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Ganondox
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21 Oct 2014, 4:38 am

Of course there is the infamous neurotypical-female-codependant-on-asperger-male thing that all the relationships sites talk about because obviously aspies are disabled so they must be cared for and to add to the mix they are emotional black holes sucking the lifeblood out of benevolent NT spouses :roll: , but that's not what I'm talking about. Rather, is their any tendency for autistic people to become codependant themselves? One of the key factors leading to codependency is lack of emotional intelligence combined with a desire to help others, and many of the traits of codedenency are in line with traits of autism,as detailed here, though some of the traits seems pretty unautistic. Also, feelings of inadequacy during youth from bring cared for and feeling unable to contribute due to autism may lead to the low self-esteem that drives the compulsive to attend to others needs in negligence of their own. Anyway, personal anecdotes are fine, but I'm wondering if there would be any effective methodology for testing if there is any statistical prevalence of codependency in autism. Note this is independent from prevalence of someone with autism being the dependent in a relationship with codependency as a population can have predisposition to both as one doesn't count against the other.


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helles
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21 Oct 2014, 4:50 am

Very interesting question.

I do not know about codependency - a term I find a bit dubious. I am aware that many people like to term the non violent partner in a violent relationship for "codependent". I think that it is mainly a way of removing the responsibility from the violater and putting the blame on the victim.
I am aware that some people exhibit codependency (as far as I know they mainly have a violent childhood themselves) but being a part of the domestic violence community for some years - I mostly see sensitive, strong, independent but caring women (mostly women but also some men) being tricked, lied to, gaslighted etc. by people from the cluster B diagnosis (Psychopathy, narcissism, psychopathy etc.).

For your question of the risk of autistic people being in a special risk zone (besides that I rarely acknowledge that the term codependent is appropriate) I have had some of these thoughts myself. The reasons I have thought of are:
Our lack of seeing hidden agendas in other peoples behaviour
An very strong tendency to trust people and what they say (and neglect what they do!)
Our daily struggle to fit into society and therefor daily crossing our own boundaries - besides having weak boundaries in the first place.
A tendency to help others/weak people


I might think of more

I find it very important to educate people about the red flags of relationships! Some of these people are quite dangerous.



peterd
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21 Oct 2014, 4:51 am

From the subjective angle, there was me - undiagnosed autistic, and her - anorexic, bulimic, and not handling things very well. Disaster.



Ganondox
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21 Oct 2014, 7:45 pm

helles wrote:
Very interesting question.

I do not know about codependency - a term I find a bit dubious. I am aware that many people like to term the non violent partner in a violent relationship for "codependent". I think that it is mainly a way of removing the responsibility from the violater and putting the blame on the victim.
I am aware that some people exhibit codependency (as far as I know they mainly have a violent childhood themselves) but being a part of the domestic violence community for some years - I mostly see sensitive, strong, independent but caring women (mostly women but also some men) being tricked, lied to, gaslighted etc. by people from the cluster B diagnosis (Psychopathy, narcissism, psychopathy etc.).

For your question of the risk of autistic people being in a special risk zone (besides that I rarely acknowledge that the term codependent is appropriate) I have had some of these thoughts myself. The reasons I have thought of are:
Our lack of seeing hidden agendas in other peoples behaviour
An very strong tendency to trust people and what they say (and neglect what they do!)
Our daily struggle to fit into society and therefor daily crossing our own boundaries - besides having weak boundaries in the first place.
A tendency to help others/weak people


I might think of more

I find it very important to educate people about the red flags of relationships! Some of these people are quite dangerous.


The way I've heard the term it refers more to supporting someone's addiction or other problematic behavior than to domestic violence.


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olympiadis
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22 Oct 2014, 1:38 am

Ganondox wrote:
Of course there is the infamous neurotypical-female-codependant-on-asperger-male thing that all the relationships sites talk about because obviously aspies are disabled so they must be cared for and to add to the mix they are emotional black holes sucking the lifeblood out of benevolent NT spouses :roll:


If enough of some resource like money is being provided by the partner, then the accusations of codependency mysteriously do not appear.
I think this is a compass needle that points right to the driving force behind a lot of this nonsense.

What we're really talking about is the discounting of human life in favor of the pursuit of some resource due to some pressure from social structures.
The rationalizations and justifications for this type of behavior is literally endless.

Anyone could claim that any relationship had some component that could be fit into a codependency model. One could also claim that any relationship is emotionally abusive in some way.