Aspies For Freedom

I never stopped being an aspie but at one point in my life I started to realize how much suffering I had because of it.  I don't hate being an aspie --- I JUST HATE THE WAY SOME PEOPLE TREAT ME BECAUSE I HAVE ASPERGERS.  

Now that you know some people have treated you badly because you have asperger's -- you could start working on ways to try and protect yourself from that abuse.  It will never be 100% effective but it will lessen your suffering.  

I started one day to realize that my happiness could be dependent on myself and not on being around other people and having lots of friends.  

Do you want some help?

Do you have any special interests Lucario - could you develop your special interests to make your autistic traits work to your favour in life?

Music playing, scratch the record

Are you reading more into what actually went on?  
When I was a sped, they treated us with respect.
Did they demonstratedly treat you with disrespect?  

How did they treat you???????????  What did they do and say???

Some of the staff at the Maryland Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore seem to have had a client service problem, I mean, during our cooking lessons, think she had a temper.... I hate to say it but I saw her hit one of the girls.  I wish I had said something (as a Masters I knew damned well the woman was out of line, I tried to get jobs similiar to the kind she was doing, I knew the drill)

The MSW on the Community Living Sills Training floor seemed to have an attitude.  What is the difference between a man with a Master's in sociology and a woman with a Master's in social work?  The man has Asperger and the woman doesn't and she thinks she is better than him because of an accident of genetics?

No I did not handle the Community Living Skills curriculum well.

It was 1999.  Because I lived the previous year in Greenbelt alone with just a cat, I already knew how to
a. cook
b. do laundry
c. take public transit
d. shop
e. keep house (clean, vacuum)
f. wash dishes, either by hand or with an dishwasher appliance
g. hell, in 1991 I got my driver's license, and after my dad died in 1996 I had Mom's full permission to develop my skills on the road.  Dad's fears of getting into accidents were overrated, I had two in a year but I was not at fault and the damage was minor to either vehicle.  I was not at fault for years.  We all make mistakes, eventually, and try not to repeat them.

CLST did teach me how to iron clothes.  It takes forever.  I can do it.  I'd rather do something else with two or three hours, so I patronize dry cleaners like everyone else does at work.  It would probably be worth it to iron ties and handkerchiefs, though, because they are small, not much time to press, and they would be too expensive to press for their small size.  For the big stuff, shirts and pants, I would burn my fingers.  I did.  You get really mad at the cat when she is down by your feet when you burn your fingers in the steam press, but you love her, and you don't hurt her.  That is love.

First of all, it's not uncommon for even NTs to be in denial about being a victim of a sexual assault.  In addition to seeking counseling, you may want to read the book 'Miss America By Day' by Marilyn Van Derbur.

It also does not mean that you are stupid or slow. Sometimes the mind may block out or rationalize some things at the time because it would be too much to deal with otherwise. There is nothing wrong with you, but there is something wrong with the rapist.

And secondly, an IQ score says nothing about how intelligent you are.  There are many problems with IQ tests and I wouldn't take the score to heart.  Being able to take a test well and being intelligent can be mutually exculsive things.

My IQ score certainly isn't MENSA worthy, but regardless I know that I am an intelligent person. I also have no savant or super impressive talents. That doesn't make me unworthy however.

Self-acceptance isn't something that happens overnight and negative thinking can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. My advice would be to be true to yourself and pursue the hobbies/interests that make you happy. In the process, you may find a few friends.

My teenaged years sucked ,but life does get better so hang in there.

If it comes to that, there are thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of autistics and their families willing to do what it takes to keep that from happening. Realistically, though, I don't think it will. There are too many of us and the autism rights movement is gaining too much momentum. I understand the paranoia; and you would be right to be paranoid about mistreatment, because that does happen on a daily basis. But the reality is that you are very unlikely to die because you are autistic; the vast majority of murders of autistic people are perpetrated against people who are dependent on caretakers 24/7, or else nonverbal or partly verbal minor children. For now, the only people who are targeted for the extremes are the most vulnerable. You are 16, verbal, and in high school... death is unlikely unless you become very disabled.

A lot of us believe that forced cure is a sort of death, and get paranoid about that. I agree; I refuse to be paranoid, though. A cure for autism is unlikely. Forced treatment? Yes. Happens every day.

The realistic worst-case scenario is more like: They develop a genetic test, and autistic fetuses get aborted (along with the many false positives) at a 95% rate or so. The remaining autistics lose services because there aren't enough of them. Over the next few hundred years, they remain a marginalized population as autism slowly removes itself from the gene pool--as do positive, autism-related traits such as logic and visual thinking. This causes a stagnation in scientific progress, as society depends more and more on social connections and guesswork instead of facts, because even NTs-with-autistic-traits would gradually no longer exist. If something similar is applied to other genetically based mental conditions, we might lose art, literature, or even a strong sense of morality, as all these can go to extremes and result in mental conditions. Society would become normalized... everyone nearer and nearer the average; fewer disabled people; more cookie-cutter education; more and more trivial ways of 'standing out'. Also fewer innovators, activists, and eccentrics.

But that is the pessimistic prediction. Optimistically, autistics (along with the entire disability community) would become more and more open about their rights. It would become another civil rights movement; and eventually the shame of being different, instilled in childhood in many people, would become less prominent. Autistic people would become more and more obvious as they stop trying to hide, and as parents stop trying to hide or normalize their children. The 'financial burden' of autism on the economy would briefly increase as autistics receive needed services, then decrease precipitously as they became employable and found jobs with newly tolerant employers. It would become as socially unpopular to taunt someone for being a 'nerd', 'psycho', or 'freak' as it would be to taunt someone for being black, homosexual, or physically disabled. It wouldn't happen in our lifetimes, just as it won't happen for the lifetimes of black people born in the 1960s. (Yes, they're still alive, and still middle-aged. The civil rights movement isn't complete yet.) But maybe, given enough courage on our part, two hundred years in the future, being autistic could be viewed as being no more negative than having blue eyes.

There are two kinds of people involved in the suffering of the Aspergic.  There are those with Aspergers and then there are the assburgers.  Assburgers are the kind of people who exploit and victimize people with Aspergers.  The vast majority of us do not suffer from Aspergers, we suffer from the accompanying assburgers.

Sounds more like "used to hate". Either that, or it's a typo. Not a big deal in either case.

When I was younger I hated myself because I didn't realise I had autism and I was told by parents, teachers and my peers that my difficulties were all my fault because I wasn't a good person and I wasn't trying hard enough. I believed them because I knew no better and this led me to hate myself.

Once I found out about autism and AS I began to feel better about myself because I could see that there wasn't anything 'wrong' with me and I wasn't a bad person - I was just different.

After being diagnosed I started learning about disability rights and autism rights and this led me to realise that I'm just fine the way I am and the only people who have problems are those who discriminate against people who are different.

I never took any *** from my peers or even my family, regarding my eccentric behavior, so I managed to retain a good self image. However, I hated everybody else for thinking they have the right to force their ideas on me. It still pisses me off to see kids and adults telling others how to live their lives; all I want to do is slap them all in the faces. Nobody should be butting into other people's businesses.

I didn't like being autistic up until the beginning of middle school. I disliked it because I was an easier target for harassment and bullying. Then, around the beginning of Middle School, I just didn't care anymore.

At least you knew at school.

I hate the fact God gave me AS. Its what is preventing me from having a decent sig. other relationship.

I've tryed "working around" it all my life. I'm 40 never had a GF why? Because I always miss something due to my AS. Even after I tell them I have trouble with social cues, ect. I need people to be totally truthful with me and they still send mixed signals ect..

Its hopeless for me because God gave me the genes that gave me AS.

I don't agree with that. We may be better on average with technology and some other concrete sorts of subjects; and we're certainly more likely to be experts in our fields of interest; but NTs are better with social networking, and of course they have some of the same gifts we do at the same rate that we have them (ex., being a good writer; having a talent for cooking; being able to fix a bicycle... nothing autistic or NT about those things). I don't see why having slightly higher intelligence should make you good at being a world leader; usually it's social intelligence that makes you good at that.

Anyway, take the whole spectrum into consideration, rather than looking at the by-definition-higher Aspie IQs, and we don't have any benefit in raw processing power either. We're just different from NTs, not any better. More specialized, I think--one or two skills way above the others, or focused on an area of interest--but no better.

Also, if you say Aspies are more intelligent, therefore they are better, what have you just said to all the people who happen to have IQs of 100 and below? "You're defective because your IQ is only 90"? We don't have to justify our existence like that. We don't have to make cases as to why we deserve to exist and be treated with respect; we deserve those things whether or not we're intelligent.

Yep. 90 is only low average, and yet people have felt defective for it. Isn't that stupid? It's like you have to be a genius or a savant so you can have an "excuse" to be an Aspie without desperately searching for a cure...