Has anyone called you the big R word?

Post Reply New Topic

I can't recall ever being called a ret*d, though that obviously doesn't mean it never happened. What I've had to face is much worse in my opinion. Every time I go to a new job, without fail in 3 to 6 months someone calls me a serial killer. I have no idea why. It's not like I drive a windowless van, or have a bunch of dead hookers in my freezer. Yet it never fails, sooner or later someone calls me a serial killer. They claim to be joking, but it really hurts. I'd never hurt anyone. Why do they do that?

I get it at least once a month, but then I ask the name-caller if they knew what a ret*d was. that shuts them up, usually.

The memory isn't really painful to me, because I always knew what it ment.

At every school I went to, at avery job I worked, and once or twice in roleplaying groups I joined over the years. I have never been able to escape it. If I could get away with it I would wait for them to open their mouths again to speak so I could spit into them for saying it. Just to see the look on their faces.

Yes.

I've been called ret*d before, but I don't get offended because I know I'm not ret*d, and I also know that the person calling me ret*d is stupider than I am. Besides, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the word ret*d in and of itself. It's no different than any other word, even the dreaded N-word. It's the person using the word that should be the concern. There are no bad words. There are bad thoughts. Bad intentions. And words.

Remember they are social actors and in calling someone a ret*d they are asking the social audience to give them the points in the social interaction. AS 2 NT 8- if you respond with mini meltdown.

If You stand your ground and say something quietly, calmly and firmly "like now how would that be exactly" and you're not afraid because the worst the guy is going to do is hit you and its 98% certain he's not going to do that in front of an audience, especially if there are females around ( they don't like this) because that is zero points ,so what threat has he got left if you make viable defensive moves .None.

The ideal ratio for me is 5-5. The audience doesn't like a bully, but they tolerate it it because they too fear the threat of ridicule and worse. This inhibits the group's development .

Maybe it's our evolutionary role to figure how to regulate the bully's behavior for the benifit of the social group- that makes us valuable , if weirdly connected-to members of the group.

Work on the primary assumption the bully will never be you friend, hell you don't want a friend like that.

I've been called a ret*d before. I've also been told to "keep the weird s**t to myself" (when it was just my regular routine) and that "nobody cares" (I was in repetitive monologue). It's painful but the truth is that most people who don't have AS don't understand and will never understand, either because they "don't care" or think that conforming is proper. I tend not to waste my time on them. The important thing is that you aren't ret*d, and even though it's offensive it's even worse to waste your words on -insert expletive here-.

I was called that a lot at school. I started to believe that I really was ret*d because of the amount of people who called me it. A diagnostic test proved my IQ was around 90 so I wasn't. I tried to argue this with some girl who was calling me a ret*d freak and she just got really b-wordy with me.

For some reason I have a bad habit of using it as an insult myself now... I still don't know why.

_________________
I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

The first time I was ever called ret*d was when I was seven. It started with kids on the other side of the block calling me that. It was my best friend's brother. Then it was followed by other older kids. I bet if they called me autistic instead, I bet I would still hate being called that.

In my teens a few kids would ask me if I am ret*d and I hated being asked that. It always meant I was doing something abnormal that would make them think it so they had to ask to be sure.

Now I don't care anymore if someone calls me it because it just means they are ignorant and that is the only word they can think of and it means they can tell I am different. But yet if they are still treating me like crap, then I know something else about them.

I've been called a "spacker" which basically means the same thing.

In a conversation she claims to no longer remember, my mother once told me (when I was still young) that my Catholic parochial-school kindergarten teachers -- this would've been in 1968-69 -- thought I might be "mildly ret*d," and wanted to hold me back for a second year of kindergarten. (I guess I literally "flunked sandbox"! !!) But that my father put his foot down and somehow got his way. (NB: His sister is ret*d.)

I was aware of none of this at the time (i.e., '68-69). Considering the time, the only option probably would've been Special Ed in public-school [i.e., the common government-run school system in the USA, for any Brits reading], which as we know was not prepared for Asperger Syndrome then (if it even is now!). Plus I would've missed-out on my comprehensive education in a Catholic environment, which was important to us. (It was also tuition-free at the time, fully supported by the church at-large.) Not that the Catholic environment prevented all bullying, but in spite of that, my faith has always been extremely important to me -- maybe even because of it!?

I've wondered how my life might've gone had I repeated kindergarten. It might've been better in some ways to have been in the 'older' half of my class all the way through school, rather than the younger half -- tho I guess then I could've been rated a 'BIG R' instead of a 'little R'.... Being "left back" might have brought its own stigma, too. (I find it harder to wonder how public school would've gone, and/or special ed, since I've had no experience of those, just the stereotypes from a perpetually-troubled U.S. big-city school system.)

---Pete

Ha! This girl I was trying to get with months ago asked me "Are you ret*d?" ouch what a blow, she genuinely seemed like she was asking.

Not surprisingly she is quite a dim-bulb herself. Can't figure out what the heck she is about or what she wants or why she couldn't come to the realization that hanging out with a guy alone late at nighttime is leading him on in that way.

I was never called ret*d often....but was offically labeled at school as "the chic from mars"
I wore it like a badge of honor