general ignorance...pissed off poster in hiding

[ThatVikRinA22]

im hiding in here. the boards seem to be full of twats people who think AS = abuser so im hiding here before i go and say something i really regret and get myself thrown out....

i wonder how many of those who are equating AS or ASDs to abusers live with or have direct experience of someone with a proper dx (not an armchair one)

ds is 20. proper dx. and he is nice. scatty and disorganised and slightly infuriating at times not to mention rubbish with money but he wouldnt hurt a fly, is not an arse and is certainly not a rapist. Im sick of trying to explain lack of theory of mind today on here.

rant over....

Where?
Will he be living in or at home?
Independednt study is something my DS still needs a kick up the bum firm guidance with.

away from home for the first time. Its only about an hours drive away luckily. He is doing his last year actually living in at Lincoln uni...

independent study...he does it after a fashion, usually in a panic at 3am...i have found in the last few years he no longer follows my orders helpful instructions/guidance. He is growing up i guess and doesnt want mum interfering, which scares the bejesus out of me if im honest...though he has offered to surrender his bank card. He has offered, not actually done it yet...i am currently 'prompting' with his student finance application. im trying to find the point at which 'prompting' becomes gestapo type 'you will do that application if it kills me' and i am getting fairly close to tying him to a chair...

he is impossibly disorganised and is of the school of thought that says why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

For mine, tomorrow is still a theoretical concept and the past fades very quickly. It's all about the now!

Is Lincoln an Aspie-friendly place? Oddities tolerated?
I'm so pleased that Brighton is our nearest city, DS feels safe there.

There does seem to be a wilful, persistent and determined drive to conflate AS with psychopathy. I think it may be to do with Baron Cohen's book. But it is extremely annoying on here. And really pig-headed, since so many MNers have autistic dc, and that is known.

I thought Baron Cohen was saying there is a difference between negative zero empathy and Positive zero empathy. Ie sociopaths have negative zero empathy and are uncaring, manipulative bastards, while AS and ASD just don't get it. He's been misquoted lots, I think, typical media getting the wrong end of the stick.

Ellen -you've kinda descrbed it for me. An aspie may not see the signs of another's hurt but once pointed out not only cares about their iimpact on others but tries to DO something to resolve any mistakes they've made.

An abuser is by their very nature manipulative and may even get a kick or thrill out of causing emotional harm to others. It's a totally different kettle of fish.

It worries me a LOT to see these threads as a true sociopath is a really dangerous individual who can often manipulate courts, social workers, teachers and others into supporting their cause. Often even professionals only "see the light" once its far too late. (It's how we get a woman murdered by a partner even after begging the police etc for months sometimes.) The sociopath's advanced manipulative social skills blind people to the dangers till its too late. Councelling and therapies often only enable the sociopath to hone those manipulation skills.

Like ASD there is a genetic element & kids have better outcomes the earlier the signs are spotted. The interventions are totally different for the two groups of children. These are mothers posting with kids. It's not enough to airily tell the woman to leave - if she is with a sociopath it's often trying to escape that put's her at the greatest risk of harm. If her child has inherited sociopathic tendencies then she may find herself once again in danger as he gets to his teens.

Being a parent of a sociopath needs very specialist professional support. A teen sociopath will hurt others, your typical Aspie teen is a higher than average suicide risk. Totally different professionals work with both groups. A true sociopath is thankfully a very rare individual - far more common is the selfish, spoilt little boy who grew up into a selfish, uncaring, irresponsible w$$%r of an adult male.

I hate the arrogant oversimpification caused by total ignorance on those boards - & worry about how much damage is being caused. For a woman whose marriage isn't working out it's the intentions behind the behaviors she sees that are criticical, ( & potentially lifesaving in a small minority of cases!). Some of the posters you see on relationships are just upset though that their partners aren't the perfect lapdogs they'd hoped for, being spoilt little madams themselves.

It must be truly devastating to be the mother of a sociopath. Thank goodness they are rare. Unlike our dC with AS or ASD, not rare at all. In retrospect, my STBex dickhead was very poor at communication, but just a bit of a git, not evil.

Yes, you make a good point - sociopaths are extremely rare.

If all the people on Relationships are married to sociopaths, that is beyond belief.

Yes. My sons (both autistic) can be very blunt, or dismissive or totally fail to think about you. But. When you tell them, they both care. They're sorry. They feel bad. My eldest gets quite upset at the thought that he's upset someone. He agonises over it. Really beats himself up. My youngest thinks he can make you all better with a big kiss

But they care. These men I read about on here, who get the 'oh, could he be autistic...' don't CARE. If you sit in front of them and tell them they've hurt you - they don't CARE.

That's not a symptom of ASD.

If people think it is, then we really need to get out there and challenge that.

But all this presupposes that you are prepared to explain and educate someone you love. Someone whose habits and world view you have studied and analysed, in order to help them develop coping strategies, someone you want to have a relationship with for the rest of your life. Your child.
Not just a mysterious, aloof, moody intelligent man you fancied and thought you could change, someone you feel ought to be behaving like an NT just because you have decided to have a relationship and when it goes wrong you decide to blame because he hasn't changed and he should have. That he's now an insensitive and abusive pig because he doesn't pick up on all those clues he ought to, because he says stupid and unkind things.
Because that's how NT relationships work, isn't it?

The mothers (& Dads) of true sociopaths are the SEN parents I have the most compassion for out of the whole range of disabilities/sen's out there tbh. I can't personally imagine a more devastating diagnosis to have to accept, (I'm sure there must be one - I just don't know what it might be).

There are a couple of Mums on this site in that awful position and I can't help wondering how the ignorance on some of the threads affects them.

Seriously, I've been in a relationship for almost 30 years with a man who has many Aspie traits, and the reason it works is the clear talking and explanation of expectations on both sides.
So if he said something or did something hurtful that shocked me, I'd tell him why I was upset and how it made me feel, and what he needed to do to alter that, and what should happen next. He loves me and so he learned because he didn't want to hurt me.

Bochead, I know what you mean. I saw a TV interview with a couple of parents as part of a horrible mass murder investigation.
They said that however dreadful it was to have had your child murdered, how much worse to be the parents of the monster, and they offered their compassion to the parents of the man on trial.

Yup many of these woman on the relationships thread crack me up to be honest. Talk about a total lack of any personal responsibility for their situations! "Dump him" is always the automatic response no matter how daffy the complainant. (Note:- I'm not including the genuine abuse victims in this category!). 1/2 the women screaming "dump him" wouldn't last 5 mins as a lone parent themselves.

"Don't marry a sailor if you want him to be home by 6pm for tea every night" was a favourite saying of my Granny's. So if you need lots of fluffy, waffly understanding chats with your significant other marry a caring carrot, not an Aspie ffs!

My ex is Aspie and it wasn't his AS traits that split us up, (post military PSTD, alcohol & infidelity aren't AS). Oddly those traits are what allow us to be friends after a fashion now the usual break up dust has settled. In fact I still find his "type" attractive. There are some real advantages to the Aspie type - the lack of one-upmanship and daft mind games being one.

I could easily see myself in a relationship with another aspie at some point, if the trials of raising one alone ever give me a chance to date lol!

Yes, it is a delicate balance with my DS on occasion...
'This is because you are an Aspie, this is because you are a PITA teenager who is chancing his luck'

I have the entire relationships board hidden, I doubt I'd be much help and I don't get vicarious enjoyment out of other people's pain. I also lack patience with what I see as pathetic and doormat-like behaviour.
So better to leave the whole thing to other people I feel.

I'm not even going to look for the thread. Sounds horrible.It makes my blood run cold. The thought of my boy (who is SUCH an innocent ... He hasnt got a bad bone in his body) coming up against the pitchfork mob.This is partly why i insist ds (15) carries an autism alert card... and is on the police database .To alert emergency services and offer perhaps a smidgen of protection against general fuckwittage.

Especially if he's likely to get challenged as a weirdo in the park by some mothers who worry about unaccompanied men who look funny.
That's a different thread.

....and precisely why im still hiding out in here today....

Chin chin

Ok, he could be a horrible bloke as well.
Do you have access to any RL or online support groups for partners of people with AS?
How black and white are you in your dealings with him? Do you assert yourself when he's behaving unacceptably, tell him that he is being rude and that you will not talk about something with him until he rethinks what he is saying?
In what way is he neglectful? Mine needed prompting about birthdays and being nice to me when I've just arrived home from work, and needed it spelling out if I wasn't well and needed things to change to get through it such as someone else doing dinner.
Black and white world view, well at least you know what you are dealing with and can anticipate how to create a compromise you can all live with.
'expecting superhuman feats of 'getting stuff done' from me '
Do you explain what is possible and what might be possible and make a clear distinction between the two and use the black and white logic to make it make sense to him?
How hard are you prepared to work on the relationship to let him see what needs to happen for it to be successful? can you see when he is stepping out of his comfort zone for you and appreciate the effort involved?
No, you shouldn't have sex if you don't want to, but do you still fancy him?
Do you still love him?