Why do ASPIES TAKE PRIDE in being Aspie

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League_Girl
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08 Mar 2010, 12:14 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:

I see three threads like this one pop up, every week.

You mean asking the same question why or people saying how happy they are to be aspie?

PunkyKat
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08 Mar 2010, 1:18 pm

KoS wrote:

PunkyKat wrote:

Why should I be ashamed? It's not like I am exhibiting pride for having HIV or AIDS. I'm not flaunting being a serieal killer. There's not thing wrong with being proud to have AS. I find the term "aspie" very offensive when used by an NT or non autistic.
AS gives me unique strengenths and talents. It allows me to see things in ways non autistics can't even begin to fathom. If I was NT or non autistic or whatever they are called, I would be all worried about apearing "weird" about my meerkat obsession. If I was NT, I proubly would not even care about meerkats. I'm now slowing or softning to appease anyone. If you don't like me I do not care. Go get lost.

I'm going to be politicaly incorrect for a momment but why are homosexuals allowed to flaunt their diffrence but when someone tries to flaunt being autistic they are chastised? If you try to stop a homosexual from flaunting their orentation you are acussed of being homophobic and of trying to comit a hate crime. But if someone tries to stop an autistic from flaunting they are congragulated and praised for keeping the "peace". I have nothing against homosexuals but I can't stand the unfairness. :evil:

FIRSTLY, before I cop another "you're a stupid NT you suck get out" comment, let me just say, I'm all for Aspie pride, I think it's fantastic. Why? Because it's confidence building. Many Aspies may feel embrassed or not want to try and do certainthings because they're scared AS will hold them back, having pride for who you are is very important in overcoming those obstacles.

Just want to say re: gay pride.

It's a bit different. The gays flaunt their orientation because they suffered HUNDREDS of years of opression and hatred. Their orientation was listed in the DSM as a psychiatric disorder (as I'm sure you know), but it is not one. People have been bashed, raped, tortured and killed because they refused to deny their homosexuality, while the rest of the community had to hide who they were from fear. Having something like that finally accepted by the majority of society after all those years is liberating for the gay community. The same as it is for African Americans, who were thought of a second class citizens and physically opressed for many years and the deaf community who had to fight for a long time before people stopped seeing them as 'ret*d'). The flaunting is a celebration of the new found freedom, liberation and acceptance.

Meanwhile Aspies (which has only officially existed since 1994) have never had to live in fear of someone finding out they have AS and then bashing, raping, torturing or killing them (yes I am sure there are some specific cases, but it's hardly the same as the way gays were condemmed and persecuted), there's no fight to be liberated from those horrific occurances, unlike the gay community. Aspergers IS a (biological) psychiatric condition, that's not going to change, there's no fight to be liberated from that position, unlike the gay community. People with AS are free to love who they love without persecution, nobody will come for you with burning torches because of your choice of partner, so there's no fight for liberation there either, unlike the gay community.

So like I said, Aspie pride is awesome! But I think that was a bad comparison. Aspie pride is about being happy and confident with who you are in spite of being biologically different from mainstream society, gay pride is about celebrating freedom after years of shunned, abused and intimidated by mainstream society.

And one more time for people who don't read posts properly, this is not a post against Aspie pride, it is a post saying that in my opinion, comparing Aspies situation with the gay communitys isn't a great one considering the difference in circumstances.

But people with AS/Autism have been shuned for it.

AspiInLV
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08 Mar 2010, 1:28 pm

Try to imagine feeling proud of breaking a leg bone, or getting the seasonal flu

Alycat
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08 Mar 2010, 1:54 pm

I know I already posted in here, but I've read some of the replies and thought a bit, and I'd like to rephrase what I think.
I now think that 'proud' is the wrong word.
Obviously, since people cannot choose whether or not to be Aspie, they haven't really achieved anything by being so or not, so pride isn't quite right.
I would say that it is right for people to feel okay about being Aspie though. To not see it as a negative aspect of themselves.
Someone mentioned that being proud to be Aspie would be like being proud of your shoe size and I see what they mean. It would also be wrong to feel ashamed of yourself because you had small feet, or for people to treat you badly solely because you had large feet. In the same way people should not feel ashamed or be treated badly just because they have Aspergers. It doesn't mean we are 'wrong' just different.

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Mysty
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08 Mar 2010, 5:30 pm

AspiInLV wrote:

Try to imagine feeling proud of breaking a leg bone, or getting the seasonal flu

I think, despite the fact that Asperger's is a label that says something's wrong with you, that it exists to put a label on a a difference that is considered malfunctional, still, it's perhaps the only label that people have to go with their differences, so, they use the label, not just for the disabilities and limitations, but also for the good stuff.

So, while it can come across as saying "I'm proud of what I can't do", really, it's not that, but pride in who one is, and especially in all the good stuff.

Personally, I don't use the label that way. First, because it doesn't fully fit. Aspie traits. Or half aspie. That's what would fit. And second, my way of taking pride in being different and not fitting into other people's boxes is not going to be by jumping in a box.

But I can understand why some people would. Because the label for them means more than their diabilities. It means many of the things that make them different, including the good stuff.

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KoS
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08 Mar 2010, 5:40 pm

Callista wrote:

Quote:

Meanwhile Aspies (which has only officially existed since 1994) have never had to live in fear of someone finding out they have AS and then bashing, raping, torturing or killing them (yes I am sure there are some specific cases, but it's hardly the same as the way gays were condemmed and persecuted), there's no fight to be liberated from those horrific occurances, unlike the gay community. Aspergers IS a (biological) psychiatric condition, that's not going to change, there's no fight to be liberated from that position, unlike the gay community. People with AS are free to love who they love without persecution, nobody will come for you with burning torches because of your choice of partner, so there's no fight for liberation there either, unlike the gay community.

Autistics are over a dozen times more likely to be murder, rape, and assault victims. We have had to live in fear. Maybe not as much as gays, but don't you dare talk about us not living in fear until you've talked to somebody who's lived through the horrors of being institutionalized, systematically tortured by classmates every day, raped by people who think s/hes's an easy target, or beaten up by their own parents for not being the perfect child.

I know many people who have lived through (parts of) what you described, somehow I don't think they'd have a problem with anything I said. I'd love to know where you got your statistics too, very interesting.

And I know you wont give a crap because I'm just a dirty NT! But I also fit that description. I was tortured by people at school because of my "ret*d family." Left me with pretty much no friends, believe me nobody wants to make friends with the "sister of the ret*d kids." I spent 3 months in an institution for NO REASON when I was a child, simply because my dad wanted to make sure I wasn't like my brothers. I have also been subjected to constant medical poking and prodding, simply because doctors are interested that I am the only non-autistic child in my family. Never been raped, thank god. But you better believe my dad used beat the hell out of us. My brothers used to cop it because he just couldn't handle the way they are (LOTS of issues there) and he used to get me and my mum for defending them. I often went to school with bruises, fat lips, whatever...didn't make my school situation any easier, best day ever was the last day of highschool.

I still wouldn't consider my struggles anyhting in comparison to the hundreds of years of abuse and opression that has been put upon that gay community. But who cares right? I'm just a crap lowly NT.

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LAEMapsie
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08 Mar 2010, 5:52 pm

Im OK with it, not proud of it yet not shamed of it.

Mysty
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08 Mar 2010, 5:58 pm

KoS wrote:

I still wouldn't consider my struggles anyhting in comparison to the hundreds of years of abuse and opression that has been put upon that gay community. But who cares right? I'm just a crap lowly NT.

Has there even been a gay community for hundreds of years?

Okay, that's beside the point.

However, talking about the gay community is an unfair comparison. Sure, if you compare the abuse suffered by one person to that suffered by a whole group, the group's going to have suffered more. Sheer numbers. More people. But so what. The equal comparison is what do gay individuals suffer, comparied to individuals on the autistic spectrum, on average. Gay persons have not suffered hundreds of years of abuse. Max human life span is like 120 or 140 years or something like that.

And, do realize, being homosexual is not as all encompassing. They have normal social skills. Being gay does not directly influence one's ability to get and keep a job. And you can't be a closet aspie and just hide your aspieness from view while still generally being yourself. It's a choice gays shouldn't have to make, yes. But for an aspie, it's a choice that's not even possible to make.

It's a bogus comparison.

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Last edited by Mysty on 08 Mar 2010, 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Eggman
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08 Mar 2010, 5:59 pm

AspiInLV wrote:

Try to imagine feeling proud of breaking a leg bone, or getting the seasonal flu

How is an injury= to having aspergers?

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Callista
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08 Mar 2010, 6:19 pm

KoS wrote:

Callista wrote:

Quote:

I think you've completely misread me. Just because autistic people are about ten to fifteen times more likely to be victims of crime (the numbers depend on your definition of "autistic" and "crime") doesn't make it any better when an NT gets targeted, nor any less unjust. That you can trace your own history of mistreatment back to prejudice against autistic people really highlights the way autistics tend to be treated, doesn't it, if people only associated with them get some of the fallout too?

Actually, consider this: There is more than one place where "discrimination" is defined as not just being mistreated because you are part of a target group, but also mistreatment that happens when you are not part of the group, but someone thinks you are. So, by some definitions, an NT can be the target of anti-autistic prejudice. By those definitions that make it at all possible, you were one of them.

What you're talking about actually sounds very much like the level of trouble that might be experienced by someone growing up gay. There are, of course, highly publicised murders; but the average gay person is only mistreated, not murdered. Same with the average autistic person. (Murder of autistic people is also quite common.)

Anyway, re. autism and crime:
Source: http://www.autism-society.org/site/DocS ... ocID=10901

Quote:

A survey of over 1,500 individuals on the
autism spectrum and their caregivers by the Autism Society of America
found that of the 35% who had been the victim of a crime, 17% reported
physical abuse or assault, 13% reported being the victim of sexual abuse,
9% reported property crimes, 8% reported sexual assault, and 8%
reported neglect; 3% reported being coerced to commit or participate in
a crime (ASA, 2007). A study on child abuse and autism (Mandell, et. al.,
2005) found that caregivers reported that 18.5% of children with ASD had
been physically abused and 16.6% had been sexually abused. Property
crimes against individuals with ASD may be prevalent in part due to the
inability of many individuals on the autism spectrum to read social cues
or understand social norms that may protect them from criminals seeking
financial gain. Some individuals with ASD may have a guardian handling
their finances, but if there is little or no monitoring and oversight, financial
exploitation can easily take place.

Despite documented high rates of crime victimization against individuals
with disabilities, police follow-up, prosecution, and convictions of
perpetrators remain low. A review of Massachusetts cases found that
only 5% of crimes against people with disabilities resulted in a conviction
(Mishra, 2001). If convicted, sentences for crimes against individuals
with developmental disabilities are typically lighter, particularly for sexual
assault convictions.

This would be the reported rate, of course; the actual rates will be higher, and by a greater factor than crimes against typical people, because autistic people are less likely to know how to identify and report such crimes, and in some cases less likely to be believed when they do. Actually, the link I posted is a decent resource, if you want to learn about the problem of crime and disability.

The extreme cases; murder of autistic people, links:
http://thiswayoflife.org/murder.html
http://www.neurodiversity.com/murder.html

I got beaten up by my stepfathers as a child, sexually harassed at school, fired from work because I admitted to being autistic, expelled from school after I had to be hospitalized, and bullied by classmates. That makes me one of the lucky ones; I've heard much worse from other people around here, and that's just the ones who can talk about it.

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aziraphale
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08 Mar 2010, 6:45 pm

Being strange is neither good nor bad. It is neutral. It depends on the type of strange. If you're strange in the way that psychopaths are then it's a problem. My eccentricity is not wrong. In fact, with my defiance of gender roles, trends and popular politics I am improving the world by showing that you don't have to change who you are to fit in. I also have been going and searching for an economic system that will work and once I find one I will fight for it no matter how unusual or shocking. I am a talented story writer, an impressive critical thinker and a very advanced reader and I'm not sure if I could have been that if it weren't for my Asperger's.

mitharatowen
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08 Mar 2010, 7:22 pm

I think being strange is good in general. I am attracted to people who behave or look unusual.

I don't exactly "take pride" in being spectrumy.. but I do find the inverse: I don't understand NT society at all, it makes no sense and frequently appears to me to be "stupid" based on my understandings and values. Therefore, one could say that I would rather be an aspie than an NT.

I would surely say the same thing (but inverted) if I were an NT and not on the spectrum.

KoS
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08 Mar 2010, 8:46 pm

Callista wrote:

KoS wrote:

Callista wrote:

Quote:

That was a great post! And I agree with most of it. But we're on 2 different pages. This thread is about ASPIE pride, Asperger's Syndrome. Not Autism as a whole and most everything in that post (including the stats) was about Autism as a whole. We all know that LFAs are often abused and mistreated, people take advantage of the fact that they can't defend themselves verbaly or physically. It's well documented, in fact the reason I joined this forum in the first place was because I was scared my own brother had beocme a victim on this exact thing (not the case).

I know some people find it hard to accept, but the difference between Aspies and LFAs is HUGE. Comparing LFAs to Aspies in this respect, in my opinion, is as bad as the comparison of the Aspie and Gay communities.

I have never once had to deal with issues with my Aspie sister like I have with my LFA brothers, and she doesn't have to deal with any of the issues they did. It's not even close. If both my brothers had both been AS I would never have been picked on, I would never have been beaten. It was the LF part of the Autism that created the problems for me and my family. I wasn't mistreated because my brothers were a bit on the odd side, or unpopular or unable to socialize, it's because they look ret*d, they talk ret*d. This sounds bad...but god I wish they'd only has Asperger's sometimes so none of that crap would have happened.

I'm sorry all that awful stuff happened to you, that's messed up and thanks for the post.

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TOGGI3
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08 Mar 2010, 9:25 pm

I am not 'proud' but appreciate who I am as I am. Do I really need a reason to appreciate myself? I am not saying everyone should be happy that they have AS, but everyone should try to appreciate themselves a little and find the good in themselves, you just have to count your blessings as they say.

makuranososhi
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08 Mar 2010, 9:46 pm

KoS... I find it sad that you seem to blame your brothers for the abuse you suffered at the hands of your father. They, and whether they had classic autism or AS, has nothing to do with the decisions your father made to behave in that fashion. It sickened me a bit to see you imply that they were responsible for what happened to you, I must admit.

M.

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08 Mar 2010, 9:55 pm

makuranososhi wrote:

I agree. The only person she should be blaming is the person that beat her. And they still could have if she had AS or NT brothers. Sometimes just one kid is singled out by a parent. It makes me think of Howard Dully again (see the book 'Messing With My Head').

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