Why do NTs judge us to be "Failures" as if it's ou

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Shebakoby
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05 Apr 2010, 11:29 pm

NTs often judge ASpies as "Failures" because of a variety of things, but a lot of the time it's over social based things. Such as friends/significant others, or lack thereof. Or maybe they'll judge a person's joblessness as "Oh they just wanna sit around playing video games all day long/watching TV/Movies". Not to mention the accusation of laziness.



Philologos
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06 Apr 2010, 12:23 am

They apply the same standards to themselves. Just got a note from a relative, APOLOGIZING for his mood at a recent party - "I am becoming more introverted, I WILL HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT"!

Ant of course I judge them as failures, witness how horrified I was to realize my professor DID NOT KNOW YIDDISH IS A FORM OF GERMAN.



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06 Apr 2010, 12:44 am

That Aspies often do not conform to conventional metrics of success is not the fault of the Aspies, but it's not the fault of the non-Aspies either. We comprise a minute proportion of the population and society mostly remains unaware of us and our relative strengths and weaknesses, not out of any sort of malice but simply because that information simply is not important to the majority of people. We can view this as a burden, or we can embrace our unconventional nature and seek affirmation elsewhere, but blaming others doesn't help anyone.


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ViperaAspis
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06 Apr 2010, 3:21 am

Quote:
NTs often judge ASpies as "Failures" because of a variety of things


No they don't.

Quit generalizing about NTs. They don't think those with AS are failures :roll:


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CockneyRebel
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06 Apr 2010, 4:01 am

My NT family members don't see me as a failure.


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DentArthurDent
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06 Apr 2010, 4:02 am

Just who are these evil 'NTs' anyway, btw are you able to spot someone's neurotypical trait, are you completely non judgemental about people. That by the way is a rhetorical question because you are very judgemental, in fact using your ridiculous pop culture psychology you are pre judging the entire population that have a neuro-typical diagnosis.


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Tweex
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06 Apr 2010, 4:50 am

I see that some Aspies think most NT's think badly of you. That's not true.
Of course there are some nitwits who know nothing about psychology of some sort.. but most NT's I know maybe raise an eyebrow every now and then, but they absolutely NOT think that Aspies are failures.

Me, being an NT myself, do notice 'strange' behaviors when I'm around an Aspie friend of mine. But who cares.
As I have stated before somewhere, I'm not completely NT either. I've got some lite version of Tourette and people find me a bit weird sometimes, but they still like me.

That said, I believe everybody can be a failure sometimes. Aspies and NT's ;)



Ragnia
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06 Apr 2010, 5:23 am

Has anyone NT said anything like that to you?



Callista
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06 Apr 2010, 5:38 am

They assume we have NT skills.

It's the old disability-stereotype problem again: Either you're totally disabled and your best bet is to be "inspirational" by doing things that everybody else does every day; or else you're not disabled and you need to get off your butt and stop being lazy. Our popular culture (and that includes us, to whatever degree we pick it up) ignores the existence of gradations of disability, ignores the fact that it is possible to have an invisible disability. Even people with purely physical things like chronic fatigue or migraines get people who say they should try harder and stop being lazy, when that's probably one of the worst things they could do. (Not that there's anything wrong with trying; it's just that you've got to do it intelligently, or you're going to burn out.)

Their framework doesn't include the concept of a person who has a disability that's neither obvious nor severe (in most cases--but even when Asperger's is severe they may assume it's not because we can talk!). So their only other option, if they don't think of discarding the framework altogether, is to judge us exactly like NTs and assume that if an NT would not find something difficult, we must not; if an NT were being lazy in a situation, we must be.

It's not just NTs that have this prejudice. So do lots of autistics. We tell ourselves we need to try harder; we're just being lazy; if only we tried harder we'd be able to do everything the NTs can do. We blame all the mistreatment on ourselves, as though we could stop it if we just became more normal. That leads easily to burnout. It's probably why we're so vulnerable to depression. Even those of us who have come to the realization that autism is not something to be ashamed of tend to still keep the idea that we've got to be constantly pushing ourselves...


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Tweex
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06 Apr 2010, 5:47 am

Ragnia wrote:
Has anyone NT said anything like that to you?


Yes, they have. Usually they say something like: 'Kinda odd guy, but it's a nice fellow'. And that's ok in my opinion. Of course you may find others a bit weird, as long as you accept them.

And I say the same things about fellow-NT's. NT's are weird too. Because not only Aspies do strange things in social situations. NT's can f**k things up too; only they might usually hide it better.

I think most of the people I know are odd, even myself. And that's cool with me.



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06 Apr 2010, 6:22 am

edit



Last edited by Booyakasha on 07 Apr 2010, 3:43 am, edited 6 times in total.

Asp-Z
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06 Apr 2010, 7:10 am

In this context, NTs judge how successful someone is by comparing their ability to conform with social norms to their own, because this is what society has drummed into their heads. However, if an Aspie made him/herself a multimillionaire, they're suddenly seen as successful.

NTs are funny.



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06 Apr 2010, 7:11 am

No one's ever called me a failure that I know of and some of the kindest people in my life have been NT.

Speaking of kind NT's, isn't Tony Attwood one? I think I just read in his book where he referred to himself as one - and look at him, he clearly thinks people with AS are fascinating. He's done so much to increase awareness.

And we don't think of Einstein as a failure...

If someone's calling you a failure you should ignore them because they've clearly got nothing nice to say and are probably projecting.



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06 Apr 2010, 8:23 am

I hold my own standards of success and failure by which I judge myself a failure. See! It's not just NTs who are at it.

I sympathise with the OP. Even if no one explicitly calls you a failure, implicitly you know that's how everyone feels.


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DenvrDave
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06 Apr 2010, 8:32 am

Callista wrote:
Our popular culture (and that includes us, to whatever degree we pick it up) ignores the existence of gradations of disability, ignores the fact that it is possible to have an invisible disability.


I don't think most NTs ignore the existence of invisible disabilities with many variations and gradations, I think the root cause of the problem is that most NTs have not been taught this. It goes to Dox47's comment:

Dox47 wrote:
...society mostly remains unaware of us and our relative strengths and weaknesses, not out of any sort of malice but simply because that information simply is not important to the majority of people.


If a majority of people decided to educate themselves about the autism spectrum, or include a section on autism spectrum disorders in high school "health" class, things would improve.

Shebakoby, I think its human nature for people to judge other people and I sympathize with you if you have been harshly or unfairly criticized. My experience has been consistent with happymusic's comment:

happymusic wrote:
If someone's calling you a failure you should ignore them because they've clearly got nothing nice to say and are probably projecting.


People who call other people names are usually the guilty ones, and in proportion to the volume of their voice :D



Last edited by DenvrDave on 06 Apr 2010, 8:35 am, edited 2 times in total.

CerebralDreamer
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06 Apr 2010, 8:33 am

Callista wrote:
They assume we have NT skills.

It's the old disability-stereotype problem again: Either you're totally disabled and your best bet is to be "inspirational" by doing things that everybody else does every day; or else you're not disabled and you need to get off your butt and stop being lazy. Our popular culture (and that includes us, to whatever degree we pick it up) ignores the existence of gradations of disability, ignores the fact that it is possible to have an invisible disability. Even people with purely physical things like chronic fatigue or migraines get people who say they should try harder and stop being lazy, when that's probably one of the worst things they could do. (Not that there's anything wrong with trying; it's just that you've got to do it intelligently, or you're going to burn out.)

Their framework doesn't include the concept of a person who has a disability that's neither obvious nor severe (in most cases--but even when Asperger's is severe they may assume it's not because we can talk!). So their only other option, if they don't think of discarding the framework altogether, is to judge us exactly like NTs and assume that if an NT would not find something difficult, we must not; if an NT were being lazy in a situation, we must be.

It's not just NTs that have this prejudice. So do lots of autistics. We tell ourselves we need to try harder; we're just being lazy; if only we tried harder we'd be able to do everything the NTs can do. We blame all the mistreatment on ourselves, as though we could stop it if we just became more normal. That leads easily to burnout. It's probably why we're so vulnerable to depression. Even those of us who have come to the realization that autism is not something to be ashamed of tend to still keep the idea that we've got to be constantly pushing ourselves...

This covers what I wanted to say better than I could say it.

If you're not flapping your arms, running around in circles, and generally acting like an idiot when you tell someone you have Autism, they tend to respond with disbelief. It's the same with just about anything else. If they don't see it, it's not there.


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