Using Autism as an excuse

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!

  • If I need to have a contentious conversation with someone who knows me well, I ask to do it in "chapters." We'll talk until I start to feel that my head is loosing clarity, then I quickly seek agreement to summarise where we have got to - and then I retreat and rest for a wee while....say 3-30mins.....then we will resume.

    This no only helps me to stay calm and focused, it also helps take any "heated emotion" out of the conversation.

    Perhaps try this methodology with your partner?

  • My father said exactly the same thing to me when I was diagnosed... that I was using autism as an 'excuse' and that I just had to get over it and that I was ruining my life by letting myself withdraw from social events etc. Then he just questioned the diagnosis and implied that he just doesn't believe it. Before I was diagnosed he kept saying he was tired of hearing about autism etc. I tried to explain to him about what it means to be autistic but I just don't think he is open to hearing about it. Now I just don't mention it to him anymore. I didn't live with my father growing up so we were never so close but it still hurts to be dismissed in this way- it's not ok but I think it comes from a closemindedness and from not understanding. The ironic thing is that when I think about it my dad actually has quite a few autistic traits himself. Luckily my Mum is much more understanding (she's probably also autistic actually). So for me it was probably easier as I only talk to my dad on the phone anyways so I can just avoid the subject of autism with him... I think I am allowing myself to be more myself and take better care of my needs since I have been diagnosed though. 

    I think over long term if you have to keep masking for your family it will become extremely exhausting, especially if you live with them and it could result in burnout. 

    I also think that we are capable of change. We can't change that we are autistic but we can still change things. 

    I hope your family is getting more accepting- maybe with time they will become more understanding. 

  • Its the constant eye roll/smirk/grunt when you dare mention that you may of said something or thought something a certain way because of your autism. I wish I was not autistic, just to feel on the same level of communication with others (including my partner).

    Any sort of discussion or argument, i feel out of my depth. They say make changes, but Im almost confident that if i could make a change, I would have by now, because its so upsetting to go through life struggling with most communication.

    I find I am much better at typing, and writing, than I am at speaking. I think it has something to do with processing thoughts, and being able to read responses. We tried to implement communication via texting, or writing, during arguments, but this did not work for long for the other person. Its hard to pause a conversation and say, 'hey can we write this down, or text, as the constant bombardment of words are really hard for me to understand and it makes me feel so so overwhelmed and I just can not communicate well at all'

    Life is hard. Rolling eyes 

    I haven't really got much advice, but I thought id let you know you are not alone, and by reading your post, I felt not alone too. So thankyou for sharing. 

    xx

  • idk what to say that's so much

  • I've done sad, angry, miserable, depressed, annoyed, enraged, apathetic, resentful, mean, and a touch of "savage", but none of it hits the spot quite like laughing at the absurdity of it all. 

    Since my diagnosis, it's been an enormous relief to stop blaming myself and instead indulge in a little blame-casting of my own. 

    I do like the fact that I've had everything happen to me that the (clearly Autistic) supervillains have had, plus in some cases a bit of extra sauce, through random fortune, and I've exprienced all those emotions and situations we all complain about, but none of it really seems to have twisted me, outside of occasionally trying to organise a 'Sperg Army to go and take it to the normies, but to be honest, even after you've subjugated them, they'll still need managing, and be just as much like hard work as ever.

    So I'm actually working on a "space ship drive system" in my "spare moments", and I plan to leave the how-to plans behind when I get it working properly. (I'm currently able to produce 2999.993 tonnes of thrust less than I need so I'm a way off it yet...)

    Our glorious leaders will probably provoke a nuclear war before I get it done :c( 

    All we needed to do was accept the Russian peace deal that they had on the table last April, and Ukraine would be about 70,000 men better off now, and we'd all be still sticking it slowly to the Russians with diplomacy and economics  like we have been since 1992. Now they are deploying their nuclear stuff, just like back in the cuban missile days, and the issues between the Ukrainians and Russians have been going on since at least 2014, why exactly is it our business? Why have we paid for all those Ukrianian men to die and all that expensive taxpayer financed hardware to be ruined, when we could have let Ukraine reach a settlement back in April, before Boris Johnstone (alledgedly, I wasn't there!) intervened? 

    BUT of course, my understanding is as simplistic as it is wrong, (and twisted by the disorder of Autism! If you believe some people, usually those seeking to win an argument..) All those men had to die this is a "righteous war" being fought for "our values" I am told. Can't see it myself.

     Must be due to the Autism...

  • An excuse is a reason that absolves one of blame. A reason alone does not automatically do that.

    Exactly.

    But it looks like it doesn't work like that in a real world, and I can't fathom it out

  • Hey some of use still use it that way, I'm young enough to remember the Flintstones. https://youtu.be/-5YAKrxDRNE

  • 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.

  • But language is always evolving and a google definition is only as good as if people use it as such. The dictionary definition is at best a guideline because it becomes irrelevant the second people decide a word means something else. As my old boomer Dad would say "gay used to mean happy".

  • But is it?  I was conditioned with extreme violence and it cured....

    Oh wait, no it didn't, I just grew up having to struggle with the urge to kill every day for about twenty years... 

    (But now, thanks to my membership of the Assassins Guild I am a respectable member of society :c)

  • the dictionary definition of excuse is, according to google: "a reason or explanation given to justify a fault or offence." If people use excuse exclusively to mean invalid excuses then they're using the word wrong.

  • I was just thinking about this in my own context, and ZAP! There's a thread about it...

  • If a child was expelled for bad behaviour then  the meltdown is a reason, the child is autistic, it’s a recognised condition, that is the reason for the child’s behaviour, it’s not an excuse, it’s beyond the child’s control because of having a diagnosis of autism.

  • See that's interesting because although spelt the same way and having the same root I have always considered excuse (noun) and excuse (verb) to have significantly different situational meanings based on experience having witnessed how they are commonly used.
    Such as I have observed excuses never seem good enough but reasons are. Or at least they get questioned less. So no, an excuse does not necessarily excuse someone. (Maybe it should, but it doesn't. Another one to chalk down to unwritten allist social rules that make no sense.)

  • ....The only good thing about bots - occasionally they prompt the resurrection of an interesting old thread.

    I definitely get the feeling that this applies to me (ie effectively people judging me and my behaviours and wondering whether I really am and/or if I am trying to use autism as my excuse of choice to explain past failures and legitimise current odd performances.)

    I would find it SIGNIFICANTLY easier to deal with this if NT's actually said what they thought out loud to the people concerned.  Unfortunately, this is not my experience - people are two faced quite often in my sad experience and will say "good for you" to your face and "sad looser jumping on a band wagon" to each other.

    I'm glad that I have quite thick skin.........and "you lot" on these pages to keep my perspectives balanced.  Thank you all.!

  • I'm being pedantic but linguistically an excuse excuses some one. An excuse is a reason that absolves one of blame. A reason alone does not automatically do that. eg

    Police: what's your excuse for shooting him in the head?

    Criminal: He was annoying.

    Police: that's not an excuse that a reason!

  • I dunno if that applies there tbh, because its not like anyone intends to have a meltdown or does so for manipulative or malicious purposes. "Excuse" feels like it belongs being aimed at innately bad acts, but a meltdown isn't bad behaviour, it's upset behaviour.
    :S
    I think "Autism is the reason" should have been perfectly acceptable to not expel the child. So the problem is the teacher/school.

  • try telling that to the mother of a child expelled for having a meltdown in class.

  • To be honest, I haven’t read all the replies, being autistic is never an excuse, it’s a reason!