What I Taught An Aspling Tonight

[Guest guest]

When you are in a situation where NTs control every aspect of the

environment and when you're unable to assert yourself safely, you must:

1) follow NT rules and regulatiosn no matter how much you disagree

with these rules and regulations as long as they are not illegal;

and

2) become even MORE autistic by diving deep within yourself and

hiding in your own inner world until it is safe to come back out into

the NT world.

I had hoped the world had changed enough that professional people

would not force an Aspling to learn such a harsh and unreasonable

lesson but I see that I was easily fooled.

Raven

[Guest guest]

What happened? What type of professional? Your little one? Was

the rule absurd or not apply at the time? Was it a " Do it this way

because we said so " type thing?

Kim

>

> When you are in a situation where NTs control every aspect of the

> environment and when you're unable to assert yourself safely, you

must:

>

> 1) follow NT rules and regulatiosn no matter how much you

disagree

> with these rules and regulations as long as they are not illegal;

>

> and

>

> 2) become even MORE autistic by diving deep within yourself and

> hiding in your own inner world until it is safe to come back out

into

> the NT world.

>

> I had hoped the world had changed enough that professional people

> would not force an Aspling to learn such a harsh and unreasonable

> lesson but I see that I was easily fooled.

>

> Raven

>

[Guest guest]

At 08:40 PM 7/9/2006, Kate wrote:

On 7/8/06, ravenmagic2003

<ravenmagic2003@...

> wrote:

> When you are in a situation where NTs control every aspect of

the

> environment and when you're unable to assert yourself safely, you

must:

>

> 1) follow NT rules and regulatiosn no matter how much you

disagree

> with these rules and regulations as long as they are not

illegal;

>

> and

>

> 2) become even MORE autistic by diving deep within yourself and

> hiding in your own inner world until it is safe to come back out

into

> the NT world.

Good advice, _in_extremis_, though many of the situations we

encounter

need more:

----- what must an Aspling (or an adult Aspie) do when two NTs

require

opposite things (and neither of those requirements breaks any law)?

(example: a mother and a father may give contradictory commands

to the child)

----- when an Aspling/Aspie has dived deep inside him/herself to

hide

from the impossible, how can the Aspling/Aspie determine when it has

finally become safe to come out?

Yours for better letters, Kate Gladstone -

The " Damned if you do; damned if you don't " dilemma is not

unique to Aspies... but since Aspies don't process " social

things " in the same way NT's do, we are likely it perceive it more

intensely and often.

That may be way I feel understanding (empathy?) for characters like Hal,

from 2001, the robots in the Asimov books and the like...

Always trying not to offend people, and when you think it's safe to do

what you want for a change, someone jumps on you for being uncaring,

thoughtless, selfish, etc...

Trying to crawl into a hole and pull it in after you can seem like an

inviting option...

Ender

[Guest guest]

I agree with the part about following the rule and regulations but am not so sure about the part about retreating more into yourself. I might have suggested instead observing the NT behavior like a scientist. It is interesting how much of their chatter is based around social positioning and trying to gain some advantage over others. Its not always like that of course, but much of it does seem to fall into that category.

When most of us speak it is to convey facts. In that class I took, people were amazed at how much stuff I knew, but that was mostly because I didn't often speak socially like they did but rather to add relevant facts to any conversion that I was allowed into.

That doesn't mean not being aware of Aspieness and sometimes it is good to retreat inside. I often do that if I face a long wait like at a train station or airport. I can drop into that mode and while I am aware of time passing, it doesn't register in the memory, save for key events that catch my attention. So, when the wait it over, if I was able to maintain that state, all that time just didn't exist. It still is boring at times going through it, but without having the memory of it, its like it never happened.