Two distinct aspie outlooks on life?

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I'm trying to cultivate that in myself. It's kind of hard when I learned early on that life becomes quite difficult for me whenever something goes wrong that can be blamed on me. Unlearning a lifetime of habits designed to avoid getting blamed for anything is taking a while.



Yes, sadly, sometimes the only solution to a problem involves getting rid of the person(s) causing it.

Oh I fall into the first category ''there's something wrong with me''. I've always felt like this, from the day I was diagnosed, and it's nothing to do with AS - it's just my low self-esteem. I feel that I'm always in the wrong, that I bring on bullies myself because of the impressions that I give off, and I feel that people who pick on me are still in the right, and I'm always in the wrong.

I don't go with the attitudes ''those bullies aren't worth your time'' or ''they can't be nice people'' or ''don't worry if you lose them, if they're like that then they can't have been very good friends in the first place''. I just find it hard to feel good about myself and think I'm the right one and everyone else are the wrong ones. I just say, ''yeah, it's because I'm stupid - they can't help mocking me around for it no more than I can help being stupid''.
I don't like backing away from people all the time, because I think all people can be closed-minded, even really nice people. I can even be closed-minded myself (not normally because it's not my nature, but there comes situations where I can be).

I agree with both of the first two.

I fall into a fourth category that's a bit like this one, but not because I have the philosophical discipline of a Zen monk (the idea of "philosophical discipline" is intriguing--I can't imagine it yet):

"There are things wrong with me, and there are things wrong with the world, but there are also things right with me, and with the world." (<--I hope this is understandable)

That's a perspective on things I haven't really consciously or seriously considered. Thank you for raising it. I'll have to mull it over, and see if I can't make some sense of it.

However, some random "first impressions," that I won't try to defend, just note that they popped into my head as I was reading through this post:

ONE
Couldn't it be possible to hold both views? As in, I know I engage in some behaviors (ASD related or not) that are downright pathological, verging on self-destructive. I certainly wish I did not engage in them, but I do. No one holds a gun to my head, no one forces me to act in this manner, so I must conclude that this behavior is mine and mine alone...and that it is what I would consider wrong.

Yet, I also disagree quite strongly with where I consider the world to be heading and a great deal that is occurring at present in it. And I think I would still feel that way even if I did NOT engage in any of the above personal behavior. (Exactly what I consider wrong, why I do so, and so on is not pertinent to this topic, so I'll not blather on about that.)

And though I suppose a holder of the "world is wrong" hypothesis could argue that my self-destructive behavior results from the assumed fact that, well, the world is wrong, I can't really see it that way, myself. I'm the one doing what I'm doing or thinking what I'm thinking at the time I do it. And it is my responsibility to knock it off, not yours, not society's, even if I could draw a causal connection between, say, how the world has treated me and the way the world is and the way I act. (And, FTR, I don't rule such a thing out, but also consider such a connection at best very weak.)

TWO
I'm kind of thinking that someone who holds one and only one of the above views only is very much in danger of falling into some serious errors. As in, someone thinking the reason they cannot get a job is entirely their fault and their fault alone, whatever the prevailing economic conditions. Or, going the other way, showing up at a job interview with a three day growth of beard, dirty jeans and a ragged T-shirt...and then thinking the reason they weren't hired is due to what screwed up world we live in.

I guess this would be more a consequence than an actual critique, but, oh well, I'm writing this on the fly and if I'm guilty of a "slippery slope" logical fallacy, such is life.

Eh, had more points but I'd want to mull them over a bit before mentioning them.




I'm not crazy about terms like "arrogant" and "needy," but I'll use 'em for now since I'm too lazy to come up with better ones. Anyways, my perception here is a bit different from yours. It seems to me that that "arrogant" ones are the ones who are able to make their way in the world with no or only minimal support, while the "needy" ones are the ones who for some reason or another do not or cannot. IOW, someone flipping burgers or bagging groceries or receiving SSDI is a lot less likely to be arrogant than someone like (say) a John Robison or a Daniel Tammet...both of whom have been successful in life, and indeed are something close to being celebrities. (Please note I'm not suggesting either Robison or Tammet is arrogant, its just that their names popped into my head as ASDers who've experienced success, possibly even due in part to their being on the Spectrum. Plus that's the category I was given to try to fill. )

I guess I can sort of see someone on the ASD being self-supporting and still being "needy," out of loneliness if nothing else, but I'm hard-pressed to see how someone physically dependent on others would ever "graduate" into your "arrogant" category. I guess that since all humans (ASD or NT) have just about an unlimited ability to self-deceive, maybe its possible, but it somehow doesn't ring true to me.



Actually, I'm fairly sure the Buddha himself premised his beliefs on the assumption that there is indeed a great deal wrong with the world, and breaking your soul from it via achieving enlightenment should be the believer's goal. (Presuming, to my mind anyways, the idea that Buddha also thought there's something wrong with the beliefs of most individuals as well.)

And though they weren't Zen monks, but they were Buddhist monks, if you google images of Kanzan and Jittoku you won't find many where both aren't laughing like they're participating in some sort of slapstick comedy. Curiously, I know I've seen an ink drawing of them actually playing leapfrog, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, I've never seen their analog in any Western monk or monks.

How about a fourth view... that there is something wrong with everything?
I mean, it's why the universe argues with itself so much.

How unimaginative it is to think that there is nothing wrong the world. Both NT and aspies agree on this point. You have to be a very unsencitive person to think that the world is fine the way it is. Yet this is not a reason to get frustrated at anything and become mean.

I used to wonder if there was something wrong with me and that was before I got diagnosed. I was having all these problems, troubles fitting in and relating to people, how I was getting treated different, I had a hard time focusing in class, etc. So I wondered if I had something wrong with me. I used to wish I could get a new brain so I'd be "normal."


Before that I never had much thought into it, I remember thinking others were weird and doing it wrong because they did it different than me. I also used to think they needed to toughen up and get it over with. But it was me who didn't understand. I was just confused. One of them was with personal space. No one could teach me it because I was stubborn with my thoughts. I didn't think I was doing anything and it was other people who needed to get used to it.

I definitely dont agree with the bullies! You dont even have to give me details, I know I would find them... boring. Skipping the details why, as it would make a 300 page book about boringness.
So then I take your side because (short version) having such problems makes you interesting and sympathetic. Im sure you're one of the people who can tell me about the worst situation in the world... etc., and thats just incredibly interesting.

Last edited by Maje on 18 Sep 2011, 2:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yep, I used to vacillate between these extremes all the time.

I've noticed this too. I fall under the second category most of the time.

Yeah, I might have characteristics that others might consider a problem, but if people have a problem with it, then that's their problem. It's just too bad, sometimes, when these people are kind of important because of their position of (pseudo-)authority or are otherwise "desireable". Otherwise, just forget about them.

I'm pretty sure most teenagers are crazy because of their underdeveloped mind. When they get older, they get a little more mature / less crazy.

To be honest, I don't fit in to either of those categories. If there was a third one, one that I would fit in, it would be: "I understand and accept myself for who I am, and I understand the the world has a cruel sense of humor sometimes."

Still crazy, just different.

An additional point is that "world" can havr to sligtly different meaning - the "other people" or "social rules and institutions".

I tend to think that there is nothing wrong, not with me, nor with the other people - it is simply the social institutions that are wrong.

For exemple, I suspect that the school bullying, more than the result of nay personal defect of bullys or bullyeds, is more the result of people being forced to live in a regimented and over-structered environment (this exacerbet the "strangeness" of the "different", and also creates tedious and boreness in the "normals" - the next logical step, of course, is the bored "normals" preying on the strrange kids to kill the tedium).