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Two Too Much

  • Posted on January 9, 2009

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.

It Was Inevitable

  • Posted on September 30, 2008

It was inevitable to me that there exists a level at which it becomes impossible to explain how neurotypicals and aspies both lack theory of mind. As this gap of understanding decreases between me and my NT daughter (who is now an adult), we increasingly begin to see how hopeless it is for others to ever grasp knowing what she and I now know.

I was going to go deeper into explaining how misjudgments happen by writing another post using examples. I thank God I asked for my daughter’s opinion on whether or not I should publish the post I wrote earlier today (it’s now deleted and will stay that way). My gut feeling was telling me not to do it, but my good intentions where saying otherwise.

After sharing with my daughter what I planned to write about, she knew she had to tell me things that she didn’t want to share. She knew it would hurt my feelings deeply, but she also knew that if I didn’t get this information, I could not realize how incapable and/or how unwilling readers (relatives and acquaintances included) would be to understand what I was trying to explain.¹

I gave her my word that I would not tell anyone what she shared with me. Because such privacy is necessary, it confirms just about everything I had suspected throughout my life. It’s unbelievable how ironic the whole situation is turning out with learning about how differently neurotypicals think versus how aspies think.

The more that my daughter and I gain knowledge that has the potential to help others, the more we’re able to see how this would backfire against us because of the ignorance level which exists in society and the cognitive inability most people have. She and I can continue to become closer from what we can teach each other, because fate has created a way for us to be beyond a level unable to be attained by humanistic means.

If what I’m saying here sounds confusing, I apologize. I would love more than anything for aspergers to be understood correctly, but now I see I’ve reached a point at which it is best I go no further (deeper) with talking about it.

Feeling as hurt as I do now (by knowing what I know) has knocked the wind out of my sail for sure. Without motivation, it is time for me to move on to other things outside of those related to the autism spectrum.

With that being said, should my blog remain on the Autism Hub and BlogNetNews.com/Autism or should it be taken off?² If it is off, then how will people know about all that I’ve written so far on the topic of Aspergers? If it is on the hub, then my blog could be misleading if readers are unaware of the buried posts related to Aspergers.

¹I’m not referring to what I’ve already written in my blog. I am talking about things I have not mentioned. They are things which the public is unaware of and impacts families and society to a greater degree.

²As of June 2010, my blog is no longer on the Autism Hub.

How I Am Easily Misjudged

  • Posted on September 21, 2008

I have a fresh example of how wrong motives lead to wrong conclusions. By wrong, I mean incorrect assumptions as opposed to wrong meaning bad. For example, you can have the wrong time, but you can’t have the bad time. When you’re having a bad time, that doesn’t mean time itself is bad. A bad time means your experience during that time felt bad. Someone else could be having a good time while you’re having a bad one.

Last night, my husband’s friend came to visit again. This guy is not my enemy, but it’s also obvious he wouldn’t enjoy regular visits to chit-chat with me if my husband did not exist. Anyhow, our visitor does like to engage in conversation with me on occasion. I guess the reason conversations can often times be less enjoyable between me and this guest is because of the work involved in our communicating. The body language aspect in this example is irrelevant. You’ll soon understand why (I hope).

I have always had an insatiable curiosity to know what other people think. This passion increases when it comes to information about what other people think about me. Immediately, my motive for this is misjudged because practically nobody wants to learn what others think about them for the same reason I do.¹ There I went, getting sucked inside another vortex of frustration when trying to explain myself. This guy will eventually ‘get it’ because he finally knows me well enough for me to bring up his correct conclusions about me that he already has, in order to weave them into this wrong one so it can be eliminated. Then, he will be able to see how he made another mistake in spite of his being highly intelligent. What the guest needs is to be ‘properly’ educated. Why? Because when two radically different minds (that do NOT process information in the same manner) get together to have a conversation (i.e., a neurotypical and an aspie), it is inevitable that misjudgments are going to endlessly abound.

Last night, I was constantly being advised to stop worrying about what other people think about me. No matter how many times I told him I am not worried about it, he kept insisting that I was. He believed he was right because he was looking at me through his neurotypical colored agnostic glasses. I need to know what other people think about me sometimes, because I need to know how they think. People should also know how I think, because we all have to share this same planet. I do not claim to be ‘better’ than others, but I (along with a substantial amount of other sane people) do also know that others have NO right to automatically claim their mental health is ’better’ than mine (no matter how much they might like to convince themselves so). Most folks already know how typical people think because they already think alike. Since my brain has its own invisible path to answers that is very different from the way other minds operate, people cannot judge me correctly. They think they are because they’re so used to the way ‘normal’ people think. ‘Normal’ people don’t realize how spoiled they are by how much easier it is for them to communicate among their own kind. They also have no clue how much effort I have to put forth when working at communicating a message to someone so he is able to understand me correctly.²

I have an analogy that hopefully helps others to understand why I don’t worry over what others think about me. God being God in my life is the biggest reason. I do have another reason and it is fairly simple.

Now that I’ve learned how impossible it is for me (generally speaking) to get others acquainted with me to form the kind of friendship that most people are sometimes blessed with, I quit trying to make it happen. For me, it’s either going to happen or it’s not. Having said that, I’m sure many would argue with me on this since they can’t imagine what it is like to be me.

I’ll use sexual behavior as an analogy. Try real hard to envision a man who has NO sex drive but yet would want to get pregnant and carry this baby inside his body. In this odd analogy, there is still a need to copulate with the opposite sex in order to beget a child. Since this man knows only women are able to bear children, and his only reason he would want to engage in sex with a woman would be for him to be the one to bear a child (rather than the woman), he would not bother with trying to do something impossible. If, by chance, science came up with a way for doctors to help this guy achieve his desire to experience pregnancy first hand, then maybe he would pursue women sexually to attain this. In my case, for me to make a friend, God has to be my surgeon to work upon the mind of whoever might be my potential friend. By myself, I cannot do it. My husband, my daughter, and my son, would vouch to that.

In this scenario regarding my social unpopularity, there is no reason for me to worry about what others think of me. It might be what most neurotypicals do, since their minds function enough alike to make it natural for them to develop friendships when they put forth the effort. When you have a brain AND a spirit that both contain a nature too weird for others to comprehend, trust me→ making friends cannot happen by willful effort no matter how hard one tries. By trying, I don’t mean sacrificing who you are and the way you think to accommodate the other person’s comfort zone.

True friendship requires both parties to meet halfway, but unless they share the same spirit (resulting from common ground faith), having the same neurological structure doesn’t go very far. Even with the same spirit, if the neuro-cultures are not alike, the friendship is limited in growth when compared to those sharing identical neuro-culture relationships.

¹It might be possible that there are some other aspies who have the same motive as me, but since I’ve even had to explain this to an aspie friend of mine, that tells me EVERYONE should be cautious about making assumptions!

²My husband and my daughter are finally just beginning to grasp and appreciate my efforts. They both admit they’ve never known anyone to be so much work to understand as I am. Sadly, my parents, half-sisters, cousins, and all other relatives outside of my immediate household, never really knew me well enough to want to get to know me. I don’t blame anyone. God predestined them to no longer be a part of my life, so that He could form me into who I am now. Today, I can appreciate everything in life—even those things that once upon a time hurt deeply.

Society Can Be Its Own Worst Enemy

  • Posted on September 20, 2008

I doubt most people realize the Catch 22 situation that hinders society from being able to dispel the myths about Aspergers syndrome and to get the proper information that’s needed in order for the right people to be in authority on matters in regard to Aspergers.

Most of the time and money being poured into research to study about AS is not only wasteful, but also potentially destructive. Too many wrong conclusions are made because of relying upon observations. Observations are fine, but what is lacking is enough of the right kind of communication.

How can I say this, especially when I haven’t had as much time being aware of Aspergers existence as many others? Because the information that really counts, when it comes to grasping what Aspergers is, does NOT come from structured research done in controlled environments specifically designed for studies.

The best source of knowledge, as with most things, comes from experiences that happen in life naturally.¹ For example, we can’t control things like who our relatives are and/or the way a lot of events unfold over time. Such things can be a curse or a blessing, depending on how you perceive them and what you do with them.

My life is a good example of a situation in which a desired outcome or solution seems impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules and conditions. The desired outcome I’d like to see is a way for me to take what I’ve learned and have it boosted up to the forefront so it is at least on par with all the misinformation that has already had a chance to spread. The set of inherently illogical rules have arrived because too much wrong information has received the opportunity to embed itself into society. A condition that adds to the impossibility has to do with the amount of insufficient intelligence that exists. There are other conditions too (e.g., politics), but those kinds of things are not as exclusive to Aspergers.

Starting with intelligence, it is both relative and relevant. An IQ point gives the illusion of an intelligence level as being absolute (existing independently), but such numbers should not be used like those on a measuring cup. It’s disgusting to see how IQ points have become like a scoreboard in a competition event! That being said, intelligence still remains highly relevant for understanding Aspergers. However, a high IQ isn’t enough to guarantee its comprehension. Adding to that, other aspects also influence the ability to grasp such a complex concept as Aspergers.

What is known about AS is only the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of it will probably always remain a mystery to most people. I’m not saying we should give up on educating the public about AS. What I am saying is that those who have the authority to create and/or enforce rules and/or laws that set the way society handles Aspergers must NOT be done by those who truly do not understand it. In all probability, those who do ‘get it’ well enough will also have the integrity to incorporate their knowledge properly. Wrong motives usually produce unreliable outcomes. Curiosity driven by those who love an aspie(s?) is not the same thing as the type driven by a passion to be an ‘authority’ on the subject.

I gave one example of how illogical rules and conditions affected Mary Newport in my post about Unequal Reactions to Fame. I have many examples, but I can’t publicize them without putting the people in these examples at risk. This is also why I have to keep what I post limited to a certain level that’s far from being as helpful to society as whatever I may already have on my blog for others to gain insight from.

This ‘handicap’ works the other way too. I could offer more if I could get feedback that would have greater detail instead of comments remaining relatively vague. That’s to be expected given the risks that come along with using the internet. In spite of such blocks that exist for developing a greater understanding of Aspergers for those who don’t ‘get it’, fate has managed to provide alternative sources for helping me to understand the neurotypical mind. I will not divulge the specifics I’m referring to because of knowing what can happen if I do. People should know I don’t want to hoard what I get and use it only for myself and my family, but also people should know society is to blame when beneficial information is kept private.

I doubt I’m the only one who is aware of society being its own worst enemy in this way. What’s uncommon is to see attention brought to this situation. If it wasn’t for certain people of high intelligence, who actually know me (not totally, but well enough) and who give their input as to what they’ve witnessed happening and continue to see happening, what I was beginning to suspect never would have been confirmed.

One fact repeatedly witnessed is how consistently judgments made about me can end up being completely opposite from the truth. Another thing pointed out was this correlation → The lower the intelligence, the lower the accuracy of judging. The higher the intelligence, the less mistakes (generally speaking). Patience and proper information are also necessary, but without enough of a capacity to process the information gained, the ability to reach the level of insight necessary to begin to perceive things correctly is impossible. That might sound arrogant, but how can anyone point out this vital aspect without offending some? To refrain from such bold statements, is irresponsible behavior.

¹Neurotypical moms observing their aspie children they live with day and night can be more helpful than psychologists whose only exposure to aspies are their clients who come into their office by appointment. However, those sources alone do NOT provide enough information for either of them to be writing as reliable of a book about Aspergers as certain aspies can (can does not mean will). Children have not lived a substantial lifetime yet, so it is impossible for them to be able to offer what mature aspies can give, especially ones who have experienced a lot of different things in life.

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