I've mentioned previously that a lot of the recent mass shooters seem to have had Aspergers, or possibly a stronger form of autism. Another thing I've observed about Aspies is that they feel freer to hit people. This is obviously a far milder form of aggression, but it's hard not to notice the correlation.
I'm not sure exactly why they do it. It could be a reflection of their tendency to lash out when they feel they've been spited. It could be an inability to deal with frustration. It could be partly just a simple lack of empathy.
But they do lash out, and always seem to feel justified. I was once punched in the shoulder by a female Aspie, four times in a row. It didn't hurt, and when I laughed, she got even more infuriated.
I've was once kicked in the leg by another female Aspie; that did hurt. And when I expressed annoyance and told her how much it hurt, she laughed, thinking I was lying.
In a way, Aspies are sort of a modified version of a full blown autistic who'll go crazy and start hitting you. (Think of the title character's mentally disabled brother in There's Something About Mary, who seems to have been created from firsthand experience.)
When I was a small boy my parents were friends with a couple who had a daughter about my age whom I've always thought of as retarded, though she had no physical manifestations as with Downs Syndrome. When the families got together to go camping, she would occasionally get excited and just start hitting me for no reason. I would just look at my parents, or her parents, and her parents would always gently remonstrate with her and pull her off me. In retrospect, I wonder if she didn't just have full blown autism.
I'm reminded of her when I think of how I've been hit by people with the far less severe form of autism, Aspergers.
If anybody has had any similar experiences, I'd be curious to hear about it.
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I have an autistic nephew and he is not an aggressive young man. The only time I have ever been assaulted was in childhood. In first grade, during a recess game with another class, I accidentally tore a lapel off of another girl's coat. Every time she saw me, she threatened me telling me that she was going to have her fifth grade brother beat me up. I didn't know this girl from Adam. Needless to say, I lived in fear. One day as I exited school, there was the girl and her brother. He beat me up and I never saw the girl ever again. Looking back, she could have been my first encounter with a sociopathic child.
- birdie
Birdie --
That could well be.
I wasn't suggesting that most Aspies are violent, far from it; but of the people who've hit me, it seems a disproportionate share had Aspergers. (Neither of the women who hit me were bad people, it's just that I think they both had Aspergers.)
I understand. I don't know what would prompt an adult (Aspie or non-Aspie) to even hit another adult and think that the behavior was okay. We can be angry with each other without resorting to aggressive behavior. People who have mental disturbances (in my opinion) have an easier time assaulting other people. If I needed to defend myself, I hopefully would be able to do so, even if it involved getting physical.
- birdie
Birdie --
Honestly, women slugging men in the arm is not a big deal, as it almost never even hurts. But yeah, I couldn't help but noticed the correlation......
Well, unless I know the exact details of what kind of person this woman is or why she hit you, it's hard to give a more insightful answer for that individual.
For a short scientific answer:
People with mental disorders usually are more likely to be violent, nothing surprising. But we don't know much exactly about autism's mechanisms.
Non-scientific answer:
Something more psychological? I only have my own experiences, and I have a dislike of many "autistic experts" who are psychologists, the ones selling cheap books on theories that cannot be backed up with research nor will make differences. Like Simon Baron-Cohen, his smugness and intellectual look in all his videos. Here is him and his "ultra male brain" theory complete with quack psychology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crmDSDeCEp4
High anxiety and irritability doesn't help, and we can hold grudges for a long time. I wouldn't forget something that happened months ago when younger.The autistic tendency to always have to be right may be from mental rigidity and a weak central coherence, or certain childhood events, stressful ones making us cynical regular people are immune to.
Everything had to fit with each other. The women hitting you may have been part of this obsession to counterbalance what she thinks you did against her. There's that phrase "eye for an eye". It only became a revenge fantasy for me if there was some compulsion to even out every single act, everything had to be balanced and neat, eye for an eye, how much does this eye weigh? How do I repay it? Like I had some weird OCD. The imbalance had to exist first before I gave it any meaning.
A bit now, and worse when I was younger, what made me angry is weird. If a stranger or someone I barely know comes up to me and says "I f-ed your mom" I wouldn't care. If someone makes fun of me but everyone says "that guy is a loser" I would shrug it off. If everyone takes that guys side I would be upset but more about the "unfairness", some imbalance of power, not the personal attack. A feeling of powerlessness or imbalance makes me angry, you could call me anything or even hit me, rob me, I wouldn't get as personally angry. It's if I feel there has been imbalance. I don't get angry inside hearing the atrocities of Kim Jong Un's regime because everyone knows he is a lunatic and villain. But I would get angry if the entire world was praising him and I felt all alone in knowing he was an evil fat bastard.
They say female aspies are better at blending in or masking. I disagree, autistic people are poor manipulators or deceivers. I think since so much research has been on males that people are just not familiar with females. Also people may write off abnormal behaviors as being quirky, ditzy, or bitchy since woman sometimes choose to act that way as part of their identity they have crafted for themselves. Hitting men is seen as empowerment in their minds, they see women hit men on tv for comedy or hear stories (usually made up) of women taking revenge on their boyfriends and follow the trend. Like learned gay behavior.
So women acting different has made it harder for people to recognize the occasions when these behaviors are organic, or aggravated by it. Some studies have also shown females on the spectrum have poorer emotional and social skills, and more cognitive problems than males, the only female autistic I know in person has trouble with insight or observing and coming up with theories or nuggets of wisdom like we all try to do on this blog with each other, yet she has a genius IQ 30 points higher than mine but I cannot discuss anything like this with her. I still chat with her on the internet because we care about each other. Maybe these aren't purely biological. Nevertheless, is this why a disproportionate amount of females are members of neurodiversity?
Maybe my own story will have parts that will make you go "aha" when you remember this woman hitting you.
-Ga
Ga --
Thank you for all that. I may have overstated the seriousness of the hitting. Neither of the women intended to hurt me, and, with the second, who kicked me in the leg, it was actually almost more playful. What differentiated these two was more just a lack of inhibition. Neither woman was vicious, or truly bad in any way (and trust me, I have met female sociopaths, and know how they come across). In fact, I'd say both women were above average morally: both were beautiful (as in, REALLY beautiful), neither of them had money, yet neither was a gold digger. Most beautiful women are looking to land rich husbands, if anyone doubts that correlation, just check out the NY Times wedding section for a few weeks.
As far as empowerment, that never seemed to be an issue with the kicker, though the puncher always paid lip service to feminism.
I don't know much about Simon Baron-Cohen other than the broad outlines of his ultimate male brain theory, but I'm not surprising you have that reaction to him. His character is probably similar to his cousin's. I think Sacha Baron-Cohen is a comedic genius, but when you take a step back, it was all about making fun of the stupid goyim, and there was a smugness and one-sidedness to it that left a feeling of resentment. I guess in his Bruno movie he did have that one brief scene shot in Israel, but other than that....
Like Simon Baron-Cohen, his smugness and intellectual look in all his videos. Here is him and his "ultra male brain" theory complete with quack psychology.
I don't agree at all. I saw the video and didn't think he was smug at all nor was he promoting quack theories.
He's a pleasant communicator doing interesting legitimate work.
About aspies and violence what about verbal violence and obscenities.
I wonder if some autistic/aspie types tend toward this non physical violence.
There is talk now online about this "autistic screeching" and people making fun of it but going "rrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeee" and even showing videos of frogs making this sound.
I go to sites like reddit and many sites they are just filled with angry obscene comments. Almost everyone in some threads. There is little sustained non-vulgar commentary.
It's almost inhuman like they are communicating to each other in these shallow obscene ways.
I wonder if it's autistic/aspie types.
I just saw an autistic meltdown in person for the first time a few days ago. It was weird. Like seeing some actual autistic/hipster types for the first time in the wild 2 years ago.
Rifleman --
That autistic screeching doesn't sound like Aspergers to me, that sounds like full blown autism.
I tend to associate the obscene ranting you see on some message boards with the Left. In general, they're given to ranting more. (When I go to the sits that are supposed to be filled with "haters" -- according to those on the Left -- like American Renaissance or Steve Sailer's blog, I'm always struck by how intelligent most of the commenters sound.
Yes, autistic meltdowns are weird/scary, though not all Aspies engage in them. (I saw the puncher mentioned in this post have a few, but none from the kicker, who seemed to have a milder case.)
To John and Rifleman:
I am not so sure about verbal violence. Autistics (or at least the fullblown ones) tend to be on the receiving end on the internet more, if you find a video of a fullblown autistic person, some of them are flooded with troll posts, a minecraft server was created for autistic children, news of it was spread over 4chan and possibly reddit, it was hacked several times and messages encouraging suicide or obscenities were flooded into it. One time I think they even ransomed it saying the will only stop if the creators send them money, not sure if they were serious. I have only seen this much recently, not as much a decade ago. Something changed.
But now for some victim blaming, I believe this started happening in part because of "awareness" and pride. I cringe whenever it's autism awareness month, that is the last thing anyone on the spectrum should want. It is not like ALS, diabetes, or regular mental illness awareness. It paints a big red target. We need to keep it in the hands of medical experts, not social "experts". I no longer watch Ted talks or read newsweek after the flurry of autism celebration and illness denial.
This is an example of something I came across that disappointed me:
http://fox13now.com/2017/03/05/uniquely-utah-runway-show-features-fashions-from-designer-who-has-autism/
I started watching the video, my first thought was, "wow this guy is really gay, I just noticed the gayness first before the autism", then it showed how he is succeeding as a fashion designer and I thought "this is great, he is finding success in life with his talents, good on him!" then I closed the video once it said he was talented because of his autism, not in spite of it, not that he overcame a setback and we should be proud of him for his effort, this could have been a great inspirational story but turned into shit.
I brought up the trolling and bullying once in a debate on a forum, the other person said this is to be expected, there is always a backlash when people ask for rights (except that person wasn't asking for acceptance for the person with autism, they want autism itself to be accepted like autism is not a disorder). I said to look at all the harm and trolling being done. That person then compared it to the backlash against gays in the US. Except the backlash against gays was not unexpected either. I am not excusing people who discriminate against gays, but the backlash in the USA is not entirely comparable to what is going on in Russia (homophobia from communism in the past) or in Africa/the Middle east (from religious extremism). The gay pride parades and amount of obscenity cost a lot of sympathy, and many gays not involved in those events end up attacked (not that the ones part of them should be either).
I tend to associate internet trolling with bratty young teenagee or adult males. Although I did read an article and found out many internet trolls are female and many are much older than I thought, some even elderly people. Your grandma could be trolling on twitter right now. I associate it with bored jerkasses. But for just regular vulgarity, all I can say is "kids these days" (even though I am as young as them). My grandma was prank called when younger, there was vulgar graffiti in Latin in ancient rome. So maybe it's just the same shit in a different era.
-Ga
Continued:
Meltdowns and screeching look weird, but when you get down to it, they isn't that much interesting going on. Meltdowns happen because of a malfunctioning nervous system crash, SSRIs or benzos can help, maybe cannabis, the screeching is harder to understand but some autistic people who used to be nonverbal but gained the ability to speak later in their life explained the screeching and hand flapping were weird urges, they had to do it, like a tic in tourette syndrome or an itch they have to scratch, if they hold it in too long or try to repress it, it often comes out all at once. Meltdowns maybe too, instead of being able to gradually release emotional frustration bit by bit like a regular person, it gets pent up until a load of stress hormones and chemicals flood in. It's not really so mysterious, it looks strange but isn't really as weird when you look at the scientific causes.
Back to venting:
On Baron-Cohen, his video is quackery to me because he uses a ton of psychological reasoning and logical fallacies to explain something clearly biological in origin. He is a neurodiversity supporter, one time an autistic person made a speech about how hard it is, the social interactions and anxiety, after he finished, Baron-Cohen stepped in, acknowledged what he said a bit then went on about how the problem is the stuff like anxiety and other so called "comorbities", proclaiming the great value autism is to society because of "systemizing".
His theories of the ultra male brain and "systemizing" are unlike other neuropsychological theories. Other theories are created, backed with neuroscience and psychiatry with the view of autism being a disorder that should be worked on, in hopes of getting a lead to find better treatments like the weak central coherance theory or intense world theory. His theories do nothing to advance any real progress, his theories are designed to support the status quo of autism not being treated directly. Instead he says "oh we can find ways to treat the anxiety and seizures, but lets keep everything else".
His books are designed to be easy to read, his mind is on being the best selling psychologist, not being the best psychologist. The real experts don't write books about their findings or theories for the common public because they would be too complex and frequently acknowledge many areas they do not understand or need to look further into. They admit they don't have all the answers which isn't sellable material, thats why their work get published on journals and sites that require proof of academic membership, or direct contact for permission to access for free.
Sorry for the long vent, but I needed to get all this out.
-Ga
Ga --
I actually think it's possible that some people do better at certain tasks because of their autism, not because autism makes one smarter in any way, but because one of the effects of autism, or Aspergers, is increased focus (otherwise known as obsessiveness). And if you obsess on one subject, chances are you will know it better, and possibly even think of creative solutions to problems related to it, that others haven't been able to think of. Think of all the "idiot savants" who were able to do things ordinary people couldn't. All those lists of Aspies compiled by Aspergers advocates obviously include a lot of people who probe didn't have the syndrome, but some of those people may well have. (Like Einstein, or Newton.)
I tend to associate the obscene ranting you see on some message boards with the Left. In general, they're given to ranting more. (When I go to the sits that are supposed to be filled with "haters" -- according to those on the Left -- like American Renaissance or Steve Sailer's blog, I'm always struck by how intelligent most of the commenters sound.
Yes and the twitter leftists are relentlessly obscene in a casual smug way.
I'm just expanding the concept of violence from physical to verbal.
The casual, unrelenting obscenities online just seem so extreme like they come from people who have "spectrum issues" and by that I mean people who can't properly connect to others.
Maybe being hidden and online activates some kind of latent mental problem.
Rifleman --
I agree with you, the commenters from the Left just rant, and call names, and swear. And yes, spectrum issues are possible, but also I suspect a lot of Cluster B personalities are drawn to the Left as well. If you can't admit your own weaknesses, or faults, it's far more reassuring for a narcissistic or borderline personality to be able to blame it on someone else, namely, cisgendered white males.
The one thing you never hear from the leftist commenters is a calm analysis of situation, and an explanation for why things aren't as they appear, or a logical explanation of why the Right is wrong. It's almost always hysterical name-calling and the like.
The other two cluster B personalities are histrionic personality disorder (acting out to draw attention to oneself, as with the Antifa types), and sociopaths (who are often drawn to the Left because it allows them to pose as "humanitarians").
To John,
True maybe. It is also true people missing their legs make better fighter pilots since they can make tighter manouvers without blood and oxygen rushing away from their head as quickly. If I were a fighter pilot, I would still keep my legs, at least if bionic legs haven't been perfected yet. But that would be a huge investment.
It is still better to use all these stories of successful autistics as stories of overcoming, true inspiration, than stories promoting anti-psychiatry. Maybe it is true some of those stories are from savantism, but how many other stories are from true individual talents falsely attributed to autism? We need inspiration, not propaganda.
-Ga
Ga --
I wasn't suggesting autism was an advantage overall. But even if it's a disadvantage overall, there's no reason it can't be beneficial in another way.
Hi John,
Your post got me to thinking...I taught several Aspies in the past two decades, many in middle school, and this is what I noticed:
There seem to be two main types of Aspie: the inward-acting vs the outward-acting. The introverts are the ones who mostly suffered Social Anxiety Disorder, and usually spoke in a weird monotone. The extroverts OTOH had more trouble respecting other people's personal boundaries and were more likely to exhibit traits of Narcissistic and/or Intermittent Explosive Disorder than the introverts.
That's just what I observed.
Fled --
That's a good observation, and rings true. I've seen both those types too, though I never thought to classify them as such.
In public I used to be the outward acting when young, but now am very inward. Inward is better, but I hope to find a middle ground which is best.
-Ga
The introverts definitely had an easier time socially. They were too busy wigging out because a teacher asked them to make a diorama (they much prefer boring worksheets), or having panic attacks because they lost their special pencil, to be noticed by the NT students.
The extroverts were not so lucky. Their tendency to brag, to plagiarize (they often lacked imaginative skills), and to ignore others' boundaries, made them extremely annoying to NT students. I was constantly worried about one of my extroverted Aspies in particular, expecting him to get jumped in the boys bathroom sooner or later.
Fled --
Sounds like you had a good handle on the situation. And it was good of you to worry about that Aspie. I bet you were a good teacher.
Listening to your descriptions of the extroverted Aspies makes me realize that there were Aspies at my high school whom I didn't recognize as such.
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