Moral Accountability

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I have a moral accountability to be sensitive to other people, to not insult them, and to not ignore them and hurt their feelings. I used to use my AS as an excuse and hope they would just "understand," putting it all on them. My new way is to work VERY hard to focus and to improve a little every day.

I will never be cured of my AS, but I feel I have a moral (beyond ethical) obligation to do my best to treat my fellow human beings with kindness and respect, gratitude and love. I'm finding that the results are slow but can be dramatic. I have patient people in my life who are working with me, but I'm not using AS as an excuse anymore.

I'd like to hear from others who are working hard on this and who refuse to use AS as an excuse for being their best moral selves.

No excuses! Here's to self-accountability!

Sounds like my philosophy, whitetiger.

I am happy for you to finally mature and grow up. You are now taking responsibility and trying to learn now. I had no idea you used it as an excuse.

I used to use mine as an excuse in my teens. I thought just because I had it, I didn't have to be courteous or control myself. I expected special treatment. I thought just because I had it, everything had to be my way because that's what I read online about autistic kids. They always got their way. But I remember my therapist saying that was wrong because it doesn't teach them anything. It just teaches them, have a meltdown to get their way and they don't even try. They learn to manipulate.

But then I grew up. I still want to be understood. My husband helps me out by telling me what not to say to people and I do try and understand his feelings and other peoples. I have learned to be flexible and I learned to deal with change. I don't talk about my obsessions all the time like I used to and bore people out. I also learned personal space. And I finally have a interview tomorrow for a job. I am so happy. I want to work.
I do not expect special treatment and I don't want people to have me get away with my rude behavior I am not aware of because "oh that's her AS" and "Oh she is so innocent." My husband lets me know when I am being inappropriate. I do take him to places he needs to go to even if it's on short notice.

It's one thing to talk about treating people with respect, behaving with integrity etc. and quite another to actually do it. All my life, people have told me that I lack self-respect and that if you can't respect yourself you won't have any respect for other people. I try my best but, most of the time, my negative behaviour comes through before I even realise it.

I like your moral standards.

I heard Temple Grandin say that autism was not an excuse for bad/rude behaviour and she is totally right.
We might not get it right all the time, but we can at least try.

I've never used AS as an excuse for not living up to my 'moral obligations'. Treating other people with respect, even if I don't like them, is something that I try to do because I know that not doing so wont result in anything good. Treat people badly and you get treated badly in return, regardless if you are on the spectrum or not. Social blunders will happen on occassion - being accidently rude, but if it happens don't use AS as an excuse. Apologize if they tell you that they are offended, even if you don't understand why they're offended (most of the time I don't but an apology usually stops further arguments). However the problem occurs when they don't tell you that they are offended. People seem to expect you to know what's rude and what isn't, so sometimes you will screw it up no matter what you try to do...but that's ok, as long as you didn't do it on purpose. You can't hold yourself responsible for something that you can't control but you should do what you can to control it to the best of your ability.