After writing yesterday’s post, I started remembering other situations when I had the rare opportunity to have another caring person with me during occasions when strangers insulted me. Pooling these instances together causes me to wonder how I should deal with rude people when I cross paths with them. I know there is nothing I can do to help neurotypicals lacking the theory of mind necessary for them to treat me with the same respect I observe them giving towards others of their own kind.
The two most destructive misjudgments people [offline] too often jump to assuming about me are:
1.) I’m mentally slow [retarded].
2.) I’m self-delusional; not honest/accurate.
If those two things were true, that would create a lot of inconsistencies. For starters, I wouldn’t have discovered that there was just about nothing I couldn’t teach my son to prepare him for college while homeschooling him. I find that impressive considering the lousy job my teachers accomplished when trying to educate me. I got the basics in school, but didn’t really excel until I began teaching myself. No one helped me even once in all the years I was homeschooling—mostly because I avoided people due to social reasons. After I was finished with educating him, the college he entered invited him to join Phi Theta Kappa. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to rely on figuring out things for myself because of other people being wrong; being either unable to see it or unwilling to admit it. That’s interesting my life would end up this way considering how I was so desperate for acceptance that I allowed people to treat me as if I was dimwitted.
As for my being self-delusional, that’s something that was only partly true. The only part I didn’t have right about myself was with my intellectual abilities. I accepted being told I was stupid. That self-deception probably matched the delusions others had about me. Now that I’m older and wiser, I (and a few rare others) have noticed that only a remnant (typically those in the top 2% range of the IQ scale) tend to judge me accurately with their first impression of me. That explains why most people are so frustrating to me. I’m sure the reverse is also true.
Yesterday my husband¹ reminded me that most people are not going to believe what I say. If people think I’m blunt, I’ll quote his words as to why others have trouble with trusting my thoughts:
“Most people are not going to believe you, because they’re too stupid to understand what you’re saying.”
If that’s the case, then he is only partially right since he neglects to mention something very important. Because people judge others more by what they observe non-verbally and they don’t even know they’re dealing with an Aspie when one is standing right in front of them (let alone having any clue about how differently Aspies think compared to NTs!), it’s impossible for most Aspies to not expect bigoted behavior from a lot of NTs (especially those who are ignorant over how little they know).
The only reason someone’s intelligence level is a factor of consideration for me is because it usually affects the way he or she will behave towards me. Since very young children and animals don’t behave like so-called ‘grownups’, they’re not usually any problem for me socially.
I do not like having this post published. It makes me uncomfortable. I’m hoping that I don’t delete this post in spite of how it makes me feel, because I think it is important for society to read truths they’re not going to find in a book, get taught in a college class, or hear on television or the radio. The reason things like what I’m saying here will not get circulated out into the public is because of what Leta Stetter Hollingworth noted about the way intelligence factors into society:
Those at the highest end of the intelligence scale characterize a strong desire for personal privacy, seldom volunteer personal information, do not like to have attention called to their families and homes, and are afraid of the potential ramifications of being labeled as “special” in society.
Am I preaching to the choir? If so, I’ll gladly stop!
¹The primary reason why my husband has endured over two decades of marriage to me is because of my honesty.
