I too have someone in my family who I am pretty sure has AS, this being my father, who can be a cold, infuriating asshole when he isn’t getting what he wants from me. He and I used to have power struggles all the time when I was younger, the two of us butting heads because he wanted me to do something or act some way that I didn’t, and I wanted him to give me something, material or emotional. Neither one of us would give an inch, and so we would essentially have stalemates with one another as we fought. I once even threatened to kill myself with a knife by holding it to my chest, only so that I could use my own life as leverage one time when I felt all other options had been taken from me.
Today however I’ve grown up a lot. I’m not that way anymore, and although I still don’t get along that well with my father, and I probably never will, I can deal with it. I realize now that most people aren’t going to understand me, that to them I will seem odd, gross, vulgar, and crass, but I have long since made my peace with that fact, and quite truly I embrace it.
I even realize that I have many weaknesses that I probably won’t ever be able to rid myself of, but I actually accept that, something few people are able to do. Most people are perfectionists in regards to their own maturity and will ignore, deny, or try furiously in vein to rid themselves of them.
I, however accept those traits, and that they may pass from my being and they may not, and either way, I am still myself and will always maintain control over my own actions.
Also, in an odd twist of fate, for the past few years I have found myself enrolled in a Transition program [a place they send people who didn’t graduate High School so they can get their diploma, and learn “transition” skills to make it in the real world. They will also send people with severe mental disabilities there. In my case, I had such a chronic problem with not being able to get up in the morning that I actually failed High School due to missing far too many days.]
At this place, I now find myself surrounded mostly by people who are, in all honestly, vastly inferior to me in intelligence in pretty much all forms. I’d like to note, many of them aren’t even mentally disabled. My school is also filled with quite a few hardcore gang members who I guess just never took school seriously. To be fair, most of those students are listed as having learning disabilities, but if you ask me personally, even the term “learning disability” itself is just a nice way of saying that someone is stupid. And so, I feel alienated from many [not all, I have many friends there, and there are a few of the students who are actually very smart like me] of my classmates simply because of how incredibly stupid, and also immature they are.
I know that that may come across as a little harsh and overly judgmental, and to be honest, even now I have trouble accepting it, but it really is true. To give you an example, there are actually classes at this school, which I will remind you is only for people over the age of 18, for learning how to Read and Write, do basic Math, and learning the very basic history of the United States and the structure of its government, information which I have noticed most of the people who were in the class with me [I took it to have discussions, and because the options were so limited there] didn’t even remember, even minutes afterward.
I have always valued intelligence extremely highly as a merit when judging a person, and so now that so many people who are so incredibly low in intelligence surround me, I find it hard to keep myself from hating them. I suppose this brings up an interesting philosophical question, one I have been trying to answer for myself for some time now. When people speak about prejudice, they usually say that a person should be judged by their merits, the “content of their character” as opposed to whatever superficial trait you choose to judge them by, but what if the traits you’re judging them on are their merits? What if you encounter a person who is mentally retarded and therefore truly is inferior to you in pretty much every significant way? In essence, this situation would force a person to face their own beliefs, on a wide number of things, such as their image of themselves, their place in relation to the people around them, the concept of “value,” the judgments that they make of people, and their idea of the importance those things that they judged the other person on in relation to themselves.
This last part is how I have now begun to break my long-standing prejudice against the severely mentally challenged, a fault I’ve had for many years, mostly because I see things in them that remind me of my own faults. I have simply accepted that although those things are real, although my classmates with low intelligence and maturity may be severely behind me in those specific traits, it doesn’t actually matter in relation to me.
About damn time!
