06-26-2005, 02:42 PM
06-26-2005, 02:57 PM
Personally I feel its a combination of factors.
In the past I felt very frustrated that no-one could understand me, now I can see that I was utterly failing to communicate basic things to people.
I couldn't see that, I am glad that now I can recognise it and I don't feel so bad about it.
But if someone had been able to help me understand that as a child it would have helped so much.
If someone is speaking a foreign language and the other person cannot understand, it is neither of their fault, it is something that needs to be reolved between the two of them.
In the past I felt very frustrated that no-one could understand me, now I can see that I was utterly failing to communicate basic things to people.
I couldn't see that, I am glad that now I can recognise it and I don't feel so bad about it.
But if someone had been able to help me understand that as a child it would have helped so much.
If someone is speaking a foreign language and the other person cannot understand, it is neither of their fault, it is something that needs to be reolved between the two of them.
04-05-2006, 04:52 AM
Definitely both. Society needs to be more clear and understanding.
BUT
the social skills issue is part of the very DEFINITION of Autism and Asperger's, and it was first observed throuhg that factor. I really don't see how it could possibly be excluded from the definition....
BUT
the social skills issue is part of the very DEFINITION of Autism and Asperger's, and it was first observed throuhg that factor. I really don't see how it could possibly be excluded from the definition....
04-09-2006, 10:17 PM
I say both; it may be different for others on the spectrum, but the things people do just make me so angry sometimes, and so often I've come away feeling tricked or lied to. And of course it doesn't help that my AS manifests as a disinterest in new people, and it is very obvious to me that there are things that I am missing, and the ways I want to interpret various things have turned out to be wrong so many times I'm scared to interpret them at all.
Then there are the periods where I'm more sociable. I notice more things about people, especially how they treat others. How pushy they are about things that aren't even any of their business. How many times I've seen or heard things that turn me off of somebody so emphatically I have to wonder what disease it is that makes me want them in the first place. More to the point, I think of how "retard" is now the cussword of choice for everyone at my school, how even the people who work with mentally handicapped children don't give them any chances, just do everything for them without bothering to teach them how. I know several people with MR who are plenty smart enough to tie their own shoes, my sister included, but they can't because people always do it for them and never even go to the trouble of teaching them. How they are left high and dry without these essential lifeskills. It's an attitude almost everybody holds and it is nothing short of criminal.
So no, our social skills are not that great, but you have to be crazy to think there's nothing wrong with normal society.
Then there are the periods where I'm more sociable. I notice more things about people, especially how they treat others. How pushy they are about things that aren't even any of their business. How many times I've seen or heard things that turn me off of somebody so emphatically I have to wonder what disease it is that makes me want them in the first place. More to the point, I think of how "retard" is now the cussword of choice for everyone at my school, how even the people who work with mentally handicapped children don't give them any chances, just do everything for them without bothering to teach them how. I know several people with MR who are plenty smart enough to tie their own shoes, my sister included, but they can't because people always do it for them and never even go to the trouble of teaching them. How they are left high and dry without these essential lifeskills. It's an attitude almost everybody holds and it is nothing short of criminal.
So no, our social skills are not that great, but you have to be crazy to think there's nothing wrong with normal society.
04-10-2006, 01:50 AM
Glad I had social skills training, could use more, on the other hand I'd like to avoid society as much as possible as an adult.
I don't like society, my father (who has AS undiagnosed, survived the social world barely, and primarily because he came from a small Maine town, went to MIT, and then stayed in grad school until a couple years after I was born, in short has had limited involvement in society himself) thinks I need more, the builds character kind of thing.
Most people I meet who don't know me very well, or only knew me as a child, think that I'll never make it on my own and need to learn to survive in a corporate enviroment, most people who know me well (except my father, who tends to be financially supported by my mother) don't doubt that I'll succeed in my plans to be self-employed.
I really do not like people, hate my socially addictd little brother and the assorted idiots, morons, cretins, fools, jackasses, and imbeciles who run society and government, and hate bureacracy, posturing, sanctimony, regulation, and other such assorted idiocies.
I know that realistically nothing will change for us, in the near future, and hence see the best solution as a calculated withdrawal and organization under the radar.
But then a culture of misanthropy thrives among the Aspies of our school, so eh, I may be distinct in this.
I've noticed that people with AS who don't have much communication with others who have AS (or probably do, most of these examples are undiagnosed adults who I know well enough to see very clear traits) tend to be much more tolerant of idiocy than I am and instead tend to blame themselves or government conspiracies while holding that people in general are inherently noble.
I don't like society, my father (who has AS undiagnosed, survived the social world barely, and primarily because he came from a small Maine town, went to MIT, and then stayed in grad school until a couple years after I was born, in short has had limited involvement in society himself) thinks I need more, the builds character kind of thing.
Most people I meet who don't know me very well, or only knew me as a child, think that I'll never make it on my own and need to learn to survive in a corporate enviroment, most people who know me well (except my father, who tends to be financially supported by my mother) don't doubt that I'll succeed in my plans to be self-employed.
I really do not like people, hate my socially addictd little brother and the assorted idiots, morons, cretins, fools, jackasses, and imbeciles who run society and government, and hate bureacracy, posturing, sanctimony, regulation, and other such assorted idiocies.
I know that realistically nothing will change for us, in the near future, and hence see the best solution as a calculated withdrawal and organization under the radar.
But then a culture of misanthropy thrives among the Aspies of our school, so eh, I may be distinct in this.
I've noticed that people with AS who don't have much communication with others who have AS (or probably do, most of these examples are undiagnosed adults who I know well enough to see very clear traits) tend to be much more tolerant of idiocy than I am and instead tend to blame themselves or government conspiracies while holding that people in general are inherently noble.