"EVERYONE has it rough' buddy!! !"...idiots!! !

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I HATE PEOPLE who, if I'm trying to explain my troubles to them...I'll say because of my AS I had trouble in school. Then they'll say "well everyone had it rough in school" as if to dismiss my comment. It's as if they are trying to say "hey stop feeling sorry for yourself, I had it just as hard as you did" which to me, is insulting. NO YOU DID NOT HAVE IT AS BAD AS I DID, YOU IDIOT. Thats what I feel like saying to them.

I mean here I am sharing my mental disability with them, and they just dismiss it. Its like they offer no support, or sympathy. These are well educated people, too, who do this. I just dont f*cking get it.

Its like if a guy in a wheelchair said he had it rough in school because he couldnt walk. Would you tell that guy "Oh hey man, we ALL had it rough in school man!! !"...I mean...really???

LOL'ed from your last sentence...

And, yes, people saying ignorant stuff like this usually leads to an instant meltdown..

And then you get the whole lecture about what a selfish, egoistic bastard you are for getting angry about it...

I second your "I mean...really???"

That's really exasperating. Annoys me too.

Yeah, it sucks. Maybe they had bad acne, got nervous about their first date, couldn't decide whose party to attend, didn't know who to take to prom, had a hard time with schoolwork, or had some kind of conflict with teachers... I get it. Back then i know i would have loved to have THOSE kind of problems, though. Having normal teenage problems is what i daydreamed about back then. I bet they looked forward to going to school, at least to some extent, to see their friends. I bet they hung out and partied with friends, flirted with other teens, went out on dates. This is mostly true for even the extreme "nerds," just maybe they were hanging out playing video games instead of shopping. And even with the academic parts of school... They might not have even gotten good grades, but i bet most of them could keep up with what the teacher was saying without zoning out and having to either reteach parts of the lesson to themselves or just give up altogether, and then not knowing how to ask for help. And i bet, whether or not they cared to put much effort into the assignment, that most of the time they knew almost exactly what a teacher wanted from them. So, yes, when people say things like that it makes me want to scream at them.

They are basically correct. Everyone suffers; the degree and the manner vary. It's basically unsympathetic of them, but sympathy requires understanding. It's hard to understand our particular plight. But tell them you lost your girlfriend or house or job over it, they might get that.

I don't really like telling people I have Autism, because if one says this, one has to somehow prove it. For instance, I was sitting in the library reading, and a man came up to me and started to engage me in talk, asking about the book I was reading and so forth. After a bit he asked me 'what I did'. I said I didn't work because I had Autism. He seemed very interested by this and immediately started quizzing me with a view to (as far as I could tell) creating a trap that would make my claim look spurious.

He: 'What does it mean then - I mean, how does it affect you?'
I: 'It means I'm not very good at social interaction.'
He: 'But you're talking to me now.'
I: It also means that I am hyper-sensitive to sensory stimuli, like noise and light.'
He: 'But there are some children shouting down there' *points to children's play area* 'and you seem fine.'

I can't remember the rest, but it continued for a while in the same sort of vein. It annoys me that people feel the need to challenge me, as if to suggest I'm just pretending. I know it's not as if my explanation of Autism was very good or comprehensive, but still.

It really gets to me, too, but I think we can turn it around if enough of us dig our heels in about it. Consider each and every one of the difficulties that you might have and whether the average NT will say "we're all like that". Chances are that they will. It is also highly probable that each instance of this will be a difference of degree, in which the difficulty experienced by the autistic spectrum person will be an exaggerated version of a more moderate form of that same difficulty in the NT person. If we have many areas of difficulty, the exaggerated nature of those difficulties becomes cumulative. It's no good telling us to focus upon overcoming our difficulties because the mental effort to improve in one parameter means that other difficulties become even worse as the brain power is diverted.

I think that what is needed (and it will take a lot of us uniting in the same stance) is for us to argue that it is in the NT's interests to support blanket changes pitched at our level because the alleviation of our major difficulties will also alleviate their minor difficulties.

I get to explaining my troubles, and than the person tells me, that everybody has it rough. Define rough. Is it that two men, or women find you attractive, and you can't decide which one, to go out with? Well, I've just made two social blunders, at the bloody baseball game, last night. Now who has it, more rough?

That's why I don't like talking to people. If share your troubles or tell someone anything personal you're liable to get some trite dismissive platitudinous crap from them. It's like there's an underpinning of "How dare you claim that you have it worse than anyone else, you whiner!". NT socialization is about saving face, pretending you have it all together at all times. If something's really upsetting you you have to be able to just laugh and make a joke about it even when inside you feel like screaming and breaking things. Getting emotional or sharing personal stuff is taboo. Makes you wonder what's the point!

Finding some honest intelligent sensitive people to share problems with is the only way to avoid this. Sadly, they're in the minority. Mostly it's people who've had a hard life themselves.