Cliche advice that sets us back

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W-who told you that?

Just some critical people, in my peers.

I guess I didn't make my original point clear because people seem to be missing it. This person brushed off my ASD social difficulties by claiming I think too hard when I tried to explain that I find social situations draining and that they require a lot of effort on my part. I never said anything to him about therapy or self-help books- I brought that up to emphasize the fact that I have put a lot of time into figuring myself out and trying to cope and that it's not as simple as not thinking too much. That doesn't mean I spend all my time sitting around stressing about social situations or that I've never tried just relaxing and "being myself." I didn't always put much effort into social situations (and still don't at times when I'm not feeling up to it). I spent most of my childhood and a fair share of my adolescence not giving a thought about how I appeared to others and I assure you it was a lot worse then than it is now. I've made way more progress by analyzing how I react to social situations and working to cope with the deficits.

And the advice wasn't if I don't think hard about it my problems would go away (which isn't true)- it was that I should not care about fitting in socially and should sit around by myself reading porn instead of self-help books. Even if I was content to live that way (which I'm not) it doesn't change the fact that in order to be successful in my career and in classes I am going to need decent social skills regardless of whether I chose to socialize or be by myself during my leisure time so it's not helpful.

''You say people can't suspect your AS, and you may be certain, but how do you know that for sure?''
Look, I know my own self, OK? I can sometimes ''sense'' these sorts of things, and I know for a fact that people don't suspect AS. I've even got proof from past experiences what you can't argue with, but I won't write it all down now because it's too long to explain, being so I've got to explain everything in it's most descriptive form, otherwise people pick out little details and do anything they can to doubt me, instead of just getting the basic point.

''People look at you funny in public because you are probably doing something odd what you are unaware of.''
Just because I'm Aspie doesn't mean I don't have any social smarts to recognise my own body language compared to other people's body language.

''You say you know you look stylish and the clothes you wear are definately fashionable but you might just think that then find you are wrong.''
Um, nooooooo!

''People may give you compliments about how you look but NTs lie so 9 out of 10 times they are lying.''
Ahem, NTs only lie within certain contexts, not everything that comes out of their mouths are lies, especially when they're good friends or close relatives who love you enough to want to help you.

Your doctor knows whats best, trust him

I couldn't agree more. With my aspie naivete, I believed people who wanted to mislead me with this one and got in trouble. Careful with this piece of advice!!

You'll be more popular with the other kids in this school, if you'd just keep up with the times.

Just follow the trends and you'll be more popular.

You're going to live for today, in the present.

"If you be nice to them, they'll be nice back. You could be very popular if you tried." (After the little hooligans had beaten me black and blue.)

"Just ignore them." (How can you ignore a crowd of bullies who are surrounding you?)

"They want a reaction and if you don't give them one, they'll get bored and move on." (No, they'll only escalate the abuse until they DO get a reaction, however far they have to go.)

"Why don't you laugh with them instead of getting upset?" (Yeah, having my stuff nicked, being pushed, spat on, groped and having my hair set on fire is a right barrel of laughs.)

"People won't single you out if you get some nice clothes and follow the fashion."

"All families tease each other." (After I had pointed out to my mother and brother 9 years my junior that persistent laughs at my expense were inappropriate.)

"You didn't get the job because you don't smile enough." (And that has what exactly to do with my competence at work?)

"You need to develop a more outgoing personality." LOL.

"I thought you would have done rather better at school than what you did." (See first few points above.)

"A job is a job. Be thankful." (Yeah, right.)

"Where does endless study get you? Where's the money in it?" (I don't study my special interests for money. I do it to feed my starving brain after another mind-numbing day in the office.)

"Can't we go out and do something? There's a life beyond your books and the Internet." (I am doing something, and why is reading and surfing not "a life"?)

"It's unhealthy to spend so much time alone." (Says who?)

"You are just being awkward and difficult."

''Find something useful to be obsessed with''
I don't intentionally choose what I want to be obsessed with. Obsessions just happen, and I can't help it if it happens to be bus-drivers.

''Don't worry about what your cousins are doing. Just block them from your mind''
It's hard to do that when their parents are still close to your parents and they come over and talk about their kids a lot, and my mum having nothing good to say about me.

''Do you really want to be like your popular cousin anyway?''
It's not the person, I just wish I was as popular as she is.

''Your obsessions should make your Aspie life worth living''
The obsessions I have all seem to be hanging by a thread. My favourite bus company might be going bust, and I might lose all my favourite bus-drivers and the service. My obsessions just invite more stress into my life.

''You are a really nice person''
I would like to believe that, by looking around and seeing how many friends I have actually got.

''Just deal with it and move on with life''
Easier said than done, depending on what the situation is. Plus ''just deal with it'' is difficult for me to do.

Best of the best. Makes me so sad that I believed this lie for decades and blamed myself for not being able to ignore the bullies because they escalated the abuse till it was impossible not to react. Even sadder is when young women are given this advice about perverts who are becoming more and more threatening to them. It ends in tragedy.

I was told this by well meaning people and it's absolutely, 100% false. I remember how in baseball when players were intentionally taking cheap shots at me as a catcher I never once reacted negatively (since I didn't want to get ejected and cost my team the game) and they kept doing it again and again and got bolder each time. Eventually they started doing it in the hallways at school until I couldn't hold back anymore. It got much worse when I had my emotional outburst but the point is ignoring them is completely ineffective because they WILL get a reaction no matter how long it takes.

Its easy to say 'you should have learned not to have an outburst' but that's literally like holding your breath underwater for one minute and then bullying you for gasping for air. Even at the time, I tried to stop my outburst and knew the likely consequences but was powerless to stop it.

"Just flow with it."

"Think positive!"

"it's not you, it's me."

"Be spontaneous!"

All trendy cliches that NTs love to use ad nauseam at every occasion, as if they were the cure-all for any situation in life, until a new trendy cliche comes along and this one is tossed - everyone pretending that they only now discovered it is "untrue". And if someone agrees with one of these cliches past its time, they're harshly criticized, same as NOT agreeing with that cliche was criticized right before.

Advice is a lot more about fads than about quality.

I absolutely hate this one

"Pull your socks up!" and "Get it together".

What if I am NOT wearing socks? Pull WHAT together? Its not like you can use glue on intangible ideas. Yeah I have been explained the sock cliche before, but not like I remember in a systematic manner, especially when I am upset.

The one that COMPLETELY defies any logic is this one, or some variant thereof:

"This is all in your head (,you don't really have the problems you describe)."
"You're just imagining this"
"It's mind over matter"
"You need to stop thinking that you have these issues, or they really will come out, you'll start to believe them"

It's like the classic catch-22: if your Asperger struggles are really all in your head, imagined, triggered by falsely believing in their existence, etc, etc, then you would be psychotic, schizophrenic or extreme hypochondriac, meaning that you really ARE an eligible candidate for psychological counseling and personal improvement.

Yet you still have these fools playing the motivational speaker.

I absolutely HATE that one.

"Just ignore them" - If only it was that easy.

"Tell them, it takes one to know one" - It just makes it worse.