Quote Originally Posted by Hippy Chic View Post
He has Asperger's Syndrome. Sometimes his behaviour is unacceptable, & he uses his AS as an excuse.

I just tell him that AS may explain his behaviour, but it doesn't excuse or justify it.
How do you tell what is genuinely Aspergers caused behaviour and what is 'excuse'?

I for one have been frequently accused of using my own disability (Myalgic Encephalomyelitus aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) as an excuse by a family member who didn't understand what my illness actually meant (they thought I had it easy sitting around all day and was lazy). Eventually I got a total list of symptoms (in a research article that explained how the symptoms were comparable to those of people going through chemo for a fatal cancer) read it to them and said that if they found one thing I said was caused by my CFS that wasn't on the list I'd give them $1000 and if they accused me again of anything that was on the list they could choose to either pay me $500 or have me risk being bed-bound for a week by smacking them in the face with a piece of firewood.

I got a thorough apology and they stopped accusing me.

As you can tell being repeatedly condemned for something that you are afflicted by is pretty upsetting. I'm not suggesting the situation is that similar but it's potentially very cruel to expect people to be able to transcend their symptoms if such is practically difficult or, in my case, fundamentally impossible.