Not the freak

[Au Naturel]

I have some of the same experiences, but with only one instance of direct bullying by a teacher, but no teachers being interested in anything that happened.

It messes with your head. But it isn’t that people are evil, it’s just like young males asserting dominance and teachers being lazy because ignoring or accusing takes less effort than doing something about a complicated issue.

That part about "young males asserting dominance" rings true. Adolescence is a time when the young find their place in the tribe - or today in society. It is really all about jockeying for position to later claim the most females and the most resources when your adult. That kind of competitiveness is instinctive, just as much a wired in part of personality as an Aspie's sensory overload issues or the little obsessions we pick up or wanting to have sex. I think my own desire to get my kit off would fall in the same category.

These aren't things you're taught. They are who you are. Culture can encourage it or it can stymie it but culture is not why you have the drive to begin with.

 

[Au Naturel]

"Like claiming “autismgender” is very simple and straightforward, so questioning individual may be hate speech, but far more complicated things ASD people have to deal with are endless times more complicated, so the “autismgender” individual might even be treated with greater kid gloves than an actual aitistic, because they have a black and white explanation to explain why they are oppressed and so on, so they can say whatever because it is hate based on gender identity, so they might not be questioned where you might...or something"

Yeah. What Jumpback said.

I think "autigender" is going a bit far. The last thing I need is another label. It's entirely probable that being somewhere on the spectrum impacts your sexuality but it remains to be seen if it a direct influence or if the social problems associated with autism are what causes the impact.

Bad enough some fool cooked up a "puzzle" ribbon as if we were some kind of riddle to be solved. There's even a flag now for autigender. Who came up with that? Nobody asked me if I wanted to be labeled and symboled.

One study I have seen indicates that those on the spectrum are 7.59 times more likely than the general public to experience gender dysphoria

Another study indicating that (on average) boys high on the spectrum masturbate at a rate many times that of boys who are not. Females high on the spectrum are more likely to be asexual and/or lesbian than the general population. All people high on the spectrum have an elevated chance of some kind of paraphilia.

Some people might feel that the affinity for nudity some autistic children feel also contributes to a separate autism gender. Others feel horrified at the thought of nudity so it isn't a valid "gender indicator" for the group.

Yet many autistic people don't fit any of these conditions. So what exactly is "autigender" supposed to be if to most of us it means nothing?

 

[MyLifeAsAnAspie]

So what makes you think you are Aspergers, lol.
Welcome to the forums .
I was misunderstood in school a decade before you in the 60s. It's sad that it wasn't until the 90s that things really started to improve for kids like us.
So when did you diagnose yourself? I stumbled onto a description of AS in the late 70s and knew right away that I was on the spectrum that hadn't been named yet.

 

[Running Girl]

I'm an excellent observer of humans and patterns too. Though I never heard an explanation like yours for this. Makes sense!

 

[Au Naturel]

"emotional signs of abuse and tried to blame my parents"

That is the old "refrigerator parents" game. We don't know what the hell is going on so let's blame the parents. At one time all psychologists believed that personality was entirely a matter of childhood experiences. It's rubbish of course but even in the 70s, the idea held sway.

 

[DuckRabbit]

"The three essentials for an autobiography are that its compiler shall have had an eccentric father, a miserable misunderstood childhood and a hell of a time at his public school, and I enjoyed none of these advantages. My father was as normal as rice pudding, my childhood went like a breeze from start to finish, with everybody I met understanding me perfectly, while as for my schooldays at Dulwich they were just six years of unbroken bliss. It would be laughable for me to attempt a formal autobiography. I have not got the material.'"
~ P.G. Wodehouse, Over Seventy: An Autobiography With Digression, 1957.

= the Asperger experience................................................ NOT.

 

[Kwik6six]

I'm interested to know why you were hesitant to join the forums?

Ed

Ed, the answer to your question is that I have grown SO misanthropic, that I really believe that sharing my thoughts with humans will not achieve anything, although I am working on a book about my journey from happy preschooler to isolationist misanthrope...if others like me exist, maybe it would help them to know we are truly not alone in these thoughts.

 

[Kwik6six]

Reading your post there, well....

Welcome not just to the forums, but also the spectrum itself. I know some people will talk about wanting a cure and such, and that's fine. But me, I look at how "normal" people act, and I think to myself "I dodged a bullet here... I coulda been like THAT" and then shudder.

Your description of what happened during school is horrifying. Though at the same time not at all surprising.

I was born in 81, and while my school experiences werent quite as "blatant" as that (any teacher acting like that at the time WOULD have been soon fired) it still was nothing but negative.

Everyone around me always thinks I'm oh-so-smart, that I know all sorts of things, I must have done so well in school. But I always correct them: It's because I DID NOT do well in school. I recognized it for what it was, a giant toxic waste of time, and paid attention to absolutely nothing. Learned stuff on my own (particularly computers, back in the days of DOS), outside of school. That's why I know stuff. 12 or so bloody years of "school" and I only learned 3 things there: basic arithmetic, reading/writing, and typing. That's it. Nothing else. 12 years, and nothing else. Ridiculous.

Well, no, I learned a 4th thing there: People are slime. All the bullies and whatnot.

These days I dont even use the word "people". If you were to hear me talk IRL, I always replace that with "idiots". It's automatic. "Sure were alot of idiots at the gas station today", that sort of talking.

But hey, on this forum we try to NOT be a bunch of walking sacks of cat turds, so hopefully you will find that this place doesnt suck.


I apologize if that was a bit disjointed there, I had a ton of caffeine before posting this. But yeah, mostly I'm just saying that I sympathize with alot of what you said. I think you'll find many of us on here do.

There, I'll shut up now.

Thank you for your input Misery. You actually got a smile on my stone cold expressionless Scorpio face Like you, I also became bery glad I am nothing like "them" and also shudder at the very thought of it. Id rather be intelligent than blissfully ignorant cattle.

 

[Kwik6six]

Thank you to all respondents. For more background, my biological father walked out on me, my older sister and my mom. I don't even remember time before then. My first memory was the three of us moving into our new place that first day. Shortly thereafter came step-dad (anybody watch that movie? LOL) He was a Wisconsin farm raised factory worker alcoholic. Like most of us 70's children, i got my share of merciless beatings with "the spanking belt".

Later, these two also became foster parents . Different kids in and out until they finally settled on three of them and eventually adopted them. Two were a brother-sister set. I didn't have jealous feelings at the time, my brain focused on the altruistic side of it then later feeling bad that they were part of the Bing Crosby style of parenting.
These days, as stated, I do make and have friends...some actually like me BECAUSE they know I speak my mind and never do anything to harm, ridicule, embarrass or humiliate them. (That show "Punked"...how obscene is that? A friend is not what I would call somebody that does that to a friend)

I am also not religious in any sense of the word... I find it another human way to absolve themselves of the foul creatures they are and a laziness in searching for the real answers to the questions of the universe...quite honestly, I could never feel love for an entity that creates a creature with the sole purpose of Glorifying him (can you say egomaniac). Nor an entity that would condemn all of humankind to misery for the mistakes of the very first two, nor an entity that would then condemn us to "eternal damnation" as punishment for our mistakes in such a short period of time...yeah...eternity of punishment in exchange for 50-100 years of not being his worshipper...that sounds fair. And lets not forget the blatant hypocrisy that all religions seem to practice.

For the record, I believe that "God" dud not create the universe but rather IS the universe. The deep field images of the universe and the network of galaxies reminds me of images of a neural network...the universe is one immense mind.

I think I'll stick around here for awhile and practice the human art of seeking others like myself

 

[Raggamuffin]

Ed, the answer to your question is that I have grown SO misanthropic, that I really believe that sharing my thoughts with humans will not achieve anything, although I am working on a book about my journey from happy preschooler to isolationist misanthrope...if others like me exist, maybe it would help them to know we are truly not alone in these thoughts.

I too was happy in school and have grown increasingly isolationist as I became an adult. I'm at a point now where I feel like I can only relate to a small handful of people - the rest tend to confuse and upset me on numerous levels.

Ed

 

[Jumpback]

One study I have seen indicates that those on the spectrum are 7.59 times more likely than the general public to experience gender dysphoria

Another study indicating that (on average) boys high on the spectrum masturbate at a rate many times that of boys who are not. Females high on the spectrum are more likely to be asexual and/or lesbian than the general population. All people high on the spectrum have an elevated chance of some kind of paraphilia.

It’s not just ASD people who have such tendencies, it’s a large percentage of people who fit DSM diagnoses or have childhood trauma and so on.

Unfortunately, these things have dominated my adult life and being upset about being treated unfairly due to dominance of one side, just seems to result in consequences due to political dominance of that one side, where I must be punished due to others prejudices and misbehavior

But whatever, letting go and accepting that there is nothing I can do about being treated unfairly because one side has control is hard

 

[Jumpback]

I didn't have friends as a child and then in first grade the same type of incidents happened.
Kids made fun because I preferred to be to myself during recess. Loved to swing. Lay back
and try to go high as I could just pretending I was going into the sky and clouds.

Something about swings was great. Of course being a male, I eventually started seeing how much height and distance I could achieve by jumping off swings

But even that was strange, despite how masculine such things might seem, since by the time I started doing this other males had lost interest in swings, and it was just me jumping off swings to beat my previous height and distance best marks.

 

[Jumpback]

Thank you to all respondents. For more background, my biological father walked out on me, my older sister and my mom. I don't even remember time before then. My first memory was the three of us moving into our new place that first day. Shortly thereafter came step-dad (anybody watch that movie? LOL) He was a Wisconsin farm raised factory worker alcoholic. Like most of us 70's children, i got my share of merciless beatings with "the spanking belt".

Later, these two also became foster parents . Different kids in and out until they finally settled on three of them and eventually adopted them. Two were a brother-sister set. I didn't have jealous feelings at the time, my brain focused on the altruistic side of it then later feeling bad that they were part of the Bing Crosby style of parenting.
These days, as stated, I do make and have friends...some actually like me BECAUSE they know I speak my mind and never do anything to harm, ridicule, embarrass or humiliate them. (That show "Punked"...how obscene is that? A friend is not what I would call somebody that does that to a friend)

My background is different from yours in that my parents are crazy nice, but were overprotective. When bullying started in 7th grade and kept going through the rest of school, I had a nervous breakdown and sort of blamed them for not socializing me more, then not noticing bullying and my extreme distress

So I assumed issue was my parents and dumbass rednecks

But then I became very liberal and I went to college and sexual assaults by gay males resulted in severe ganging up on the victim, which was far worse than bullying I experienced in school.

I don’t really think that anything is anyone’s fault in particular, I think that just lack of interest in what other people are doing combined with other people saying how great they are, while behaving exactly the opposite is tremendously difficult for kids who just lack interest in what other kids/people/social messages are, and who might take things very literally

Like my 9th grade biology teacher who pretended to ignore violent slapping of my head from behind was considered great, because he was the girls basketball coach who led the girls basketball team to state that year. But then gay, gay advocate counselor I was assigned at university and female gay advocate psych and my gay advocate social circle sort of ganged up on me for sexual assault because they also were considered great for standing up for an oppressed minority, while also getting away with the same laziness as 9th grade biology teacher and ignoring or blaming the victim, because the victim does not know what is going on and can be easily tormented for being a convenient scapegoat for others misbehavior.

These things aren’t actually different. There are endless subtle things that one has to learn to deal with people, primarily, as a clueless kid, that people in positions of power and influence are lazy and self interested just like everyone else, somone has to play a game for them not to ignore ones plight or torment the victim because it’s more convenient

It’s just if one has very little interest in other kids or other people or learning social games as a kid, one gets so far behind, which makes them a target, which might mess their head up so much that it’s very difficult to ever recover from

I don’t really think it’s the things that seem so obvious from individuals as much as it is just a general misunderstanding and intolerance for kids who have fallen behind because they just have no interest in what others are doing, so they end up dealing with 18 year old issues with 10 year old social skills and understandings and nativity

 

[Jumpback]

"emotional signs of abuse and tried to blame my parents"

That is the old "refrigerator parents" game. We don't know what the hell is going on so let's blame the parents. At one time all psychologists believed that personality was entirely a matter of childhood experiences. It's rubbish of course but even in the 70s, the idea held sway.

From a kids perspective, the main trusted authorities are the parents, who are supposed to protect the kids if the rest of society is against them. It’s really not fair at all to the parents, but many teens seem to fall into this trap of blaming their parents for everything.

It’s very confusing from an ASD perspective if you are the kid and there is no one to rebel against except the parents or family.

I so regret anything I said against my parents, because even though they were inconsistent and could have conceivably done better, they really tried their best. It’s just that others were lazy aholes who only cared about not putting forth effort to address wrongs or who just found it to be more time saving or more convenient to gang up on me or torment me to save time or to keep themselves from being mildly uncomfortable or found that my realities might conceivably be mildly inconvenient to their positions or especially, especially their political advocacy

 

[Au Naturel]

From a kids perspective, the main trusted authorities are the parents, who are supposed to protect the kids if the rest of society is against them. It’s really not fair at all to the parents, but many teens seem to fall into this trap of blaming their parents for everything.

It’s very confusing from an ASD perspective if you are the kid and there is no one to rebel against except the parents or family.

I so regret anything I said against my parents, because even though they were inconsistent and could have conceivably done better, they really tried their best. It’s just that others were lazy aholes who only cared about not putting forth effort to address wrongs or who just found it to be more time saving or more convenient to gang up on me or torment me to save time or to keep themselves from being mildly uncomfortable or found that my realities might conceivably be mildly inconvenient to their positions or especially, especially their political advocacy

One is born an Aspie. You might have wonderful and understanding parents. You might have harsh and judgmental parents. You might have parents who show no interest in you at all. Either way, you're still an Aspie and you'll experience a lot of the same things. All the "good" parents can do is provide a little bit of padding from the outside world and a safe place at home.

 

[Jumpback]

One is born an Aspie. You might have wonderful and understanding parents. You might have harsh and judgmental parents. You might have parents who show no interest in you at all. Either way, you're still an Aspie and you'll experience a lot of the same things. All the "good" parents can do is provide a little bit of padding from the outside world and a safe place at home.

I suspect that things are almost insurmountable in a way from an ASD perspective. If parents are sort of mean and abusive one learns that adults and society can not be trusted early, if parents are overly protective, then one gets surprised by how awful people are and even the victim can be ganged up on

Like, no matter what, the individual that is just not interested in other people growing up falls behind and is thinking things through from a childlike perspective, and because they have just not learned the inconsistencies of people, they can become sort of like prey.

Like things I was interested in like racing marbles and making paper airplanes and searching for fossils were rational and consistent, but people just aren’t and it’s a hard lesson to take when all these irrational things begin, which are generally about laziness of authority figure or victim blaming by authority figures or even being inconvenient to authority figures politics, which might inevitably occur before one has a chance to catch up with social games skills.