Who are the Cassandras?
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was cursed to see the future, but no one would believe her. In the modern world of the internet, Cassandras are women who have banded together to fight a common enemy: Aspies.
Except…
Their partners are not aspies, at least the vast majority of them. I would feel confident in estimating that upwards of 95% of them have partners who are diagnosed by no one other than themselves. In that microcosm, they celebrate being neurotypical as if it’s a severely oppressed minority.
Trigger warning: there is hate speech against autistic adults and children quoted in this article. Please do not continue reading this article if you are not in a place to process the emotional burden of this kind of exposé.
Further, this article uses the word “Asperger’s.” The reason we did this is because that is the language the Cassandras use. Autism and Asperger’s are the same thing and should be considered synonyms.
A Hard Truth
It is hard to make a neurotypical-Aspergian (NT-AS) relationship work. Very. The fact is, the differences in the way each is wired are pervasive. Their core identities are rooted in different constructs, which means that their values, perceptions, and even the way they derive meaning are different. Sensory issues, social perception, cognitive profiles, and emotional differences, too, will cause nuanced discrepancies that are nearly impossible to reconcile and difficult to even pinpoint.
It is a death of a thousand paper cuts for one or both parties. Almost anyone who has been in an NT-AS relationship will confirm this fact.
There is very little available when it comes to helpful literature to explain the differences between autistic and neurotypical people (NTs), and most resources for couples ask one of the partners to do most, if not all, of the compromising. Either way, it’s likely to strangle both people’s spirits unless they are a rare match that just happens to align on the fundamentals.
Often, we grow to regard the other as childish, emotionally immature, and selfish, our priorities forever at odds.
Anti-Autistic Hate Groups
As laughable as it sounds, they’re out there. I found out about this one the hard way by stepping into the middle of one…
They often hide in Facebook groups for neurotypical partners of aspies. Somehow, I ended up in one after a friend told me that she would like me to lend my perspective to help struggling women better understand Asperger’s. What I read was horrifying: They’re nothing more than empty shells that almost look like humans. They don’t have any empathy. They are all gaslighting monsters. They’re always looking for something more shiny, like an object.
When you’re autistic, these statements hurt, and they’re terrifying. They terrify you for your autistic spouse and your autistic child(ren). You want to say something, but you know how it will go over. You are torn between righteous indignation, rage, and devastating sadness.
What conversation has ever been productive when one party begins by having to convince the other that she is not the embodiment of sadistic evil?
We’ll build a bridge and break down misconceptions together, I tell myself.
Hot damn, did it not go over well.
To tell them that all aspies are not serial cheaters, violent, and abusive; or, to tell them what behaviors were the opposite of Asperger’s was to them an invalidation of their experiences.
It didn’t matter if they were with someone who had the traits of a malignant traits of disorders unrelated to being autistic. To them, the distinction was moot. They were with monsters, other people in the group were with monsters, and the name they were using to define all manner of monstrosity was Asperger’s.
Undeveloped. Social. Conscience…
Seriously!? There’s a pervasive irony in a chart like this with a fundamental lack of social conscience underscoring the entirety of it. It’s a juvenile demonstration of social Darwinism, as representative of social conscientiousness as a rabid hyena. They ascribe autistic strengths to neurotypicals, too, like honesty, loyalty, faithfulness, and critical thinking.
We socialize for our own ego and self aggrandizement? Manipulate others by fear, anxiety, verbal/physical violence? No social conscience? Somehow, we’ve managed to be completely socially inept, but also cunning manipulators. And inability to laugh at oneself and one’s own mistakes? Really? Have they ever met an autistic person? Most of us are Quixotic social justice warriors. A good 75% of our humor is comprised of self-deprecation and jokes about our own suffering.
But, these women are not with actual aspies. Some of them are, but most of them are with general-purpose assholes, quite neurotypical.
According to their logic, all deplorable traits point to Asperger’s: Sex addict? Must be Asperger’s. Doesn’t want sex? Must be Asperger’s. Screams all the time? Aspie. Never talks? Aspie. Stingy with money? Aspie. Lavish spender? Aspie. Genocidal warlord? Bad tipper? Halitosis? Con man? Serial killer? Liar? Flat-earther?
They have websites and even a non-profit. There’s theNeurotypical.com and, no joke, heartlessAspergers.com. They’re on a mission, and that mission is to tell people that aspies are horrible inhuman beings. They are dedicated to bringing awareness to the suffering partners of these zero-empathy, emotionless, robotic, mind-blind, manipulative, pathologically-dishonest, and just fundamentally evil aspies.
So what about aspies who contend that they aren’t any of the things as described on those sites?
As Aspies will tell you, they might seem like they don’t care about other people’s feelings, but that’s only because they don’t know what others are feeling. If they knew, they say, they would care (don’t believe that! You can tell them how you feel for decades, and they will never understand or care. Ask anyone who has been married or close in any way to one of them. All you will get is invalidation).
-anonymous NT on heartlessaspergers.com
They blame the autism lobby and the #actuallyautistic movement for putting too much positive information out into the world about these “heartless monsters.” By all definitions, from their baseless propaganda to their self-published garbage books, these groups are active hate groups operating in the open world.
One of the authors they recommend is ebook self-publisher J.B. Snow. From her ebook, The Critical Nature of the Aspie or OCPD Husband: The Hard Truth: Living with a Partner on the Autism Spectrum (Transcend Mediocrity Book 15):
If you look at a toddler with Asperger’s Syndrome, you will realize that they run over other children. They are often abrasive. They bite, punch, kick, push, shove, scratch and pinch nearly anyone who gets in the way or takes their belongings. The wife of an aspie might find herself in an all-out war if she sells her spouse’s baseball card collection without his knowledge.
As the mother of an autistic toddler, this enrages me. There are people out there writing my toddler off, who has never bitten, hit, kicked, or pinched anyone, as a violent nuisance and defective before she’s even learned to ride a bicycle. I’m perplexed by the instant jump in subject matter to selling off a husband’s baseball card collection without his knowledge. Would that not infuriate anyone?
She goes on to suggest that an aspie man might hoard child pornography on his computer because he is a primitive and un-evolved collector like a cavemen, that he will take a mistress when he’s bored, that he will become a sexual abuser when he wants to exert control, and that he doesn’t know what it means to love.
If there was just one example of an aspie man who is none of these things, then this would be a horrible, damning indictment; however, this is a wholly inaccurate account of most aspie men. Knowing hundreds, I have never met one who fits her description. My own aspie husband is the kindest, most selfless, empathetic, honorable, and loving man I have ever known.
Another self-published book is Broken by Katy Ford. Clearly, there was no editor for this one as every sentence is rife with errors and lacking in punctuation. The real problem, though, is in the content:
I have read on countless sites and forums and can indeed personally verify that the anxiety of living with an AS/NT relationship if you are not aware of the AS will lead to physical illness from colds to cancer.
What can I even do with this? Seriously…
From the next chapter entitled, “What is Asperger’s?”
People with AS are incapable of feelings and empathy and because of this their partners and children suffer from extreme emotional neglect which results in significant emotional trauma.
I know I’m not supposed to be capable of having feelings, but this has me feeling lots of ways. The thing is, they believe this. Her ex-husband was not even diagnosed. She diagnosed him. Almost all of them have diagnosed men with any cluster of negative traits as having Asperger’s.
The Collateral
So, what happens to autistic people as these forums and groups expand and all manner of evil people are deemed to be autistic and all autistics are deemed to be evil? Many of these people work with autistic children. Many have autistic children they hate. They are nurses and mental health care workers, teachers and church members. They feel their hate is justified.
And, if it’s hard to believe that they are out there, hating autistics and seeing them as all evil, vile humans with psychopathy and greed and violent rage, then look at their forum, AS Partners. It’s public. There, they conjecture about every killer and rapist in the news, just “knowing” that he is autistic. It’s at this point, I’m seeing the disconnect between our aspie “facts” and their “emotions.” These are definitely feelings I would invalidate.
They claim that autistics have a “look,” and that they can spot them at a glance with their “creepy, soulless eyes.”
Evidence
If the books and the websites aren’t evidence enough, they have a public forum called AS Partners. You can browse it and see for yourself. Below are some comments from the site that typify what you’ll see there.
After conjecturing that Jamie Closs’s kidnapper was autistic, and that she could tell by looking at him, a woman said:
This social nightmare will NEVER end. The Aspergers/autism population just keeps re-producing.
And then there’s this from a woman musing on how scary it is that we reproduce:
Do you think there are some couples making the descision to have children even though they know at least one of them have Aspergers and they could easily pass it on to their children, I think there must be by now. I don’t think they all see it as a bad thing to have autism, many of them think it makes them special and much better than other people. The part that worries me most is when it’s the mother who has Aspergers, that seems to be the way it is just as often as it’s the father but I think that’s only beginning to come to light now. I don’t think anybody could say that Aspies make good parents, except them of course, how can anybody be a good parent if they don’t have the capability to feel empathy or understand their childrens emotions. You have to be able to read your children’s emotions because they don’t always tell you about their problems but you can easily see if they’re upset about anything if you have the capability to feel empathy.
That kills me. I am an autistic mother with an autistic child and an autistic husband. I’ve never been harsh to my child. We are so connected that we communicate wordlessly. I breastfed her until she was 17.5 months old, slept on the couch for a year with her in a bassinet right in front of my face. She is cherished, safe, and loved and knows it.
I am not a perfect mother by any stretch, but I am the perfect mother for my daughter. I have the ability to empathize with her because we are so similar. No neurotypical could innately empathize with my daughter. They’re not wired the way she is. That’s not to say that they couldn’t be great parents to a neurodivergent child, but their intuitions would fail them in the same way that my intuitions would fail me with a neurotypical child.
The best thing a neurotypical parent of an autistic child can do for their child is to rely on the wisdom of autistic adults to provide insight and wisdom into the way their children’s minds work. The converse is true for neurodivergent parents of neurotypical children
My husband is the best father any daughter ever had. He takes her out all the time, after working hard labor all day, to parks or indoor bounce houses and playgrounds. There are mothers everywhere, and no fathers… and then there’s my husband with his daughter, encouraging her, making her laugh, helping her to climb on things, playing with her while everyone else is gossiping or staring at their cell phones.
He wears a diaper bag backpack full of puppets and snacks and toys he’s packed. He makes sure she has enough water because she never thinks to ask for any. It’s true he doesn’t always intuit what she wants when she’s upset, but he does try hard and gets better every day. I think he does better than most men in that arena.
But I shouldn’t have to be put in a position where I feel like I have to prove that my family is not made up of monsters based on nothing we’ve ever said, done, or thought. No one should ever be put in that position. No one should ever have the thought, “Are they going to think I’m guilty because I’m trying to prove myself, or will they think I’m guilty if I don’t qualify my goodness and humanity?” This is what racism does to people of color. It is a life forced into defense and uncertainty. It is a life of begging the question, Am I in friendly territory?
So when I read this website and see mothers talking about how love shouldn’t be wasted on autistic kids because they can’t appreciate it anyway, and how autistic people can’t have empathy, how all aspies are totally self-serving and abusive, how neurotypicals need to come together to “defeat” and “abolish” us, how Hitler and all the Nazis were aspies, and how aspies shouldn’t be parents… I feel a lot of things.
I feel fear that someone who has these prejudices will maybe one day be a teacher in my daughter’s classroom. I weep for my friends’ children. I am broken for the autistic children of these women. I fear for adults who are going to be judged by these standards in custody hearings or by employers. I fear that these stereotypes that are based on nothing but internet propaganda are going to make life harder for people who don’t deserve it. It is a fundamental lack of empathy that I fear, and not from autistics.
The Real Issue
The following is another comment on that site that I think really speaks to the underlying issue fueling all of this antipathy:
Yeah the innocent Aspie bullshit is a huge lie that’s really hurting a lot of kind empathetic people and wasting years of their lives. Why does nobody seem to care about all the victims of their emotional abuse, their parners and their own children ?. I think quite a few of the partners of people on this site should be added to that warning list. My nonpartner isn’t a sexual predator but he still preys on women to get what he wants. They have nothing to give back to us but constant carping criticism and all the blame when anything goes wrong.
This is the core of the problem. Many of these women are with abusive men. I was with one before, and he was neurotypical. He never complimented me. I could do nothing right. He compared me to everyone, yelled at me, isolated me, scared me to the point I feared for my life, and even became physical towards the end. He didn’t care about anyone but himself.
I read what these women are experiencing, and I empathize. I relate personally. Nobody should ever be treated this way, but I stayed more years than I should have. Everyone in a situation like that should be encouraged to leave. I stayed because I thought I was supposed to, because I felt sorry for him, because I feared he would be homeless without me, because my therapist said I would leave when I was ready, and because I worried what would happen to me when I told him I wanted out. These women, many of them, are in the same boat.
But, in the same way that it would be wrong to scapegoat Catholics, Brits, artists, neurotypicals, or multi-racial people for my ex-husband’s behaviors, it is wrong to paint autistics with such a broad brush.
But these greedy, violent, abusive monsters without empathy aren’t aspies. Aspies don’t lack empathy, but they don’t empathize the same way. Neurotypicals don’t know how to empathize with us, either. It doesn’t come naturally to them. We (autistics) empathize with each other quite well… naturally. We’re graceful together.
Some of these women are with actual aspies, and they are being emotionally neglected. Whether their partners can’t do better because they don’t know what to do, or they refuse to do better because they are stubborn is inconsequential.
Relationship and family supports are needed for this demographic, but it’s possible to put supports in place without demonizing all aspies. Even if a neurotypical woman is with a selfless, kind, giving aspie, he is still not neurologically in-sync with her. She’s not in-sync with him, either. They need to understand that they speak different languages. The right supports could help them both to interpret the other better. Then, they can make an informed decision about whether or not it’s worth the effort to stay.
If there were any hope for these relationships, there won’t be once someone has accepted that their partner is a broken, inferior, sub-human monster. A group like that thrives on confirmation bias, just like any hate group.
There is nothing lovable about Autism/Aspergers. It is a life sentence for the one who’s got it and everyone they come across. [ . . . ] No. These people are reptiles pretending to be human as they don their people costumes and recite their memorized words. They are predators. They do not feel empathy. They do not understand emotion; they cannot truly feel.
A woman says in this AS Partner forum, and no one challenges it. In fact, it’s a frequently-repeated maxim on the site. I have seen anti-Semites say the same thing about Jews. This brand of supremacy kills. Literally.
This is why therapists won’t support the “Cassandra Phenomenon.” Because it’s based on the false premise that autistics are inherently abusive, without empathy, and a terror to those who have the misfortune of being in their company.
NT-AS Relationships
We’re not always a good match. I’d imagine that we’re not usually a great match. This is a serious issue in relationship health that needs attention.
This New Year’s Eve, my husband and I both checked our phones at the same time, and we both gasped in unison. We had received a “Happy Anniversary!” text from my mother-in-law. We looked at each other with that Am-I-in-trouble? face and both burst out laughing. We forgot together, and I was reminded that I was with someone who was perfect for me.
As I read through these women’s comments, many of them were complaints about behaviors that would describe my husband. He responds often with only one or two words. He has auditory processing issues which are sometimes worse than others. He totally can’t read my subtle or obvious hints, and his memory can be abysmal at times and ridiculously detailed other times.
Other complaints describe me. I don’t want to receive gifts on occasions or celebrate traditionally for holidays, I am terrible at keeping up with everyday minutia, and my housekeeping skills are less-than-great. I only drink out of Kerr wide-mouth mason jars at home, I like to eat with spoons and not forks, and hoodies are my winter uniform unless I’m going out.
We both agree on the essentials, though. Facts always supersede emotions. It is assumed that nothing is wrong unless we say something is wrong. We feel like we’ve won at the game of life when we’re all alive and well at the end of each day. Nothing is sacred, small talk is a waste of breath, no humor is too dark, and nobody else is responsible for our emotions but ourselves.
I feel so fiercely in love with my husband when he challenges me, those times when he wasn’t going to compromise his values or acquiesce. I would be devastated and disappointed if he said, “We’ll have to agree to disagree.” It would feel like the ultimate dismissal, a cloying, patronizing ceding, like I’m not a worthy intellectual sparring partner. The brand of parlance with which we communicate is different and would offend or confuse NTs.
If someone neurotypical is with an aspie (or any partner) and is unfulfilled in the relationship, he or she should leave… no guilt, no shame, no being told to compromise or make it work. Anyone in a relationship that is miserable and unrewarding with no reciprocity should not be guilted into staying. No unwilling party should carry 90% of the load in a relationship, which is what happens very often to modern women.
An Appeal to Empathy
If you were unaware that anti-autistic hate groups were a thing, now you know. We autistics have no recourse to combat these kinds of prejudices if people are going to accuse us of being mind-blind sociopaths every time we attempt to advocate for ourselves.
In these communities, there are blatant calls for eugenics, armchair diagnostics of everyone who is monstrous as being autistic, and prejudices that have the potential to cause extreme harm to people based on their “look.” Some people even forego he/she pronouns to refer to autistic people as “it.”
As soon as I, or any autistic person, attempt to discredit false information based on evidence, either anecdotal, clinical, or academic, it is rejected as “biased” or “self-serving.” I have had people tell me that my “inability to take ownership for how messed up [I am] and my mind blindness cause [me] to have a false idea of having feelings and empathy.”
A person being cold, boring, hostile, robotic, empathy-disrupted, awkward, routine-oriented, lacking in intimacy, clueless, rude, or combative is not cause for armchair-diagnosing them with autism. All of those things in varying degrees and combinations can be representative of a hundred different combinations of genetic, neurological, medical, psychological, mood/affective, or personality disorders.
We need neurotypicals to use their privilege, as parents, educators, friends, clinicians, scientists, and researchers to substantiate our humanity and condemn this supremacist ableism since we are not given the floor to do it for ourselves.
The Series
This article is part of a series about the many antagonists of Asperger’s, the word and the people with Asperger’s Syndrome. To read other articles in the series, click below:
What’s in a Word: Asperger’s and the APA
What’s in a Word: Asperger’s and Employers
What’s in a Word: Asperger’s and Employers, a case study
click here to leave a tip, click here to gift my child, or let me know your thoughts in the comments.
- My family’s autism services are working for us, so we will probably lose them - May 24, 2023
- What autistics mean when we say this world is not made for us: How fun activities push autistics into the margins - December 23, 2022
- Being a Great Parent to Your Autistic Child at Fall Festivals and Halloween Events - October 31, 2022
72 Responses
Having just looked at both those websites; I am absolutely shocked. I knew there was stereotypes and a lot of misinformation out there, but this is actual hatred towards us. I am married to a NT and have two children. I do the majority of the childcare becasue I am unemployed at present. Of course, my traits can be frustrating at times and cause some conflicts, but we work through it. If my wife thought I was any of those things listed on those sites,s he would never leave me alone with my children. It is despicable and it actually makes me wonder if there are people around me who see me that way.
You can be reassured spectrumhacks, that this does NOT represent the viewpoint of the vast majority of NT’s in a relationship with an aspie. The sites, self published books and fora from which these quotes were taken are not a good cross section, but represent self published works, closed Facebook groups for angry partners and some less than mainstream websites.
I am NT with a neurodiverse partner and have found many great sources of insightful, supportive and practical information about understanding the cause of our difficulties and help to work through problems without resorting to backstabbing and vitriol.
This article does nothing to encourage a healthy exchange between typically developing people and neurodiverse people. It does just the opposite.
Your wife chose you, married you, had a family with you, just like we did. There are challenges, and there are bitter, angry people out there, the internet is full of armchair warriors with agendas.
There are women whose partners are undiagnosed and they are mistaken in believing (and complaining) that they have aspergers and are really just narcissists, abusers and everyday gits. There are many with a recently diagnosed aspie, the process takes a long time where I live, even if you have a cooperative partner. My experienec is that older men are mostly not diagnosed, as when they were children and younger there was no diagnosis possible, as Aspergers only began to become recognised more widely in the 1990s. These women don’t deserve to be stigmatised like this by being grouped into this hateful group.
I would like to know what women, exactly, were stigmatized by this article who were undeserving.
Just to correct one thing – I was not referring to you when I used the term armchair warrior, but the very many people out there online.
I do not agree with, or support, any of the intolerant, ignorant and misguided prejudice you highlighted in your article. I am very sad and sorry that there is so much negativity and unhappiness caused by the misunderstandings and miscommunication between us as neuro-different groups.
I don’t “know” you and vice versa.
When I first read this, I cried I was so embarrassed and humiliated. I put so much emotional labor into this article and seeing what it has done to autistics has caused me a new kind of pain that is abjectly miserable. I put so much into the reply banking that you were the person I thought you were. I thought you were that woman that I would help because you had goodness in you and you were whip smart. I saw her say nice things elsewhere, just never to me, and thought she was someone who might glean some things and get some insight and maybe her life would be a little less fraught with isolation and she would find some ways to make her marriage more rewarding and reciprocal.
Then, I saw this comment and how wrong I was, and the dam that has walled in my sanity through this experience broke, and I wept. I’m weeping typing this. What a foolish woman I am, I told myself. I’ve overestimated my pattern recognition. Here was some nice lady just being affirming, and I dumped all this on her plate. So, I went to the admin panel to get your email address to send you a personal apology. I was going to issue one here, publicly, too. And your email address is literally your first initial and your last name. I was right.
I don’t know why you couldn’t have at least given me that. That was cruel. On a pain scale of 1-100, emotionally, I’ve been at a 90-95 every day for a few weeks over this article. Today broke the 100 point. First, there was the total humiliation of thinking I was wrong and having dumped all that at the feet of the one NT out of thousands upon thousands who read this article and actually responded. The guilt of having some poor woman trying to be an ally have to read all that, and I was wrong. The fear that my Rain Man syntax pattern recognition had failed me and that maybe I don’t even have that skill and just am “categorically delusional” (batshit crazy in the clinical vernacular, and that the backlash from this article was maybe deserved because maybe I am just a fool…
In the past, I would have just continued, for days or weeks or months, to gaslight myself about this. I would’ve said that I was crazy. I would’ve stopped blogging, maybe… either for a time or forever. But this isn’t for me. It’s for other autistics, who are gaslit all the time and who are too pure to know if they deserve it or not.
But now, I’m past that 100 point thinking that after all that, pouring all of that out, you couldn’t just give me the acknowledgement that I was right. That was brutally cruel, S. I won’t dox you because although I am a terribly, deeply-flawed and clumsy individual, I do have honor. But shame on you. This is proof, though, that autistics are extremely vulnerable to dangerous people who aren’t afraid to virtue signal, lie, deceive, manipulate, and wash their hands of any fault. And they say that we lack empathy… No. I read you better than you read yourself, and you wouldn’t even extend me the grace of telling the truth.
This article specifically addresses people who run hate groups that disseminate misinformation about autistics in a grotesquely self-serving way. There is no need to generalize this discussion to anyone else. When you disparage and criticize someone from a marginalized group for exposing abuse through organized sites, you are aligning yourself with those groups. No marginalized group should be asked to tolerate hate-speech and the propagation of lies that make their daily existence harder so that you can feel comfortable. You need to cultivate your own ego boundaries.
Full honesty, I didn’t read the whole wall-of-text in this comment, but thank you for pointing out that sociopathy is more common than autism. My “special interest” is in analyzing how sociopath/psychopathic behavior is normalized in neurotypical society. I actually think all NTs fall on a Psychopath Spectrum, it’s just never acknowledged because they are the majority so their psychopathy is considered normal. Also, the distinction between sociopath and psychopath is only determined by their position in the social hierarchy, and limited only by what they think they can get away with.
“this does NOT represent the viewpoint of the vast majority of NT’s in a relationship with an aspie”
You NTs are so, so good at lying to yourselves and others about how you feel about “your Aspie.” Deep down you know you hate us. What exactly is your objection to factually stating that? Is it just more fun to be a lying cunt?
Relax. These websites are just a showcase of how all NTs vilify anyone who fails to worship them at all times in the way they all secretly believe they deserve, but would never admit.
You’ve been living with it your whole life, you just didn’t know it, because NTs are pathological liars (which they pretend is a virtue because they’re “just being nice”).
As I needed to log in to leave a comment, and this is your wordpress site, you would automatically have my email address and I am easily identifiable as you say. I gave you that information from the outset. I have a wordpress site and as the admin you would see this. I knew this when I replied to spectrumhacks. Secondly, there is absolute truth in my agreement that the quotes and comments you picked up for your article are negative, damaging and not to be supported.
I am very sorry that my inability to agree with all you said and have said elsewhere has caused you to feel upset. Indeed, I am very sorry you are upset now. If you feel that I have mislead you by saying we don’t “know” each other, then perhaps there was too much presumption on my part that you would understand the purpose of the quotation marks around “know”.
You used the details of our previous interaction in a closed group to highlight that my criticism of your article was from a place of bias and malice.
This is your platform and I have no business being on it any further. I understand very well that you intend to educate, advocate and inform.
Wow, if this is not a masterclass in gaslighting and condescension…! Bravo!
I love this article
Terra,
*Every* mental health diagnosis has online hater communities like what you describe.
It is not sn autism problem, it is a neurotypical problem. NTs universally lash out this way against anybody who fails to validate them constantly. Using mental health terminology to describe how much they despise their partners is just a very common NT tactic for pretending their hatred is validated by science, as well as removing responsibility from themselves for staying in these horrible relationships rather than face their innate fear of being alone (all NTs would rather stay in abusive relationships than take responsibility for ending it and possibly ending up alone, which NTs consider worse than death).
NTs generally stop all emotional growth around age 2, and they express themselves like manipulative 2 year olds; nothing is ever their responsibility, everything is always someone else’s fault, everybody is just mean to them, and and anyone who fails to give them exactly what they want exactly when they want it is LITERALLY THE WORST PERSON IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. In this way, NTs can deflect all personal responsibility for willingly engaging in abusive relationships by blaming a “disorder”, while also making themselves feel validated by using medical terms to try to appear more knowledgeable than they actually are (misusing “grown-up words” to mask infantile pleas for attention/validation.) This is universal among NTs; if you fail to notice their new haircut or compliment their dog (or whatever stupid thing they want to use to validate themselves), YOU ARE LITERALLY A MONSTER FROM HELL.
Nothing about this trend is unique to autism. For every disorder in the DSM, you can find online communities of NTs who are in miserable relationships they have no intention of leaving, and misusing psychiatric terms to covertly express their vicious hatred of their partner, which is really just covert hatred of themselves, which is why they felt the need to get into an abusive relationship in the first place.
This has nothing to do with autism, it’s just NT Psych 101.
What you’ve experienced is an extreme amount of abuse. Extreme. It’s pure hell.
Zero of those things are related to being autistic. Those things are related to sadism and narcissism. I’m sure some autistic people have been abusive, but that is not the norm. If you’re getting information about what autism means from Cassandra websites, you’re reading about narcissism being called Asperger’s.
Regardless of a diagnostic label, no one should have to live with that kind of abuse.
Did you mean to reply to someone else?
I am horrified reading this as an aspie, but I believe you! This perpetuates so much blind ignorant hated and, saddest of all, self hatred!! Narcissism and autism are clearly not the same!! Some autistic people are, in fact, narcissistic, but it is likely less common in us than in NTs! I admit to self hating as an autistic person for years. In large part, this is because my dad happens to be both autistic and a narcissist. One had ZERO to do with the other, but I did not know that being exposed to this garbage. His narcissism and not his autism made him an iffy father and husband, yet I feared I was just like him and tried not to be myself. I now know the truth though! I am autistic and proud and have been a great parent. The overlap of narcissistic and autistic traits in my dad was a horrible coincidence! It has NOTHING to do with me or the vast majority of autistic people!!!!!! The only line I disagreed with in this entire amazing piece was about the AS-NT relationship being “death by 1,000 papercuts”. I’d say it depends on both people and especially the quality of the NT partner. It works for me. 🙂
I agree. I felt like crying when I read all that hate. So wrong, so unjust.
I’m really weirded out by the behavior of those people, because I’m a light autistic and *I know*… I know what those Cassandras’ partners really are, what are those reptiles with people costumes who have no empathy and use emotions as masks.
I know they are in fact talking about the hypersocial psychopaths who control the world, or as a therapist would call it, *the pervert-narcissists*.
They are really both close and very far from autism at the same time, and those things like lack of empathy and emotion-masking, along with lack of morality and solipsism were once considered autistic symptoms, until they were (recently?) debunked.
Those women are acting alongside that biased, prejudiced “old definition” of autism.
But whoever defined autism as such did so with lack of understanding, which led to either hatred by frustration, or literalism in a “neurotypical set” of values to like, paint us as jerks because we weren’t conforming to society and they didn’t understand why but they should have understood and they had to have understood (because they were paid to discover a reason, and feared failure as it wound have resulted in loss of credibility in a social-scientific world where credibility is key to success).
Yup.
It’s the martyrdom of the Cassandras that I find overbearing and a touch ironic. Aspies are the ones that supposedly are so clueless and the Cassandras are so busy clutching at their pearls of suffering that they fail to take into account their personal accountability in the relationship. If they’re that miserable, then please, by all means, leave and go find someone else to bask in the wonderment that is them. We’ll wait. They may want to go pick up a cat while they are waiting. Relationships are work. Full stop. Both people need to want to make it work and be aware of what the issues are so real change can evolve. If you’re married to an ass who doesn’t want to make it work then put on your big boy/girl pants and DO something about it other than engaging in the pain olympics, ’cause, see, you’re actually making a choice by doing nothing about it, and that means, stop with the sympathy junkie behavior and OWN IT. Being co-dependent and/or dependent upon receiving your narcissistic ‘feed’ for being ‘victimized’ is a psychological issue that needs some counseling.
I dropped kicked my abusive loser ex to the curb. I realize now that he was most likely aspie. He wasn’t a loser because he was an aspie, but rather he was a loser because he wouldn’t own his shit and get help. THAT’S the difference.
Once and for all, can we please debunk the whole ‘aspies’ are all Spocklike. A great deal of us are empaths and have what is known as empathetic attunement, which means that everyone’s neuroses and insecurities are literally, physically absorbed by us and absolutely exhaust us. It’s not that we can’t feel empathy, it’s that we can’t STOP feeling it. Which is more than I can say for all the cassandaras writing in like a bunch of Karens about how horrible aspies are to live with and why can’t we see how much they suffer?
I personally have reached the point in my life where I have had plenty of practice and have become an expert masker and can easily ‘pass’. I am more than able to engage in theory of mind and read non verbal cues from NTs but simply don’t want to. I find the histrionics of ‘look at me! Notice me!” boring, tiring and simply not worth the effort it takes. I’m not ignoring NTs because I can’t read them but rather because I could care less what they think. The more I learn about what it is that offends them so, the more underwhelmed and unimpressed I am by what constitutes ‘normal’, i.e. socially accepted behavior. I am far better off taking that energy and diverting it into a special interest where I learn an actual skill. But that’s just me. The rest of you do you.
Hello,
I’m an autistic woman and came across http://www.theneurotypical.com when I was trying to research something.
I was horrified by the hate there and had to google to make sure other people where aware what a terrible group they were. One of the testimonials there is just someone complaining about a co-worker whom they have decided must have Asperger’s. The lack of any understanding of Autism would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
Thank you for writing this, it helps so much to know that people are aware of how dangerous groups like this can be.
Hi Lu. I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. I’m wondering whether your husband might not have co-occurring conditions. Besides this, I just wanted to say something about “being someone different in the beginning”. This happens with everyone. We all seem different in the beginning. We show our best sides. This is normal. Most relationships start off wonderfully and we see only the best in the person, but it’s only over time that we start truly seeing who someone really is. A therapist once said that before you get married, live with the person for 2 years, and only then will you be able to determine who the person really is. This happened to me too with regards to an abusive relationship. For the first 8 months, this person was a dream come true, but then she just seemed to change completely and I saw the dark parts of her. Looking back though I could see little signs even in the beginning, but they never made it into my mind completely so I was “blinded”, if that makes sense.
I’ve been reading those experiences, and the changes many women(and a few men) described in their partner, was way more extreme than the normal dating to marriage ‘changes’.
I suspect myself to be on the autism spectrum (waiting for a diagnosis for nearly two years, thanks for nothing nhs!) and I made the mistake of asking my then partner about these sites I had seen and wanting him to reassure me I wasn’t really a bad person. He made noises about why do you believe this stuff, only he went and googled this stuff and he read these hate sites and then he decided he agreed with them. A few weeks later he left me and he was so so cruel, telling me I was a psychopath with no empathy that I was like a robot with a pre prepared script in my head, that I was heartless because I didn’t have ‘theory of mind’ (the first time I’d heard that term) going on about how he was ‘normal’ and proud of it and going on about the ‘cassandra complex’ sending me this hate stuff about that term and writing THIS! under it. Then he didn’t get why that upset me so much. “When will you get it’s not about you!” he screamed at me. Uh…you’re personally attacking me, how is it not about me?
He started to get borderline violent towards the end. Really seemed like he genuinely hated me. You see a lot about these poor put upon nt wives moaning and bitching about eeeeeevil autistic husbands, but no one ever mentions how absolutely horrible it is for an autistic woman to have this hate suddenly turned on her by a nt partner…it’s not pleasant. I’m not a psychopath. I am more empathic than most people but he wouldn’t have it. Suddenly he had what he thought was justification for all the problems he had with our relationship….I hate those hate sites. There were other problems with the relationship but they were the catalyst for him leaving me. It’s now nearly two years ago and I am only just beginning to recover emotionally.
I am afraid to have another relationship-he accused me of starving him of affection and of depriving him of a social life (I find socialising very very difficult probably because of my condition) of being silly and childish so people would think he was a peadophile taking advantage of me (I am an adult in my 40s) he accused me of all sorts of things like that. I don’t want to expose myself to that again. Even though now being alone is putting me at the brink of genuine poverty now I only have my benefits to live on. I don’t want to risk that again. I don’t want to hurt people. Unlike in his imagination I am not indifferent to the suffering of others 🙁
You may be right! Hadn’t thought about that. I just came across one of these trainwrecks of a site today. I wish I hadn’t read any of it. It made me want to cry and throw up at the same time. It can still baffle me that people can be so cruel. My experience with people with ASD is that they probably wouldn’t even talk about their enemies that harshly. So very sad. 🙁
Thanks SBC for giving them the terminology
I recently found your website The Aspergian after reading TheNeuroTypical.com.au from a friend trying to understand more about Asperger’s on Facebook. I told her that even though I too had Autism/ASperger’s/ASD and Schizophrenia and ADD along with several other mental illnesses, developed from being bullied through primary and high school, that most people go through what is called “primary autism” stages, neurotypical, neurodiverse and otherwise, from my readings of philosopher Ken Wilber and how our psychological development is related to our physical, biological, cultural, technological and spiritual evolution. I’ll explain his theories below.
Basically when we’re born into the world, we’re unable to differentiate ourselves physically from the external world. This is known as “Sensorimotor” in Piaget, and those who remain mostly undifferentiated can have “Autism” or “Schizophrenia” caused by adualism which is an inability to separate our physical body from the physical world. This is where such things as “meltdowns” but also moments of psychosis such as schizophrenia can manifest from. But most infants from 5 months onwards begin to differentiate their physical bodies from the physical world. But this doesn’t mean that they’re going to be neurotypical.
In toddlerhood, we may have separated ourselves physically, but not emotionally. Toddlers may have narcissism where they can’t think of themselves as separate emotional beings from the world and see the world as basically an extension of themselves. The clouds are moving to rain on you to wash you off, the thunder hits because the sky is angry, the sun shines on you to dry you off. We have magical thinking here. But eventually when we realize not everyone has the same emotional view as we, that’s where tantrums and the terrible 2s begin to manifest. But also a person who has realized their separate emotional self, may still feel attacked by other people’s emotional states, similar to a “meltdown” of sensory overload in the Autistic state. But in this case its emotional overload, which is usually a blending of psychosis and neurosis. The person is on the border of the two, which is where the term borderline personality disorder comes into being. However this emotional differentiation can occur well, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to still become neurotypical.
In young childhood, a child has their emotions, but may not be able to control them. It is here with the learning of language and concepts and ideas that young children begin to take control over their body. They can walk, they can talk, they can control their bladder and anus and so on. They can also begin to repress their emotions, leading to psychoneurosis or neurosis, where repressed or bottled up emotions can lead to worries and thoughts and eventual eruptions of emotion. However the young child is not yet able to take the role of other. It may understand certain ideas and rules and so on, but not realize that other people see the world differently in their own mental model. They may be able to understand themselves individually on a conceptual level but this does not mean that they are neurotypical yet. They also become aware of concepts that lead to things like depression about the past or present and anxiety about the present and future.
In older childhood, the older child learns of the view of other. Suddenly how others view oneself becomes so important the older child tries to conform to the group at large. They learn about society’s rules and roles. The problem with any group and ideology is that they view things in very black and white ways of thinking. There’s the in-group, who are saved, and the out-group who are damned. It is also from these ideas and roles and rules, that people can label themselves negative roles, and thus suffer from what is called script pathology. They see themselves as bad people compared to other people, or may view themselves as sinners, or responsible for say a deity’s death and resurrection, which can become a mythological burden of their own to deal with. This can exacerbate anxiety and depression, and self-esteem issues. But this doesn’t mean they’re still neurotypical.
In adolescence we learn that there is more than one group. There are as many individuals as there are groups who have different views of the world than the old group we belonged to. We realize that there are many truths, which can lead to a deconstruction of a mythology and a replacement of a new model, such as science or rationality. This can also lead to a view where many different groups are incorporated as truthful and people move from an ethno-centric or group-centric perspective into a world-centric perspective. Both modern ideas of science and modernity, as well as the postmodern ideas of deconstructed ideologies and epistemological pluralism (or believing multiple belief systems from different groups). This may be more inclusive, but individual adolescents may now have an identity crisis not knowing to which group they feel like they belong, which may be very stressful to go through, not to mention confusing. People may move on from this stage but this does not mean they are still neurotypical.
In young adulthood, we begin to learn about other conceptual models, such as developmental psychological models. These can show how worldviews can emerge from the primary autistic state mentioned previously to this new integrated perspective where each worldview built upon and transcended as well as included the previous worldview perspective. This understanding of multiple perspectives and worldviews leads to what is called an integrated perspective where we realize that all of humanity in all its various forms are connected. That the human individual has the same basic needs like in Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physiological, safety, love and belongingness, self-esteem, self-actualization, etc. The human body and human mind are like a vehicle for consciousness to become aware of itself. This is the basis of metamodernism, where multiple truths and perspectives are true and important for different times and purposes. It is however from this perspective that we can nihilistically think of all worldviews as constructs, and thus that there is no essential truth or meaning to existence at all. This may lead to an existential crisis, where we worry about whether our lives or life in general matters or not, or that there is meaning to things. Life may seem absurd, or pointless, anxiety-inducing and depressing at the same time. However people may move on from these stages to others. The existential crisis may seem like our previous belief structures can’t save us, and that we’re just going to die. But these perspectives of older childhood through to young adulthood are what are called personal stages, relating how we as individuals relate to others around us. The infancy through young childhood stages are pre-personal, where we are not aware of our unique separate self as existing. The next three stages following young adulthood are what are called trans-personal, as they go beyond our individual bodies or personal forms, and how we are more connected to things than we realize. But again this does not mean we have reached neurotypical levels.
IN middle adulthood, we can extend our psychological development and connection with all humanity to now all of life and nature. We can basically realise that our psychological developments extend not just to humans but animals and plants and life as a whole. We realise that life has evolved moving through worldviews as brains developed and became more complex over time from early neural cords in early life to the reptilian and limbic brain systems in land based life, and the complex neocortex in primates and other mammals including humans. We begin to learn the capabilities of different types of animals, and thus show a kinship, a familiar ancestor to all animals and plants, the roots and branches of a plant being like the sensory nervous system, the neural chord of the plant-world. We don’t see ourselves as a strand of life, but we are all life. It is this that leads to us being able to understand other minds that are not human, leading to what could be called a psychic-like awareness of how other beings are feeling. Again if we relate ourselves to the purely biological, we may again fall into an existential crisis over the course of life itself. If we have damaged the environment through climate change, for example, have we caused the death of life as we know it? This may cause quite concern, worry, anxiety and depression as mentioned before. But again this is not neurotypical.
IN mature adulthood, we can extend our connection to all biological matter to now all matter in general. We are not made of the earth, but we are the earth, and thus through atoms, all planets, all stars, all galaxies. We are one with all physical existence. Humans know that all matter are merely forms of energy that cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. Thus in this sense we realise a particle is conscious or aware of other particles, which is why wave functions collapse and gravity occurs and how particles can combine into atoms and molecules and so on. We become subtly aware of the world around us, but we may have another existential crisis. We have learned our universe is expanding, and that not only that the expanding is increasing due to what is called dark matter and dark energy. We realize that eventually all stars will die, all galaxies will dissolve, and eventually the universe itself could physically go into heat death, where the only thing remaining is black holes. This may create another existential crisis on a physical level. But again we can move beyond this, but we are not yet neurotypical.
In elderhood we realise that although we have physiological brains that have thoughts in them, our awareness or consciousness is more our awareness of there being objects in our lives. Thoughts, images, ideas, physical roles, rules, objects, are things that move through our field of awareness, like clouds across the sky. From this more mindful based view, what is aware of all this or is conscious of all this doesn’t seem tied down to any material thing, until it seems for some that our consciousness or awareness is non-physical. This relates to the causal formlessness from which everything came. If matter as we know it is what is called positive energy, then dark energy or space could be considered negative energy. Now dark energy makes up most of the universe and 99.9% of all atoms is space, so we may realise that we are space witnessing physical reality moving in forms. This may connect us from the transient and temporary to the eternal unchanging void. This is what some Buddhists have said to achieved in enlightenment, but again this is not the final step.
In sensecence, we realize that positive energy (light and dark matter) and negative energy (space, dark energy), added up may equal zero. In other words space is not nothing, and neither is matter something, they are both all things, they are everything, and thus we enter a non-dual state where we realize that both positive energy (matter) and negative energy (space) are both real and both come from the same source. They balance each other, but one is not better than the other. Nore is the state they equal to from which everything we call the universe came from. We may realize there is a multiverse of many universes and that all possibilities are playing out in existence, and that we all come from the same source. It is this view that we integrate ourselves with everything. But this is not neurotypical still. The answer is there is no neurotypical stage. What came before may have been considered neurotypical before the next worldview after it developed. Neurotypical, as postmodernism and metamodernism has shown is subjective.
Sorry again for the extensive post, but I hope this has helped somewhat. I’m hoping to write a book exploring this evolution of thinking with the evolution of the universe itself.
Thanks for reading this.
Peace out.
Matthew David Bowron.
Thank you for writing it and Matthew. If you write your book, I’d be thrilled to read it.
Stop psychiatrizing this problem. It’s a political problem, it’s pure ableism. Stop removing responsability for people by looking for imaginary troubles.
>The wife of an aspie might find herself in an all-out war if she sells her spouse’s baseball card collection without his knowledge.
I love that we’re supposed to be the ones who can’t communicate, yet this person can’t even form and articulate simple sentences like “have you thought about selling your baseball card collection?”
Please. Neurotypicals. Don’t listen to these People. They are only prolonging your plight. The simple fact that they don’t realize the harm they are committing shows that they are disabled. You will never change them. Walk away now.
Mare, this is bigotry and hate-speech, pure and simple. I’m sorry if some bad personal experience motivated your comments here, but there is no science to back up what your saying, just sadness and anger resulting from that sadness.
I cant help but notice you specified NT children in your comment. So you dont think AS children would be bothered by it, or the child has AS they just dont matter?
I appreciate your position, but keep in mind Aspies go through a Cassandra syndrome too. Difference is an NT can leave an AS partner, we cant leave an NT world. Please have some empathy.
Excuse me?! The neurotypicals are the ones who don’t have empathy! So quit tryin’ make Fergal feel bad about what he told Mare!
Shut the hell up, Mare! You’re nothin’ but a prejudiced an’ bigoted bitch who loves shittin’ on ND folks ‘n’ suckin’ up to NTs! It’s YOU who doesn’t know what harm you’re causin’ to their opposites! It’s the allistic ones who are the real oppressors! I mean, how the fuck would you like it if you’re ND ‘n’ everyone gave you shit forbein’ that way?!
Hi, my partner is Aspie and I am NT and we certainly have had our share of communication problems. I have been reading comments on the neurotypical website and I can relate to some of them. When I began to research what was “wrong” with my partner, at first I thought he was just a typical male with very male brain ( I had come out of a long marriage to a man who was an empath but unfortunately also high-functioning alcoholic, so I noticed that my new partner was high on logical thinking but low on cognitive empathy. I noticed he could not read people very well and would sometimes put up with bullshit from people, on the other hand he would criticize people for minor infractions like not closing a door.
As time went on, we began to have some very nasty fights and I began to wonder if he was a narcissist, but I dismissed this idea, because his inability to read people ruled out narcissism . He simply is not manipulative enough and can turn on people very quickly if they have done something to offend him, not just close family members. He also cannot control his charm. He is only charming if he feels comfortable with people.
Ultimately I realized that he was probably on the Autism spectrum, as he has many of the symptoms. Yes, I diagnosed him myself, but it’s not easy to get an official diagnosis later in life.
When I began to read more on “the neurotypical” site i began to feel that it was very black and white. For example Aspies having no humour, give me a break, my partner can be outrageously funny and I actually love his endless rants about science and politics. Our problem is, that the finds it hard to communicate his feelings. I know he has them, because we had a very passionate sexual relationship for a very long time, something Aspies are not meant to be capable of.
We do have major problems of communication and I see those same problems playing out after reading the comments on this blog : Aspies and NTs accusing each other of the same things. It’s funny to me, but that’s what it is. we process the world so differently that we can only imagine the other must be either insane or malicious.
I can guarantee you, those NT women are suffering. They have tried everything to get through to their partners, with limited success. The Aspie partners are probably suffering too. At this stage their is no handbook and no real advice that people can apply. It’s like men are from Mars, women are from Venus but Aspies are from another planet altogether and we don’t speak their language and therefore misunderstandings are the norm. It’s common for even NT men and women to misunderstand each other, but this goes even further.
Mutual respect would be a good start.
Thanks for making this post! I just came across it recently after stumbling upon a page from theneurotypical.com, which you reference here (fortunately, the domain of the heartless Asperger’s site appears to be no longer active). I’m an aspie myself, and it felt so strange reading this article warning neurotypicals about people like me, how we lack any capacity for empathy and are simply play-acting to get what we want. Really, what they were describing sounded a lot more like sociopathy than Asperger’s. Unfortunately, there’s so much misinformation out there, and I really appreciate what you are doing on this site.
Seems that theneurotypical.com hasn’t been updated since 2017, while the other site is offline. ^^
They were the first to use the terrm “Cassandras”, right? But they used it incorrectly. In the Greek myth Cassandra, a princess of Troy, was a prophet. Apollo gave her the gift of clairvoyance, but she refused his love, so he cursed her: she only would be able to predict catastrophes and calamities, and nobody would ever believe her. But she actually predicted the truth.
The true Cassandras are we autistic people…
They spread false infos about autism, which invalidates their reasons. Cassandra never lied.
you do realise the reverse can happen where neurotypicals don’t acknowledge the feelings of people with autism or asperger’s and can thus be the perpetrators of C-PTSD as well as the victims of it?
the owner of the site, who happens to be from Australia, died of cancer a few months back. I found that out when I called her mobile to give her a piece of my mind and got her husband instead. He told me the news, I sent my condolences.
the owner of theneurotypical site that is. Sorry if I confused anyone.
I actually appreciate these sites. At least some NT people are honest about what they think of us instead of assuring us to our faces that they love us, they accept us, they would never want us to be anything other than who we are, etc. and then turn right around and whine about what emotionless, heartless, soulless pieces of shit we are the moment they think we’re out of earshot, as most of them do.
I have zero tolerance for this bullshit. “Inauthentic”?! Enjoy your willful delusions from your place of privilege
See, this is an example of where a fundamental divide in perception exists. We have no choice to be ‘authentic’, as NT people see it, because our only hope to be accepted into broader society is to adapt or suppress a very large part of our innate behaviors, thoughts, mannerisms, or anything really that an NT would consider part of ‘their authentic selves’ into a form that isn’t found to be strange or unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of others in society. The ability to just be ‘authentic’ without facing peer rejection and social isolation is a privilege limited to those who personalties already fall in line with majority norms, and this sort of exclusion applies to many NT people as well.
We see very clearly from our own perspective as well that we can’t be fully ourselves if we are to successfully integrate with broader society. That alone is also true for many NTs, but for AS, life is also inherently a non-stop game of having to consciously rationalize how we should act next in order to get along with others, and it is extremely burdensome to have the NT assumption held against us that this is a sign of deceitful intent if we falter in our performance and display any inconsistency in our behavior as a result, when we have to decode and follow an endless set of unspoken rules in order to just get along. It’s an absurd game we have to play 24/7 to successfully manage our interactions with others and avoid isolation, not a choice, as it would be for an NT. Calling someone with AS ‘inauthentic’ reflects a deep ignorance of the choices someone with AS has to face.
That being said, I’m also frustrated by those who exhibit no awareness of how their tendencies are perceived by and affect the others around them (i.e. NTs, in the majority of cases), or who tell themselves that nothing is wrong and shift the blame entirely. There is NT ostracism that comes from simply being different, which is a lifelong burden for many of us that builds a lot of resentment against NTs, and then there’s that which comes from being unable to understand and respect the needs of others. I exhibit a majority of the traits associated with AS and have spent the entirety of my life learning to curtail them where they’re detrimental to others and adapting to NT expectations, for the sake of having a rich and fulfilling social life. Obviously, a failure to reasonably adapt to the expectations of others imposes a significant burden on a relationship – I do not think that this failure is usually voluntary in the case of AS, but if there is a fundamental lack of an attitude that sees the importance of understanding, acknowledging, and mitigating the burden it imposes on others, it is generally disagreeable, and unimaginably tragic in the context of a close long-term relationship. I think that unless the AS person in question is able to display enough awareness and adaptive behaviour around NTs, which is a difficult, lifelong endeavour to cultivate the skills required, there are no easy answers for him or the others around him.
So divorce him if you hate him so much. And I thought we autistics were supposed to be the retarded ones.
Your comments, particularly the last one, simply illustrate the problem. I never see anything written by someone with Aspergers that tries to understand the neurotypical mind. There is no reciprocity and that is why Aspergers in a relationship can be experienced as narcissism. Defensive, judgemental and blaming. Most people make friends and get on in life by trying to understand others’ points of view. If someone completely refuses, or is unable to do that, problems with communication arise. Insisting on special treatment to excuse behaving in a way that other people find troublesome is emotionally immature. Every comment here by someone with Aspergers completely invalidates the experience of neurotypical people. It’s got to the point where I can spot who’s on the spectrum by their writing. It’s self-centred, dismissive and emotionally immature. Oh, and by the way, I’ve been vaccinated. 🙂
And NTs don’t invalidate Aspie experiences?
NTs have lived without eye contact, physical contact, phone calls, vacations, sex, concern and are empty with trying to make everything okay. NTs love deeply but need an adult to love them back.
Autistic people spend their entire lives catering to you. We have to work extra hard to cater to your made up social rules that you change constantly. Meanwhile you never take the time to make the tiniest accommodation. You won’t even lower your voice so someone won’t have sensory overload. You have everything backwards. We have done everything to mask to make you comfortable, the moment we ask for some understand we’re abusers? No you need to stop trying to covertly suicide baiting us.
THE AUTISM AND SOCIOPATHY LINK. As scientific studies into neurology progress, researchers (check out NIH studies on the following) are concluding that both the diagnoses Asperger’s/autism spectrum disorder and sociopathy are strongly linked. Brain processes, such as executive functioning, are vastly different in the two groups but the outcome is alarmingly similar: Volatile frustration directed at another that often morphs into rage, physical abuse and societal violence. These behaviors can break laws and if families and coworkers stopped enabling more would be in jail. Prison populations, both juvenile and adult, are now being studied to see how many violent offenders are autistic in addition to whatever other diagnoses they have. The result is it’s an epidemic no one knew about. Look at the studies about the disturbing number of young men starting college who think they have happily gone on dates and started a consensual physical relationship only to find themselves in jail because the other person correctly reported that he/she was sexually assaulted. When these men are interviewed they are legitimately confused and overwhelmed because they don’t comprehend that what they did was wrong; they misinterpreted social signals. Unfortunately they’re not going to get the assistance that they need but will instead be traumatized by going through the prison system and having a criminal record and their victims (and families of both people) will also be forever traumatized. We have such a long way to go in understanding autism and why there is a rage component where the impact (intent vs impact) is so similar to the harm sociopaths cause to others. The more that people validate (or choose to avoid addressing) volatile behavior in others and themselves in the name of autism, the more those with autism are going to end up in legal trouble, especially with the billions of dollars given to autism research that increasingly includes investigating the sociopathic tendencies component. What is deeply frustrating is that even though there is so much progress in helping autistic children that didn’t exist decades ago the second they turn 18 they’re just thrown out into the adult world with no safety net and no structure, no tools to successfully begin and navigate personal relationships. Universities are beginning to have support systems but contact any one of them and you will learn that their “ASD services” are severely limited. Mostly they assist with academics and maybe work-study positions but not the social aspect, and not everyone goes to college. Adults are naturally going to want to try to be in relationships. Therefore, the volatility will begin again, especially with children from these relationships, and there will be new victims. It’s beyond worrisome that the DSM and psychologists who use it, the research world, school systems and frankly our entire society are taking so long to help ND and NT folks in their relationships and marriages. It’s because of under and untreated autism that there are more people in prison and county jails than people realize and the numbers will only increase.
Anti-Social Personality Disorder (aka sociopathy/psychopathy) causes have been attributed to childhood trauma and attachment disorders with primary caregivers, and epigenetic changes. Autism is a developmental disorder that is not caused by childhood trauma or neglect but frequently leads to the person being the victim of abuse. Genetic variants have been studied for their significant associations with Autism, but so have alleles involved with Type-1 Diabetes. The only consistent overlap between Autism and ASPD is they both affect the brain; and that’s not a statement of significance as there are many neurological conditions.
Yes, Autism does affect Executive Functioning (which is the ability to plan/focus/coordinate one’s activities and apply attention to multiple tasks in an effective and time-appropriate way). But Executive Dysfunction also impacts on those with Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and those who have experienced Encephalitis or Meningitis or a Stroke.
The amygdala is involved with Autism, and this may lead to an increased expression of the Fight or Flight reaction when the person is subjected to a perceived threat. Autistic people have Theory of Mind deficits which cause interpersonal misunderstandings and may trigger the Fight or Flight reaction. But all humans have the Fight or Flight reaction and not all humans are volatile or violent. Studies have shown that Autistic people are much more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators. Those most likely to be the perpetrators are those with ASPD. People with ASPD have no empathy. Autistic people do have empathy but may struggle to express it in a neurotypical expected way.
AUTISM DOES NOT EQUAL INCEL. Incel’s are an increasingly alarming societal problem. Incel’s are overwhelmingly men who have been regular consumers of pornography throughout their formative years and therefore have a very warped view of intimate relationships. To stop the Incel mindset we need to look at who they identify with and consequently how they form their identity. Overwhelming their influencers are older men who objectify women, hate minorities, hold extreme and discriminatory political views, have an unjustifiable sense of entitlement, and have an impactful presence on social media to express their opinions widely to these impressionable younger men.
I am proud to ‘out-myself’ as an Autistic person. I was diagnosed in my 40s. I am glad that the younger generation have better access to resources, early intervention and there is more knowledge about Autism. This means younger Autistic people will be better able to navigate life than us older Autistic people did. But there is still a lack of resources for those over 18 in terms of access to medical/psychosocial support services and ongoing care. You don’t turn 18 and ‘grow out of’ your Autism.
‘Day’, I found your statements ignorant, inaccurate, and offensive. I am Autistic and have never been a volatile/violent/abusive/law-breaking person nor have I been to prison! Please don’t associate Autistic people with those who have different conditions such as ASPD or Narcissism.
“Your mentally on this subject is purely because YOU feel attacked and refuse to take blame, which is a huge Aspie trait.”
Oh Jesus the irony.
Anyways what are we supposed to blindly nod to all hate groups because some people in said hate groups MAY have been abused by a member of the group they’re targeting? And how are we supposed to take them seriously when much of what they claim is easily debunked? Aspies have affective empathy, and many also have cognitive empathy, and many constantly blame themselves and feel intense guilt hence part of the reason the suicide rate is so high for those with ASD. All of which debunks this nonsense. What the fuck are you talking about?
You can’t read, can you, Karen?
I’m glad to finally see this addressed. These profoundly ignorant people are causing nothing but damage, and they won’t listen to reason. Not from other neurotypical people, not from neurodivergent people. They won’t listen to experts because they think Big Aspie has conspired with all of the experts and professionals if the input is not completely negative and sinister. I also tried to speak to those AS Partners people, long before I found this article. And I found evidence of other people doing likewise, but having their posts deleted. There are littletonies of hate have no room for facts and evidence, they just want to spread hate and it appalls me that a group can gather and congregate under the flag of hatred at the same level almost as bigots did under Jim Crow.
What most of these women are suffering from is malignant relationships with narcissists and individuals with narcissistic traits. They should get out of those relationships and find somebody who appreciates them and who they can appreciate in return. Making broad, negative generalizations to the ends of marginalizing an entire class of people based on a stereotype they alone have created, it is not going to bring them to a path of healing and it is not going to let them live happier lives.
I wish them well, but I’ve learned the hard way the inevitability of the path they have chosen in life.
You do not live with an aspergers spouse. We (NT) were married because we were outgoing, sweet, kind, understanding, forgiving and are doers. We worry about stuff and handle things, Aspergers men are perfect until you get married. Then no eye contact, no talking, no sex, no anything. You love them so much you try to make everything okay, or doubt yourself, Because they are safe with you they let down the act. They are understood by thier Mother who has loved them since birth and knows how they operate. They aren’t monsters necessarily, but can be unkind, careless, thoughtless. No birthdays, anniversary, no religion, no vacations, no sex. The partner slowly goes crazy and is percieved as the problem or a liar, as they appear great to others.
They also think they are smart and they are they just often can’t take care of any detail oriented stuff.