Can we use our diagnosis as an “excuse”

Alice-nice-Alice said:

So becoming part of the wider autism community recently I’ve found quite a lot of people using their autism diagnosis as an excuse for bad or cruel behaviour, the “meltdowns” being only one example,

Well in my case my meltdowns are diagnostically referred to as being Psychogenic Non Epileptiform Seizures (PNES) ~ as basically means stress induced seizures, which is the reason I used to more often have ‘grand-mall’ (large-scale) room-wrecking-body-banging ‘episodes’, but now with stress management routines, a regulated activity schedule and medically prescribed and medically agreed upon alternative medications ~ I have the ‘petite-mall’ (small-scale) variety involving rapid-eye-movements at most more generally.

So basically as such, meltdowns or seizures are not 'bad behaviour' but rather overwhelming behaviourisms that tend to be extremely difficult to manage or cope with, even with determined perseverance involving adequate and appropriate assistance.

Alice-nice-Alice said:

and here in this community as an excuse for minority-on-minority judgementalism

Rather than being appropriately facilitated, identified and affirmed as being neurologically divergent individuals ~ most autistic people developmentally experience and or live in fear of being aggressively or also violently ostracised, ridiculed and negated ~ because of not being or behaving in neurologically typical ways.

Due to the traumatic disassociation of being or experiencing others being aggressively or also violently ‘othered’ ~ some become somewhat more one-sided in their view of multidimensional considerations, just as most people do to some degree when they are particularly upset or angry ~ as which can occlude their perception of reasoned discussions about integrity or equality as being instead for them obstructive arguments against which.

One of the classic examples of this is people demanding the freedom of expression when instead they want to express impositions against others ~ sexually, politically and or religiously etcetera ~ with little or no concept that the freedom of expression is very much like having a driving licence and having to drive safely, rather than in any way offensively.

The main problems with traumatic disassociation is the unconscious, subconscious or preconscious tendency for traumatic re-associations to compulsively occur ~ as has been exemplified by all revolutions where the poor violently oppress the rich after the rich have violently oppressed the poor ~ on account of collectively sharing in and enforcing inferior, mediocre and superior character-role pretences ~ as according to the 'survival of the elitist delusion'.

The thing with inferiority complexes as being delusional states of mind, is that they can only exist whilst the rational, sentimental, communicational and emotional sensibilities are to a greater extent disempowered; otherwise the imaginal, reproductional and sensational sensibilities cannot be further empowered to embody delusional imaginings, hence progressive reasoning is required to facilitate an increasing sense of balanced sensibility.

From the lyrics of 'Bad Moon Rising', by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "One eye is taken for an eye." Biblical-style retribution is possibly allowable, but the water bomb less so, though it probably did no lasting harm.

I'm not so sure about that.

When I think of one thing I did out of malice, (I'd suffered a carefully delivered bullying campaign, and I decided to exact a penalty for once) I simply do not feel any guilt, whereas every time I remember when in my first car, that time I deliberately engulfed a cyclist in a wall of water (I made sure he heard me accelerate too..) "for the fun of it" on the spur of the moment, I kinda squirm a bit. I had a sadistic sense of humour instilled in me as a kid, which I really came to despise in my thirties. I've a friend of half a century now, who still has one, and a few days back he was regaling me stories of the japes he'd pulled on his subordinates..

And there are still other bad things I've done, like lobbing a water bomb out of the sunroof of a moving car, and delivering it right into a strangers cleavage, where my guilt is offset by the pride in my achievement... And that's double badness. 

But I did good stuff back then as well...

We cannot control the reactions of others, but I think the first leaves a stain on the psyche, whereas the second does not.

The effect on the uncoached observer are indistinguishable it appears in my experience.

I read the title and was going to come i with a resounding "heck yes!!" but then I read the text.

My sin is close to yours, but my cruelties and offences have mainly been committed unthinkingly, mostly when I was young and stupid, I didn't even have the excuse of BPD to fall back on. 

I take the simplistic view of that happened I can't change it, I'll no doubt get to revisit it all again at some point after death in some to me now incomprehensible new reality, in this life I've certainly had similar things happen to me.

All I can do is use the past to inform my shaping of a better future. I can mostly avoid meltdowns and often times see 'em coming. I've come to hate the way I believe my meltdowns must appear to other people, and I do my utmost to do it somewhere out of sight, just as I do if I have the urge to vomit, I fight it down and get myself out of sight if it really has to happen. Although I had a mini meltdown in the kitchen this A.M. whereas I can;t remember the last time I puked...

In common with BPD my Autism does wax and wane in terms of how it seems to disable me.

In common with the medievel Christian (and other religions, too) idea we have to try and keep our personal demons in check, and always work to the day when you can expel them.

Either that or you become the "Disorder" made manifest.

I want to be more than that, and I think you do too.

I think that there is an essential difference between being intentionally cruel out of malice, and being unintentionally cruel as a side-effect of being unable to process an emotional or sensory overload. The two are not morally equivalent.

I think there's a difference between 'excuse' and 'explanation'

I'm going to go with your meltdown example because it's here

So for example you've had a meltdown and in that you've yelled at insulted someone. A later conversation might involve, "I'm sorry I yelled at you, I was overstimulated by x,y,z and had a meltdown due to me being autistic affecting the way I deal with stimulus" You have acknowledged the behaviour hurt the other person, you have apologised. If other things have happened you might offer to replace something that's broken or if this is a regular occurrence you might suggest changing somethings like stop meeting at a certain time or a certain place.

It is important to understand that both things can be true.

What you did hurt the other person. And you could not prevent that happening at the time. 

I don't think of that as an excuse, I think of it as an explanation