The site where they BASH Aspie husband and wives. :O

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How does that explain meltdowns? I have seen many posts here by people who say they do those behaviors and even I have admitted them myself and then I see people saying how autism doesn't cause them and then I see a thread by an OP who posts about his meltdown and people in that thread argue about how it's not abuse because it was a meltdown and months back I have seen a mom posting in the parents section about her 13 year old daughter going after her twin sister and her and how they have to lock themselves in a room to get away from her aggressive behavior and she starts pounding on their door because she can't kick their asses and that gets called a meltdown and also not seen as abuse because it was a meltdown or a parent posting here about how her son used to grab knives and charge after people with them because he thought that was a good solution to his anger

I don't understand this at all. I have seen this contradiction a lot. Autism is not the source of abusive behaviors or act of violence and someone has a meltdown so they got violent and did abusive behavior, oh not abuse because it was a meltdown.

Those examples don't sound like meltdowns to me. From personal experience, I can tell you that meltdowns are not usually directed a specific person. The knives thing sounds dangerous. Also, meltdowns only tend to affect other people if you have them in front of them. I've seen advice given on how to manage meltdowns where they say that you should lock yourself in a room somewhere, so that nobody could interfere with you while you're having the meltdown and to either have it in private or to be able to wait it out so that you can calm down and that the risk of having the meltdown is over.

Last edited by Jono on 03 Nov 2014, 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Clearly.
Pets do not intend to displease, disappoint, or anger their owners, yet their behaviors can still result in the owners abandoning them outside.
From the owner's perspective the pet was "abusive" in some way.

People do NOT say it that way, and generally do not understand it that way, but the principle IS the same.

A group of psychological/social expectations were not being met, and therefore required some countermeasure to resolve. If the other persons' or animals' own psyche cannot be overpowered and changed, then they are rejected.
Animals initially try to interact directly with US, not our identities. It is our identities that experience the pressures and eventually take action against our partners, or pets.

Please think hard about this!

You could be in a relationship and remain the same honest YOU, but some set of social expectations could change which then caused your partner to view your behaviors as unacceptable and/or abusive. Then you are suddenly on the other side of the accusation, all because of a set of dynamic expectations that evolve in the imaginations of people.

Finding checklists to tick off about how your partner is wrong in some way is simply a method of self and social validation. All you need is for other people to tell you that you're right.
Personally, I don't think this is the proper way to engage in a relationship, though it's obvious that most people think that it is.

The belief that you are supposed to feel bad or embarrassed about some comment about your weight comes completely from the imaginations of other people. It's also not a constant, and so can and does change over time. In another time and environment the same comment may be considered a compliment. You experience the "sting of criticism" in this point in time, not due to your partner, and not due to the validity of his statement, but due to the current social pressures. It is possible that your partner gives you credit for being able to see past such things, or at least not being sensitive to them. I could go on citing example after example here, but the principle is the same.

However, if you can't reconcile these kinds of outside pressures in your relationship, then your best option is probably to either leave it, or establish a different dynamic.

Right now it's clear to me that you feel a great pressure to point to your partner as the source of all of your grief. If you remove yourself from that environment/structure, then you may feel relief from the pressure for a while, but there is always the chance of it re-emerging within a completely different environment as long as you are subjected to those kinds of outside pressures.

All of this about abuse and abuser is mostly word games which obscure what is really going on.


AGAIN, almost anything behavior wise can be called abuse by someone.

Children often think their parents are abusive.

A spouse often thinks their partner is abusive.

Employees often think their boss is abusive.

...and on and on.

Whenever someone isn't getting their way, and they can't psychologically overpower the other person to get their way, then they feel they are being abused.

In each case it's a failure of the "abused" being unable to exert some control over the "abuser".

I didn't just make this up. I have observed this for my entire life.

The words you use to label it are irrelevant.
This is a condition that is completely the result of the inherent evolved design of social structures.

Yeah the girl was advise to go to her room and advise how to calm down but she refuses because she has AS so she thinks people should put up with it. This is what the mom wrote about her daughter. I had quit reading her threads because I couldn't stand reading about how she goes after her twin sister and her and it was just making me angry.


Olympiadis, I don't think my husband is abusive or my parents. I am also curious what do you define as abuse and what do you think of all the articles you read on abuse and when you see talk shows about it? What do you think when you read memior books about child abuse?

Meltdowns are not a symptom of autism nor are they a factor in diagnostic criteria for autism. Those who are not autistic can have meltdowns. When people get overloaded with stress and frustration, or perhaps anger then they are more prone to having meltdowns. Also a meltdown itself doesn't necessarily imply violent or abusive behavior - sometimes a person having a meltdown may simply shut off and disconnect from the world around them.

Autism is not an excuse for abusive or violent behavior. It's not a crutch - it's an explanation that some people are different on a neurological level. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that autism itself causes anyone to be abusive or violent.

I see memes (algorithms) battling each other for either dominance in a hierarchy, or defensively to avoid being absorbed into a hierarchy.

Either type of meme can reach a point where it pressures the person to act out in reality, to either enforce the imagined authority over someone, or defensively to prevent aggression, either physically or mentally. Often mental pressure is enough to result in physical actions.

Superficial observations of these processes are not conclusively revealing. One must look much closer and often reverse engineer situations in order to find the initial origin of the aggression. It's not always what it looks like.

In the world of ideas, "abuse" is a choice and a perspective.
In the physical world it is that which causes damage.

However, aggressive ideas can pressure people into reacting physically.
It's very possible to keep pushing someone until they react.
When that happens, then how do you determine the blame?

Two people may experience very different external pressures, and they may also define "reason" differently.
Each will also have different thresholds of discomfort, and therefore one member will decide that they have been "abused" before the other.

It may not occur to some people, but I'm going to suggest that many aspies are already conditioned to high levels of what you might describe as "abuse".
If they become aware of some mental discomfort in another person, then they may not think anything more than it being a normal part of life, especially life interacting with another person.
To a non-aspie, this discomfort may seem completely unacceptable.

Regarding meltdowns, I've found this blogpost regarding them. I think that Gavin Bollard is a member here, though I haven't seen him post anything in a long time:

http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-rules-of-relationships-need-to.html

Although it clearly wasn't meant to be, that is a really ominous post (I followed the link and read the whole post). It gives the impression that meltdowns are an inevitability of autism and it is the responsibility of the NT partner not to trigger them. It looks like it was written to allay fears by giving prevention strategies but it actually portrays aspies as hand grenades which NTs must be careful not to pull the pin on.

I thought that the purpose of the purpose of the blogpost was simply to provide information on how to avoid situations that could lead to meltdowns, not to suggest that the NT must accept things like violence and abuse or to blame them for the meltdowns. The thing is, I've seen many articles giving similar advice to parents on how to avoid meltdowns in children with ASD, so I don't understand what makes it different if it happens to be an adult partner.

The comments make it sound like it's wrong to keep yourself and your stuff safe and you have to deal with them being broken if it happens. Besides I thought it's not an autism thing to be violent and then people make it out to sound like it is. It keeps going back and forth. They do make it sound like it's all part of autism. Besides if the person hit the child or threw things at them or broke their stuff, they would be charged with child abuse so how is it any different? Then we would all be mad about it and refuse to blame it on a meltdown or on their autism but yet if it's done to their partner, oh that is okay. Child, no no.

Yes Janissy I agree - from my perspective it felt like there was a lot of victim blaming and it doesn't take into account the mental stress that comes from 'walking on eggshells'.

My husband's worst meltdowns/tantrums, etc came when my son was very small - and I was desperate for some support. If I asked for ANY time off - i.e. the length of a walk in a nearby park so I could rest at home on my own (I'm an introvert and I NEEDED my down time) - he would become outraged and tantrum. Or he would become verbally abusive.
In the end I left my son with him so I could take a shower, but he refused to pick him up - leaving him crying the whole time - guaranteeing there was no relaxation for me. He would ridicule me for feeling pain in my c-section scar when my son was crying - saying I was crazy. (I'm not the only woman whose ever felt this)

I don't think I was wrong to ask him to help with his own child. I don't think this was "restraining" him.

I remember my husband walking home saying "The psychiatrist said I show signs of autism but she said it would take many sessions for her to know for sure if he has it or not." I was surprised because he wasn't like those AS Partners and I wrote about it here and someone told me she didn't think those men had it and they were just narcissists and those women just blame it on autism.


I don't think people on the spectrum like abuse and violence to be blamed on it because it will just make us all look bad and then there are the other group that does blame it on it. Then when abuse does happen, people on the spectrum like to call it a meltdown than abuse. Hey even abusers don't like to see themselves as an abuser so they may not see themselves as one and then there are some who are honest with themselves and say they are one but still blame it on the person. I have seen this pattern. This reminds me how people avoid any terms that have a stigma while I like to be honest with myself so I will call myself lazy or ignorant while lot of people will refuse to use those terms on themselves and deny them. My husband sometimes laughs when I say things like "I am too lazy to go to bed" because I am not motivated to stop what I am doing to get to bed despite being tired.

There's a difference between accommodating his needs and using AS as an excuse for bad behaviour. Of course I think that if aspies choose to be in a relationship, then they must do their part in that relationship too, which sometimes includes being put into an uncomfortable position. So no, it was not unreasonable for you to of asked him to help with your son. All that article is saying is that if they're easily overwhelmed by issues like sensory input, or other things, then it's not unreasonable to leave them with what my psychiatrist called an "escape route" if things get a little too much. For example, after my parents initially found out that I had Asperger syndrome, they'd allow me to take a book with me to read if they took me to social events like parties and special occasions so that when they wanted me socialise, I could still withdraw when I needed (social events and crowded places was something that I really disliked and got easily overwhelmed with at the time and could easily lead to meltdowns if I didn't have anyway to recover). I don't see why he couldn't taken your son for a short time but then turned him back over, you're not asking for much. Also, if the issue had to with sensory input, there are ways to reduce that (like earmuffs or something) but it's not impossible to do. Him having ASD also does not mean that you have to accept domestic violence either. Fair?

In fact Gavin actually made another blogpost it:


http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/danger-of-allowing-aspergers-to-excuse.html

Jono, it sounds like you had my parents

I also remember being in high school, when I went to my normal classes, if I got too upset, I was taken to the resource room. This was not meant as a punishment. It was bringing me to a safer environment and so I wasn't disrupting class. I have seen this as a controversial issue among disabilities because some people think this is discrimination because we have rights to be in mainstream. They are right we do have rights to be in that class but we don't have the right to be distracting and disruptive. We are in there until we get too disruptive. Then there are people that think it's right to remove us from that environment if we get too disruptive and too distracting for other students. I am in this box here. Now if a NT kid acted the way I did, I am sure they would have gotten detention or a poorer grade. I remember in Parenthood when Adam found out Max had been getting sent to the library because it was better for him and his parents felt he should be with other kids but unfortunately Max needed a quieter environment. I only saw that episode once so I don't remember the exact reason like if he was disruptive for other kids or not. Max was fine with the arrangement but the parents were not so this the reason why they started that school. To me that was reality about disabilities and some think that is wrong to do that to kids with it and some others think that is right. I was saying to the TV while watching it, "Get him a teacher's aid." There was the obvious answer and they didn't see it. It was never brought up as a suggestion.

I think that autistic adults and teenagers should not be eggscused for bad behaviors like verbally abusing others, destroying property, melting down at slight disturbances. I think that adults who tantrum when asked to take care of their child for an hour have severe mental problems and need to get help with those and take responsibility for their own bad behaviors as something they did, not apply a term like "meltdown" or "challenging behavior" that makes the behaviors seem clinical instead of what they did. Sometimes, people do lose control and meltdowns do happen, but they should not be viewed as inevitable in autism and a-ok because the person having them is autistic. At some point, an adult needs to take responsiblity for themselves, including learning to manage own behavioral responses to negative stimuli.