Why do NTs turn nasty ...

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I am not sure about how to go on explaining how I feel in regards to the NT vs. Aspie issue. As an aspie, I have gone through years of hell during my school years as a kid and teenager.Most of it was because I wasn't like others and I was "odd". I hold no grudge towards NT's whatsoever for these reasons...

Not all NT's are bad.Even though I went through years of hell at the hands of vicious NTs, there were also those who showed kindness and compassion despite me being odd.I had many teachers who took the time to talk to me and understand me.They did not know about my AS except for the school guidance counsellor.Although they didnt know, they still managed to look past my oddness and see me for who I am.My vice principal in high school was the best woman ever.She always punished the bullies severly and told me that if I do get harassed, I have every right to give the bullies a good lickin.

Even now in Red Deer, my college instructors and such look past my differences and see me for my strenghts. They dont know about me being an aspie but they have never been abusive in any way and they always welcome friendly chats and visits in their offices.They are all NTs.

It is NOT an NT vs. Aspie issue...It is however, and A--hole vs. Person issue.

My signature is an expression of the dichotomy I experience living with my husband, who I can't live with nor live without. It is a statement that describes him in both his aspects -- the wonderful man who I'm deeply in love with, but also the cold aspie, who seems to care nothing for others, all at once. It is a statement about myself and how I relate to this beautiful/horrible situation I find myself in. The pain of living with him sometimes feels as though I could just lay down and die, while the thought of losing him -- as Cleopatra lost Marc Anthony -- is unbearable to imagine as well. So, I clutch him to me, hold him tight, letting Nature take its course and not looking back or allowing myself to fantasize about what could've been... til death do us part.

That said, because I felt I did owe you an explanation so that you might see I never aimed it at others outside of my marriage (it does start with, "Cleopatra, in love..." afterall), I can change it, if you are still offended. But, if you can allow me this one statement, to myself and others who may know of my life as a lover to an aspie, it does exemplify the reasons that brought me here to WP. Just know that it is not a villification, neither of my husband nor anyone here. And remember, if being an aspie meant easy relationships, most of us wouldn't even be here.

Let me know if this has made any difference in how you feel. It harms nothing for me to find some other way of expressing my position as a wife to an aspie. But, I am concerned: Presently, I can't think of a softer, less "in your face" way to express this sense of things. And, should I tuck this pain away, once more, so that I am deprived of the voice that so many spouses to aspies feel obligated to keep to themselves, and suffer and bliss out in silence? I don't hate my lover, my destroyer, and my signature just uses metaphor to say that.



Thank you so much for such high praise. I, like so many of you, have trouble with compliments, but, when they come, they always make me feel humble and grateful. And thank you for your forthrightness. I always appreciate that as well.

Be well,
Feyhera
p.s. I have temporarily suspended the use of my signature until such time as I can read your response to this post.

I didn't think it was offensive, but I didn't get it till now. And, now that you've explained that, you should keep it and blog that on your profile. I had this feeling it had some deep intellectual value to it, but man your explanation just totally blew me away. It could be a love sonnet.

Seriously, if you do write an autobiography, let me know cause I'll buy a copy or two.

Introverts have it easier on message boards, NT or otherwise because when you read a person's writing you are made previ to what is inside of them. That is why I LOVE forum communication. I am much more interested in what is happening inside a person, than what shows on the outside. It would be dishonest to claim that what is outside does not effect me, but motivation is something I am always striving to figure out in people. Motivations are much more important to me than behaviors. But then I too am over simplifying. Not all introverted NTs place more emphasis upon motivation than behavior.

Zen_mistress, I think you have generalized a bit too far with your statement here. I believe it is extroverted NTs who tend to dislike forum communication because it removes a major part of their communication. Some distrust it. Its hard for them to tell just from words on a page if the person who is writing is being deceptive; trying to take advantage of you. I might understand, though I don't experience it, how you could feel cut off at both ends with your attempts to communicate. Communication in writing is uncomfortable because you are extroverted, however, your ASD issues can make you feel disconnected when you are communicating verbally. On the other hand, I am not sure if this is totally true of extroverts who are ENFP. I have read that ENFP is the only extrovert type that also needs solitude, and ENFP type forums have been the only extrovert type forum that has lasted, that I am aware, therefore my assumption about you may be incorrect.

Yes, I knew before I posted what your signature was an expression of. Knowing the context and the metaphorical meaning is why I brought it up, that's what makes it offensive to me. And I can understand the whole scenario of being deeply in love and the "can't live with or without." I often have periods of the same scenario going on under my own roof and it's ex "asp" erating to say the least. But in my case, I am the Aspie, and not a cold blooded snake. Your metaphor suggests that your husband, an aspie, besides being a poisonous snake, will wind up being the death of you. Men (and women) of every neurological type, can be cold, ego-centric, insensitive, uncaring, "impossible" to live with.

All Aspies are not cold blooded, without emotion, compassion or empathy. Aspies are not in-human or without souls. Aspies are human like everyone else. This myth has to be stopped. Comparing someone, anyone, to a snake, by metaphor or any other style, is never a good thing,

And BTW, I don't believe you deliberately used the signature/metaphor to offend Aspies. I just think you don't realize the far reaching ramifications of what your metaphor is really saying when you remove all of the drama of unrequited love.

I also don't believe that every Aspie - NT relationship, when it goes bad, goes bad soley because of the Aspie. It's a two way street, and many Aspies are treated badly and even abused by their NT partners or spouses. (I'm using the term NT to keep the flavor of the thread and OP. I realize and agree that NT is not the best term and shouldn't be used as a blanket to be thrown over all non-autistics)



As a personal statement I can understand how you might believe it is a great metaphor to describe your relationship with your husband. However, your beautiful/horrible situation is not representative of all Aspie -Non Aspie realtionships. I understand too well the ambivalence of emotions that you describe. But that same kind of relationship can and does exist between two people of any neurological type. And I'm certainly not saying that all Aspies are paradigms of virtue. But living with someone, or loving someone, that makes your life a hell is not restricted to Aspie-NT relationships with the NT being the one who does all the suffering. So, to sum it up, your signature seems to be sayingg that "to live with and love an Aspie, one must be a saint and a martyr or a masochist. " Oddly enough, that statement could be reversed and fit the situation of many Aspie saints, martyrs and masochist. But to use it as a signature would be offensive to NTs, don't you think?



Thank you for responding so graciously and non-defensively.

As I have already stated, I am in the reversed situation being married to a non-aspie (for fifty yeears - yeah, girl, it's a wonder I'm not dead ), and I understand the difficulty you describe and how hopeless it sometimes seems. I would never ask you or expect you to remove your signature or censor your words. I just wanted you to know how and why I felt it was offensive because maybe you just didn't realize how the metaphor could be interpreted.

Huh? I actually like Feyhera's signature and didn't realize it could be interpreted that way. After all, Cleopatra wasn't in love with the snake, but with some historical guy, right? So I don't think the aspie husband is compared to the snake there... I'm confused. Metaphors are not my great strength.

See, I didn't see it as an Aspie NT thing. I saw it as her husband is the love of her life and might also be the death of her, and it just so happens that he's Aspie. If he were a smurf, one could easily say she was saying those things about all smurfs, but she's saying it about him.

When I hung out on an INTJ forum a few years ago, the INTJ members response to this kind of thing in me, was described as "Taking something personally when it is not about you". But I can understand how it happens. I expect somewhere in your past, when this kind of metaphorical statement was made, it was about you.

Sometimes I feel as though NT's assume this... it doesn't do well for my paranoia. I experience relatively extreme paranoia... I'd say moderate on a strict scale.

It's f*****g horrible.

Sometimes I can't help but become enraged by NT's, almost who e'r they be.

I was not commenting on ALL aspies; I was trying to carefully state, in one short sentence, my marriage to my husband. I think you might be putting to one side that the reason Cleopatra died, at least the romanticized reason she died, was because she had lost Marc Anthony. And she died at her own hand, the snake did not seek her out to do her harm. She purposely exposed herself to its influence. I think you also skipped over the part of the metaphor that casts my husband as Marc Antony. He is both the snake and the lover.

Cosmiccat, this signature I composed was purposely vague, personal and romantic just so that it would obviously only apply to me and my situation. I am clever enough to have found a way to infer "all aspies" if I had wanted to, but that would never occur to me to do. Or I could've just villified my husband and just referred to him as cold, which, by inferring Cleo's love for M.A, I didn't. I was careful to start with "Cleopatra, in love..." to let people know that the next words they were about to read were about a love story, and were not intended to address or comment on the state of anyone else's life but my own.

"Cleopatra, filled with disdain and at her wit's end, clutched the dagger in her fist and dispatched the cold reptile."

Now, that's inflammatory, I think you'd agree. And casts the snake in a purely "vanquished destroyer" role. And, I'm not speaking for my husband in my signature, because, like you, I'm sure he'd have some tough things to say about me, too. Your experience and mine -- although I'm sure there are tons of similarities -- are being experienced from the opposite sides of things, just based on our genders, if nothing else. I don't doubt that you and my husband both have endured your fair share of hell with us, but I'm not addressing that in my signature. If my husband wants to, he can come on here and create a signature of his very own that could express his own take on his life with me. It might sound something like this:

"She confuses me. I don't understand her emotionality. Or her aversion to discussing quantum physics for hours at a time. But then, nobody's perfect."

And I wonder if other NTs would feel they were being personally characterized and slandered. No, I really doubt it. But if I read that under someone's post, I'd get the part that I could relate to, and anything else, I'd just figure was personal. And I think "personal" is pretty much what a "signature" is. If I were going to use it as a platform to do the most good for our whole community at large, it would read something like:

"People of earth unite... and love and care for one another the best you know how!"

Or something equally full of over-the-top optimism and enthusiasm. 'Cause that's just the kinda' girl I am . And all the sadness I have in my marriage is exhausting, not a badge of honor, and I just want me and my guy to have as good a life together as we can create together. Nothing more, nothing less.

Last thought: Before I actually posted this signature, I shared it with my husband and explained the metaphor to him, seeing if he'd feel villified with the way it's worded, because, well, it is about his and my relationship and how I experience it. He felt is was a pretty good expression of what I'm feeling and actually congratulated me on saying it so eloquently and succinctly, without just saying, "I love him but he drives me nuts! Don't know if I'm gonna' make it!" He was grateful that I'd made it very clear that first, and foremost, I love him and, even if I've met the cold reptile he can be, I don't always see him that way and I've accepted him and embraced him completely. For life.

Cosmiccat, again, I ask: Would it just be better if I exchange my current signature with something a bit less poetic and a bit more literal, but says the same thing ("I cry myself to sleep some nights. He lays there, listening, unable to help, unable to soothe me. His silence and distance stab me like a knife and I find myself wishing he would just show some mercy and leave me forever, because, for whatever reason, I cannot seem to do it myself. Oh, the pain.")? Because if I'm offending, regardless of whether I intend to or not, then I can't just go on using it.

Peace
Feyhera

Being empathic isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes hanging out here can be very depressing.

Now I know I'm being pretty aspoid here, but I don't think a comparison to an asp is a negative thing. Being cold-blooded is irrelevant to emotional range, and venom is just a feature of the asp, for predation and defense. I think it's kind of silly to vilify the asp, or snakes and reptiles at large, for physical qualities. Just some food for thought.

Anyway, I think the reason people 'suddenly become nasty' is, as has been said before, because we're different, and they fear what is different. This makes me think of racism, but not for the obvious reasons. I've taken a few surveys about racism, and they had questions like "Do you spend time with people of a different race than you?" My answer must always be yes, because I'm mixed in Iowa. I don't know any other Jamaicans, mixed people, and only a few black people. I have to interact with other races, because if I didn't, I would only ever talk to my brother, as my parents are black and white, and nearly everyone else is white. So the sort of us against them mentality is impossible for me with race.

Neurotypicals are a huge majority. They are part of an us. We are different. I am rather isolated, knowing only a few aspies in person, and only having met them very recently. I do not have an "us." Because I do not have the same differentiation set up, I do not have a similar response to difference. I don't know how much of that is just me, or how much of that is me being an aspie.

Well, marriage is a lot of work. Contrary to popular belief, however, I don't necessarily think that marriage to someone with AS is tougher than marriage to someone more NT. I think if the differences aren't resolved to both people's satisfaction, things can go south. But that's true for anything, really. This is perhaps a bigger issue because so many people with AS don't express themselves in a traditionally expected way. So if you don't have the right tools to tackle the job, you feel very helpless.

If one can stereotype the bad sides about being married to someone with AS, one can also stereotype the good sides, too. Anyone want to venture a couple of them?

Sorry, Willmark.

Again, like some of you here, compliments tend to be difficult for me to let in, but just know that such high praise is warmly received, and the right words elude me to thank you properly for your kindness.

Be well Tantybi,
Feyhera

Well put.



Oo, oo, oo, me first! I love how my husband has no ability to hold a grudge! I love how my husband tells me he loves me like every 5 minutes. I love how my husband is so patient -- superhuman patient -- with me. I love how my husband reassures me when I'm feeling insecure. I love how my husband shares one of his stims with me. I love how my husband expects everyone to be basically good. I love how my husband prays when he's feeling lost. I love how my husband... oh I could just go on forever here!

Feyhera