"Truth?"

[SirNathanQ]

I notice a recurring theme in a lot of your videos.  There seems to be a general expectation that the neurotypical are somehow bound to go out of their way to understand you. Is this so?

As we Aspies go many miles out of our way every moment of every day for NT's is it so much to expect an NT to come some way towards us? Would you be asking this question if my disability were visible?

[/quote]

You see, here's the rub. Society in general, will not come towards you. At all. Society has its norms, and in a very basic way, they are obeyed, artificial and arbitrary they may be.  The general populace will feel no obligation to try to understand things through a lens outside their own.
People who are close to you, who are seeking to help, understand, or care, perhaps should be expected to try to come towards you, but make no mistake. Society at large will not lift a single small little finger to meet anyone. It's not just non-NTs. Plenty of perfectly NT people are totally excluded because they think society needs to give a little to meet their mold.

I'm not even saying that I myself won't make an effort, I mean, I've literally spent the vast majority of my life around non-NT types. Of course I want to understand. It's just that if you really want to make things clear to the NT society, you will have to go all the way, 150% freaking percent.

[Sir James A]

Society at large will not lift a single small little finger to meet anyone. It's not just non-NTs. Plenty of perfectly NT people are totally excluded because they think society needs to give a little to meet their mold.

Not only this, but historically, the more a person varied from social norm, they were either ostracized, burned at the stake, or regarded as unworthy of life or liberties and sometimes even hunted for no reason beyond their differences from the social norms.

[Ian]

I think it's borderline absurd to expect society to go out of it's way to try and deeply understand every single different shade of non-NT people.  Society would literally have to spend all of it's time trying to understand every nuance of each person's position on the spectrum.  It's equivalent to having to constantly worry about everything you say in fear that you might offend someone.  You can't go through life catering to every individual.  Society has no obligation to try and understand you.  If someone seeks to be part of a group, they have to make the effort to understand the group, the group is the group, and it is what it is.  It does not bare the burden of having to understand the individual.  It's not fair, but that's the way it is.  An employer for example is in no way obligated to go out of its way to cater to an employee that requires special handling and concern when it can easily get someone else who does not require exceptional treatment.  If you want to be employed, you most conform to the expectations of the employer.  Again, maybe not fair for someone in a position of disadvantage, but it is reality.

[Sir Brian]

An NON-FEDERAL GOVERNMENT employer for example is in no way obligated to go out of its way to cater to an employee that requires special handling and concern when it can easily get someone else who does not require exceptional treatment.  If you want to be employed, you most conform to the expectations of the employer.  Again, maybe not fair for someone in a position of disadvantage, but it is reality.

I did a slight edit in red with that example Sir Ian! Otherwise your statement is accurate.

I must confess Thorsteinn I find it difficult to grasp the overall subtle nuances of the discord within your family and I certainly understand your preference for privacy yet from an outsider’s perspective it is akin to understanding the context of a novel with only reading the odd numbered pages.

I commend you and your lady’s desire to resolve the discord within your family as you are about to start a vital chapter in your lives and the welfare of your soon to be born child, however if the issues cannot be resolved to your satisfaction to where you cannot abide them to be part of your immediate family’s life (You, your Lady and your Child) then you must cut them loose.

My father broke off his family ties when his mother (my grandmother) refused to treat my mother with a shred of decency while I was still an infant. He walked away and didn’t look back for fifteen years until his father’s funeral which was when I met my grandmother for the first time and saw the corpse of my grandfather. It meant absolutely nothing to me except a minor sense of lost opportunities and 'might have beens'. The grieving old woman that I met wasn’t my grandmother; she was a grieving old woman I only felt a little pity for because she was alone but that was even marginalized because I had heard how she had treated my mother and could only marvel at how her pettiness caused me and my siblings to grow up without knowing any grandparents.

I suppose you need to ask yourself if what was done to you worth alienating your immediate family from your extended family. Does your extended family have ANY redeeming qualities you would want your child to benefit from? If the answer is truly ‘NO’ then by all means cut them loose and don’t look back. If it is more for just your redemption then I ask you to consider the value of that in comparison to your immediate family’s welfare because as the man of your immediate trinity your needs, wants and desires are subservient to your child’s and your lady’s needs or at least they should be! 

[Ian]

I did a slight edit in red with that example Sir Ian! Otherwise your statement is accurate.

lol... true true...

[Sir William]

Sir Brian's correction puts Sir Ian's response right on the mark.  I would not call it absurd- but i suspect he does because he may have no experience in what it is like to be ostracized due to not being viewed as 'normal'.  For Thorsteinn, it is a psychological issue, for me it was racial.  The two are not the same, of course, but I do have an idea of what he's referring to. 

Unfortunately, Sir Ian's viewpoint is the 'norm' as it were and as he said, conformity is the order of the day if you wish to be accepted by society at large.

Due to the largely mystifying nature of psychological disorder for the average layman, there's no way to apply a cookie-cutter quick fix to any one issue; while I can understand and even to a degree empathize with what Thorsteinn is feeling, I must say that it isn't going to happen.  In fact, the only people willing to go that extra mile so to speak, are people who are empathic to the ordeal of people afflicted so, or people who are directly involved with such a person.  Anyone else, be it in ignorance or lack of desire or fear will not.

FWIW, I am no different, Thorsteinn.  If I did not have the pleasure of knowing you from this board and the AA, I doubt I would've bothered to learn about Asperger's or how it affects people; I have much to think about as it is in my already-crammed brain so adding to it isn't something I go out of my way to do, however, I felt it necessary so I could better understand you.  If it weren't personal, to a degree, I am reasonably certain I would not have taken the time.

[Sir Patrick]

As we Aspies go many miles out of our way every moment of every day for NT's is it so much to expect an NT to come some way towards us? Would you be asking this question if my disability were visible?

Bolding is from Thorsteinn's quote (couldn't get just that part in).

I think some of the problem is that people just don't even know there is a problem when they can't readily see it. I'm in healthcare, and I encounter the gamut of personalities all day long. Some of them have legitimate behavioral issues and I always make accommodations for that once I know, and others are just jerks (who do not accommodate as much). My point is I have the luxury of a medical chart to give me a heads up, your man on the street does not. I would like to think most people would try to be accommodating if they knew what was up, but then again most people aren't like the Modern Chivalry crew.

[Ian]

Sir Brian's correction puts Sir Ian's response right on the mark.  I would not call it absurd- but i suspect he does because he may have no experience in what it is like to be ostracized due to not being viewed as 'normal'.

Ha! I wish this were true. I say it's absurd because as a person who has most definitely experienced this first hand I had to accept that the world will not bend and change for me and it would be ridiculous for me to expect it to.  You have to decide whether you will simply accept that the world will not go out of its way to understand what makes you a unique snowflake and just move on with your life , or you must modify your own behavior or whatever it is in your case (if that's even possible) if your desire to be accepted by a group is so strong that just moving on is not something you're willing to do.

[Aiden of Oreland]

•"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path."-Buddha

•"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."-Henry David Thoreau

•"March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path."-Khalil Gibran

[Sir James A]

As we Aspies go many miles out of our way every moment of every day for NT's is it so much to expect an NT to come some way towards us? Would you be asking this question if my disability were visible?

Bolding is from Thorsteinn's quote (couldn't get just that part in).

I think some of the problem is that people just don't even know there is a problem when they can't readily see it. I'm in healthcare, and I encounter the gamut of personalities all day long. Some of them have legitimate behavioral issues and I always make accommodations for that once I know, and others are just jerks (who do not accommodate as much). My point is I have the luxury of a medical chart to give me a heads up, your man on the street does not. I would like to think most people would try to be accommodating if they knew what was up, but then again most people aren't like the Modern Chivalry crew.

Very well said.

Thorsteinn, are most of your friends making some effort towards your aspergers? If so, they know what others can't see; as you said, it isn't visible. It's a bit like asking why people are so rude that they won't even wave at the ghosts walking down the street with them. If they can't see it, they can't be expected to act upon it.