Another Paired Signal Boost: "Enough With The Aspie Bit Already"

[browngirl]

You know how people often bring up Asperger's Disorder as a reason/excuse that someone may have done something wrong? Here are two essays by the mothers of people with Asperger's, explaining the multiple reasons why doing so is wrong.

As the mother of an Asperger child by msagara and Enough with the Aspie bit already by rose_lemberg.

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to self-diagnose as Aspie, but I will note that I am pretty socially clueless. (If I look like I'm not that way to others, it's because I've been evolving coping mechanisms for decades, and they mostly work to keep me out of trouble.) Even so, I know what the word "No" means. This guy has no excuses and people should stop making excuses for him.

If you don't know what the words "No" and "Stop" mean, then you're not fit to be out in society.

[sethg]

To the extent that creepy-stalkery behavior involves seeking out people who are less likely to complain, and victimizing them in environments where the offender is less likely to suffer consequences... that behavior requires having at least neurotypical levels of social skills, no? I mean, The Guy In Question didn’t direct his attention to a uniformed policewoman walking the beat, or to a married woman in the presence of her pro-wrestler husband.

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

One of my housemates' kids has Asperberg's. He's eight, and he gets it when someone tells him STOP. He understands boundaries. Okay, sometimes he'll try to push them, but he is, as I said, eight. I never knew much about Asperberg's until I met this kid, but now that I know and love him, I get so annoyed when I see people, both in real life and fiction, blaming their bad behavior on Asperberger's.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Thank you. My eight-year-old son has Asperger's, and we work a lot on the "how to know when someone would not like you to be there" thing. He doesn't always get subtle cues -- "don't you have something to do at *your* house" often fails to work -- but "Please, I would like you to leave now" always does.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Posts that begin:

My aspie daughter....

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the signal boost on these!

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I would tell you you're less clueless than you think, but you'd give me the hairy eyeball. :D And, well, yes.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Truth indeed. I linked today to a post which talks about this exact topic.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was bemused by that excuse till Mr. Joshlet was diagnosed; now it enrages me.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

You're totally welcome. And yeah, we're working on this stuff with The Joshlet; I refuse to believe he can't get it, and would never excuse him from needing to learn it.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Have been really interesting sometimes. (My roommate is a member of aspecialparent).

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*blushes* You're welcome and thank you. :)

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Thank you /so/ much for signal boosting these. Because geeeeez.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

But it seems as if the child has no other characteristics but their disability.
Or am I not interpreting it the right way?

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

It's a context thing, I think. If I were going to talk about what I've learned about sunscreen since living with three redheads, I might start with that topic sentence, but it wouldn't mean that my redheaded roommates have no other characteristics than redheadedness. In the context of discussing why Asperger's is not an excuse for violating people's boundaries, the authors of these essays cited their reason for what they know about Asperger's -- their children who have it.

If they were talking about how tall their kids were or something and cited it I think it would be less contextual and more weird.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I ever read something I wish everyone could read, these essays were those things.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

If they were talking about how tall their kids were or something and cited it I think it would be less contextual and more weird.

Don't EVER wonder why you're on my friends list.


:-D

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I give you the hairy eyeball just on spec, regardless.

Further discussion of my social skills, or lack thereof, is probably offtopic for right here, except to say that my usual practice is to be quite conservative in what I send out.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*blushes delightedly*