Aspies For Freedom

They're failing to take successful cases into account. My dad wasn't diagnosed until his late 40s, and he was a math teacher for decades.

Charming way to begin an article, with a long list of what amounts to racial slurs.

I thank God and my parents that I never "reaped the benefit" of neuroleptic drugs, special needs classes, and relentlessly negative predictions about my future prospects, but was instead allowed to grow up thinking of myself as a normal, healthy, competent human being.

We need to combat this sort of propaganda with our own lobbyists and pamphlets.  This is one situation where the Aspie tendency toward obsessive monologues could prove very useful.  How about recruiting some unemployed Aspies to walk the hallways of state and provincial capitols, the US Congress, Parliament, etc., handing out AFF pamphlets and talking legislators' ears off about autistic civil rights at every opportunity?

That's a rather strange analogy. "Geeky" is a title worn with pride these days, and "clueless" is much more associated with ditzy teens. As for the others, they can be applied to anyone, really.

So to compare universal insults--one of which is taken as a *compliment* by many--to racial slurs is extremely off.

Just for the sake of argument, let's imagine that this article was written about some other minority group.  What if the reporter had been assigned to write about Jews and had decided to catch people's interest by beginning the article with a list of insults often directed at Jews?  I expect her editor would have fired her instantly.

Yes, but social skills training and other help can be provided without all those negative labels and stereotypes.

Here's a good article that discusses bullying of 'weirdos' as a civil rights issue:

http: //www. aspar.klattu.com.au/nolonger.htm

* Edited to break the hyperlink.  I'm definitely not interested in raising Judy Singer's Google rankings.  Although the bullying article is well-written, she has obviously lost more than a few of her "marbles" since she wrote it!

That needs to change.  Social skills ought to be part of the regular curriculum at all schools, and not just for the Aspie kids, either.  There are many ill-behaved NTs who need plenty of social skills training, especially the bullies.

*big cyber-hug for you*

It worked when I tried it, but here it is again:

http: //www. aspar.klattu.com.au/nolonger.htm

* Edited to break the hyperlink.  I'm definitely not interested in raising Judy Singer's Google rankings.

Where do you get 'most' from?

This part:

Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.  Obviously the author of the site is overgeneralizing from her bad experiences with her mother, but I thought the bullying article was well-written and made some good points.

Anbuend, thanks for recommending "Celebrating Autistic Parents."  I'll certainly consider writing something for it.

I know *tons* of 'em. Why?

Ursula, I am so sorry for being thoughtless, I had no idea you would feel like that!  Please don't start thinking of yourself as a bad mother just because of a few ignorant comments on a website.

I also have an aspie father and a mother with some aspie traits, and although they sometimes got preoccupied with their own interests and didn't pay as much attention to me as NT parents might have, they were generally good parents because they accepted my differences and taught me to believe in my abilities.

There are many NT parents who treat their aspie/autistic children as defective and incapable.  Such parents cause a lot more suffering, in my opinion.

That's easy enough.  It could be made part of the curriculum at all schools, not just for the Aspie kids, but for the NTs as well.  (Catholic schools already do this.)

It makes no sense that, although society is always declaring how valuable social skills are, most schools provide no training whatsoever in social skills!

Actually, for many years, children were routinely taken away from blind or deaf parents.      I hope society has advanced enough so that it won't happen all over again with aspies, but we really need to work on educating people.

Why does no one believe me when I say things? And no I don't.

One or two friends?  Lucky you.  My last 'friend' (in the loose sense of the word) was when I was twelve, and I've never had any good friends since I was nine.  I've almost finished school, and since I was nine, I've been invited to just one party, when I was twelve (not that I enjoy parties).  In assembly at school, people argue about not having to sit next to me (well, just the immature homophobes) I have absolutely no friends, in any sense of the word.  Needless to say, I've never had a boyfriend either.  Having some kind of positive relationship or interaction with just one person makes me feel good, but that doesn't happen very often.  

I don't like sitting in a group of 20 friends talking about some pointless crap, it's just nice to have one person to talk to.

'Just go up to someone and talk to them, they won't come to you' - anyone else heard this irritating piece of advice? The people that don't go up to people are the ones that CAN'T go up to people.  Lots of people don't seem to be able to grasp the concept that some people just don't know how to talk to other people, especially people they've never met before.  I think many people think that aspies (or any person who appears to be a 'loner') prefer to sit in the corner by themselves all the time, but I'm sure that this isn't the case with most aspies.