Someone Marry Barry, Aspergers and Aspartners

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Right - I would guess there are reasonable people posting in Men's Rights forums, too - but that doesn't seem to be their primary purpose, nor do the large majority of people who drop by see them as anything but a group of misogynists.

I do see the need for an NT/AS partners forum, but if the goal is understanding and trying to get along, perhaps it would be useful to start a website that is open to both? Maybe knowing that someone might call you on it might curb the tendency towards hateful language?

But yet the people here, including you, seem to have found it okay for a 13 year old to abuse her mom and her sister. That thread pissed me off so much I have not been back to it since my outburst nor read any other threads by the OP because I don't want to read about any abuse they get from their daughter.

To me it is not at all the same thing. There are a lot of things we do not agree on. A 13 year old child with the emotional maturity of a 2yr old who lashes out, is not (in my opinion) analogous to an adult abusing his wife. I do not consider a child melting down as abuse.

Edited to clarify.

regarding ASD apologists: I work with people on the spectrum, and have on occasion been bitten or scratched, when working with people with minimal verbal skills. I find them blameless because they do not have the skills to cope appropriately with the challenges they face.

When you're describing someone who is much higher functioning, able to maintain employment, etc. Then of course they are responsible for their actions and their effect on others. Many people with ASD do make an effort to take responsibility in this way.

The real issues with AS are deficits in understanding social situations and difficulties transitioning (especially with obsessive interests). If you are in a relationship with a person with AS, then those are to be expected and should be forgiven provided the person is making an effort to grow.

There is no excuse for physical abuse. However, physical abuse is not a feature of ASD. Physical aggression may coincide with ASD in some cases, and may be the strategy chosen to get needs met when social skills fail, but it is not a part of ASD. Physical aggression is a feature that is common in all humans under certain conditions. What I (being an NT person who cares for people with ASDs) and many people here object to is the characterization that all people with ASDs are heartless abusers. That simply does not match my experience of the community at all. I worry that in many cases on the Aspartners forum, people with abusive partners have somehow self-diagnosed their partners with ASD, and then based on those (incorrect) diagnoses have gone on to make sweeping and inaccurate generalizations about all people with ASD.

I believe that it's possible for a person with ASD to be abusive or cruel towards a partner, but it's not the ASD that's making them behave those ways- just like an abusive alcoholic can't completely blame the alcohol (and take no personal responsibility). These sweeping generalizations are not fair to others who struggle with the disorder and make a genuine effort to be upstanding, caring and productive members of society. ASD is not the problem here, violence is.

Except the child even refuses to try and control it and to get help and to do other strategies her mother gives her so she won't lash out because she has AS. Maybe she will grow out of using it as an excuse like I had. Plus my school counselor was teaching me to be AS than be myself and have me get better so my mom found out on accident and fired him. She even told him he was an idiot and to stay away from me as if he was abusing me or something. The other therapist I saw had to undo the damage with me and the day he told me it's all wrong when parents allow their autistic kids to get their way and stuff, it changed everything for me and it was because the adults are wrong, not because the kid is allowed to act that way and I am not and that it's okay for them to do it and not me. I was no longer confused and I had figured out all those years, it was wrong for teachers and parents to let their special needs children get away with murder (figuratively speaking) and my mom never allowed anyone to treat me disabled and she never allowed me to get away with bad behavior. In fact I am glad I didn't know I had a disability when I was little nor understood what AS was and I am so glad I didn't know it was a disability when I first knew about it, I am so glad I didn't understand then what it was or else I would have used it as an excuse and think rules don't apply to me and I shouldn't have to act appropriate. That would have been really hard for my family and for everyone else around me because it would be stuck in my mind that I can act inappropriate because I have a disability just like other special needs kids. It was hard for my family when I was 16 for god's sake until my therapist told me it's all wrong what those people do.

I am always relieved when I hear a violent child doesn't have an ASD diagnoses and it always offends me when anyone in the comments brings it up. I was watching Dr. Phil one time and there was an eight year old boy who was a Chucky. He would lash out and threaten his parents with knives and did destruction and my mom said "That kid needs to be in a hospital" and then I was offended when she said "I wonder if he is autistic" when the parents mentioned he lashes out when he is told to do things and gets interrupted. Really why do people keep connecting violence with ASDs? I actually clapped and cheered in my mind when they said he is not autistic but yet I saw he had the ODD label and I thought "Yeah I suspected that because every time I hear about ODD, the kid is always violent."

League Girl, I can understand why that might be upsetting to you (I don't recall the specifics in the thread) - but do remember two things: first of all, anyone can be violent. It is a part of human nature. Second, many young children lash out physically when they are upset and it takes them time to learn not to do this (see http://www.babycenter.com/0_aggression- ... g_11550.bc ) - and kids on the spectrum often mature later than other kids. It stands to reason that some kids on the spectrum are going to go through that physical phase at an older age than NT kids (who usually are done with it by age four or five.)

It is obviously wrong to assume that all people with AS are violent, or all violent people have AS, but it's equally untrue to say that no people with AS are violent. Many parents, including myself, have come here looking for help with violent kids.

It's also the case that it can take time and development for AS kids to learn not to be violent in the same way it does toddlers, and we need to provide a safe time and space and appropriate responses for them to learn - it doesn't happen overnight, and it's not their fault if they are struggling with this phase of development. That isn't the same as excusing or allowing the behavior - my son did learn not to act out physically, but it took him several years.

There's an Asimov quote that I really like about this: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
Essentially it's a (generally poor) problem solving approach...but it sometimes works, and so people that can't figure out another way to function resort to it. It can go along with ASD because part of ASD makes people less competent, socially. Just like it can go along with poverty, or any number of other difficulties.

I also seen studies trying to link child abuse and yelling and spankings with poverty and parents have also taken offense to it. I know most people associate child abuse with hitting and beating and leaving marks on your child but the truth is, child abuse is also a spectrum and it doesn't always involve psychically harming a child. But it does make sense why poorer people are more likely to do lot of yelling and hitting and possibly abuse because of stress and they don't get as much support because they don't have the luxury to afford childcare and just put them there so they can have a break to save their sanity. Plus they may not get as much support richer parents get.

Okay I guess no one likes to be lumped with violence. I have seen it everywhere with any condition and heard of it too. Even poorer parents don't want to hear about how poor parents do abuse and also refuse to excuse it,same goes for with neglect too, and have it be blamed on being poor or being stressed out or depressed. Even people with depression don't want to hear about people with depression doing abuse or neglect with their kids and having it blamed on their depression.

I have noticed people will use the term aggressive to mean violence. Is that a PC term? They even called that Chucky kid on Dr. Phil aggressive and I thought "That is like calling Jeffery Dahmar aggressive or Ted Bundy." I do not know of any normal child that will threaten anyone with knives and tear the whole house apart and threaten to harm their family members. I think if you have to lock yourself in a room to protect your self form your child or have to lock your other kids in their room or lock your own child in their room to keep them away from you and their siblings, they need to be hospitalized. You don't have to do that with any normal kids because they are not that violent nor a danger to anyone. Hell if you have to lock away anything that can be used as an item, they need to be sent away. You don't have to lock your things away from small children. You just have to keep things out of reach and you sure don't have to lock away everything that can be used as a weapon to kill.

I think you're right, it's a more acceptable term than "violent," as it implies there is no intent behind the behavior.

There is a huge tendency in our society right now to "other" all kinds of bad behavior using a label of some sort: AS, schizophrenia, mentally ill, poor, etc. in hopes that if it belongs to some "other" it won't happen to them. Unfortunately, it's just human behavior, so it appears in everyone.

However, as someone who's had to lock myself in a room away from my kid, I'd disagree with your premise that all kids who behave that way need hospitalization. He did all of the things in your list - but he was very, very little at the time. I know it sounds scary, but you do have to make allowances for a person's level of development and their ability to learn and also the fact that you are able to protect yourself more than they are able to hurt you.

He needed time, teaching, and resources - and he got them, and they eventually worked. If you recall, I initially came to this forum terrified that we weren't going to make it and had no idea what to do, but with a lot of help from people here and professionals and other supports, we made it. I doubt that hospitalization would have solved his problem; they don't really provide education, just drugs.

Had I had other children (he was 5 at the time, so I could mostly handle him,) I might have decided differently, as you're right, I would have to think of them.

I guess my family is weird then because where I come from, if someone is a danger, they get hospitalized. My grandfather tried for years to put my schizophrenic aunt in a hospital and couldn't until 1997 when she got so bad with her illness, they finally took her and she was there for four years. When I threatened suicide in early 1998, I nearly got hospitalized and when I was 16, my mom told me if I hit her again, I am going to a hospital and I stopped being so violent because I didn't want to be sent away and not have my video games and computer and not be able to watch my TV shows or be able to shave and have a shower everyday. But then I started to hate my ODD friend because he got to be violent and not be sent away. I found out later he has been sent away several times to Seattle and he was immediately taken there after my parents told his parents their son kept throwing an ax at my brothers and their friends. in my family we all toss each other in hospitals if we are a danger to ourselves or others so it's alien to me to not send your kid to one if they are a danger.

Darn I wish I could be violent to my family and not get hospitalized Those lucky children lol.

I come from the opposite kind of family. My father had some kind of psychotic break years ago, and my mom just kept him at home and waited for him to come back to his senses. She never even told any of their friends or family, and he never went to see any kind of doctor even though it lasted several days.

If that had been my family, I bet they would be rushing to call the doctor or rushing them to a hospital. When my schizophrenic aunt washed her car naked when I was little, police were called, my grandparents were called because they knew she was sick. The police came and took her in but they took her to the hospital instead of to the police station. They only held her for 72 hours and then released her. My grandparent wanted her there longer so she could get treatment but no they released her and didn't want her. Even my aunts and my mom wanted her to stay.

My mom's hypothesis was that one of his workmates slipped drugs into his drink at lunch, as he came home crazy in the middle of the day. It could also have been schizophrenia (he was hallucinating and thought people were after him) but since he never saw a doctor we'll never know. But his personality was permanently changed, so I don't think it was drugs.

My mom thinks my aunt would have been better off and less sick if she had gotten treatment sooner and if the state didn't fail her but she would also stop taking her medicine and get worse again which is common in schizophrenics. Mom told me lot of people are like that, schizophrenic or not. They think if they are doing good, they stop taking their medicine because they think they don't need to anymore. My mom works in hospice and she deals with family members who quit giving their dying loved ones medicine and then they call her saying they ar doing worse again after being better and my mom said she will increase the dose and they say they stopped giving him/her it. My mom asks why and they say they were doing better and then she tells them they were doing better because of the medicine. Now she tells all her patients families when giving their loved one medicine to not stop giving it to them and if they are doing better, it means it's working and do not stop giving them it or they will fall back again. If there is a problem, call her.

That is part of the difference of how we look at this. I don't see it as they are "getting away" with things. It is not fun for them, and they are not having a good time. They have trouble controlling themselves.

I was raised thinking that institutions are horrible places where one is likely to encounter abuse. I know that is not always the case, and the Cuckoos Nest was fiction and not a documentary; but I would not put a child in such a place except under the most dire of circumstances.

My mom told me institutions were good and they were well cared for and taken care of and the ones that abused patients were the minority and she didn't buy lot of them were bad places. Now look at what has happened now with the mentally ill and families who are suffering with it. My mom thinks when the new law came out and institutions all shut down thanks to Reagen, it was meant to protect people who are not harmful like my old friend with Down's syndrome an to stop families from locking them away for no reason but instead it backfired and now all the people out there who truly can't help themselves are out running wild and endangering their loved ones and others. There are homeless people who are mentally ill. There are prisons with people with mental illnesses all because we don't have a institution anymore.

When I was in high school, my therapist told me, "if you want to live out in the real world, you have to be responsibly for your actions, if you cannot, then you can't be in the real world" and hearing that was a wake up call and I realized "No wonder ret*d people go to prison when they commit a crime and no wonder why they sometimes get put in a group home or hospital."

She said we're all right, people don't choose to be sick and do things they do but if they are a danger, they have to be locked away from everyone else. She even told me if I was violent if I was more severe and truly couldn't help it, I wouldn't be living at home with my family because she would have sent me away so I learned it wouldn't matter then because I wouldn't be at home no matter what disability I have. She told me safety comes first and she has the right to be safe in her own home.

Like you and everyone else, I also thought the same that kids should stay home and be violent because it's not their fault and people with disabilities shouldn't be locked away and all until I changed my mind after realizing how wrong this all is and it was not wrong of my uncle to leave my schizophrenic aunt because she was abusing him. No one is obligated to stay in a relationship just because someone has a disorder because if they are being treated bad, they can leave and it won't make them bad people and there is no excuse for violence.

Then again, those lucky kids. My family is all strange. I was raised that people are thrown in hospitals when they are dangerous and doing harmless crimes like my aunt was such as washing her car naked and to be honest I would rather have a loved one or child doing harmless things than abuse where I am getting my ass kicked or being threatened with knives or guns or scissors or my home being burned to the ground, etc. or my stuff getting stolen and stuff ruined. Callista has written several times meltdowns are not triggered at people when they do stuff. They don't abuse people during their meltdowns and threaten them. That's a relief to hear that. Seesh my therapist must have been strange too.