my mom says I seem dumb

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She told me that I seem dumb because I don't talk to people.

I told her that she is right and that perhaps my not talking to people means that I am dumb, and I asked her what type of person she expected me to be given that I am her and my father's son.

Then she told me 'yeah, you are right...' in a very contrived and resigned manner.



What do you guys think?

I think that's extremely rude, and not nice. You probably don't seem dumb at all.

It's possible for people to perceive you as less intelligent than you are for many reasons. Physical clumsiness, stimming, talking too little, talking too clumsily, talking in a certain way...

Important distinction: Your mom said "People think you are dumb". Strictly, she didn't say that you ARE dumb; only that people perceive you that way. She may or may not be right. Of course, what people think hasn't got much to do with what you actually are, especially since autism makes it harder for them to read you, same as it makes it harder for you to read them.

I don't know if it was rude for your mom to say that people think you're dumb because you don't talk much. Maybe she was trying to get you to talk more. Maybe she was just annoyed that you don't talk more. Maybe she's being an overbearing parent and trying to change how you act "for your own good" (because moms in many cases try to control their kids so the kids act the way the mom wants)...

The actual statement itself does not literally include an accusation of low intelligence. It is very much like the statement, "If you keep chewing with your mouth open, people will think I didn't teach you good manners!"

It was a pretty good retort, but generally you are negative and critical. You might like to try to express yourself more positively, perhaps that would help with the family.

Yes, it's true that humans generaly think a big fat mouth equals intellegance. It doesn't, but people just seem to instinctively assume such. You're not dumb just because you talk less than her! A person has to actualy do something dumb to be dumb. You havn't mentioned yourself doing anything dumb yet, to my knowledge.

People have thought of me as not smart but once I start talking a lot, people say I'm very smart. Is that why I got that a lot? I always thought it was because I was truely very smart, not because I was talking too much.

Last edited by Spokane_Girl on 20 Feb 2009, 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes the people that say the least are the smartest ones of the bunch. The ones who go on and on tend to make asses of themselves.

Dumb also means mute, as in "deaf and dumb", so it is literally true.

Yeah, but only in the archaic sense of the word. That's not what she meant when she said it.