Autistic infantilization

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It's also hard to do if you're not interested in the other side of the coin.

In what way?

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Simply stated, you say you favour a balanced view but the bulk of what you've said is about only one side of the coin.

Sometimes there isn't two sides to the coin.

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When I say "2 sides of the coin," I'm referring here to the balanced view we've just agreed is important.

I'll use the woman who asked me to drive 2 hours and 30 mins one way to take her to a shop a few hundred yards from her home. In that case there is no two sides to the coin.

I known her long enough to understand her troubled life but that was no excuse to even ask for a favour of that magnitude.

Well obviously that's a likely example of one side of the coin. But the thread isn't just about her, and judging by its title, it's not just about your own personal experiences, it's about the subject in general.

The thread is about the subject in general but when I made the thread I never heard of PDA which looking at more closely, seems to contribute towards infantilizing autistic adults.

While there are two sides to any coin, it can be hard to understand the other side if someone with a high IQ needs support for basic tasks. Anxiety can be a devil but unwarranted anxiety (which is what PDA is) is a problem where seeing both sides is not warranted.

ASD is like that - we often show more intelligence than most, for certain specific tasks, and it's very tempting to glibly conclude that we're bright enough not to need any disability-related help. But IQ is a rather quick-and-dirty way of seeing something that's actually rather nuanced and detailed, an attempt to assign a single number to a person's mental strength instead of measuring all the different aptitudes.

I see no harm in acknowledging both sides. If a person feels highly anxious about a demand, that anxiety might be unfounded but it's still there, and if it's extreme enough then ignoring it is unlikely to end well. If, for example, you remove a defensive pessimist's strategy, you've removed their means of coping with their anxiety and they'll often perform worse, not better. Anxiety is debilitating, it confuses our thinking, messes up our interpersonal style, and causes us to behave badly and take silly risks. So if a person is genuinely anxious enough about a demand, then what's needed is effective anxiety management.

What is anxiety management? Past the age of 25, I personally have no idea what to do other than capitulating or disowning.

I've been exploited by enough aspies in their mid 20s onwards to know there a lost cause unless they get the biggest boot up the arse that they ever known.

Anxiety management takes a number of forms - breathing exercises, specific stress exercises, general exercise, lavender oil, psychotherapy, self-help groups, and if all else fails and the anxiety is wrecking the client's life, medications. The Aspie tricks of repetitive routines and stimming may be helpful. Once or twice I've found that a ride on a rollercoaster helps (after the ride is over), but the benefit is short-lived. My preferred method is defensive pessimism - if I fear a proposed venture will harm me, I consider carefully whether I have good reason to be anxious about it, and if I do, I tend to put a lot of thought into predicting the things that could go wrong, and take measures to pre-empt them. I don't seem to suffer from much anxiety, perhaps because I've stumbled on ways of keeping it at bay. I'm probably innately closer to the edge of anxiety than the average person, but not prone to worry irrationally about non-dangerous situations, just that if it's rational for me to see danger in a situation, I probably feel it more acutely than the average person.

It's a shame if you used to let yourself be exploited. I guess nobody had shown you how to deal with Aspies, which was a sad state of affairs if you mean it was part of your job.

I think anxiety management is good as long as what someone is anxious about is carried through with. I think the older an aspie gets the more stubborn they become and it can be just about breaking their stubborn routines as and when needed as much as it is anxiety.

As for exploitation, dealing with them isn't part of my job but I've had no other choice than to cast some aspies aside as they became to much hard work.

Well, if it wasn't your job, you were always to decline their requests or walk away. I suspect that's what most people do when somebody tries it on. I think it's very common that if a person is willing to skivvy for others, then others will exploit that.

In my case, if I'm reassured that I don't have to do a thing I'm afraid of, I tend to be braver about facing up to it. I used to see the same thing in my son also. I think people tend to get more anxious when pushed into a corner.