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Aspie solidarity is a big fat myth

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StarTrekker
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29 Mar 2018, 11:48 am

fifasy wrote:
StarTrekker wrote:
The term "high functioning" is deceptive. It assumes that a person who is diagnosed as "high functioning" must be so in all areas of life. That is not true. I am extremely intelligent, even gifted (verbal IQ of 134), and I hold a full-time job. Despite that, I struggle massively. I'm barely hanging on to said job, and getting ready to quit and find something less stressful because the office politics and bullying have driven me very close to suicide, as recently as three weeks ago.

I've only stuck it out this long because I don't have the skills to find work that pays a living wage on my own. I'm having to wait for my job coaches (plural, because I need more than one) to help me organise services that will help me get a direct support worker for my next job. It would be this person's responsibility to remind me of things, help me stay organised and on top of my work, accompany me to work functions or trainings that are otherwise so overwhelming that I can't attend them, and be there as physical support for the massive, self-injurious meltdowns I have on the job once to twice a month, which 50% of the time involve my bolting. Last Friday's meltdown almost caused me to get hit by a car as I ran into traffic, oblivious to my surroundings. It was only my friend who saved my life.

So. Yes, I'm female, yes, I have a college degree and a full-time professional career, yes, I'm intellectually gifted, and yes, I can drive. But I also can't adequately feed myself, forget to take regular showers, don't know how to clean a house, would forget to pay my bills if I weren't living with my sister, and require full-time support in order to maintain employment. How would you describe a person like that? High functioning or low functioning?


I don't know. I hope things work out well for you.

I didn't expect a reply like that. I suppose I am ignorant but still I have my reasons for what I said. I know I have been treated like a third class citizen here. But I wish you the best, I can see you are honest and things aren't easy for you.


Thank you, that's nice of you to say. I hope things get better for you too.


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29 Mar 2018, 5:34 pm

Daniel89 wrote:
Most of us are struggling with day to day life.


That's why I wasn't asking other members to commit much. It wasn't exactly easy for me, either. I was between jobs, had health problems and would have needed to gamble personal savings just to get things started.

A lot of the footwork involved in running social service programs could be done by anyone who has the time to browse the web or post to WP. Often it's simple things like finding out where there are good housing options, who's hiring nearby, what the transportation options are, what general social services are available, and aggregating the informative experiences of the people you're helping (like who the friendly doctors are). A lot of it is stuff that a semi-functional Aspie needs to know for their own sake, so it might be a matter of writing down something that you're already doing and sharing it.

Is there really nobody in the Aspie 'community' who can manage that?



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29 Mar 2018, 5:58 pm

^ Most of that can be handled by Google.

So, I don't feel an overwhelming compulsion to do it for others.


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29 Mar 2018, 8:55 pm

Yeah, Aspie Solidarity is so mythical I never heard of it. We are on a continuum, though, and can sometimes help our neighbours, just as other mammals do.



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30 Mar 2018, 11:35 am

NobodyKnows wrote:
Daniel89 wrote:
Most of us are struggling with day to day life.


That's why I wasn't asking other members to commit much. It wasn't exactly easy for me, either. I was between jobs, had health problems and would have needed to gamble personal savings just to get things started.

A lot of the footwork involved in running social service programs could be done by anyone who has the time to browse the web or post to WP. Often it's simple things like finding out where there are good housing options, who's hiring nearby, what the transportation options are, what general social services are available, and aggregating the informative experiences of the people you're helping (like who the friendly doctors are). A lot of it is stuff that a semi-functional Aspie needs to know for their own sake, so it might be a matter of writing down something that you're already doing and sharing it.

Is there really nobody in the Aspie 'community' who can manage that?
I see this happening on WP all the time. One person posts their situation and then others add bits of advice, including services they may be able to access. Your idea might sound good but it also sounds vague. transportation where for example. It's no good just making the help general, that help is already there. The help needs to be specific and take account of individual issues otherwise it's no help at all, and to do that the person needs to explain the problems they are having as I have come across people here doing. The most common help is emotional support.


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31 Mar 2018, 8:28 am

We're a tiny percentage of the population, geographically spread out, usually not externally identifiable, and we don't share a common culture. That means it's hard to have the kind of community solidarity that, say, Jews or gays or Muslims or Armenian-Americans might have. What solidarity there is is this sort, on the internet. For myself, I'm glad I found it--makes some of my day-to-day struggles feel a bit less unique.


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31 Mar 2018, 4:00 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
^ Most of that can be handled by Google.

So, I don't feel an overwhelming compulsion to do it for others.


That wouldn't have worked in the most recent case to come up here.

Nor would it have worked for the friend of mine who died a year and a half ago while sitting drugged in a group home.

Nor (from personal experience) is it easy to answer a question such as 'Where in North America should I move to if I need to leave my current situation?" There are perhaps 50 large metro areas that I would consider if I were making such a move, and at least several hundred smaller cities as well.

The things that make my hometown unfriendly to Aspies would be a rude surprise for someone who moved there after reading about the place online.



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31 Mar 2018, 5:07 pm

NobodyKnows wrote:
XFilesGeek wrote:
^ Most of that can be handled by Google.

So, I don't feel an overwhelming compulsion to do it for others.


That wouldn't have worked in the most recent case to come up here.

Nor would it have worked for the friend of mine who died a year and a half ago while sitting drugged in a group home.

Nor (from personal experience) is it easy to answer a question such as 'Where in North America should I move to if I need to leave my current situation?" There are perhaps 50 large metro areas that I would consider if I were making such a move, and at least several hundred smaller cities as well.

The things that make my hometown unfriendly to Aspies would be a rude surprise for someone who moved there after reading about the place online.


The posters here aren't social workers.

Additionally, most are dealing with their own disabilities and hardships.

It's the blind leading the blind. Also, the only thing Aspies have in common is a brain disorder. Expecting them to have loads of things in common is setting yourself up for failure.


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01 Apr 2018, 8:03 am

NobodyKnows wrote:
XFilesGeek wrote:
^ Most of that can be handled by Google.

So, I don't feel an overwhelming compulsion to do it for others.


That wouldn't have worked in the most recent case to come up here.

Nor would it have worked for the friend of mine who died a year and a half ago while sitting drugged in a group home.

Nor (from personal experience) is it easy to answer a question such as 'Where in North America should I move to if I need to leave my current situation?" There are perhaps 50 large metro areas that I would consider if I were making such a move, and at least several hundred smaller cities as well.

The things that make my hometown unfriendly to Aspies would be a rude surprise for someone who moved there after reading about the place online.
I am sorry about your friend who died.

Perhaps some kind of map with sources and up to date information about each area on it as well as details on organisations. Correlating the information and keeping it up to date would be a big undertaking.


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02 Apr 2018, 1:37 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
The posters here aren't social workers.


Neither am I. I did some political work roughly a decade ago, but that was unplanned. (I offered to do some database work for a candidate I knew - who himself was pretty nerdy/wonkish - and got roped into working on the campaign.) I took a non-profit job a couple of years later because it came with health insurance, was limited in duration and located in a city I wanted to move to.

Both of those were really hard jobs socially. Mostly I've done technical work.

Quote:
Additionally, most are dealing with their own disabilities and hardships.


I think we all deal with that. I'll confess that I wasn't able to help my friend as much as I wanted to.

I try to think about results - is the outcome I'm facing acceptable, and is there a way to change it if it's not? Watching my friends die isn't very acceptable to me.

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It's the blind leading the blind. Also, the only thing Aspies have in common is a brain disorder.


It sure feels that way sometimes. During my friend's last years, my Aspie mother's family was being hard on her and she was taking that out on me. I pointed out to her that even if she didn't care how that made me feel, it was hurting her daughter (who I had moved back to be supportive of) and also my friend (who really needed me). She insisted that she couldn't change, and maybe that's true. But what am I supposed to do at that point other than walk away?

If she'd devoted half the energy she expended trying to placate her implacable relatives and instead invested it in self betterment, my friend might be alive, my sister wouldn't be broken and I might have a relationship with her.



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02 Apr 2018, 2:04 pm

fluffysaurus wrote:
I see this happening on WP all the time. One person posts their situation and then others add bits of advice, including services they may be able to access. Your idea might sound good but it also sounds vague. transportation where for example. It's no good just making the help general, that help is already there. The help needs to be specific and take account of individual issues otherwise it's no help at all, and to do that the person needs to explain the problems they are having as I have come across people here doing. The most common help is emotional support.


Sorry that I missed your post earlier. You're right that there are a lot of threads with advice. I was thinking of the really bad cases (like the ones mentioned earlier), and maybe those are just too intimidating for a lot of people to take up if they already have issues of their own.

On the other hand, isn't that what the OP was taking issue with?

I can personally vouch that some of the people who've been hesitant to help out are in pretty good positions and weren't asked for much. (I once tried to get an Aspie medical student to talk about some pro-eugenics, pro-child-murder comments his classmates had made repeatedly against Aspies, but he seemed worried about retaliation. I offered to talk off-the-record and to look for people who might be able/inclined to provide backing if he needed it, but that wasn't enough.)



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02 Apr 2018, 6:05 pm

I would call people out if they spoke about eugenics. I'm very much against it. For a variety of reasons---both emotional and rational

Attempts to "purify" a race, in reality, can lead to the extinction of that race. And mutations like those which occurred within the Habsburg family during late medieval--Enlightenment days.



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02 Apr 2018, 7:56 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
I would call people out if they spoke about eugenics. I'm very much against it. For a variety of reasons---both emotional and rational

Attempts to "purify" a race, in reality, can lead to the extinction of that race. And mutations like those which occurred within the Habsburg family during late medieval--Enlightenment days.


Laws against inbreeding are a form of eugenics. Eugenics does not have anything to do with race the Nazis just tried to justify their belief in Aryan supremacy with false science.



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05 Apr 2018, 9:52 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
I would call people out if they spoke about eugenics. I'm very much against it. For a variety of reasons---both emotional and rational

You'll have your work cut out for you. I can't speak for the rest of the US, but the University of Minnesota had an "institute for human genetics" named after Charles Fremont Dight that wasn't closed down until the late '70s or early '80s. It was still publishing pro-eugenics "parenting" books at the time of its closure, and you can still sense its influence in the attitudes of most of our MDs.

Here's one of his letters to Hitler: http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/P ... -00001.pdf

(...and a character-for-character transcription, typos and archaic spelling preserved:

"Honorable Chancellor;
I inclose a clipping from the Minneapolis Journal of Minnesota,
United States of America,relating to,and praising your plan to stamp
out mental inferiority among the German people.
I trust you will accept mysincere wish that your effort along
that line will be a great success and will advance the eugenics move-
ment in other nations as well as in Germany.
Sincerely, C. F. Dight,M.D.
President Minnesota Eugenics Society")

Here's some statistics on the sterilization pogrom (some call it a "program") here:

https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/MN/MNold.html

2,350 victims (519 male and 1,831 female)
Active from 1928 to late 1950s

Quote:
Attempts to "purify" a race, in reality, can lead to the extinction of that race. And mutations like those which occurred within the Habsburg family during late medieval--Enlightenment days.

No kidding. The question that eugenicists have never been able to answer is 'Why not leave it to nature?' If its victims really are unfit, they'll struggle to leave descendants . So the 'problem,' if it existed, would take care of itself.



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05 Apr 2018, 10:12 am

NobodyKnows wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
I would call people out if they spoke about eugenics. I'm very much against it. For a variety of reasons---both emotional and rational

You'll have your work cut out for you. I can't speak for the rest of the US, but the University of Minnesota had an "institute for human genetics" named after Charles Fremont Dight that wasn't closed down until the late '70s or early '80s. It was still publishing pro-eugenics "parenting" books at the time of its closure, and you can still sense its influence in the attitudes of most of our MDs.

Here's one of his letters to Hitler: http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/P ... -00001.pdf

(...and a character-for-character transcription, typos and archaic spelling preserved:

"Honorable Chancellor;
I inclose a clipping from the Minneapolis Journal of Minnesota,
United States of America,relating to,and praising your plan to stamp
out mental inferiority among the German people.
I trust you will accept mysincere wish that your effort along
that line will be a great success and will advance the eugenics move-
ment in other nations as well as in Germany.
Sincerely, C. F. Dight,M.D.
President Minnesota Eugenics Society")

Here's some statistics on the sterilization pogrom (some call it a "program") here:

https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/MN/MNold.html

2,350 victims (519 male and 1,831 female)
Active from 1928 to late 1950s

Quote:
Attempts to "purify" a race, in reality, can lead to the extinction of that race. And mutations like those which occurred within the Habsburg family during late medieval--Enlightenment days.

No kidding. The question that eugenicists have never been able to answer is 'Why not leave it to nature?' If its victims really are unfit, they'll struggle to leave descendants . So the 'problem,' if it existed, would take care of itself.


The welfare state means they won't struggle to have offspring, the welfare state is dysgenics in action.



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05 Apr 2018, 12:31 pm

Daniel89 wrote:
The welfare state means they won't struggle to have offspring, the welfare state is dysgenics in action.


Archaeologists are always ecstatic when they find healed hominid bones, because it means that people were taking care of each other in times of trouble, ie: becoming human.
The modern welfare state is a recognition that machines are doing most of the work, making everyone so rich that charity is less of a burden than it was. There are simply not enough jobs to go around, and the owners have managed to create fierce competition even for marginal employment.
Times of great turmoil are not suited to selecting a population for happy times; ruthlessness and greed lead to times like the "Hundred Year War" rather than a millennium of peace.