Bullying of Autistic Adults

Post Reply New Topic

A few computers send checks to just-another-number every month, and those computers don't know that they should hate on me and try to sabotage my life, just for fun.

I was close to 60, before I realized that I was wasting my time. If anyone suggests another "self-improvement" idea to me, I just tell them I'm so effing over self-improvement BS. I tried plaintively for longer than my turn to "fix" something impossible to fix. Now, it's somebody else's turn. Perhaps that's a stirring of self-esteem, decades late, or perhaps it's just resignation.

As someone who didn't realize he was an autist for 53 years, I spent 30 years using my masking and memorization skills to defend myself verbally. The occasional mention of my taekwondo and firearm skills sealed the deals when just talking didn't convince.

...By the way, I really appreciated your coverage of the pluses and minuses of adult diagnosis, in another thread. It's helping me make up my mind.

That is so true. I did find that it's possible to make the best of it by choosing an occupation that requires more interaction with inanimate objects. "I work better with machines than with people," is what I would say. Another thing I always have thought is that "I love the work, but I hate the job." I was always the "Wozniak" in relation to the Steve Jobs A-Hole. Everyone wanted to hear from Jobs, but no one paid much attention to Wozniak (until the money came, of course). The job was the part with the social requirements. The work was what I really related to. A steady diet of social failure created a defeatist attitude.

I worked very hard to retire. A few computers send checks to just-another-number every month, and those computers don't know that they should hate on me and try to sabotage my life, just for fun. The people I worked with (but not the people who hired me) were glad to get rid of me, but I do miss the work very much. On balance I'm much happier, finally being out of "high school" decades after my 18th birthday. At, say, age 38 I was busy banging my head on the wall, trying one "self-improvement" project after another in attempts to "fix" my social problems. Everyone here finds out how well that doesn't work. And all that abjectly wasted effort could have been used on realizing genuine potential, but the "system" made sure I was shunted off, wasting my time trying to "fix" my social "retardation." I was close to 60, before I realized that I was wasting my time. If anyone suggests another "self-improvement" idea to me, I just tell them I'm so effing over self-improvement BS. I tried plaintively for longer than my turn to "fix" something impossible to fix. Now, it's somebody else's turn. Perhaps that's a stirring of self-esteem, decades late, or perhaps it's just resignation.

At the same time, I look back and see the potential that never got realized, due to the social disabilities. It really wasn't fair, but "fairness" is another sucker-trap that Aspies get lured into all the time. However, at least I'm not faced with the situation where work gets weirder and weirder, as perhaps the Aspergers gets "worse." I put "worse" in quotes, because I think Aspergers has been something that for me is more an asset than a liability.

At, say, age 38 I was busy banging my head on the wall, trying one "self-improvement" project after another in attempts to "fix" my social problems. Everyone here finds out how well that doesn't work. And all that abjectly wasted effort could have been used on realizing genuine potential, but the "system" made sure I was shunted off, wasting my time trying to "fix" my social "retardation." I was close to 60, before I realized that I was wasting my time.

I think Aspergers has been something that for me is more an asset than a liability.

I believe the notion that anybody can do what they want if they set their mind to it is a crock of s**t. I am 5’4” and 61 years old I am not going to be a proffessional basketball player even if I find the willpower to try harder then everybody else in the world.

It is not a function of willpower. It is a function of being different, thinking different, approaching problems from a unique perspective and latching onto opportunities when they magically appear out of nowhere. And I never sell my self short. It is also a function of tenacity. Of not giving up when you encounter bumps along the road. It is a function of a razor sharp focus

I think the only way things could be done better is if a bunch of aspies got together and started a few companies that absolutely killed their competition on quality, then people would have to take note that a group of people - with this 'disability' - cut through the noise and backstabbing, through it aside, and just knocked themselves out producing high quality uber-professional results.

The only thing that stops me from believing that this is likely - a) we do have deficits we have to work around which almost evens the difference and b) few of us are used to swimming in highly competitive environments and in our largely left-leaning mindsets don't know how to completely put aside 'fairness' as a fata morgana (in the business/economic world fairness only exists for the dead, ie. its between you and God when you see the tunnel or pearly gates) and bite any bullet we need to bite in order to survive.

Isn't it interesting that our command of facts and trivia went a lot further a few decades ago? What passed as a "presidential debate" in those distant times was a lot different than now, too. So today when an Aspie's encyclopedic command of the information base about a topic just makes people laugh, the hint of mystical Asian martial arts and good marksmanship might work better than persuasion. Like getting better results with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone. I seem to remember TV programs about difficult to solve crimes, with the immense and brainy work required to put all the pieces together to catch the bad actor (e.g., Unabomber, Green River Killer). They don't have as many of those programs anymore. These days they just put up Nancy Grace and she calls for a lynching, without a trial. It's so much easier. Unfortunately, it leaves us Aspies with little to do.