Social Skills Training for Adults

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Sorry to dissapoint but did not "do" social skills training nearly so much as talked about my inability to express feelings and how that plays into my physical well being.

I have been suffering for a few years now from "crashing" physically and also from "panic attacks" which come to me with no warning whatsoever. So that is where we focused our conversation.

That said we did do "some" degree of talking about small talk. I told him about my neighbor and also that I acknowlege that emotions actually "do" happen. He reiterated that they do and launched into some examples of how he will actually use a gas station with friendlier attendents over one that is cheaper. Wow. How insane is all that?

Again I sort of blew this session but wasn't "feeling" up for the game after my trip to CA yesterday and the trauma of my 2 days in the Jr High last week. I am physically still really, really spent. Needs more sleep/rest.

T minus 2 hours til next torture session.

I've been following this thread for a while and am finding it extremely facsinating...never knew of the method for learning social skills that you described...other methods, sure, but not this one. I guess there are many means to an end. Best of luck with your continued social skills journey, kfisherx.

It is always amazing to me after I finish one of these sessions how hyper aware I am about people and how much better I am about "connecting" with them. My appointment was near the end of the day so left for home shortly after. I stopped at my little town store for my regular food items and there is this overly friendly young person in there who always rings me up. He is annoyingly social and always trying to start conversation with me. Normally I use my escape tactics but today I engaged him and learned that he is attending the local private college majoring in art/graphic design and minoring in computers. He doesn't want to work at Intel but is interested in doing web design. I have no clue why the hell I should care about this information or what to do with it but I got it in an effort to expand upon my social skills. Today's lesson was a continuation of the "connection" thing because that is what I think was the main theme.

We did spend the first part of the session talking about SSRI management and what/how I am doing in that regard. I decided to try taking celexa and easily got it prescribed at the doctor when going for a b12 shot. I took 1/2 the dosage of normal people and spent two full days completely spaced out. The bad news is that I was completely unproductive and even late for several meetings over those days (very out of character for me) The good news is that I did not care. Seriously, NOTHING mattered. So not only was the affect of the medication right away (within hours) for me but I am taking 1/4 of a normal dose. Supposedly this is common for autistic people to have a unique reaction to meds. I am not really feeling any extreme anything on this 1/4 dosage but I do believe that my hypersensory issues are a bit better. The shrink says that he believes my anxiety issues are more about sensory processing than anything else (I really have no other reason for it) and that aside from perhaps occupational therapy that SSRIs may be the best option. He also gave me some documentation to read RE anxiety and also handed me a paper about a local company that trains dogs to be with anxious autistic people. So will keep you guys posted if anything changes. For now am on SSRIs for the first time in my life as I finally acknowledge that I have anxiety. (it never made sense before as I otherwise have a pretty ideal life)

So after the anxiety/med discussions we launched into some social games. He pulled out the cards and asked me if I was ready. He started this session out by explaining that one way for me to get out of actually talking during a social scenario is to ask a lot of questions about that person. He handed me 7 green (question) cards and 3 red ones.

I am going to pause the session here because it was at this moment that I made a huge social mistake. He explained that in his job he asks questions to people all day. Before I even thought about it I made a face and said, "Ewwww. That must be really boring, huh?" He stopped and I could feel the tension and I knew right away then that what I had said was insulting. I put my hand over my mouth and apologized. He just looked at me and smiled and said, "Actually I rather enjoy it." "For someone like an engineer that may sound boring but it isn't for me." I again apologized for the statement. And then I just looked at him sheepishly and said, "I am just a little bit incorrigible aren't I?" He just laughed and we went on with our game though he did ding me later for being rude. I simply did not have good filters for this session for some reason and I also had very, very low tolerance for the game.

So we begin our game and I asked if I could set up the scenario from an experience that happened to me earlier in the week that confused me. One of the people on my team who is at a different site came up behind me when I was working and just stood there and said loudly to me, "Hello." I did not want to pull myself away from my work but I did and said, "Hi" back and waited for him to tell me his business. He never did. He just stood there. The doctor asked me what it was that he wanted and the "net" is that the guy just flew in from out of town and was making all the rounds to the other team members just to say, "Hi". The doctors grins then and says, "He just wanted to do small talk and make a connection." It was at that moment that it hit me that he was right. That is all the person wanted. I got highly annoyed at the poor guy because he bothered me with no agenda but I had forgotten that NTs get an emotional connection from this thing called small talk. And I completely blew it because that same script that I had worked on in the session previous with my customer (the one RE the flights, restaurants, etc) would have worked in this scenario too.

Dayumit! I was really mad at myself then because I had completely failed to generalize that scenario. I mean why would I presume that this script was just for customers?! ! Arrrrghhh... Sometimes I hate my brain.

So we launched again into that scenario only this time my goal was to ask him questions about himself and the trip. It was easier somewhat for me but the doctor did not really give long enough answers for my taste. (sigh..) About half way through the cards I could feel my anger and tension building so I asked him if I could end the conversation. He told me that if someone flies into town and approaches me like that and I am the senior team person that I owe this other person around 10 minutes of my time in order to feel as though I care. We agreed that I will have to build up to that comfortably.

We then spent some time discussing ways to appropriately end a conversation. Again he told me about these "social lies" thing and tried to convince me that these are better than the truth for NTs. He gave the scenario of when he speaks to his parents on the phone and he is "through" with it (AKA: Had enough) that he will tell his folks that he has to put the kids to bed or something... I was a bit shocked. I knew people did that but I was shocked that a shrink would actually advise this AND that he regularly did it. I stopped him and asked him for clarity that what he is telling me is that it is better to lie to my parents than to tell the truth? See, I NEVER do that. I just tell people I am done with the conversation and need to go. I never give a reason. The doctor explained that doing this could be construed as me being bored or intolerant of the conversation. But that IS exactly what it is... But apparently the "connection" and emotion thing plays a part here and that ending conversations this way might actually hurt others. I grimaced again thinking about how I do this on every call with my Mother.... Sigh... Poor woman. No wonder she called me a Martain and seemed so pleased to learn that I had Aspergers officially. So now will have to wrap my head around this social lie thing and also build tolerance to at least 10 minutes.

Of course that is all for another time. For now my lesson is to more deeply understand that these other people (these NT people) really do need to have this type of communication. The kid at my local store seemed to be quite pleased that I finally spoke to him and that I seemed interested in him. He actually was proud of his accomplishments I believe. I think I will continue to be kind to him to see where this goes even though I find him most highly annoying most of the time with his social self. LOL!

Wow the thing about asking people questions about themselves and letting them talk... my mom is a master of that. There's this person who drives the wheelchair vans who is known for being mean and gossiping about confidential information about clients. And my mom was here for a month. And she immediately got this driver to like her. Mind you my case manager had to report this driver for referring to "ret*ds" and the like. But my mom, she just asked her about her job, her family, her pets, etc. and the driver really got to like her. And my mom was doing this to everyone -- in the hospital when I was there, at the doctor's office, with support staff at home, and everyone really liked her. Impressive trick for an introvert with even a few autistic traits. It was amazing to watch her win over even fairly unpleasant people. If done right, that technIque works wonders.

This an example of one of the ways that people assuming the NT way is better annoys me. Doing things the NT way you have to waste 10 minutes of your time, and lose energy talking to someone else. Assuming you earn £100 an hour that means £10 is wasted every ther ime someone does this. And his time is wasted too, so assuming he makes £50 an hour, that's £15 of company money wasted because someone wanted a dopamine fix. YOUR original way, this doesn't happen. You are effectively having to work around someone else's lack of ability to emotionally regulate themself. Ideally, NT's should learn how not to need to waste office time to be able to work with their coworkers, not the other way round. In this instance, their way is inferior.

Asking people questions about themselves is one of my primary small talk coping methods. Usually I just hope they'll say something I can latch onto and then we can talk about an interest without me just introducing it.

I think I picked that up in the past 10 years or so? I forget what prompted it.