Do you have irreconcilable political differences with your family members?

I wasn't doubting you. Just wondering ... if you did not have the diagnosis, you wouldn't have any frame of reference to meaure yourself against.

 

I kinda have the same query about depression. How can you know you are not simply sad or have a "down" personality?

I have similar questions about alcoholics. At what point are you no longer just a problem drinker and a full blown alcoholic? If you're in the gutter and drink wine 24/7 and have the DT's, it's clear enough. But I have had friends who call themselves alcoholic and I just have my doubts that they are really diseased and don't just need to live in the country and get some fresh air and exercise.

 

Unfortunately I can not answer. Since 1992, I have talked to many professionals who have strict definitions. They can diagnose accurately.

 

If it did, you'd be the only one. As for different, that applies just as well to people who need colostomy bags, and none of them are proud of it unless they're also crazy; so I daresay the basis of your pride must lie elsewhere, if it exists at all.

 

If someone has a "drinking problem" and then stops drinking on their own and never takes it up again, they were probably not an alcoholic. The same applies to drug addiction. If you do it some but then don't take it up again and never had any help to not do so you weren't one, that is about the only SURE way you can tell somebody isn't one.

If someone is sad or depressed to the point where it is painful, that is, they suffer from it, then they are depressed. If someone is just sad but they don't suffer, then they weren't

The determination in all cases is suffering. If you have a mental illness that bothers you and you really would rather not have it, then you are mentally ill. If you can live and function with it then you are just quirky.

 

I think they are just words. We label everything. Conservative, liberal, progressive, good, bad, sociopath, psychopath, alcoholic, addict ....

What if no one "is" this or that, but rather simply "does" this or that, some more than others?

 

It is human to want to understand why we do things.

 

Oh dear .. this is quite untrue.

Alcoholism is present when there is any kind of 'requirement' to consume ... even if only once a week. When the individual makes provisions or accommodations to consume (arranging his or her day to factor in drinking, etc), there is a problem. In practice, if you have a beer or glass of wine every day with dinner, you're a functioning alcoholic. If you don't touch the stuff all week then have a blow out on Saturday night, you're an alcoholic.

Addiction is marked not by how difficult it is for any given individual to stop, it's marked by their behaviour while they are actively consuming.

 

Also quite inaccurate.

 

How is that?

 

And what characteristics does that behavior have to have?

 

My family has a wide variety of political beliefs. Mostly they lean left. I myself have a combination of mostly libertarian and liberal beliefs, but I respect a lot of conservative positions as well. I can have civil political conversations with everyone. The only people who can't talk to one another is my mother (socially conservative) and my young brother's wife, who is a hardcore social justice warrior type. I can talk to them both though.

More interesting is that we manage to maintain religious civility as well. I'm an Atheist, my mother is Catholic, her parents are Jewish, my father is a Hindu. My siblings are mostly Atheists, one brother is sort of Hindu-lite. But religion no longer causes the sort of friction that politics does.

 

agreed, but the lazy will not take freedom so long as they're freedom fighters all along the watchtower.

they ought to remain cordial to those who provide for their upkeep so that political differences are no longer irreconcilable in families.

 

I can walk up to my mom and say I'm the most hard-core Trump supporter and she wouldn't mind at all. Or tell my dad that I'm so far to the left that I'd make Sanders look like Reagan and he won't care.

It probably helps that I always keep their urns clean and dust-free.

 

Every Aspie is uniquely unique in their own way.

 

Do I have irreconcilable political differences with my family members? Yes and no. Yes in that my family's views are most likely to, and most probably would diverge from my own. Anyone who knows my posting, knows that I'm a Third Position Authoritarian. At the same time, despite of these views I don't actually let my family know about them. We live in two different states, and we scarcely communicate over the internet anyway.

But it's also that I fear that if I let my Authoritarian record be showcased on a FB or even a twitter, a company or an agency could use that against me in hiring. That's our world in 2019/2020.

 

My views also can not be discussed in public. I would become unemployable. Sadly we live in a Totalitarian Society. Do you share your views with friends?

 

Can I consider this forum a friend? Because then I could answer this in the affirmative. If not, then I have really almost no friends(so anti-social LOL) and even if I did, for similar reasons I'd try to hold back as much as I could.

 

Yes I do and we are passionate about it, but we respect the limits that our personal views hold and we do not let that become an issue because we understand they are personal values and each is entitled to his. And then there are the family members who wont invite you to dinner because you voted for Trump, lol.

 

Sadly, for me, virtual community can not replace real-life friends. For me, loneliness is a big problem.

Sadly, in a Totalitarian Society, dissent is treated like a crime.

How is it possible to find friends with whom we can share all our views?

 

And the same can't be said for non-Aspie human beings. Have I got that right?

 

Most "normal people" are very much shaped by Society and not very unique.

 

i think that they need tough love, if you give a person a fish they will always be dependent upon you.

if you teach them how to fish, they will never ask for your fish. the broken family unit is caused by communism.

stop the handouts to end their entitlement mentality, and they will take personal responsibility.

 

Actually, I'm pretty confused by how you call yourself, doesn't seem to reflect your posts. What authoritarian views do you have? Who should be obliged to do what and why?