Do people think your ret*d before they get to know you?

Post Reply New Topic

I like my signature too - it seems appropriate.

When I lived in Vegreville, during my elementary and high school years, there were a few older people who talked to me like I was a small child in that stupid cutsie voice.I hated it.A few school teachers from elementary still talk to me like Im still in grade 3.Since I moved to Red Deer, I feel I have been treated like an adult here.My college instructors don't know about my AS, so nobody in Red Deer has tallked to me in that annoying cutise voice.I find it insulting when peope talk to me like a little kid.I like my college instructors more than I do my old high school and elementary teachers because they treat me like a normal human adult.

During elementary school and junior high, alot of the bullies would call me ret*d and some would do the arm motion of hitting their chest while saying "Duuuuuhhhhhhh"!

I've been called "slow" in work places because I didn't quickly grasp instructions from others, and I think that was because they assumed I knew certain things without being told of them. I learn things and process information differently.

I got a your stupid vibe from a co-worker the other day when I forgot to put a particular key back in a cabinet.

Probably, when I was young. But I'm old enough now that people just say I'm 'eccentric'. I can live with that.

This is usually what I experience. It isn't obvious but it's the way I'm treated comparatively to other people. It use to happen a lot with some of the friends I made. I'd ask if they wanted to go do something and they'd say they're busy. Then I'd come to find out that they were all going together to do something. I think that's one of the things that really hurt.

I can't really realistically assume what people think of me. The only person I know called me stupid is my sister, but I've been told that is called sibling rivalry and it happens with nearly all siblings. I thought it was because our minds were wired in a completely opposite way. Because she is a girl and she is neurologically typical and I am a boy and I am autistic. But I digress. I don't think anyone has formed an opinion of me before 'getting to know me'. But as I said before, I can't decide that with certainty. Although I do think it is sad for you to experence this, I have not experienced it.

Well, I am ret*d in a lot of ways, so it'd be an accurate judgment of the facets in which I am, but not in the ways I'm not.

No one has really gotten to know me in person other than family. Some friends I had were just a means to an end of an interest, as cold as that sounds.

People often think my daughter is, but she just has Asperger's. She's actually a curious combination of ditzy and smart, but with a bit of social paranoia due to being without a clue of what people mean or expect. I thought it was funny when she started wearing a t-shirt that says "Don't judge me based on your ignorance". Priceless!

Normally if people don't know me yet, I won't interact that much and so they will think I'm shy, or I'll try and they will think I am weird. It is only the people who know me, who I am comfortable enough around to seek explanations for the normal everyday things that baffle me, who call me ret*d or stupid. Usually in some form of the sort "You are the dumbest smart person I know.".
My brother however is rather mean-spirited and will call me "ret*d" outright. Which irritates me since ret*d is an actual medical diagnosis which I clearly do not meat the specifications for and therefore he is not only wrong but in using the term in his colloquial sense he trivializes people who are actually mentally ret*d.

Some of my friends in high school used to say I was either "[that] or the smartest ret*d of all time, can't determine which it is".

That, or that I was an "idiot savant".

Yes I frequently get called names such as ret*d, and weirdo and freak, but of the people that have called me those names then stuck around came to realize on getting to know me that Im not any of those things

The other way round for me.

People generally know I am quite smart when they meet me.

I was once told by someone I had only recently met that I look like a construction worker and talk like a college professor!

After a while they figure out that I am really very 'different' and mostly fade away (to do lunch, dinner, parties or other similar vital NT activities), unless I lose interest first, which I usually do.

I just declined an invitation to a 'party' that is taking place this weekend;

Based on the person who invited me, I imagine the 'party' would have been marginally more enjoyable than microwaving my head!

Last edited by Blindspot149 on 29 Jan 2010, 9:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, I sometimes get mistaken for intellectually challenged.

I think it's funny that so many people here want to be accepted for one kind of disability(AS/Autism) but want to distance themselves from another(Mental Retardation).

I know it's annoying to be confused as such, as well as being told you must be insane, or brain damaged for having autism.
I can relate, the entire school thinks I am axe-crazy and is bound to bring a gun and shoot them all at any second. But I doubt anyone likes being treated this way. Just imagine how the slow people must feel:"Don't treat me this way. I am not a child." "Are you ret*d?" "In fact, I am." "Well, then..."

Except where it got me into trouble in the workplace, I found it entertaining.