We Aspies have been misunderstood. People have stereotyped us, jumped to conclusions about us and just plain gone off half-cocked.
Hence Autism Awareness Month. We want people to understand us better, so hopefully they won't unfairly reject us.
One of the great things about people accepting us more is we get to socialize, work, play with and even date and marry more NTs. So we've also gotten a better look at what makes them tick.
Knowledge is power. When we get to know others better, we have more power to get along well with them. The minefields are mapped out - for example, once we know that most NTs (but perhaps especially women) tend to speak in euphemisms and understatements we can better interpret what they say and not miss subtle warnings.
And in turn, power is responsibility.
Back when we hadn't a clue, people yelled at us a lot and maybe even did worse. At least we knew they were wrongly picking on us. We just couldn't help ourselves, so why should they persecute us? To put it bluntly, we just didn't know any better.
Now that we do have some maps, we need to look for good uses...not good excuses.
As Spider-Man (my childhood favorite superhero) famously put it: With great power, comes great responsibility.
About Today's Guest Poster: Jeff Deutsch is an Aspie who reflects on his decades of Home-based Experiential Lifelong Learning (HELL) to help fellow Aspies better relate to NTs, and vice versa. Now happily married to Emily, an NT who first told him about Asperger Syndrome, he gives inspirational talks, group training for Aspies and also for Aspies' families' and partners' support groups, employers, service providers, first responders and others, and individual life coaching for Aspies and NTs. He helps Aspies better get along with NTs, and NTs better recognize and deal with Aspies, on the job, in personal relationships and other aspects of daily life.
Jeff's practice, A SPLINT (ASPies LInking with NTs), is registered in the State of Maryland. He blogs on Building Common Ground and also shares his wisdom in various forms on Facebook, Twitter and About.Me.
