The people that think ASD is an Excuse

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I just want to hear your opinions. I am not the highest functioning person out there, but I'm certainly not the lowest functioning. I'm capable of understanding words in their basic meaning, am very sympathetic towards logic and the like, and though I am rather terrible at communication verbally I would say I am beyond average when it comes to writing (However this could be due to my present conditions). However, a lot of the time people doubt I have Aspergers because (I actually don't know why but I'll make an assumption) my somewhat smoother talk style and my shy demeanor. I am quiet a lot of the time so people don't usually realize that I have Asperger's because they never actually hear me speak. Also, when I DO talk or when I do get to know people well I talk endlessly, causing people to think I am very social and neurotypical. However, I have many issues which isolate me from others. I have difficulties connecting with people and I feel constantly misunderstood and misheard. I cannot understand much of what people say and I cannot properly organize my sentences without pounds of anxiety or stuttering taking over. I'm pretty bad with stuttering. On a more contrastive note, to make an example I am sort of like Japan. I'm capable of great industrial and interior advancement and capacity, I am slightly isolationist sometimes (medieval japan) then I come out and become more friendly (WWII japan was not friendly but you get it). It is an island that has developed it's own culture and way of doing things because of it's isolation from many of the mainland cultural exchange, distancing it from it's Korean, Chinese, or Northern Nomadic Steppe counterparts. Moving beyond this, I would like to know what you guys think about other peoples views of you. I generally get viewed as lazy when I literally have no idea what I'm doing. I'm told that I am a simple and backwards person. Oftentimes I receive insults against my intellect, while other times people complement me on my capacity to hold large amounts of information on a specific topic, which generally confuses me. The insults don't usually hurt me as I am unable to understand them or their meaning usually, but when someone is kind enough to tell me what an insult is I do feel bad because I realize that someone else is trying to essentially "imperialize" me, or control me. I mean that's what insults are anyways right?

Share your thoughts I guess? Not sure how to end that but you know. Thanks for reading

"You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. - John Lydgate

"But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone so you gotta please yourself." - Rick Nelson

LOL....you taught me something new!

I always thought Abe Lincoln came up with the "You can fool people some of the time....." quote.

People have varying opinions of me.

If a person is at all materialistic and ego-driven, this person usually doesn't care for me too much.

I know what exactly what you mean. People will doubt that someone capable of speaking with such intelligence and intimate knowledge on a subject can have a disability.

Japan is a actually a great metaphor. Now if I can just rid myself of my nationalistic, isolationist and militaristic impulses, I can move forward and be productive and prosperous. Easier said than done.

It's hard for me to get "inside" the minds of NT people. But I know what you're talking about. It's usually an unspoken thing, but even after I've explained my neurological limitations to some people, I pick up on their frustration when I'm slow to understand something, or ask a lot of questions to clarify their meaning.

I've run into this a lot at work, where I'm told to perform a particular task. I'll get hung up on some detail they think is obvious or irrelevant, and the tension will mount as I try to get more details about that thing that's blocking me from seeing what they regard as the big picture. Sometimes I get the feeling that they think I'm trying to be difficult so I can get out of doing something, when all I'm trying to do is gather information or understand the context.

And because, like you, I have a good command of language, I think it's easy for them to forget that I am much better at making myself understood (especially in writing), than I am at discerning their meaning.

I've experienced the same attitude from shallow people like that. You aren't useful to them, and your motives are inscrutable, so they make a quick decision that you're not worth their time. And that's OK, because I'd rather enjoy the company of people with substance.

Since I was diagnosed in April, I have been telling all the pros (therapists and whatnot) I have been involved with and they just don't get it.

Though I am not a problem with tying shoes, but the metaphor holds:

Just because I can do really amazing things in a few areas doesn't mean I can tie my shoes. They don't see any of the struggle because they are not around me enough. Also, many people try to see it as an excuse when I am only telling them so they can adjust.

Most so far have not adjusted and taken it out on me because I 'did not behave.' or some such nonsense. One in particular makes me think it's all a BS diagnosis.

I just started a new job, and I run into this a lot. The manager is a particularly wishy-washy people-pleaser, and half the time I have no idea what she wants. All I want is for her to make a decision. However, she seems to think I'm not interested in working. Every bloody time she wants me to do something, she makes a huge affair out of it, and it's quite frankly embarrassing, and does nothing good for my relationship with the other employees.

I had a manager like that not too long ago, and she was really bad about giving clear directions. The worst part was trying to prioritize work, because she'd never commit to saying that Task A was more critical than Task B, and she'd tell me to make both tasks a priority when they were unrelated things - something that's logically impossible when you're trying to manage your time effectively. And the mushy priorities could change daily!

Thankfully, I get much clearer direction from my current management the majority of the time.

I've dealt with this from time to time because not everyone is understanding. In high school kids just assumed I had the ability to listen and remember everything the teacher says and expected me to just understand things. At work I was expected to just remember to do stuff without any reminders and the fact you are expected to work fast paced and then I would be told to not leave my work unfinished when in fact I had to do something else and I was told to use common sense when in fact I would be literal and then getting mad at me about it would just make it worse because then I have anxiety and that makes it even worse for me and makes it harder for me to process things and I can be even more literal due to the stress. Then being told if I don't understand, just ask questions but when I would ask questions, I would get accused of not listening. The run around.

Also my mother makes things sound so simple sometimes when for me it's easier said than done. But I never talk about my problems and when I have, no one understood and they act like it's so simple. It's like a foreign language to them. It's hard to explain why you have this trouble without using any medical labels because I am too self conscious to say anything about it. Especially if you don't know why you have that problem and you don't even know if it's an autism issue or what.

So did I until I looked it up and got that name instead. But you know how it is with finding quotes attributed to an individual on the internet

Many moons ago I was one of those people. Now I'm not, and I'm glad I'm not.

I find it's more often parents of kids on the spectrum who use their ASDs as an excuse. Last year I saw a kid in Sainsburys screaming and hitting his mother. My mother and I looked at each other and the kid's mum shouted "HE'S AUTISTIC!" and stormed off. Still no excuse for hitting your own mother in public, and no excuse for the mother not teaching him right from wrong and teaching both him and herself how to help stop meltdowns.

I agree with this.

I used to be one of those people, too, for the exact same reasons.

It seemed like parents of autistic children used it as an excuse not to discipline their children and set limits, or as an excuse for bad behaviour. And, when you're ignorant and you see that first-hand, you assume that scales up and most ASD diagnoses are parents using it as an excuse for being useless.

I still see that happening a lot (along with the equally annoying 'my autistic child' being brought into topics where it isn't relevant, for sympathy/freebies/winning competitions), but obviously I now understand what autism actually involves and that it is separate from these types of people.

While I agree you may be right about that, I also believe some parents just don't know what to do. Special needs kids are different than normal kids so they might not learn the same way as normal kids so the parents are stuck about how to teach them and they just don't know how to do it. They might assume the kid is incapable or because they don't know how else to teach them because punishing them for it wouldn't make them stop. Plus if a kid has a cognitive ability of a toddler, that will be very difficult to teach them. I don't know how bad that kid's autism was and how bad his cognitive level is. Now another thing about having a special needs child is figuring out when to punish them and when not because you don't want to punish them for something they have no control over so the parents might let their child get away with behavior because they think they can't help it. But IMO the behavior only continues if the kid is given a crutch because they are allowed to do it so they never learn because they didn't have to.

My mom thinks it has to do with pride because these parents don't ask for help or try and get resources and says apparently she is in the minority. I was never allowed to be special or not allowed to not get things because my mom never assumed I was incapable. She would just find other ways and she discovered all she has to do is give me extreme threats and I would shape up and she learned to be visual and she even took classes and she even took me to a psychologist and she even decided to work in the special ed room so she can see how special ed teachers work with students so she could help me and she also had students in there who also lived in the moment. She refused to listen to anyone about me and says I would be just like Nell if she bought into me being autistic and listening to everyone. I think she was told I was incapable and that she was having too high of expectations on me. But she wanted me to be independent and have me be normal so I could go to college, get married, have kids, have a job and live a normal life. If any parents out there actually get told to not bother teaching their children because they are incapable, shame on them and shame on the parents for buying into it. The last thing she wanted was her bragging about how I live in a group home and working part time and acting like that is a accomplishment I have made and how hard I worked to be that independent when I could have done better. She didn't want that for me at all if she had set her goals too low. Yeah two people looked at her like she was crazy when she was enrolling me into a preschool system that had early intervention there when she told them what her dreams were for me. Then when my mom told them off about it, they were like "I have never seen a parent that thought that way about their child." They were actually open minded when she told them about having too low of expectations on kids or else they won't have a chance in life like everyone else so you must have high goals for them or else you won't teach them much if you set them too low.


No I am not talking about anyone specifically.

Sadly, depending on what you do, and where, may lead to you being arrested.

Parents have been arrested for child neglect for just letting them play outside, in their own front yard, unattended.

All it takes is one nut to see something out of context, make a complaint and the police have to act upon it.