Why is it okay to dislike and alienate autistics?

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I get it. They think I am behaving deliberately contrary to their expected norms. That's hopeful, if they can realize that this is not the case then maybe they will be more accepting.

I think some people would be more accepting while others would be uneasy because of the definite difference and lack of similarity.

I have felt the ostracism you describe. Sometimes it's subtle; sometimes it's in your face. I agree it is usually because ppl think you are acting this way on purpose. Because we don't look outwardly different, we are expected to be able to behave the same as an NT person. But we can't always do that.

I have a niece w Down Syndrome who is loved, accommodated, and made much of in our family and church circles. My son with HFA, until ppl around us began to be more educated about his disability, was seen and treated as a "behavior problem" when his autistic behaviors caused issues. My niece would have been treated kindly had she exhibited similar behaviors. (Oddly enough, she is much more socially aware than my son. She has learned to play ppl, manipulate, and work situations in her favor. She seems to understand she is cute--she is, very!--and also instinctively works this cuteness to her advantage. My son hears ppl say he is cute but always repeats it back to me in disbelief and has no idea how to use it to his advantage.)

I find that it is only certain ppl who treat me badly. Others may not always understand why i do what i do, but they are kind and seem to feel i am a worthwhile person if a bit quirky. With them i am on equal footing in a conversation because they will be kind if i make a mistake, and will see value in my strengths. Those are the ones i gravitate towards.

I am also always watching looking for the "balance of power" in interactions. Who holds the upper hand in the conversation? This is something i never understood as a kid til the lightbulb came on a few yrs back. I think this has been the key to managing nasty ppl. They seem to feel that they have the upper hand when it comes to interactions between us--even if their upper hand is no more than a better social understanding. It may be childish of me, but in interacting with these types of ppl i either try to balance the scales in my favor (not be mean to them--always keep it classy or you lost any respect you may gain--but not let them treat me as stupid) or end the interaction as soon as humanly possible. With them there is no equal footing of mutual respect--they do not see me as an equal. On a good day, they are patronising; on a bad one, downright nasty. I think it is a lack of respect for me as a human being. I can't make them respect me; but i can respect myself enough not to make myself be their doormat.

I'm not sure why. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop in relationships, though, even with my NT friend of six years. It seems that pretty much every relationship turns sour due to stigma, even if we were previously nodding acquaintances, or it slowly peters out due to my issues with initiation.

Perception is reality.

The general public isn't highly educated about the countless ASD traits like some of us have learned about. From their perspective, you're simply.. rude. Or weird/odd/awkward etc, and no one gets along well with people they can't click & connect with, instantaneously, on a social level.

I say this with confidence & experience as I've lived through the very awkward ASD experiences, as well as how I'm living now having managed to control my symptoms and "get connected" to others. I'm not NT, but in so many ways I'm one of them and when I come across someone who is weird/awkward/rude etc I can be a little more tolerant if I figure they may be exhibiting ASD symptoms.. but I fully comprehend how annoying those things can be as I find myself being annoyed by them.

It's all really simple stuff, really. People aren't going to read 10,000 pages about ASD and then welcome others with open arms. They're simply going to interact, perceive, judge, react etc as has been the social norms of humanity for countless generations. If you're perceived as strange or rude, you're not going to be accepted. It is what it is & IMO the best course of action is treating ASD symptoms in order to be "more NT" in terms of intuitive social skills & interactions. Alternatively, you're free to do as you've always done and get as you've always got.

Humans are social beings. It's always been important. Success in business, sports, career, art, music etc etc etc has been largely dependant on your ability to interact with others.. to gain their trust & respect, their admiration, them liking you enough to support you in your goals, to help you etc etc etc. It just is the way it is, always has been, and always will be.

I'm sure you've heard the career phrase "It's not what you know, it's who you know" before. It always has and always will ring true. It's our interactions with others that create the connections and pathways to success in every area of life. That's why social abilities are so crucial to success in almost every area of life.

Sure, it's now possible to have a 100% internet career sitting at a computer by yourself and be successful in your own way. But for MOST successes in life, successfully being able to navigate the social world is absolutely critical. This is why well liked people achieve greater success in life/business/finances etc than those who aren't well liked, regardless of whether they're smarter, more knowledgeable, more productive etc. If they're liked, our social society propels them onward, upward, and forward to greatness. If people aren't liked.. no matter how productive you may be, by and large, others couldn't care less about helping you succeed or celebrating your success. These are all just very matter of fact things in the world we live in.

Because NTs get away with everything. If they don't understand Aspies and bully us because of it, it seems to be ok. They have an excuse; they are humans, they cannot help it, and they bully those that are different because it's ok for humans to pick on those that are weaker. Even though we are a society, NT people still have a right to behave like wild animals.

However, Aspies and other non-NTs have to ALWAYS be nice and understanding to NTs, and if we fail that, we are the annoying creeps that lack empathy.

This is why I f*****g hate having Asperger's.

Once I was watching this documentary about an Aspie teenager who got bullied by NT teenagers. They called him horrible names the most, and upset him in other ways too. The teachers were aware of this. Then one day he decided to stand up for himself so he called them a name back. And you know what happened next? He got pulled into the school office, and a teacher (who was aware of the other kids calling him bad names), told him off and said, "how do you think they felt when you said that?!"

f**k how those bullies might have felt! That poor Aspie boy knew perfectly well how they would feel when he called them a name what they had been calling him so many bloody times!

It's like a man walking down the road and randomly hitting a woman, and the woman hit him back to protect herself, but she's the one that got into more trouble by the police than the man who started it, because although the man was physically stronger than the woman, he still mustn't be hurt.

So unfair. Wish I was NT.

So true. That is why businesses spend countless amount of money on marketing and public relations in order to alter perception.

Bringing that concept into Autism because I understand the importance of perception I google Autism and Aspergers every day and see what the articles are saying and what comments section are saying. And it is not all negative, it varies a lot. I have posted stories about towns that have Autistic prom kings and queens voted in by their classmates. I have also posted stories while about places where the other kids, parents, and school officials side with the bullies of Autistics. If you are unfornunate to live in the latter type locations and your parents also bully you, you are going to think all NT's are hostile. Also black and white thinking while definitely having the positive effect of seeing through BS also has negative effect of not seeing the variations, but viewing the situation as wholly negative. And preservating about the negative is harmful also. And if you think of NT's as basically hostile it becomes a self fufulling prophecy.

What I am saying is not to make an unacceptly bad situation worse then it actually is.

Not everybody is like that. There are plenty of people who are tolerant of difference and even like weird people like us.

This.

What I find works well is just laugh at them and then walk away. Make them feel stupid. They want a rise out of you. What they don't expect from an autistic person is to not be affected negatively.

Have you seen Chris Chan? He's the perfect example of what not to do. He got trolled like crazy and then instead of stopping making videos, he made more videos shouting at the camera asking people to take down the videos they uploaded of him.

Being affected by the smug s**t the NTs pull is like pulling a Chris Chan in real life. They want a reaction because that reaction gives them more information to build on to further provoke you. It's a kind of vampirism in that regard.

Treat them like children. They can't stand it.

I relate, OP. And also with the hallway thing.

I think 99% of the population is spoiled in the sense that their instincts have always helped them more than hurt. Which, I think, leads to an unconscious (or even conscious) arrogance that their feelings/instincts are always right. It's probably hard for them to even imagine that their interpretations aren't universal. I.e. Like a person who goes to a foreign country and feels justified in being annoyed that they don't speak English.

One things that gets me is they always want too be talked to, but if you ask what they want to talk about they get mad. They can't imagine not having the smalltalk lobe of the brain. So, they have to 'punish' you.

H I E R A R C H Y: Do what I want, when I want it, and EXACTLY how I want it done or GTFO.

Why is it seen as ok? Several reasons:

1)Prejudices widely believed by the majority provide a glue to neuronormative social cohesion;

2)Difference is construed as deviance because typical neurotypical prejudice is built on dichotomous thinking, as if anything can only exist in two completely separate categories - eg mad/sane; good/bad; normal/abnormal; typical/different; conformist/deviant; them/us; superior/inferior; right/wrong. The normative bias for very simplistic thinking;

3)Consistently negative press;

4)The way that normality is defined to suit the group which is numerically dominant;

5)Because there are no social nor statutory penalties for behaviours which marginalise and discriminate against autistic people;

6)Saddest of all - because many autistic people go along with those attitudes by disliking and being alienated from themselves, which disable any form of self-advocacy or the assertion of self-worth.

NTs are not 99% of the population. There are other neurological disorders besides Autism that can make a person misunderstood, different and socially awkward. I know a woman who has a 21-year-old daughter who was born with epilepsy along with learning difficulties, and she was always behind her peers intellectually and emotionally, so that affected her social skills too, and she was bullied. She'll always need support in life and is vulnerable too. I wouldn't consider her NT.

I does irk me when Aspies seem to think that everybody in the world except Aspies are "normal", even those that require 24-hour care all their life and have very low-functioning learning difficulties and just babble and dribble all their lives but are not Autistic.

Because your value to them is based in the benefit they can derive from you. God may look at the heart, but man looks at your utility.

A friend I hadn't seen in a while told me that he forgot how enjoyable I was to be around, and he wondered about why he didn't contact me more often. A girl told me that she was surprised to see how much I "had to offer." People will talk about what you "bring to the table." Utility. Benefit. That's what they're looking for.

They determine what benefit can be derived from you (are you funny, are you wild, can you come up with witty comebacks against people who try to abuse you, can they tell stories about you to their friends which will move them up higher in their own circles). The less benefit they can derive, the less value you have to them. Autistics on the whole have little of the type of currency anyone is interested in. And to Joe90's point, that also applies to anyone who can't bring "goods" to the average social group: learning disabled, mentally challenged, differently abled individuals, whatever.

Most people feel they're climbing up some type of hierarchical ladder, and if you can't help them on the climb, they don't want to be associated with you.

Unless you're someone that they can introduce to a group of their peers and feel that your presence will benefit the group as well as their own standing in the group, they're going to distance themselves from you. Society as a whole sees a benefit to providing some limited services to assist people in such groups (through charitable aid organizations and such), but few are willing to bring them into their own social circles as it will be viewed as a social currency drain rather than a benefit... as messed up as that may be.

Yep to all of this and more.

I was hanging out with my high school best friend tonight and he quoted a phrase that applies here, too: "If you're the smartest guy in the room.. you're hanging out with the wrong crowd." I'd heard that before, too. Basically, you always want to surround yourself with people that are "better" than you in whatever way you measure (intelligence, finances, athleticism etc) because they will help bring you up vs. hanging out with equals where you're stagnant, or with "lesser" people who may even bring you down, or at least hinder your growth by making you feel like you're on top and have no need to improve.

Also, when I think about the people I like being around the most, they're all the ones that make me feel better when I'm around them. They're all people who raise my spirits/energy levels etc.