That's just an excuse

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Does anyone understand the socially accepted concept of an excuse?

For instance, once upon a time, my husband separated from the military in a December (right before Christmas) and we moved back home. The military moved the bulk of our stuff, and my mom found us an apartment and had the military drop our boxes off sometime before we got home. Within two days of moving, I had a baby...giving birth to a newborn. I also already had a one year old at that time. We also moved from a 3 br townhouse to a small dinky 2 br apartment, so we had too much stuff for this place. In addition, because my mom had them drop it off, boxes were just stacked in rooms with no concept of organization, like kitchen boxes were in the bedroom, bathroom boxes in the kitchen, etc. It took me about 6 months to unpack everything (at which time, we ended up moving again). During that six months, everything I've said here are the things my mom claims, as well as my friends and sister, that were an "excuse" for taking 6 whole months to unpack as opposed to whatever crazy ass time frame they had in mind for it. While I know all those people who complained about my house being messy in boxes that long couldn't do what I just did at all if their lives depended on it (assuming I wasn't there to do it for them for whatever excuse), I still wonder why they don't realize that I just did the impossible as opposed to the impossible not being good enough.

Now my house is messy on occasion and the kids are now 1 and 2. My messes are created by the kids 9 times out of 10 now. These same people now when they come over during a little mess and want to complain, I just tell them, sorry I haven't had much a chance to clean that yet. Then they ask what my husband is doing. Then go into this thing about how he needs to help out more. Yes they are right to an extent. My house would be cleaner if my husband cleaned once in a while. But I think that's an excuse. They all think that's why the house is a mess. I think my house is a mess because that sort of thing happens when you have a one and two year old, and I just don't always feel like cleaning. Sometimes I have more important things to do with my time, and yes, having some fun ranks up there as more important if it's something I haven't gotten to do in a while. But if I told them that, then it would be an excuse. Not only would I be making excuses, I would be using my kids as my excuse. This is coming from the very people who constantly call off work or leave early from work to do something with their kids (which I don't think anything is wrong with that, but it kinda in their logic would be using your kids as an excuse not to work).

I always thought excuses were like when you lie about why something is the way it is. If the alarm clock went off and you hit the snooze and slept through the snooze alarm, and then you say the alarm clock didn't go off at all, that's using the alarm clock as an excuse. But, when you over sleep and the alarm clock really didn't go off, then that's why you didn't wake up. The world around me perceives the blaming the alarm clock is an excuse here too. In my mind, it's not an excuse because only very few people wake up earlier than their bodies want to without the aid of something waking them up. If it were so popular to wake up at a certain hour like your brain subconsciously keeps track of time while it's sleeping, then they wouldn't have invented the alarm clock let alone sell the crap out of them.

I don't think the excuses to other people should matter. If something didn't get done or got done a certain way, there's a reason. Otherwise, it's one thing to say, "there's no exception" as opposed to "there's no excuse." In my mind, no exception would include the person saying it. No excuse doesn't seem to include that person.

I do think excuses to yourself matters big time. The more we excuse bad behavior of ourselves, the less apt we will ever improve and grow. Like when you are running. Say you want to run the 5K. You start getting tired after a while. Guess what, every body part that you ever had a problem with and some new ones will start to "act up" or "hurt." Yeah, your knees, ankles, hips, etc. all start to hurt at some point. The weaker mind allows those things as an excuse to stop running and start walking. The stronger mind will finish it's goal with no exceptions. It will push past the pain and create a phrase to put on t=shirts like pain is weakness exiting the body. The smarter mind, however, will swim because it's so much better for your joints. Swim a couple miles in the ocean, and it makes running the 5K look like a toddler sport. However, you still face similar mind games except instead of you worrying that you are permanently injuring your knee, you are worrying that you might get so tired and drown or the cramp in your side gets worse and worse to make you do the "pain is only weakness exiting the body" trip.

Either way, as sick as people are of hearing excuses, I'm even more sick of hearing people point out excuses. My aspie nephew just tripped and fell yesterday wearing shoes he will wear in the upcoming wedding. He scuffed the shoes. My sister, bridezilla, freaks out about how one kid is so clumsy all the time and destroys everything he owns. After he left the room, I explained to her that Aspies are clumsy. It's something beyond our control. She says, "that just an excuse." For someone who is concerned about her child making excuses or using Aspergers as an excuse, she sure dishes out quite enough excuses to justify her behavior like overreacting to something stupid like a pair of shoes, or why she didn't bring a pair of tennis shoes for him to change into.

I would almost swear, at least in my experiences, the Aspie is the one always making excuses it seems. I'm thinking maybe I have this whole thing on excuses wrong because I don't get it. It's such a freaking stupid waste of time to even have to make an issue of it. The only thing I can think of is ego. People have to tell others that they are making excuses to make themselves feel better about their mistakes? No offense, but in my experience, Aspies are an easy target for other people's ego trips, hence why ego seems to be my default NT excuse.

I would so love to hear what you all think on this subject.

I guess they expect you to clean when you have the time and don't care if you don't feel like it, they expect you to force yourself do it.

Never ever mention a condition for problems. I've learned from reading posts by aspies that if you mention you do this or that or have problems with this or that because you have Aspergers, people will think you're using it as an excuse because it does sound like you are. It sounds like just because we have AS, we don't even try, so we keep allowing ourselves to have this problem or that problem because of our AS and we don't do a thing about it to help ourselves. I bet that's how other people take it because it does sound like that when we say it's because we have AS or that person has AS. I mean we don't hear NTs saying they have a certain problem because they are NT. Or saying "Oh I judge people because I'm an NT." Doesn't that sound like just because that person is NT, she/he is choosing to judge people without knowing them first? Sounds like that to my ears so I assume that's what it sounds like to others too when we mention Aspergers for our problems so I don't even mention that word at all.

My interpretation (and it did take me probably 20 years to figure this out) is that when people say "That's just an excuse" it really means "Don't talk about it, do it."

When your relatives complain there are boxes in your house after 6 months, and you tell them why, they are saying "We want action, not words."

I would expect perhaps they used this phrase because they thought there was an immediate danger to your or your family because of the mess. Otherwise they were probably just being very rude.

In my mind, an "excuse" is when you blame your failure on some external factor, rather than owning up to your internal shortcomings.

For example, if you're late to work, and you say "My alarm didn't go off", and that's true, but the real reason you were late is because you sat around watching morning talk shows instead of putting on clothes and leaving the house, then that's an excuse.

Of course, people might also use "excuse" to mean "I don't want to hear your whining" or "I don't think that reason you gave me is sufficient justification for your failure."

Your relatives apparently believe that it would be possible for you to keep your house clean if your husband helped, but that the presence of two small children is an irrelevant factor.

Nobody likes excuses, but it's hard to guess what someone might accept as a valid reason...

Since your home and family management is obviously no one's business but your own and whoever else co-manages it with you, they're probably doing something with conversation (see my thread on this). In other words, they're showing a total lack of respect for your boundaries and for your values, and they're doing it indirectly by criticizing your home management. It could be your hair or whatever. THAT is the excuse. They're trying to pass on a deeper message to you through this, the question is what message. Since we're Aspies, it's practically impossible for us to decipher the hidden message, but just know they're fighting with you about something else, not your home management. A typical case would be they use this as a way to keep you docile through guilt manipulation (why on Earth would you apologize for your house being a bit dirty? If they don't like it, they shouldn't come visit).

One thing is for sure, though: you're letting them treat you with disrespect for your boundaries, values and choices, and that's not healthy for the relationship.

"that's just an excuse" means that they believe, or want YOU to believe, that you really CAN do it, and are merely trying to get out of it through some supposedly reasonable arguement.