Aspies For Freedom

Something that always confounded me during my teenage and early adult years -  I was accused of having "a bad attitude".  I never really understood what people were talking about.  They would say that I should "change my bad attitude"  but they would never tell me how to do it or what to change my  bad attitude to.  I never understood what the "bad" was about my attitude or how they knew I had an attitude most of the time.

Anyone else have this problem?  Solutions?

Yep, that's right. They couldn't handle it that you had different priorities in life to them and they expected you to be able to mind-read what they wanted.

Well ...

While I agree with the fact that saying this reflects the inability of others to understand you properly, I will fill in the blanks on what people usually mean when they say this.

If someone seems to consistently take the negative view of things, as opposed to a more optimistic one, that is considered a "bad attitude."  We tend to get in life what we expect.  If we don't expect the positive, we won't get it.  If what you are expressively is usually the negative or nuetral view of things, people assume that you have no positive feelings.

Keeping up optimism can at times be very important to your mental health. I expect to be treated like crap by some people, but in general i'm quite optimistic.

With regards to the "bad attitude problem" I used to get incredibly annoyed in school when teachers made mistakes. When I corrected an IT teacher by telling them you don't need a keyboard and mouse to use a computer the response I got was an angry "stop being cheeky". People don't like being corrected it seems.

As a child I was often accused by my own mother of "sulking" because I 1.) became quiet and mopey after a scolding and 2.) have a naturally downturned mouth, which I actually inherited from her!  With some people you can't win...your very facial structure and your quite rational reactions to THEIR unpleasant behavior will be used against you as proof of your so-called bad attitude. :roll:

"Cheer up, it might never happen"
"Stop being a misery guts"

The list goes on and on, and these comments only seem to be made when i'm actually happy.

I suppose if you expect the worst, you can never be disappointed.  :smile:

I also tend to agree much with what Dogface has said.

How about "neither of the above?"

The "positive" attitude thing to do would be to realize that your view of life does not need to be affected by what people around you say and think.  To realize you can be in charge of your own destiny, and don't have to accept what is given to you.  That you have the power to make positive changes.

I will never say that is an easy thing to do.  And I completely understand why many Aspie's here don't think that way.  I'm just saying, that is what the NT world means when they talk about "positive attitude."  As much as you think we run in hurds, we DO learn to take charge of our own destinies, and of our own happiness, and to believe that positive things can happen because we can MAKE them happen.

I don't know if this is an Aspie trait or not, since while my husband considers himself possibly Aspie I don't think he is sufficiently Aspie for a diagnosis, but one of the most startling differences between my husband and I comes in crises.  I still remember early in our marriage we were making a last romantic trip together before our first child was to be born.  Well, the car broke down on the way to the airport.  For him, that was it.  Trip over.  NO WAY was I taking that answer.  I had him get the car to a gas station that looked like it could do repairs and we wrote a note (this was very early in the morning; nothing was open yet).  Then he went to call for a taxi - and gave up again, because the first company he called wouldn't promise to get us to the airport on time.  So I called.  Dang it, we were on that airplane, and our car got fixed for less than $100 while we were gone!  He can't see how to make a situation like that turn out just fine - I can.  OK, sometimes you try and try and just can't cross the finish line - but at least you've tried!  THAT is the difference between a "positive" attitude, and a "negative" one.

I always felt the "bad attitude" and "misreading social cues" think was a excuse for the SPED moderators. If they claimed one of these, then they wouldn't have to actually go and help a student.

But I don't think there is much point in trying unless you have a fairly good chance of success. Otherwise, it is just wasted energy. I suppose that is a typically Aspie attitude though.

I don't think I would try something that was fairly hopeless.  But, I rarely believe anything is hopeless.  I almost always figure that if I want it to happen, all I have to do is find a way to make it happen, and it WILL happen.  So, the main difference is in how you see, "fairly good chance of success."  I can see it almost anywhere.  My husband sees it almost nowhere.  Until I show him, of course.  In that way I've been really, really good for him.  He has done so much during our marriage that he never considered possible for himself (but, that, yes, he most definitely wanted).  Not that anyone would say HE has a bad attitude:  he comes accross as a funny, generally happy (albiet very shy) person, and he has an easy time telling others, "go for it."  The doubt has always been just with himself.  But, extend that way of thinking into a more universal outlook, and it will be perceived as a "bad attitude."  If you to accomplish things, you have to put the goal ahead of the possibility of "wasted energy."  When people get to the end of their lives, they rarely talk negatively about the things they tried but failed at; what they regret are the things they never tried.

I can only know what he has told me.  He was glad I got us on that plane.  Amazed, actually, lol.  At this point in our marriage he just turns all that kind of stuff over to me:  "you figure it out.  You're better at it."  Which is fine.  There are plenty of things that he is much better at, and he takes care of for the both of us.

The car was an old car we had been thinking about selling.  If it had been more valuable, we probably wouldn't have taken the risk that we did.

Hopefully I know my husband well enough to not "leap to conclusions" on his behalf.  People do leap to conclusions more often than they should, but I wouldn't shared that story if it hadn't been something my husband and I had some agreement about.

We aren't all wonderful enough to make things happen, at least not big things. Sometimes, just getting through the day relatively unscathed is an achievement. If that is a "bad attitude" then I will wear it.

I would freak if the car broke down too and wouldn't have been able to make a call. However, I wouldn't have wanted to cancel the trip and would have wanted to see if there was a "3rd Option" - see if there was some other way to ge there.

I don't believe admitting that you don't have the drive or energy to do something is a bad attitude.  It could feed into the inaccurate perception of laziness when speaking to someone who doesn't fully understand you, but it only becomes a bad attitude when you start expressing it as a sense of hopelessness about everything around you and, as I said before, extending the concept onto others.

No one is superman.  We all have to make choices about what hurdles we will choose to attempt to leap, and which we can leave unchallenged.  I think the attitude thing is, in large part, about how we express those choices, and then how happy we are with those choices.  I am, for the most part, comfortable with mine.  I feel I've made them, mostly, instead of them being made for me.  Some hurdles left unchallenged are the result of my own weaknesses, certainly, but I'm at a point in life where I'm generally OK with that.   I just shrug my shoulders and say, "it's just me."  We aren't talking about eternal optimism here, just enough to cross the hurdles that mean something to YOU, and maybe enough to encourage friends or family to cross the ones that mean something to them.

Kai, maybe they were the ones with the "bad attitude" but projected it on to you (a common psychological defense mechanism).