Aspies For Freedom

That is absolutely disgusting. I can imagine how I would have felt when I first heard about having AS. I would have been so upset . And to think it's for a helpline..

A horrible advert - is that the best that they can do to advertise NAAR?!

awful and digusting.  pretty much says autistics don't have meanigufl lives and we all suffer from depression, and the only way to be happy is to be normal.  naar has to be ashamed of itself right now.

and playing alone isn't tragic.  having no friends is probaly becuase socitey has shunned him away.  and naar think it's autism's fault, not socitey's that people are treating us like animals.

That's absolutely horrendous...

I spend almost all my time on my own too - I meet other people perhaps once in every three or four weeks. It's a bit much sometimes.

Why can't these peopel uncderstand we may not appear to have friends, and we may appear to be alone - but we're happy - I mean think about it... really...

NT's seem to spend their lives always striving to better their position in society, and they're seldom happy with their lives. And yet Aspies, who ARE happy, they make out to be malfunctioning  :?

I love how they higlight "Alone" and "No friends"



"He's always miserable"
"His life has no meaning"

"To find out more about Neurotypicality, please phone the RSPCA"

It's a page on the Greenwich University website.

The person who designed the image is a third year graphics design student.

It is a rather worryingly bleak image.  But I do think you have to wonder, not just about the thought processes of the designer, how and why they were able to come up with such an image, but also, as Amy says, the brief s/he was given to work to, so some of the 'blame' may be with whoever issued the brief.  As it's a student, it may have been NAAR, or it may have been a class assignment set by a tutor or something?

If the latter's the case, how about approaching the course director at Greenwich University, and inviting them to set a project for their students to come up with images from our perspective?  And maybe the students could do some research by checking out this site, maybe set up a dedicated Q&A thread for them?  That could have a two-fold positive outcome.  We'd get to work with some people and have some input into a positive project.  And also, in the longer term, it would give some food for thought to all those students who are about to go out in the working world, and make them think about the images they are creating, and how highlighting negatives to provoke feelings of pity or whatever, which is usually to promote fundraising, might have a 'positive' of helping to raise funds, but a long term negative impact, by perpetuating 'pathetic' portrayals of people.

I haven't seen the poster, but from what ya'll are saying about it, it sounds pretty horrific. So how about this poster:

*Image of a kid portrayed as a bully, talking down/beating up on another kid*

"I like to emotionally abuse, and terrorize other children. I have lots of friends. I am considered normal. I have no moral base. I do not have a capicity for empathy. They say it's just a stage, that it's teenage years. Well years from now I will haunt children's nightmares even when they are adults. I may be in jail, I may kill, I might become that person on the news who holds innocent people hostage, for my own sadistic pleasures.

Hey, I have alot of friends. You all think I'm normal, I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing.

What would you rather have:

A bully for a child

Or someone perhaps not as normal, or social, but with compassion, understanding and empathy.

Bill Gates or Hitler, which would you choose?

We do not need to be cured, we're not the ones with anything that needs curing of"

I guess it could be a anti-curbie poster or something. Kind of got a bit long..but I think you see what I'm getting at.

quintucket, yes but don't you see that public schools allowing..heck, even encouraging behaviours like bullying, is encouraging students who participate in it to be sociopathic?

Also, people consider Aspies not to be normal. Hitler was insane, but what does it say when we as a society continue on with his insanity, towards a new group of "undesirables".

What does it say when we allow children in schools, to emotionally and physically abuse someone? Aside from that the laws, outside do not apply inside a school environment. Apperantly also in regards to the Geneva Convention.

You teach children that there's always going to be a group of people to step on, they'll end up similar to Hitler. They'll find a group of similar people to generalize and then decide they're uneccessary, a plague on the human race.

The thing is people are spending all this time trying to cure people, who mean no harm to others, who want to be left alone to mind their own beeswax. Why is there a need to cure people like that, when we're advocating for people who harm others? We don't need anymore bullies, or tyrants. Yet nobody is concerned with "curing" them, no it's the nice people they want to cure. The people who don't bother to do harm. That doesn't make sense does it?

So basically the curbie programs are just organizing people who have had a need to find a "cure" for those who aren't NT like them?

He usually plays alone.  He's got no friends.  And they're saying this like it's a BAD thing?
Alison :roll:

I LOVE what you wrote!  While my son is may not be typical Aspie in that he really DOES want friends, playdates and the like (to a point, at least, for he also likes and needs a large amount of alone time), he was, this past year, in a class with another PDD child, more profoundly autistic.  I remember asking the other child's parents about friendships and they replied honestly, "he doesn't want friends."  I can see it's true with that child, and I also KNOW he is really happy.  He has the most amazingly light to him, and he is so eager about the things he wants to share (walk into the classroom and he is likely to run right up to show you something in a space book).  What makes the most difference in his life is simply being left to be, and his parents have told me that they have always been pleased that the kids at school do that ... but also care enough to be protective of him if someone were to try and tease him and so forth (man, I LOVE our school!  The more and more I think about it, the more I know I have to be grateful for).

So THAT is what is going through my child's head (maybe, lol) when he's making motions by himself on the playground.

I guess my worries have been ... well, several.  I am much better at letting it all be than ever before, but I know there were times it bothered me.

First, is he escaping into his solo world in reaction to something negative that has recently happened?  Is this a form of coping, running away?  Basically a negative choice instead of an affirmative one?

Second, is he setting himself up for ridicule?  My son does care about what other kids think; he has always wanted to have friends.  He just doesn't want them there all the time, and when he wants them he wants them to play what he wants.  It has taken a while but he does have friends that can go with the flow quite well.

Third, what happens when he is so locked into his own world that he basically doesn't notice he is about to run afoul of others?  Often he paces the baseball diamond.  What if some kids decide they want to play baseball?  He'll have a tough time giving up his space, and this sets up conflict.  Worse yet, what if he doesn't know danger anymore when it is about to happen?

But, probably, it's the first that I think about most.  He seems happy, but I also know the pattern.  He retreats into his own world more when the outside world is being unkind to him than when it is meeting his needs.  The pattern suggests that his first choice is to integrate into the outside world more often than not.

And, truthfully, we live in a social world.  What does it mean for the future, for holding a job, for marrying, if he chooses over time more and more often to be alone in his own world?

I know I see the world another way than the rest of you do.  And I come here first and foremost to understand my son better so I can be a better parent for him.  But can you see it from my eyes?  I hate the NAAR poster, I know it's wrong, but I can't stop thinking about what is the chicken and what is the egg.

Another catch phrase that has been bashed on this site, the one about a thief seeming to steel your child in the middle of the night ... do you know WHY that phrase can strike a chord with parents?  Because up to a certain age you are likely to have a very "normal" social child.  Talking, interacting, developing in all ways as you would expect.  And then it changes.  Some parents see what appears to be total reversal in development; for others time seems to freeze.  Your child may still be who he was always meant to be, but to your eyes he has changed from who he used to be, and not in a way you ever expected.  Everything you thought you knew about your child is lost.  That is so very difficult to deal with as a parent.

And so, when I see my child choosing to play alone when as a baby he was the first to grab at nearby babies for play ... I can't help worry that something inside him is changing that didn't need to change.  If he really is happy, great.  I do believe he is.  But why is he changing?

You know what?  Despite all I've learned and come to understand, if I can keep him from retreating further into himself by manipulating the world around him, I will.  Not drugs, not therapy; just keeping the world a place that feels safe and comfortable.

Sorry, a rant from a parent.  But, maybe, if you could see what I see, the place these folks are coming from could make a little more sense.

I don't want to cure autism.  But I totally want to understand why it happens and be darn sure it is, in the higher order of things, meant to happen.

Edit -

After reading some other threads at this forum, I want to ask a question.  How prevelent is hate in the Aspie world?  Was it sheer misfortune that I just read so much hate?  I don't believe that someone who carries a lot of hate can really be happy.  Yes, you can be happy at times, but hate is destructive and consuming to individual who carries it.  I don't want my child to hate.  It would break my heart.  I would never be able to believe he was happy as he was if he became filled with hate.  I will assume that hate tends to come from negative experience and frustration, and that as long as I can keep that negativity away from my child he won't grow up carrying hatred.  But, I worry .... I'm a parent.  Shoot, worry is in the job description!

Edit #2 -

I think I need to take my head out of this forum for a while.  It's great to get perspective that helps with my child, but I'm getting a bit further into things than that, and I'm not sure that is productive for me or for the rest of you.  I'll see you all again when I can meter my posting and thought process a bit better!

Thank you for posting that article.  Excellent.  It mirrors a bit of what I posted to a teen in another thread, thinking about telling her parents:  that part of what a parent may think they know about their child is an inaccurate projection based on a observation made of an infant, which is ultimately meaningless.  But, the parent doesn't know that, and needs help changing direction.

It remains a comment, the sense of regression or freeze, that can resonate with parents, and may be an important element of diagnosis.  Then the experts should teach us that it wasn't regression or freezing at all, just a perception we needed to let go of.

Counseling for parents!  Wouldn't that be a great idea?

I still have so much to learn ...

But then, with my son, the main skill that triggered our awareness, which related to writing and fine motor development (at 3 1/2 he was writing words and huge kid scribble books, but never moved from using kid scribble to using real words in volume) ... he seemed more frustrated than anyone around him.  Or was he frustrated with us more than himself?  Interesting.  I'm just glad we're through it.  Not that he can write anything past a word or two even now at age 9.  We've just gotten past the roadblock of expecting it.

Wish there was some way to know what a toddler is experiencing, since the phenominon is most often commented on with respect to something in the toddler years.

The problem with sign, I think, is getting the AS children to see that it is a language.  The AS children in my class don't look at faces or hand motions usually - they are too busy focusing on whatever it is they are doing to the exclusion of everything else.  Plus, I may be wrong here as I don't do sign language, but doesn't some of it at least depend on the expression on the face?  Perhaps somebody with experience in sign can correct me on this.  
Alison