Child Abuse

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As someone who didn't face child abuse, but who has been abused as an adult (emotional abuse by a roommate). I would like to support that this is for all abuse, and child abuse is a specific part of it. Abuse is unfortunately tied to ASDs because in some ways we're more prone to have it occur to us.

I'm lucky enough that I had parents who accepted me for who I am. They never tried to change me. When I was diagnosed they agreed with the description given. I was just reading this because I wanted to see what people were saying.

What's the deal with abusive parents? They seem to be everywhere and almost everybody knows some. If you ask them about it they'd be shocked to hear they're abusive. Like my parents beat my brother nearly everyday, called him stupid and scolded him all the time. Now he's a very screwed up adult and they still don't understand what's wrong with him. I guess the problem is they had abusive parents, too and thought that's just the way to raise children. I guess I was lucky, they didn't start being abusive to me until I was 14 or 15, by the time I was 16 they both went abroad so I didn't get much of it.

Are you sure all women are bad to you? I somehow doubt that. Women are people just like men and they're all different. Maybe you only notice the ones who don't like you. It sounds like you're traumatized enough to fear women in general.

We might want to develop special rules for the section for survivors of abuse. Trigger warnings would help keep the area safe for everyone, and there should be guidelines for respecting those who are still living in households with domestic abuse, particularly if they have children - to make sure no one attacks them for not being ready to leave. These special guidelines are an important feature of PTSD support groups and the need for them is one important reason it would be worthwhile to set up a separate forum for these topics.

Maybe a rule that you can put a marker 'looking for support, not advice' if you're posting something because you're upset rather than because you want constructive advice about it? I know sometimes I want to just vent and get frustrated when everyone else replies explaining the reasons behind whatever it was and what I should do about it.

That's good too, I hadn't seen that one before but it makes sense. Sometimes being told how to troubleshoot feels hurtful, it makes you feel stupid and if you can't take their advice you feel like you're being scolded for having a problem you're not prepared to solve.

That would be so useful! I know I always try to solve people's problems, and it'd be nice to know when that wasn't wanted.

When I was 5 years old my family and I moved to California with my step-dad. It was all well until we moved out on our own. then he became abusive. He mostly abused me. Since I seemed weaker. He emotionally abused me, physically abused me and sexual abused me. To escape I listened to to music. I remember I always listened to The Lion King OST and would just cry when This Land came on. Anyway, It got to the point where he hit my Mom over the head with a broom. So she took Me and my Brother away. She waited to leave until he had gone to work. Then she called some of her friends and we moved all of our stuff into a Uhaul. I had not told her what had been happening to me, since he threatened to kill my Mom and my Brother. When we got to Memphis (Where I currently live now and where I was born.) I told her what he had been doing to me., This went on for 5 years. She called the police, and then they took him away for child abuse. He got 1 year in jail and 6 years probation. He was put in jail again, this time for life because had abused someones kid the same way he abused me. It has been hard through the years. My mind has been fractured, I feel numb and empty inside, most of the time. I continue to live in hopes that one day I will change. Recently I was diagnosed with Dissociative identity disorder. Which explains my loss of memory sometimes. I also have Schizoaffective disorder. Anyway, I try to cope with what I have through Music and Movies and my obsession with Batman.

I wish everyone the best, that has been through abusive situations.

I think there is a need to have a forum for all abuse. And still the necessity for a section that is only about child abuse. I get all kinds. I get stalked and targeted by the police. I get bullied at the Lehigh County Bar Association by the women who tell me I have no rights when I was looking for a lawyer to help me fight about discrimination from college. Then they demand that I have to pay them the consultation fee with a credit card only. They wouldn't take my cash. They called the police on me, and played the gender card and fed them a whole bunch of BS that they were victimized by me.

Before anyone says it and accuses me of attacking women when we are trying to end abuse. There is male discrimination. There has to be freedom for the abused to talk about what was done to them by the abuser if they talk about it in a non attacking way. Not all women would do reverse discrimination. But there are a lot who do. All of the sensitivity training men ever had to go through during the women's rights movement does need to be required for women to go through on how they treat men.

I would like to see a specific section of child abuse on this website. Because on this website it would address directly the subject of child abuse of Autistics. The parents that will respond in protest of this subject will not be the good parents. They will be the parents who are the most defensive and have something to hide.

You might like the support group isurvive too, they have a special forum for male survivors of abuse, recognizing how much more stigmatizing it is to be a survivor when you're male.

Wow, I hear you loud and clear!

I have an alphabet of issues myself. Abused emotionally and physically (my step"father" was a traditional belt flagellation believing a**hole and a tremendous bully who delighted in "tribunals" regarding my unsatisfactory academic progress and moral development), I was always severely socially awkward and romantically inept miserable (with ONE girlfriend in 23 years I successfully alienated after a mere 2 week quasi-relationship) where my only friends were "weirdos" like me.

I joined the American Army after migrating from native Poland where I dodged the military conscription. The Army partially allowed me to become a little less of a "perennial child in an adult body" but also contributed to exasperating symptoms and worsening of my condition, and false religion posing as legitimate compassionate Christianity (which caused to me to permanently sever ties with all religion) finished off the disintegration of my being. I have had 7 suicidal attempts, the most recent one as recent as 2 years ago and the one before it while serving in Iraq (rifle jammed or so it appeared).

I have always struggled financially and career wise. Somehow I managed to find a woman (the first and only girl I ever had sex with) who despite tremendous rocks in our relationship (going on 9 years now) 95% related to my condition, still wants to remain my wife, partially as an incredible wondermom to my two boys "from hell" with the elder likely having inherited some of my issues. I managed to obtain 2 separate college degrees with superior academic record but continue to work as a night watchman because it involves LIMITED social contact and have been consistently separated voluntarily (I get bored or demotivated or commit "suicide by boss" by forcing the boss' hand to fire me) or involuntarily from different level jobs for reasons clearly related to being socially inept.

I was finally diagnosed (wrongly) with Bipolar, (correctly henceforth) with PTSD/Depression/Anxiety (panic attacks at high stress) in 2005, ADHD in 2007 by numerous authorities including VA and the final nail was driven last year with diagnosis of Aspergers after scoring 188/200 on autistic scale and some 8/10 on DSM. For all these conditions I have received and continue to receive, in many ways successful, and unsuccessful in others, therapy and medication adjustment. I am currently on a final increase of Aderrall beyond which I would have to switch to something stronger. My marriage is in shambles (with over a year long non-existent sex/love life), I not only lack, but have lacked ANY (male or female) friendships since time immemorial (likely after exiting military in 2004). Not surprisingly, I have been found to have a high IQ but severely low EQ.

Yet somehow, I wonder: could I be so emotionally damaged, traumatized that I have unconsciously "taught" myself to shut down emotionally so it looks AS THOUGH I were Aspergers but really aren't, especially where pretty much every dysfunctional episode can easily be traced back to my dismal childhood? Until your post, I thought I was uniquely positioned between a mental rock and a hard place but it turned out I was wrong.

So my main message is, you are NOT alone and there is AT LEAST another socially ret*d a**hole out there, myself case in point. I am no expert on mental disorders and even less on Aspieism, but I do believe that best therapists help us best by kindling the self-healing powers within us rather than throwing us in a psychiatric know-it-all machine. Thus, on some level, we all must have SOME idea how to help ourselves, especially after and while treated. I posit, therefore, that I do as well, and humbly offer my advice with a caveat preamble I just made.

It would seem reasonable to me that while we may be, as you suggested, suffering from both inhibitors of our emotional powers, the child abuse and Aspergers, the constant wonder of which one is dominant does not move us forward. I believe we should, since it can't hurt as the solution is recommended as beneficial to everyone, neurotypical or not, treat our condition(s) as one would a phobia or chemical deficiency. If our problem appears to be in lacking social/emotional intelligence we are clearly lacking education in being emotionally/socially capable enough, at first, merely to accomplish our goals and dreams we so often think unattainable by a fatalistic view of our condition.

Yes, it sucks when people say we're lazy and can't make up our minds and "it's all in our heads", and, in truth, we may very well never FULLY recover. But isn't even a tiny fraction of improvement worth the effort EVEN if we fall short of our goal of complete recovery? To use conservative political agitative language, wouldn't we be better off four years from now for having given our best to improve TODAY? If it even slightly moves us toward our objective should we not honor and rejoice at, the progress made, anyway? Don't all these Tony Robbins' and Rick Warrens' of this world stress the importance of breaking up your goals in "small manageable steps"?

Initially, our only weapons will be our minds, the same ones that keep us from feelings. We intellectualize so much but what if we use those tactics in learning the arts of emotional and social communication? I mean, literally, pick up renowned, acclaimed books on the subject and use our supreme brain capacity to learn the mechanics of what we appear to severely lack?

I have spun quite a yarn (duh, Aspergers, hel-lo?) but I hope this somehow lifts your spirits a bit. Please, bear with me a little longer. My therapist, a wonderful compassionate and wise man says we are fortunate to lack EQ which can be modified, than IQ which is pretty much set to remain unchanged. The other, just as powerful, but scary tactic is to FEEL as much as possible, both negative and positive. I was not able to progress even an inch from the grip of my military tormentors who drove me to suicide that fateful desert night, until I finally, in 2007, stopped pretending and admitted what I knew all along: I HATED them with powerful hatred potent enough to move mountains. Then the healing begun and PTSD is today one of the conditions I complain about the least about suffering from. We MUST develop emotional courage, literally WILL ourselves to FEEL and be COMPASSIONATE no matter what the cost! We could get hurt and have our hearts broken but so what?

Remember "Green Lantern" with Ryan Reynolds? It was critically trashed and in many ways I can see why, but the message was incredibly powerful. All the expert warrior green lanterns, the very special forces of the benign energy of the Universe, including the masters like Ben Sur or Sinestro have UTTERLY failed NOT because they failed to be fearless but because they failed to acknowledge fear's power over them, a power NO ONE is free from. They were too proud to admit they were terrified. But Hal Jordan did, was terrified and admitted it to utter ridicule of his peer green lanterns, until he moved PAST this acknowledgment of it. How did he do it? He went for it ANYWAY. Some even defined courage of being scared to death but going for it anyway. It is not merely talking about little fear, it's suggesting being utterly paralyzed with fear and somehow finding the guts to say "oh, what the hell, if I go down in flames, so be it!" (My little Madagascar 3 reference). We must, like Vitaly, the tiger, do the impossible, move to do things and think in ways we find extremely intolerable. Because if we don't, my friend, we WILL perish anyway. We could die on our knees or on our feet and it may be the only two choices we have.

But what if? What if, somehow, our sheer tenacity we already possess in abundance that we invest so much into refusing to do what we must to recover, what if, used to our advantage, it will become our very salvation we think we get by avoidance yet somehow never attain? (To borrow from Morpheus' "Matrix" speech) Wouldn't that be worth fighting for? Wouldn't that be worth dying for?

Please think about it and May The Force Be With You, Fellow Sufferer in AS/EA,

All the best,

ER

I did not read through the replies since this topic easily triggers me. Until the age of 12, I was severely abused both physically and mentally (not sure about sexual abuse). After that, I was mentally abused by someone else.

Without a doubt, I was born with Aspergers. I displayed signs of AS when I was a baby and it's something I just know. I can't describe it, but it's just a fundamental part of who I am. Moreover, after speaking with many, many abuse survivors throughout my life, I learned that I react much differently to abuse and stress than most people. This is due to AS, and has made me feel alone even among others who've been through a similar past. The inability to relate to anyone is extremely painful sometimes.

I was abused physically/emotionally from very young, maybe 4 or 5, and I'm quite sure it was because I had autism and this person didn't like the way I did or didn't respond to them. The abuse stopped when I moved out at age 19.

From age 6-10 maybe longer, I was sexually abused by a neighbour. I don't even know what the aftereffects are, I keep it locked deep and tight inside.

So yes, many times I wonder what is my Asperger's and what is abuse fallout.

Couple of episodes of "minor" abuse - ie, indecent touching whilst we were in the school corridor - from a boy at school, my age. I felt dirty and ashamed. He used to be really friendly sometimes and then be a bully. Only the other day did I realise he was "friendly" to make the bullying more effective.

And only just realised that he'd have caught on to my vulnerability due to my undiagnosed autism (this was the 1960s).

Why do I say "minor"? It was horrible.

I always remembered one episode. Then, out of the blue, I had a flashback to the other incident one day. Not in therapy, not "suggested", nothing like that: just came to me.

It makes me wonder if there are other memories stacked away in there.

Is this, as much as autism, the reason for my massive rages?

Yes, the kid was probably being abused himself. Ahhh, poor boy. f**k that. f**k being fair. I detest him. I bet he's doing it to his grandkids now. I'd tell social services but unfortunately his surname is the second most common in the country.

Anyway. Hope this doesn't upset anyone. Thankful for the chance to spill - maybe relieve some of this toxic matter in my mind tonight.

Here's to the goodness of kind, decent people.

Child abuse is real. However, you're not being discriminated against for being male and all women do not have it in you. Having to live with abuse makes it very easy to develop cognitive distortions and false perceptions of other people's motives and actions - that your mother was abusive very likely contributes to your hostile views of women (which are also informed heavily by a culture that thrives on misogyny and teaching everyone to hate women for absurd and arbitrary reasons).

Your words about women are an echo of the things my abusive father would often say to my mother. So...yeah.

Also, I deal with the same problem with interviews that you do, and I am most definitely not a man. I think this problem has a lot more to do with how many people react to autistic people than it does with gender.

If you find women triggering because of the abuse your mother inflicted on you, there are many situations where it is appropriate to express that you'd rather deal with men. However, that doesn't mean that women are out to get you.

To the OP, I think the most important thing you can do is to keep trying to improve. I can relate too well to your story, and my experience is that you and only you can make your life better. You got dealt a bad hand, and it's hard work making it better, but it's either that or give up. To me, giving up is like letting the person who abused me win. Ironically, though, defeating the person (people really) who abused me means opening myself emotionally and changing the way I think about it so that I don't feel hatred or self-pity. It also means not directing hatred or blame at the person who did the actual abuse. Often, that person is a product of abuse or even generations of abuse, and/or is afflicted by mental illness.

I should probably explain my self-pity comment. For me, at least, it creates a vicious cycle. Whenever I feel sorry for myself, it makes me bitter and changes how I relate to others. It's natural to seek out someone to blame when you feel victimized, even if you only do it subconsciously, and this perpetuates negative interactions. Anytime you face a difficult situation or confrontation, prepare yourself by remembering that the person you are talking to has nothing to do with the person who victimized you, and try to have faith that their gender is irrelevant. I won't pretend like it's easy, though, and I think this is where many people benefit from a good therapist.

Applying to college is very informal now, and you don't have to speak to anyone in the process. I would be vague when discussing your difficulties in the application, or leave them out entirely, however, so they don't have the opportunity to discriminate. You will have female professors, TA's, and classmates though. Most colleges offer free counseling, but you might be off to a rough start. Do you have the option of seeing a personal therapist? If not, you could always try to meet with one before classes start, and explain you situation clearly so they can make accommodations. I think that finding a therapist who specializes in Asperger's or PTSD or both is a very good idea if you have the option--I would look into every way possible to make this happen. Just be sure to find a good one, either by asking people in your support group or even calling different mental health offices and asking for recommendations.


Best of luck.