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Using Autism as an excuse

Magnolia1

My family are cross with me as they say that since I was diagnosed I am using my autism as an excuse not to change my behaviour and that am doing things now that I wouldn't have  done before and "blaming" it in on my autism. 

I don't know how to deal with this information. Do I need to pretend that I am not autistic and go back to masking and hiding who I really am? Do I need to act as if I never got a diagnosis and not mention my autism ever again? 

My husband says that he feels like he is the only one expected to change in our relationship because  now I am autistic it means that I have an excuse not to have to make any changes.

I really don't know what I am supposed to do this information or what I should do about it!

Has anyone else had this happen to them? Any advice on what I should do?

I feel like no-one is willing to accept me as I am and everyone is fed up with me being autsistic!

Parents

  • See this is the thing that annoys me. You don't get this with physical disabilities. You don't get people saying, 'oh they just use being in a wheelchair as an excuse to not do this or that.' Why shouldn't autism be an excuse? Why should you be expected to change things you can't change or do things that cause you undue suffering?

    Loving and including people with autism includes accepting there are somethings they struggle with to the point where you need to modify your expectations of them.

  • in reply to Peter

    The mind is plastic to some degree, the body isn't (prosthetics aside).  I am not prepared to accept that I can't change how I react. how I cope with events or how I deal with situations.  If we can change anything within ourselves, it's how we think or deal with ideas and concepts - that's what learning is about.

    It is possible to change and see life from a different perspective, it might be hard but it is possible.

  • in reply to Paul

    The body is very plastic. Exercise can turn weedy little arms into huge pillars of muscle. But exercise can't grow your legs back. Most autistic people learn coping strategies for what they can't do. To stretch the metaphor instead of growing legs they learn to walk around in a handstand. But that then means you can't use your hands, and you can't keep it up for long it's exhausting.

    If your wheelchair bound wife said, 'honey please go upstairs and get X for me,' you'd be a total jerk to go, 'hey I know you can clime those stairs on your hands do it yourself.' And bluntly its the same with autistic people. It's utterly unreasonable to expect your other half to mask 24/7 at home. It would be hugely damaging to their mental health and there is no way they could keep it up.

  • in reply to Peter
    Peter said:
    physical ones are always valid excuses

    You might think so, but I have been physically disabled with arthritis for all my adult life, 30 odd years, and this is actually not the case! Plenty of people are very unsympathetic of physical disability too. I am not in a wheelchair, but when my arthritis is bad every step can hurt, and even on a good day there is a limit to how long I can be on my feet before they hurt. Also i get very tired.

    I had a friend who always wanted to park the car in the first convenient spot, rather than trying to find the closest one to where we were going. Then she sprained her ankle and said she finally understood why that mattered to me! She was better about it for a while...

    And the number of times a$$holes park in the disabled bay, especially in supermarkets where they put the cash machines next to the disabled bays.

    I have been accused of "playing the arthritis card" as an excuse for many things. People do not understand much better than they understand autism. Of course I have not known I was an autist for long, only a couple of years, although I have always been one. My husband frankly struggles with all my conditions (which all begin with A) arthritis, autism, ADHD, alexithymia.

  • in reply to Peter

    That is very true and I see where you are coming from.  

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