Asperger's and Dosmetic Violence

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No, my husband just needs to stay out of my way and listen to me and I will be fine. But however, when we have kids, I might need to be put on medication because I will not expect a baby to be quiet and stuff and expect it to listen when it's older because you know how kids don't listen all the time and you need to get them to listen, plus they like to test rules and break them behind your back. I would hate to hit my kid or throw things for no reason. I can keep my kid in its room if I have to just like my mom used to do to me. I always made her mad and she said I taught her to be patient all thanks to me. I was a difficult child to raise but she won't even admit it to me. She says all kids are hard to raise and all of them are expensive. She's right though but that is just to help me feel good. She even used to send me out of the room and then tell me I could come back when she be calm again. I think she did the same to my brothers.


I don't like being this way and I've told him that and I think he's finally learned. So he leaves me be and listens.


How am I supposed to act if he doesn't listen to me and stuff and keeps harassing me during my meltdowns? I think he's learned finally after I had a talk with him when I was calm. He finally leaves me be when I tell him to. Thank goodness I don't have meltdowns anymore (for now). I can't remember when I last had one. I don't keep count because I don't like having them. Maybe the last one was in October.

I think Kris is the first person I've ever known who has actually been able to give me space when I'm freaking out.. It's the most wonderful thing to have somebody who can just be like "Okay, you're upset, so if it doesn't have anything to do with me, I'll leave you alone, just let me know if there's something I can do.." and just give me the chance to have some peace and quiet to calm down. Always before, if I got irritable or upset, somebody would get pissed at me for it and the whole thing would escalate. It's rather amazing how rare it is to find somebody who is able to not take personally things that have nothing to do with them. Like if I'm irritable because I feel fat or because I didn't get enough sleep or whatever... growing up, I'd get screamed and screamed and screamed at for just feeling grouchy. But (gasp! surprise! OMG, can you believe it?!) if I have some space and quietness, I'll stop being grouchy much, much more quickly than if somebody SCREAMS AT ME. Isn't that such a shock? (notice the dripping sarcasm..)
And then I apologize later, and he looks at me like I'm nuts 'cause he thinks I have nothing to apologize for, and I guess usually I don't, because since he gives me space and lets me calm down, things don't escalate.

I have a problem with forgetting what to do every time my friend has a meltdown... I am only trying to make things better...I certainly don't want to make things worse, but I will always always always say or do the the wrong thing when he is like that, and simply ignoring him won't work either when he feels the need to rant...
He expects me to automatically know what to do..and always informs me of what I SHOULD have done after the fact...
For this recent episode, I got in trouble for not giving him dry socks...he had to walk his bike in the rain...I offered him dry socks first thing, but I should not have just offered him the socks I should have automatically known to just GIVE him the socks and then get out of his way...

I need to make an instruction manual that I can refer to because I get rattled when he has a meltdown, and I usually forget what to do.

I have meltdowns too....I had a small one tonight in fact...I would not have been able to tell Flakey what to do with me...I know the best thing is to leave me alone...certain things I do when i am in that state tend to follow patterns...it is the same for my friend....

Often times, when I am in public and I don't feel like I have any control over a situation, I will walk home...My friend is the same way, and when he had his meltdown the other night, he kept htreatening to leave over and over again, even though it was raining and his bike was broken...a couple times he left and then came back.


I HATE riding in cars, and a lot of my meltdowns are car-stress related...I am not sure what triggered tonight's small episode, but it consisted mostly of me getting verbally hostile over small things and then saying the same negative stuff over and over again...like "nightmare...nightmare...nightmare..nightmare...and I will repeatedly call myself 3%*$ ret*d...ect (flakey calls them my "negative mantras")..with the rocking and head holding...sometimes I hit myself but not often..

When I have a really bad meltdown I will usually try to lock myself in a room or sleep someplace other than the bedroom, and Flakey will usually try to break the door open or something...in the new location, I don't really have many places where I can lock the door, but I don't think it is on purpose..but he really should leave me alone..it is not as if I am gonna be in there forever...

Apologizing is good for our actions. It's a nice thing to do and taking responsibility. Especially when we realize we had over reacted and we could have done better or done something different.

He has also learned that I am grumpy every morning and I am not a morning person. I've told him to not take that personal and to just ignore me or don't talk to me. Aren't lot of people grumpy in the morning? I know my mom is and my dad just leaves her alone. He doesn't talk to her. Especially when she's had a hard day at work. She comes home all grumpy. But luckily she works an hour away and stays in the RV down there they own so she doesn'tcome hom till her days off from work. I think everyone should cut each other slack when they are tired because they can't help being cranky.

I mean jeez, how hard is it to understand simple words? Basically when we're different than the norm, people can't seem to understand our language when we tell them. Do we need to get mean and violent to teach them? We shouldn't have to do that.
My ex sure learned quick I'm cranky when I'm tired so he knew to not take that personal.

I do try and not get so upset over the words "calm down" when my husband says them because he said he doesn't know he is saying them and they come out naturally. So I must try and not take those words personally when they come out of his mouth but oooo they still make me mad. I mostly bark "Hey!" now.

NT's Propaganda, don't bother.

Is he AS too or knows you have it?


Did you talk to him about him needing to tell you what he wants you to do because you can't figure it out on your own what he wants?




I also walk away from situations when I can. One time I saw a reallly long line for the hay ride and no way I wanted to stand in it and I was afraid of having anxiety, we got pumpkins somewhere else instead than out in the field. We were at the pumpkin patch. My husband lets me do whatever I want.





Geez, doesn't he know to leave you alone during your episodes?

Yup.. but what I meant is that there's not as much to apologize for. Like if I was grumpy with people in the past, they'd get all pissed, and get me more irritable, and then there's be all kinds of arguing and stuff.. but if I just have an annoyed tone of voice or something, and then Kris says "Okay, I'll go play Diablo, you let me know if there's anything I can do to help you feel better" and then I have time to calm down and stuff.. then nothing bad has happened and it's okay, and he thinks I'm nuts when I apologize, 'cause he wasn't upset about it to begin with.


I think that most people are not completely responsible for things they say for a good hour after waking up. (not like not responsible at all, but less.. because it's normal to be grouchy in the morning, and I want people to forgive me if I'm grouchy in the morning, so I try to forgive them.) If you weren't conscious, you're not responsible.. so if you're only semi-conscious, you're only semi-responsible.


Perhaps something slightly better for him to say would be "Okay, I'll give you some time and space to calm down." It means almost the same thing, but telling you to calm down adds a stressor, but giving you time to calm down takes away a stressor.

Yeah...my friend is just as affected, if not moreso than myself, but undiagnosed...that is why I refer to him as my "very ASish friend"....He knows that I am, and knows that he most likely is...we both present in a similar.... way..both left-handed both often very childlike...both in our mid-30's...his major narrow obession is army surplus and camouflage patterns...

While in "melty mode" he is pretty much beside himself..and totally unable to tell me what to do. He has given me verbal instructions after the fact on what I should have done, but there is plenty of time in between meltdowns for me to forget, and every situation is a little different.

And yeah...you'd think that Flakey would know to leave me alone by now, but it is similar to how i always forget how to act when my friend has a meltdown.

I feel like I am exaggerating a tad...it has been a long time since it seems that Flkey has physically tried to force himself into a room where I have locked myself in. At our place now, I have my own room, but it has the same lock as our regular bedroom door. I do recall locking myself in one of the bathroom stalls a while back because I couldn't find a place where I could lock myself in.

For those making comments to the effect that the blogger was moderating the comments herself (and doing so in a biased manner), you should know the Feministing is actually a blog with a staff of eight and they also take submissions from non-staff. The person who wrote this particular entry does not appear to be a member of the regular staff, and as such she probably did not have direct control over how the comments were moderated.

On the topic at hand, I would guess that, as others have said, most NTs who experience these kinds of behaviors at the hands of an aspie are either a) misinterpreting or perceiving a subtext that wasn't there or b) caught up in the middle of a meltdown on the part of the aspie. I'm sure there are a few aspies who are genuinely abusive in an intentional manner, but I seriously doubt that they constitute anywhere near a substantial presence in the aspie population.

My father says - if the person you are talking to doesn't understand you, then you must just not be saying it right. I agree with that. Relationships require communication, and if you feel your partner just isn't getting you or understanding what you need, you must not be communicating it to them in a way that they get. That is your fault just as much as theirs. This goes for both NTs and people with AS. If there is an aspie out there who knows they've been hurtful to their partner and seriously still doesn't care at all, then yeah, they're being abusive. The same, however, goes for the NT who fails to recognize they're exacerbating a meltdown or plain just doesn't care. Abuse stems from not giving a dang about your partner and their feelings, not from having a difficult time recognizing and responding appropriately to those feelings (at least in my opinion). I did not, however, think that there was anything wrong with this blog. It seemed like it tried to understand both sides of the issue, and not fall in judgment of one group or the other.

Such a lack of Scientific Thinking.

Under the Chinese horoscope of years, this sounds like a Dog married to a Rabbit! It will never work!

Dogs do get along with everyone, but only with a Dragon will they find full happiness.

As Maggiedoll points out, a harmonious relationship can overcome all problems, and as many mention, most mixes do not.

Based on thousands of years of study the year of birth has proven to be the best predictor of social mixes, in marrage, business, parent child relationships, and at 12 X 12 = 144 the pattern has been studied.

For one person there are about four cycles to deal with, four twelve year periods between parent, child, grandchild. Many relationships, but only one question, what year were you born? If you just pick at random, the odds are 11 to 1 against being happy.

True, each year has only one enemy, but the remaining ten will be from the perfect match, to lesser degrees, some better than others.

There are many AS on this forum who report my spouse is great, but when that is not the case, it becomes an AS/NT problem. Since the spouses that work can be either, or both the same, AS-NT, the issue must lie elsewhere.

If it was just the problem of AS, why is it the same in NT-NT relationships?

I did become enlightened on Wrong Planet, our quote, "Well that explains my life."

The Chinese years explains a lot more looking back, parent child relationships, my girlfriends, people I have done business with.

I recently hit it off with a Dog, not one of my most compatable, and she is 45 years younger. We really did see eye to eye, communication is great, we are good friends, and when I looked it up, we are a great Parent/Child relationship, but not good for much else. As Mentor/Student we really work.

I am stricter than her parents, for that is the way of the world, and she is in danger. Coming from me she sees that nagging parents are doing the same, for the same reason, and between us there is no family baggage, just the plain truth from another source.

AS has explained a lot for me, Chinese Horoscopes explained a lot more.

I don't so much agree with that. Sometimes you say it right, and they hear it wrong. And in many cases, will continue to hear it wrong if you try to re-phrase, because they'll already have decided what they think you meant, and don't want to change their minds.
On WP, a statement of rephrasing can work, but among other people, usually if you rephrase, they won't think that you're actually correcting what you said, but just beating the point into the ground.

What's said and what's heard are two seperate things, and breakdowns in communication can happen at either end, or both.

what's there to set straight? the writer went to a support group, wrote down her experience and some thoughts she had. i don't find it upsetting at all - you are what you are, if you're not a violent person then you're not a violent person no matter what other people say about you. in addition i find the issues she's raised to be interesting - i've treated people like crap simply because i didn't know any better, i hadn't intended to hurt anyone but i've caused pain all the same, does that make me a bad person?

I think that what's upsetting people is partly the comment about "unanimous" reports of abuse that made it sound like aspies in general are abusers, despite the fact that it's hardly a representative sample, we don't even know if all the "aspie" partners actually did have AS, or if the abuse reported happened the way it sounded like it happened, or if these people were saying that their aspie partner "kept them away" from friends and family when they simply suggested that they just go to gatherings themselves. Not to mention the fact that people who don't have relationship problems generally don't go to support groups about their relationship, which makes a support group for people involved with aspies (assuming that those people do have AS at all,) a massively biased sample.

I've just read the article and I think it is a balanced account of what the author heard from the women in the group she attended. She didn't prompt their comments, and if they were "fairly unanimous" in what they said then she is merely stating a fact.

The author is reporting what was said and trying to understand it. She isn't saying that all AS spouses are abusive, and she isn't saying that those who are are deliberately so. I think the points she makes and the questions she raises are valid and important.

I know that, and that she didn't say anything so much wrong, but given how misunderstood AS is, the general tone still ends up painting it in a way that makes it look as though the AS is responsible for the abuse that may or may not be happening.
The author said that she went to the group for people with partners who have as because her mother had been attending, but it doesn't sound as though her father actually has AS-- it says he has "signs of mild asperger's." There's no reason to think that such a "partner-diagnosis" was what was going on with other attendees as well. How do we know that they weren't mostly women who got frustrated with their partner, and stumbled onto AS while googling about inattentive, inappropriate, or aloof behavior. That doesn't mean that their partners actually had it.

Assuming that any of the people being referred to did have AS, the #1 thing she lists is the bit about isolating. No mention of how that isolating was done. If all the aspie partner did was not want to go to a social gathering, and it was the NT partner that interpreted that as not letting them go, I don't see how that can be blamed on the person who just didn't want to go to an event at which they'd be uncomfortable.

So no, the author didn't say anything technically incorrect... just massively skewed and biased, and giving an impression of aspies on a whole based on a sample of people that may not even have AS at all, based on complaints of people in a relationship support group.

She also said that the abuse disclosed in the group was almost all "more subtle forms of abuse and control." How many aspies do you know who are capable of subtle control and manipulation like that? I'm sure it's possible, but it's certainly not common. Which brings me back to the unreliability of a person googling the behaviors they don't like in their partner, and "diagnosing" them based on that. Chances are most of the guys that these women were involved with had cluster B personality disorders.

Again, I don't know that that article was that far off or unfair. I think it's very likely that there is a higher than average amount of strife and anger in AS relationships. Look at the classic symptoms of AS;

Average or above average intelligence

Inability to think in abstract ways

Difficulties in empathising with others

Problems with understanding another person's point of view

Hampered conversational ability

Problems with controlling feelings such as anger, depression and anxiety

Adherence to routines and schedules, and stress if expected routine is disrupted

Inability to manage appropriate social conduct

Specialised fields of interest or hobbies.



The symptoms are practically a recipe for discord in a relationship.

Come on, it's no stretch to say that many people w/As struggle in relationships. In fact, about half the people who posted in this thread have admitted past bad behaviors. The abuse comes, not so much that they want to purposefully be jerks, but that they are fearful and want to control their environment. It's a coping mechanisim. But whether they act like an ass because they're just trying to cope or whether they are just self centered aholes doesn't make much difference if you are on the receiving end.

The first step to fixing a problem is ........well, you know the rest.