So when I mentioned that I thought that they didn’t get the impact of Asperger Syndrome, the person said they did understand it due to their 20 year experience of dealing with their son and to be honest they said it in quite a forceful way.
So my question is. Who is right?
Would the other person have a good knowledge of the impacts of Asperger Syndrome due to their dealing with their son?
Could it be counterproductive as two people with ASD are never the same?
To answer the question I put in bold: I think probably both of you.
I think it's likely that your boss some kind of understanding of how Asperger's Syndrome can affect a person, even if it is a narrow and/or flawed understanding based solely on their perceptions of their son.
I think it's also possible your boss has a good/excellent understanding of how Asperger's Syndrome affects their son, but little/no understaniding of how it affects you and/or others who are different from their son.
Because I don't know what leads you to conclude your boss doesn't understand how Asperger's impacts you (it would be helpful to me if you felt comfortable enough to share specifics, but I completely understand if you don't) I also wonder:
Is it possible that your boss has a good/excellent understanding of how Asperger's Syndrome affects you and how it affects their son and that the issue is actually one of different ideas about how a situation should be handled.....for example, different ideas of what is and is not fair/just/right/appropriate/most important in whatever the incident was?
Or do you think maybe there could have been some kind of serious miscommunication/misunderstanding that happened between the two of you (totally unrecognized by either of you) rather than any actual difference of opinion or problems with understanding?
I know that in my own life, people who have a really good understanding of all the many ways autism can affect someone might not always accurately see how it's affecting me because, for whatever reason(s): My words are not being understood the way I mean them; Or my behavior/nonverbals are being misinterpreted and, as a result, all sorts of incorrect assumptions are being made about my feelings and intentions; Or they've just gotten an inaccurate impression of my particular profile of ability and disability.
Also just want to add that your boss may have said they did understand in a forceful way because it triggers something about their history with their son.....something that hurts them and makes them feel defensive.
A suggestion for if you want to try to talk your boss about whatever-it-is again is to try to focus on your perspective without making any claim about what theirs seems to be, and ask them questions about their perspective.....so, maybe you could say something like:
"I don't understand why you [whatever they did/didn't say or do]";
Or "I don't understand why you [whatever they did/didn't say or do] given that [whatever you want them to understand about you -- whatever need you have that may have been unmet, whatever intention(s)/action(s)/word(s)/thought(s)/experience(s)/want(s)/etc. of yours may have been misunderstood]";
Or (this may be better.....depends on your boss, I think) "Why did you [whatever they did/didn't say or do] given that [whatever you want them to understand about you -- whatever need you have that may have been unmet, whatever intention(s)/action(s)/word(s)/thought(s)/experience(s)/want(s)/etc. of yours may have been misunderstood]?"
Starting off by saying "I don't understand" would hopefully prevent them feeling accused of anything (no guarantees, though....people are confusing and there are a lot of things people commonly read into stuff that I miss). Hopefully they would then explain their perspective and/or actions to you, and it would clarify to you whether or not they do in fact understand -- and if it clarified that they did not understand, it would maybe give you a starting point to explain to them specifically what they did not understand.
But I'd also caution you to choose your battles wisely....being understood can be essential in terms of getting along with others at your work without constant conflict and/or essential for you to be able to do your job, is it in this case for you? If it's not essential for those reasons, is it important enough for you personally to be understood (which is a totally valid need for most people, and I'm not trying to diminish it at all nor am I trying to tell you how important it should be....it's different for everyone, I think) -- or important enough for you to prove that you are right that your boss doesn't understand how Asperger's affects you/affects people generally -- that you would risk damaging your working relationship with your boss (possibly forever) or even being fired? (I don't know your boss or your workplace -- maybe neither of these things are risks for you if you push the issue, but they would be for many people.)
You'd probably be better off just to let them be, attempting to tell people how to understand autism can be near impossible at times... Frustrating, to say the least, but it is the world we live in. Pushing against a brick wall will only end in you going backwards, unfortunately.
