A dangerous shift in perspective

Post Reply New Topic

I'm not really sure how to introduce this, so I'll just jump right in. I have been a participating member of this site for about a month, and I have to say it has started to affect my views about my life. However, while most of the things this site has done for me have been ovwerwhelmingly positive, this tuesday I noticed something that makes me nervous.

I was driving home from an boy scout meeting, arguing with my mom. again. I kind of forget what about, all I can remeber is that at some point, I felt the urge to say something along the lines of "an NT like you couldn't understand." or something like that. I did not say anything, but the fact that it occurred to me to say that makes me a little nervous. I've never had an "Us and Them" view of myself and NTs, and I've read enough literature to know that to take that kind of view on anything like this is a very bad idea

Am I the only one?

I can understand your worry for sure. I, on the other hand, have always viewed myself as very different from almost all other humans and so the me-vs.-them mentality was always there as a mental undercurrent.

This site has helped me see that I am not alone in the way that I think.

That being said, I agree with you that adopting an us-vs.-them philosophy would be detrimental to your relationships with NTs...your parents in particular.

If I were you, I would explore why you felt like you were in an "us-vs.-them" mindset in the first place. Was it really from interacting with this website or was it that your Mom was criticizing behaviour that you exhibit because of your condition? Only you can figure that one out. Good luck.

I totally agree with you that it's not good to put any more distance between us and normal people than has to exist. I think the best approach for dealing with normals is adopting the fraternization approach used by the military between officers and enlisted men. One of the reasons for this policy is that familiarity has a way of breeding contempt.

There is one proviso though that a quick anecdote should illustrate. Right before I got out of the Navy, one of the enlisted men invited a group of us out to his club for drinks--a nice place. Well, sitting right next to us was a table of junior officers from my ship. The enlisted man who owned the place saw them, recognized them, and tried to sit down at their table and give them a round of drinks on the house. Before he could open his mouth, the officers told him to leave their table immediately. My enlisted friend got mad and ordered the bouncer promptly to escort these officers out.

The moral is that is pays to be respectful toward your parents--at least as long as you live under their roof. They own the place.

yeah i thin the same shift kinda happend in me don't know why..

Yeah, its just not productive. On top of that, especially with people who care about you, all you'd end up doing is hurting their feelings rather than lending any particular insight.

Along the same lines as what everyone else seems to be saying, remember that it is always better to make allies than it is to make enemies.

The former will protect you in surprising ways against the latter...sometimes when you least expect it. That has been my personal experience.

I think catagorizing things as "this or that", "us or them", "in or out", "on or off", etc is a human tendancy that people are just starting to notice. I sometimes call it the Binary Mindset. It's so strong that if for some reason you don't fit one of those compartments, people will pretend you do, and will ascribe all sorts of viewpoints to you that you have never held and never mentioned, simply because they can't comprehend how you might not fit their little pidgeonholes.

If you want to see this in action, find someone who is strongly in favor of a certain political candidate, doesn't really matter who, and say you disagree with that candidate. The person will instinctively start verbally attacking some other candidate. Why? Are the flaws in one person really eliminated by the existance of flaws in another person? And what if you disagree with that other candidate too? Do they think that by attacking some random politician they are actually convincing you to support one? It makes no sense, but this is what happens. I have yet to witness a political conversation where it did not happen.

The fact that you are becoming aware of this tendancy gives you a chance to expand your horizons beyond it.

I think what you are doing is normal and healthy to an extent. It's normal for teens to feel like their parents are different from them and don't have a clue about them. I'm sure throwing an as/nt division into the equation can only aggravate that further. At least you have the confidence to personify with your diagnosis enough to even want to see it as a distinction.

Just try to keep in mind that not all aspies get along with each other either. Just because we're from the same planet doesn't mean we're on the same boat. So be kind and respectful, because try as they might, your parents may never truly understand you. But don't be too hard on yourself when you drop the ball and get cranky with them.

Every adult that ever lived has hated their parents to some degree while growing up. If you have kids someday, they will eventually grow into pissy teenagers and think you're stupid too. I think its mother natures way of making people want to move out and get away from their folks, while making the parents kinda glad to see them go at the same time! So hey, you're just growing up! Congrats!
.

I have a cartoon on my wall titled "Nostradamus at home." It's a bearded guy in a robe with a T.V. remote in his hand and in the background a teenager with a nose piercing is walking out saying "you don't know anything!"

Nope. Not alone.

The same shift happened to me when I started reading a lot of the autism literature-- I got angry.

It was set in stone when a handful of idiots decided to assume I was either a sociopath or incapable of functioning as an adult.

It is dangerous. I wish I knew how to undo it. I was much happier when we were all people together. I just-- can't see it that way any more.

I have done that too, but not in an us vs them way. My husband and kids are NT's and they aren't my enemy. I do tend to explain more now "My brain works differently than yours about some things" more often though. I guess I feel they need to know when there is a difference and why, instead of just accepting it as how I am, like they have all these years.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

The ironic thing about it all - the longer I've been on aspie forums the less I feel like an 'aspie' when I meet the world. The social currents feel the same here as they are with the NT's in my life, the attitudes, the personalities, almost everything really, and at that point any sense I had that dealing with aspies and NT's was entirely different felt more and more like a gap of confidence and little else.

Hence right now I can both be a prolific poster and at the same, by and large, not feel different at all when I walk out the door. The beauty of sites like these are they're great for showing you what ASD identity isn't and how many of the perhaps sick misconceptions people have cast can be thrown in the waste basket.

yeah it will happen. get in an argument with ahogday sometime. he professes that a third of the population has at least one mild AS trait. So a suggestion that the line between AS and NT is sort of blurred, not absolute.

I got the us-and-them mentality from this site, though I see it as beneficial. Where once my behaviour was weird, now it is just different as I know I share the same behaviour as others with AS.