proud aspies really anger me

Post Reply New Topic

She didnt put the case very well i think but i agree with her that having a disorder isnt a thing id be proud of overall nor do i think it is something you should wallow in pity over but to all the people with flaming torches jumping on the bandwagon and suggesting that she is a troll, drunk, wallowing in self-pity, somebody that no-one cares about who should just go dissapear unless she changes all for having a fundamentally different opinion, well they are bullies imo who cant handle differences and want to enforce us to agreee with them by scaring anyone out of saying something that might not be a uniform or mainstream opinion.

I thought one of the few blessings of having AS is the ability to accept differences since most of us purport to have suffered for having them.

Toonaspie's case and the way she put it was obviously going to provoke criticism but some of the responses have been nothing short of character assasination. Now that the baying mob have had their pound of meat in the form of RobertN's figuarative lynching and subsequent suspension they obviously got the taste for it so feel the need to hunt down fresh blood.

Last edited by eamonn on 07 Jan 2006, 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not to argue a point until it's dead (hmmm, I guess I am) but toonaspie, despite that she is as welcome to her opinions as each of us are, and despite that her post tone was probably a reflection of the way she is feeling right now, it still opened as an attack. An accusation. One which clearly hasn't gotten too many receptive responses.

It's done now. Unless she decides to edit it, which I hope she doesn't, it's already out there. But accusing someone of lying to themselves, accusing them of being secretly miserable, is likely not to get agreeable responses except from those who are in a similar place as toonaspie.

Every person's experience is different. I'm sorry toonaspie's has been bad enough to result in her opinions. But I don't share her experiences. Nor her opinion.

There are plenty of things about myself which could use improvement. I work on those, once I've recognized them, one at a time. Or at least I try. But I am very content with who and what I am, Aspergers aside. It's only a label. Every single person on here is a individual and too unique to be thrown under such an umbrella, even one such as Aspergers. I would not be myself if I didn't have the qualities I hold in common defined under the term Aspergers. But they are still unique to me and me alone.

And the same goes for every other person on this site. We're all different human beings. Some more alike in characteristics than others. And for the most part we enjoy being on this forum and finding things in common.

But I will never be ashamed about myself until I say so. And I hope the same goes for everyone else in the world.

Maybe that's part of reason for the schism in opinions, a difference in perception about whether AS is a disorder? As opposed to just a different but equally valid way of being wired?

That's the greatest response ever!! !

I'm not proud, but that's because I think pride for anything is a waste of time. But I would never want a cure, we should cure all the deadly stuff first. You know what I'm talking about: cancer, diabetes, athlete's foot, ignorance, politicians, spelling errors, ingrown hairs, and of course...whiny people.

I never asked you to be ashamed, Sophist. Maybe that's how aspietoon's post looks like to most of us but i cant answer whether that was the intention or not but it didnt come across that way to me. Just an anoyance at the people who make ouut their AS is in fact a superpower and as someone whose quality of life is affacted for the worse in a lot of ways by my AS i can understand her annoyance.

I am being accused of kicking people when they are down, so i ask people this. You have notices a lack of self-esteem and possible self-hatred in aspietoons posts and you claim to be happy overall and proud, why do you feel the need to s**t on the person that's down and already hates herslelf if you are so happy and comfortable in your shoes?

IMO some people are secretly ashamed and respond to it by shouting how it somehow makes them better. I am not ashamed or proud, i just am.

I suppose you could argue that case but then you could argue that about full-blown-autistics and people with down's syndrome. The point is for you to qualify for a diagnosis of AS then you need to be impaired in your communication and other ways to an extent. There is no getting away from it.

Im not arguing that people with AS arent as valid as people without but imo a lot of people here are either in denial, dont have AS or are lacking the function to tell they have a disability. Im going to feel guilty though if i find out that most "proud AS" people here have the latter option and iv been ruining they're illusions.

Once again, dead wrong.
Repeatedly i asked for justification of her (sorry about the he's previous).

It could be argued that she was a bully, who was stood up to. After all, the accusation of selfishness, of lying to oneself, and telling me that i don't know it yet, but i am miserable.
Those are mentally abusive comments, which she is entitled to. She must be willing to accept that people will have a different opinion, and state it.

How much can we learn from all this if people would react in the way that your argument suggests.
"you are entitled to accuse me, but i disagree"
By doing so you are lending validity to her position. You reply, "uh, i disagree with that" without backing up your statement. What would be the point of disagreeing at all. If you disagree with something you should state why, otherwise, your statement has no substance.

Have any opinion you like, i don't care. But prepare to offer it with rational thought, especially if you are offending others with your opinion.

And whats your game anyways?

From Eamonn

Do you even recognize what you suggest?

Every good point you ever made, on freedom of speech, freedom to have a differing opinion, and all of your good work on your RobertN thread, has just been rendered as not credible.
Which makes me sad. I had agreed 100% with your positions. And now i feel as if i was just agreeing with 'lip service'.
Your not a rebel, like you act.
your a troublemaker, a tattle tale.
I had thought about removing the previous two statements of fact, but i decided against it.
I will lend credibility to those statements which (as dis discussion stands now) are accurate.

The credibility i give them is offering them up as true, and this will result in a warning for personal attack. Which would prove that you made trouble, and you told.
I stand by my words.

I dislike any kind of talk of Aspergers being any kind of superpower (though I might enjoy joking about it myself sometimes). But I don't have a hatred for NAs and am kind of actually getting tired of grouping everything as NA vs. AS because when it comes down to it: everybody's gotta deal with s**t in their life. Aspies might have different kinds of s**t, generally speaking, than many NAs. But life is never perfect for anyone (unfortunately).

But I like myself. I don't feel "broken". Imperfect at times, yes. Open for improvement, definitely. But broken, nope. And I prefer to remain thinking that way.

Beating onself up for being, in one's own opinion, "substandard" isn't healthy. It only makes life harder.

Obviously you can elaborate on how you disagree with toonaspie but imo you went over the score with her. When i agree with you im a rebel and when i disagree with you im a troublemaker. Good one .

BTW all that you accuse me of has been labelled at you but i still dont think you mean to be a deliberate troublemaker, i just think you just lack the theory of mind to know how to debate the issues alone or know when you are stepping over the line into insult territory.

You remain consistent, through and through.

Are poor people ashamed of being poor?*
Possibly.
Do they go around telling other poor people that they don't have a right to be happy, are selfish for being happy, and that they, too, should feel miserable?

What would be the point of such actions?

Should people that are poor do something about their situation?
Sure!
If they want to.

* i am not comparing AS to society, like a poor person with economic standing, this was the same argument, different situations, and is only meant as an example.

I agree with all you've said. Maybe i am not in step with most autistics here (maybe im not autistic atall but have a some of the same issues) but i find my self-deprecating honesty and sarcastic humour (something that AS people arent great with apparently) and piss-taking of myself and the world around me is what helps me feel positive and move on with my life not the opposite. Maybe we can all just agree to disagree. Both sides can be angry (or not) at each other and move on.

Thus spoken, as one would as to their own shortcomings.

I stand by the merits of my arguments.

That is all.

That post added nothing but it's ok. You can have the last word, boy, and keep posting even if you have nothing to say.

Don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't.

Bland-I thought that my post was the most thorough and intelligent and everyone else's added nothing to the subject. (lol) I'm not proud at all.

(opening edited: thread had changed massively while I was composing!)

Toonaspie, you've at least started a lively debate.

I'm far from in tune with your point of view,
but let's see if I can find at least some middle ground.

" aspies who are too proud of being such socially despised and ridiculed people "

Well, I'm not one of those, and I'm not sure I know any.
I'm not proud of my social isolation, and would wish it were other.

but
" "AS needs no cure" is because ... youve settled with ... no chance of living a normal life."
is a mis-statement for me, although it may be what you feel.

I can improve my social skills, and I have. But I generally avoid unnecessary social events because they are profoundly boring.
Why is "normal" something to aim for?
An ambitious athlete doesn't want average and normal, nor a entrepreneur, or an artist... Will you offer to cure the marathon runner who obsessively pounds the roads for hours every day? They're not normal, that's for sure.

"I am an Aspie. I am not proud of being treated like crap by the dominating NTs... I am not proud of being constantly ridiculed... I am not proud of the fact that I have to be a loner... "

Neither am I proud of such. What's to be proud of? I'm frequently disgusted by humanity, and occasionally I even include myself in that.

"And...gasp...I think there should be a cure."

Become like them? As the actor said, "What's my motivation?"
We've already established that to be like them is to have a propensity to treat people like crap, especially if they don't conform...
(Not sayiing AS people are saints.
We're still human too, and therefore nasty with it, on occasion)

"People who are struggling with having a different perspective and a means of social communication should not have to be treated like sh*t"

I absolutely agree with your observation, just not the prescribed treatment.
"Conform and be happy" was the rule in 1984 and the Brave New World.

Some of the best human beings have been the dissenters, AS or not. "Don't rock the boat", "fit in", "be happy"... Don't challenge the norm on...
female or black emancipation, colonial conquest, corrupt theologies... and on and on.

Being cured to fit in was a mark of the Soviet system too.


"I can not possibly believe that you all are so proud of not being normal."

Please expand on this, if nothing else, for me.
Why on earth do you think "normal" is such a good thing?
It's normal people who are doing the despising, it's normal people who are being unaccepting...

"...being unintentionally hated and mistreated by everyone is not something to be proud of."

AGREED.
But it's nothing to be ashamed of either.

(And I'm not sure it's always unintentional. Groups cohere by defining outsiders and
acting against them. It's there in monkey and meerkat studies, and humans aren't that much more advanced. Often the "followers" attack outsiders, lest the in-group turn on *them*.)

Would I like to fit in and make friends more easily, not stand out so much?
Pretty much, but if that is done by "curing me", then,
as Geordie La Forge observed on getting his sight restored by "Q":
"The price is too high."