And yet you have consistently stated you do not represent the norm. So I can't say that your tendency to be able to work with people you don't really like says much of anything about the world at large.
I don't think you are trying to discriminate negatively. There is nothing wrong in terms of acting maliciously. The opposite- I think your intentions are good. But it seemed that previously your motivation was partially driven by frustration at the idea that much of the world does not consider those on the spectrum who contribute "traditionally".
You don't have to buy it. In fact you seem to misinterpret what it means to some extent. It doesn't mean the same for everyone. Your explanation of why you don't buy it is also supported specifically by your own experience. My statement is supported by my experience- but also the fact that it is a neurological disorder [classified as, by the way- I'm not even addressing "medical condition or not"].
This means that it affects processing of our environment. So it affects how we understand and engage with our environment and with other people. If I perceive my environment differently from the majority of other people, I will also often encounter different experiences than most people on a personal level. I know this now by observation.
Being autistic means that a person literally comprehends the world differently- so you also store memories differently than other people. If you change that, change how a person encodes memories? You are changing who they are. We are our memories and our experiences. Short term, one experience can not generally change a personality drastically. Over time experience can change a personality drastically and permanently. So if you suddenly "take away" the things that make me autistic- as though I just don't have it? You then change my neurology, you change the way I interact and understand the world and my environment and how I respond. So you have changed how my memories form- changing encoding can affect personality. Changing what information you intake can. Even if there was a miracle pill, but it didn't change how my memories were encoded [because let's pretend the pill exists but everything else in reality still holds logically]- I still wouldn't recall them like i used to. I wouldn't understand them the same way.
So, yes. I would be a different person. A very very different person. Like, I have a memory of being traumatized because someone chased me with a vacuum cleaner and the noise literally terrified me- I'm actually feeling that anxiety right now because I remember a remnant of that terror then. If I suddenly was not autistic I would not understand that feeling anymore because WHO gets scared of vacuum cleaners? "Oh wait not me, I'm not autistic!" so I might attribute that feeling that I recall- but not longer experience, to something different. Each time we retrieve memories, also, they are subject to corrosion- eventually all my memories would be skewed to the new me.
if you take away what makes me autistic, you take away me.
If your brain works differently than mine, OOM, that's fine. But simply because you don't believe or understand something that I or another person says about themselves it doesn't mean it isn't so. It makes sense that you don't understand a lot of the animosity many people don't have toward Autism Speaks, for example because you seem to not understand many of the experiences that people share from the point of view of being on the spectrum. Many of the issues people have are things you don't seem to relate to. But simply because you choose not to to relate to them does not make them false or any less legitimate than your experience.
Your experience isn't any more right on the whole than anyone else's though. If I have problems understanding the words someone is saying unless I am looking at their mouth I will find it exhausting to speak on the telephone. But if another person doesn't have that auditory processing issue they won't understand why I hate talking on the phone or why it's exhausting. Neither of us is wrong.
This thread has gotten kind of absurd and I feel like a lot of the reason is because of lack ofacceptance that their are various experiences when you look at individuals on the spectrum- we all have differing profiles of abilities. Different strengths and weaknesses.
From how you originally framed your project that seems to be at the heart of what you wanted to show with it, OOM. Autism doesn't mean just the one thing that you seem to feel people characterize it as.
Please consider that.
I get what you are saying and I'm not trying to discount it. One of the huge things that AS causes is the difficulty to see something from someone else's point of view at times. It can be very hard to understand how something is a different way from how it is for yourself. An example of this is while I believe someone when they tell me that they feel the opposite of the way I do about something or someone, I literally cannot comprehend how someone could or would feel that way. That is one thing I noticed when I was on WP. I hadn't ever been around a bunch of aspies together at one time, and we will argue something that really doesn't matter to death it seems. I think a lot of us are like that.
What gets me is when people completely misinterpret what I say or what I mean and then turn around decide I'm trying to say or do something I'm not or get convinced that I've got an ulterior motive or something like that. It drives me crazy when that happens.
I'm real aware that many people have different experiences than I do with their AS. While I completely believe them when they tell me that something is hard or impossible for them to do, I just literally cannot comprehend how it is hard or impossible and why they don't just do this or that or something else. I'm the same way as well with good things too. When somebody tells me they have no trouble with something I can't do I can't comprehend that either. I don't see how they can do it so easily and while I believe them when they say they can, I'm convinced they must know some kind of secret trick or tip to do it.
And, this is going to come across as vain and I'm not in any way vain at all, but sometimes when people get snotty to me when discussing whether or not we should change things about ourselves I feel like they resent the fact that I've done certain things that they either can't or don't. It's natural to resent somebody who has done something you want to do and tried to do etc, and I know I've resented the hell out of tons of people before, so I'm not saying anything bad about it, but I think that some people want to put down my experiences and opinions because they don't want to go through all the crap you have to go through to accomplish stuff. On WP I've seen a lot of guys post about resenting how others are in relationships and stuff. I once saw a guy say that he thinks it shouldn't be allowed for people to have wedding rings, or pictures of their spouses or SO's on their desk or hold hands in public or anything at all that implies they are in a relationship because he's not in one.
I also have trouble differentiating between somebody who refuses to try to change and somebody who truly cannot change. Again, I see it a lot on WP. Especially in the love and dating section. I've seen guys there complain about how girls won't talk to them and later on in the thread they talk about how they don't shower or brush their teeth because it bothers them and how they wear a fanny pack because they think it's convenient and how they only want to talk about a special interest or something to the girl and find it hard to ask her questions about herself etc, and they say that they dont want to change those things about themselves and shouldn't have to change those things abotu themselves to get a girlfriend. Then they take it even farther and say that even though they are filthy, wear a fanny pack and only talk about the politics of Western Europe during the late Middle Ages or something, they are dissatisfied with the type of girl that might give them the time of day because she isn't pretty enough or thin enough etc. They come up with all kinds of reasons why they can't clean their bodies or brush their teeth and dig in like a pitbull on a mailman when somebody suggests that they won't ever get a girl if they look and smell like they should be sleeping under a bridge. They say that they aren't being true to themselves if they do that. I've seen people there say that it's discrimination for them to be told they can't wear sweatpants and a tshirt to work in an office, or that it's wrong to try and force aspie kids to eat with a fork and spoon and not shovel the mac and cheese into their mouths with their hands. There are actual things I've seen there.
I've also seen parents actually say that they are jealous and resentful of parents of NT kids who brag about their kids. Everybody brags about their kids and I've seen one parent actually say on there that there shouldn't be those honor student bumper stickers on cars because it makes parents of kids who have intellectual disabilities feel bad. I've recently seen people who say that it's wrong to try and change your aspie kid to teach him manners and how to act in public because they are aspies and to change the instinct and nature of them to fit in with the world is bad. By changing these things, I'm not talking about refusing to let them research their special interest or wear comfortable clothes at home, I'm talking about things like potty training, wearing clothes in general, being clean, not interrupting others, and using silverware at the table. It's this kind of thing I'm talking about.
Also, unless somebody gives me an example of what they are talking about, I truly may not know what they mean. I've asked that one particular poster several times what trouble he has with his interviews and he won't answer so I assume that he's doing something that he can change. I honestly cannot think of anything else that could be causing him the problems except for the things that cross my mind. Everybody has to change themselves to some extent to fit in with the world. Nobody has to do that but if you want to get anywhere in life, have friends and relationships etc, then you do have to change things about yourself. Even the most outgoing, friendly, perfect NT has to change something or other about himself to fit in. Nobody is born without some personality flaw, and there is nothing wrong with having flaws.
Anyway, I've rambled on all over the place here because I start talking and then think of something different lol. I'm honestly not trying to be a b*tch or put people down, but I just don't see why people are so d*mn adamant that AS is something different than it is and a lot of things that I disagree with. However, the fact that AS is a medical condition isn't just my opinion, it's a fact. It's also autism and I see people here really trying to distance themselves from the fact that it is, and I see people here only focusing on social skills and social issues. AS is a lot more than just being somebody who doesn't do well at parties, but to read this forum you would think thats all it is. You would come away with the idea that people who have AS are much smarter than NTs but are simply different in their style of communication and are being discriminated against because of that at every turn. Just because thats what a group of people focus on doesn't make it true either.
I have more problems with other aspects of AS than I do with the social skills. For me, learning the social skills was very, very hard and very, very scary and I had to try for years and years to get anything right. Now that I have that down, I don't have many problems with that. I can do that automatically and by rote and make it look good too, but I have to use different tactics for when I'm in situations where I can't stand all the smells, or the noise. I can't just wing it when I get overwhelmed or I'm so p*ssed off that I want to throttle somebody or when I'm so frustrated that I want to fall down on the floor and start hitting myself in the head and screaming like I do when I have a serious full on meltdown. It's a very different way of dealing with things and I have to use the social skills I learned to get out of them by making up an excuse really quickly and trying to make as graceful an exit as I can. Some things I've never mastered and never will. I get confused by simple things at times and I'll stand there lost, trying to figure them out looking like a complete idiot with my mouth hanging open and a slight frown on my face trying to figure something out. I'll ask stupid questions or ask for something to be explained over and over. I'll forget what I'm trying to say and forget simple everyday words and use the wrong words trying to get across what I mean. I'll go off in a completely different direction in the conversation out of the blue when nothing in it has to do with what I'm talking about and I'll bring it up because something reminds me of something else. Those things aren't like the things I can memorize and do. And yes, even though I do these things, they don't happen that often and I do pass for NT pretty much all of the time. At most somebody might think I'm a little off or maybe even high on something, but the word autistic doesn't come to mind when I get that way. So, most of my difficulties come from things other than social skills, and I wonder why hardly anything except social skills or processing are addressed here.
So, I've rambled enough now and hope I got my point across, but probably didn't. I'm going to go try and find an outfit to wear today to see if that might give me some motivation to get off my lazy *ss and do something around this house and maybe even start back on the crochet I was doing.
If I didn't get my point across, please ask me about what you dont understand. I'm perfectly happy to explain it, and when I ask questions about other's opinions or posts that is me really wanting to know, not me trying to be smart*ss.
