone dragging me to a couple of parties once. Those events frightened me thoroughly, and I could tell I was included as an afterthought. I even heard people discussing me like I wasn't there, saying mean things about me, or pitying charity-like things. And I remember a lot of situations where it has seemed like people passed me around as a burden or a duty someone had to deal with, but not as someone they really wanted there.

And it is kind of disgusting how the word charity, which used to mean love, is now corrupted into something that's often the opposite of love.

I can't stand being seen as pathetic, broken, incomplete, or not a whole person.

But what frightens me more than that, is this: I have really looked up to some people I've known or read their writings. Not like on a pedestal, but just looked up to them as mentors and role models. These are people I view as strong, whole, complete, and so on.

And... the scary part... is then that I see these people being treated as pitiful, pathetic, broken, weak, and useless. And that somehow scares me even more than being treated that way myself. Because that is so much not who they are, and it's so obvious to me, but people just walk on by and treat them like they're beneath even their notice, or simple objects of charity, but always as objects, not people.

And then I wonder, if these really strong people get this crap too... what on earth is going on? Why can't people see them the way I do? As people -- with certainly flaws but in no way pathetic or weak (except maybe physically weak but that's not what I mean). I hope this makes sense.