When well meaning NT people misrepresent AS people.

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^^^

I think you're being too idealistic. DW_a_mom interacting online to try to understand her child's viewpoint better is probably a rarity and example of a parent going above and beyond. If you're lucky, you get well meaning parents, therapists, and the best guesswork for what the kids need.

I think it's extremely poor form to criticize her as not a "card carrying ASD member". Learning nuance is about listening to other opinions and perspectives, especially if they differ from your own.

You are hearing a tone that isn't there. I write exactly as I would debating other professionals in my office on technical matters. We are in DEBATE and from my side you are the one who inserted an adversarial/debate tone; I was just trying to provide a "has anyone considered?" alternate viewpoint. Originally.

And you haven't read all I've written if you insist on calling me a neurotypical and making assumptions about me accordingly.

I don't think the NT world really considers all of that lying and manipulation. They would simply call it "conforming to expectations." The NT world allows for nuances to truth, and so when you say that you don't have a disability that will affect your job performance, it is allowed to mean "even though I have a disability, I don't think it will affect my job performance any more than other people's job performance is affected by their quirks. In other words, I doubt you will ever even notice my disability when evaluating my job performance." If you were to say "no" while applying a job that you know requires skills you don't have, THEN you would be lying. And it would be pointless - you would find yourself fired pretty quickly. But to say it for a job you are 100% confident you can do well, and where you fully expect a boss to be pleased with your performance? There is no lie or manipulation there, just a very precise answer to a very precise question.

NTs and most ASD individuals view the niceties of society very differently from each other. My son considers it a lie to say thank you for a gift and smile if he doesn't particularly like it, but the NT world does not. That is an expectation; it is what you are required to say; not a lie.

Being truthful does not require a person to always share the complete and unvarnished truth in the way most people with ASD seems to see the complete and unvarnished truth. You can answer job interview questions truthfully and simultaneously conform to expectations. It takes practice, but it is far from impossible. I learned early on that I shoot myself in the foot if I say what I think they want to hear, but I also know some truths simply are not relevant and can be left out. That balance is an art, and is something you learn through practice. And sometimes you actually change your own attitude so that you can truthfully answer a question in the way expected. Bitter about a former job? Get past the bitter so you answer truthfully, "it wasn't the right job for me but I learned a lot." You aren't likely to perform well in the next job unless you can get to that space emotionally, anyway; so you may as well figure out how to get there.

I know from conversations with my son that no matter how many conversations like this we have, he will still think I'm teaching him to be a little less than honest and/or manipulative. But I am NOT. That is NOT how the world at large views it, so why hold onto negative terminology about yourself when others would never ascribe it to you? You aren't going to change how the NT world uses the terms, so accept that their definition seems a little fuzzy to you, but use it anyway when it helps you.

You haven't said anything that makes me think you either lie or manipulate. You have said things that make me feel you have learned to conform to expectations. I think there is an important difference between the two, even if I may not be the best at explaining it.

I can, of course, understand why you wish it were different. That may be one of the most difficult things about being ASD in a mostly NT world; it seems to force you to be at war with yourself in many ways. I do wish that wasn't the case; I can see how it hurts my son, and I can hear in your words how it hurts you.

Thank you.

I do know I am not like other parents, sometimes for good and sometimes for worse. We can only be who we are.

One of the things I find most frustrating about these kinds of dialogues is not the comparison between, for example, the assumption of my level of functioning and a child's level of functioning [which most people will bring up and often be very wrong about], though that does tend to be a frustration.

The biggest frustration is actually that a parent will frequently respond as though I couldn't possibly have ever actually been that child. That I just magically appeared under a rock one day as an adult.
Nope.

I'm telling you from the point of view of having been that child who was constantly perceived as bad. It would have been extremely helpful to have someone explain the explicit motivations of my behaviors- even if it had to be done over and over and over and over a million times. If I had to carry around index cards [they actually make cards now that explain things like this that are preprinted]. If someone could help me come up with ways to explain why I was doing things I was doing. And I am speaking here about distinctions between actual manipulation [yeah being a jerk] versus overload. If I don't get punished I don't learn to self sooth and I don't learn frustration tolerance to the point that I am even able- so I didn't even APPROACH any kind of ability to do that until I was like 28. It was a huge detriment to me. It is still very very difficult, obviously. But imagine if I had had like two more decades of actual practice?

But no. NONE OF IT.

I get that you are a mom who wants to understand, but you have to also allow for the fact that there are reasons people say things and they are from personal experience.

Maybe I could have been more explicit as to why I was saying things- but do you honestly think it was because I had never been in that position, knowing what you know of individuals on the spectrum? How does that even make sense?

I'm not sure why you seemed to not understand where I was coming from with manipulation/truth/lying/etc but you had no problem meeting the person you were responding to here:

I've moved beyond my original point but it kind of ceased to matter with this:


Are you sure about that? You actually have no idea, is the reality. I mean you really don't. You didn't even ASK.
Since you shut me down with this little gem, you seem to not even what to know.

I do appreciate the assumption that I have no personal experience being treated as though I have negative intentions and am trying to make problems when it is really not the case at all- I mean, just from this thread, it should be pretty evident I have experience there. Yes, EVEN when I was a child.

Well, when I was a child manipulation was foreign to me. I learned to be manipulative in order to survive in the NT world.
To my mind, all interactions between humans are manipulative. I have to admit that over the years I have become so jaded and frustrated at the lack of a true connection with someone that now I just use people. I wish it were different and it depresses me that it is so, but when in Rome...

I don't want to argue. I used the word "seem." I am hardly perfect in my own speech and writing; please don't dwell on side statements that rub you the wrong way - you don't get anywhere productive when you do that. I feel like you've found thrown away sentences and turned them into key points instead of understanding what I've tried to say. Yes, it is valid to point out what annoys you so that people can learn to do better by you, but that should be a gentle conversation, not the focus of it. In my experience, effective conversation requires assuming positive motivation on both sides.

Tell me this: how does it help the misunderstood child that was you if the adults assume you are being negatively manipulative? All I've said is that I don't want them to start from that assumption, because I find it destructive. To me, the evidence is in how well someone is developing and growing and maturing and being able to be happy, and I've had the chance to compare how several spectrum kids are doing under different approaches. Why should a child have to figure out the world on their own by getting punished, instead of having a caring parent break it down for them? I would rather they dig into the situation with you and figure out where you are coming from. You posted that you wished someone had done this. So what would motivate parents to do that extra work? Simple, to me: having them not assume you are just being "bad." That is all I've tried to say in this thread.

You've actually now completely changed what you were initially presenting.

And that's fine if you don't actually want input that you weren't looking for in the first place. I'm perfectly happy to not engage in the future.

But I didn't. Change what I've been presenting.

Are we both just misreading each other?

Maybe I'll come back in a week and re-read.

Well, you definitely have the ability to be manipulative - of the passive-aggressive variety, that is! I wonder, though, if you've ever had this experience? You have a meltdown or otherwise can't cope with something, and the people around you accuse you of being "manipulative" - does that ring a bell? It's a pretty damn hurtful way of kicking you when you're down, and seems to be a common NT response to autistic people who are in distress.

So no, I would say we're not "manipulative". Not particularly. Certainly not more than NT's, and probably less - they interpret our behavior as such, because it's how *they* generally conduct themselves.