First time in history!! !! The NT/AS open hotline ! !! !! !

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Janissy, you're a pro with your clear, concise, to the point answers! If there was a magazine or radio show for Aspies, you should do the "Ask Janissy" column/hour. Sorry to nudge, but I really hope you're already saving these answers. I'd hate for them to get lost in cyberspace in 10 years.

My daughter is already asking little kid versions of these questions. Before I came to WP, I didn't really understand why she was asking so my answers to her were probably pretty terrible. The good thing for me about this is that everybody here is an adult and explains in adult words exactly WHY something makes no sense to them. That's something my daughter can't do because she's a kid. So I come here and get the "why" behind a question that she can't give me, then I formulate an answer because now I finally really understand the question. Then I turn around and give her a kid's version.

I'm saving this too. Everybody's questions put into words things that she is either already wondering or probably will start wondering about as she gets older.

I couldn't properly answer her questions until I understood them. And I couldn't understand them until I came here and got adult questions explained in ways that only adults can explain things. So...thanks everybody!

Janissy, even though I consider myself more NT than AS, I am not as clear sighted as you are on some of these questions (I have some AS in me), so its fun to read your answers. I do think you get pretty quickly to the gut of it. Of course, NT's vary and so it may not ALWAYS be exactly as you described, but you do really, really well.

Not always as I described? Heck, I think I'm doing pretty well if it's EVER as I described.

Ok, I volunteer to ask an 11-year old Aspie's question in the way I would've asked it back then. By the way, I never asked anyone this question, so it remains in its original wording.

Meg and I went to the movies last Saturday, we talked lots of kids in the class into coming too and it was incredibly fun. Until Meg started kissing ON THE MOUTH!! with Alan. I couldn't believe she was doing that! I don't want to be her friend anymore! Today the teacher made me stay back when all the kids went to the break, and she insisted and insisted and insisted and insisted that I tell her why I don't want to be friends with Meg anymore, we used to be best friends for a long time and now we aren't even talking. I refused again and again and again to tell her why. More so because Alan happens to be her son. I can't tell the teacher that Meg was kissing in the mouth without badmouthing the teacher's son into the bargain. Am I bad or stupid because I didn't tell the teacher in the end?

After you try to understand my question, I'll ask it in the adult way.

I don't think I need the adult version, and the 11 year old version makes me want to hug 11 year old you and assure her that she did the right thing, though I am surprised 11 year old you is having to deal with this at age 11. I think you did the most honorable and considerate thing that you could have done, though I wonder if there might have been a way for you to discussed this with Meg, but more so I wish you could have discussed this with your Mother, so she could have given you that hug and assurance, though from what you have said about your parents I don't know if that would have been what would have happened to you.

"No honey,you're not bad or stupid for not wanting to tell the teacher about your friends. But wait, why were you angry at Meg? Did you two have a fight? Why don't you call her up and I'm sure you'll be friends again in no time."

That was me giving my NT Mom answer. I can see that the actual question comes at the very end. But I'd be stuck on trying to puzzle out why the falling out happened in the first place.

willmark, it never even crossed my mind to tell my mother. Maybe I mentioned something to her, but my mother would always ignore relating issues, pretend I hadn't said anything and change the subject.

Janissy, now for the adult version:
Extremely political situations are what get me in trouble and fired in the end always. It started at school. I remember the first instance. I was 11 y/o and had a best friend, a teacher, a boy I wanted as a trophey bf because he was the teacher's son and the handsomest and most intelligent of the boys in class. Alas, my best friend got the boy - whether because she put out, whether he preferred her, or she was just not Aspie so she knew how to get closer to a boy and start a relationship, I don't know. Anyway, here I am, having to protect Meg's interests from the teacher, protect the boy from his mother, protect the teacher from any unpleasant news... This is what I fail at miserably in life - playing the politics well enough that I don't end up rejected by all. What would an NT do in my place, I mean when they have several people, each with their own hidden agenda and sensitivities, clashing between them, not to end up in enmity with all of them while they all end up together and happy? This is also why I was fired from my last job.

Oh Greentea, that's a lot of balls to juggle for a little kid. Or for an adult, too. I think just clamming up was the best choice- and the one you did. Kids need to tell teachers about things that are genuinely bad and dangerous like some bullying on the playground that the teacher needs to go disrupt or a kid bringing a gun to school (that happens these days, apparently). But in that situation, no need to try to explain it all to the teacher. That would have fallen under the headiung of "tattling" and the ostracism you would have gotten for that would have been far worse than whatever the actual outcome was of you not telling. If Meg and Alan were attempting junior- sex (it could happen) it would be worth telling because that SHOULDN'T happen. But a kiss? Nah.

I hope you and Meg made up eventually later.

I think 11 year old you actually did a good job of juggling all the different obligations.

I am sorry to hear you got fired from your last job. I hope you have found another one since then.

Why would the teacher pressure me to tell, if telling is unacceptable? I don't understand... Out of selfishness? Same at work, what do they expect you to do when you have 2 equal bosses giving you opposite instructions, one against the other? I've been fired twice in a row for not knowing what to do in this kind of situation.

I know you wouldn't have been able to go to your Mother. I can't put myself into your place and figure out what I would have done. When I was 11, my parents had just moved to a new house in a different school district, and I had no friends, and it was in fifth grade that I started having run ins with bullies, and started encountering people pointing out my oddities to me like being teased for wearing my pants too high because I am short waisted, or for being athletically inept, or for humming the tunes that were playing in my head, or for tapping my foot when there was no reason to tap my foot, that they could perceive, or anything else they thought was odd. It wasn't a very happy time in my life, but I wasn't facing any political issues.

Did you not have a superior supervisor that was over both of your opposing bosses that you could have appealed to? You cannot be expected to adhere to opposite behavior simultaneously, unless they were looking for a reason to fire you.

Im going a few questions to relationships. I am fairly Aspie while my husband is ADD so he is at least on the spectrum.

He has difficulty understanding why with the abilities I have I would "hide" away from the world. For me it is a matter of most often being embarassed by my panic disorder symptoms along with poor eyecontact which makes alot of NTs uncomfortable. I often see it in how they pull back from me. Hubby on the other hand has become this easy going extrovert who can often make friends with anyone he comes into contact with so we are quite the pair *he wasn't like that when we were originally friends in college as I was the more outgoing of us two* Yes it does cause conflict when it comes to socializing and attending necessary family and work functions.

Intimacy can be frustrating, because he thinks this or that touch should feel great and some does. The problem occurs as I am extremely sensitive and what would feel good to an NT makes me squirm and laugh, because it is an uncomfortable tickle. It has taken him forever to realise that he has to take me serious and this "tickle feeling" isn't always a desirable one.

Anpther problem we have is he can say I love u constantly, but for some reason I don't reply very loudly or often. It was a sticking point in our marriage as my mthlw always said I love u guys. My family wasn't as demonstrative plus with my Aspieness somehow expressing some emotions or completely feeling them as I believe I should doesn't come all that easy.

Last edited by Pook on 07 Aug 2009, 6:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Telling is unacceptable to other kids. To teachers it's important. So kids have to decide which is more important to them in a given scenario- what is unacceptable to fellow kids? Or what is asked for by teachers? You chose the kids. Wise, given that it was just a kiss and nothing more.

What do you do when you have two equal bosses giving you conflicting instructions? Ironically, this happened to me a couple months ago. (I will not describe too fully as I want to preserve my anonymyty.) One boss said do this. The other said do that. What to do? I agonized and fretted for about an hour. Then I arranged a conference call so they could talk to each other. They came up with a compromise for me to do which was halfway between their two objectives. You have to get the two bosses to KNOW they are in conflict and work it out between them.

Sometimes they won't work it out between them. In that case, you go with whoever has the most authority over you. If they are literally equal and can't work it out between them, you go to whoever is over the both of them. But that is a last resort. You don't do that unless 1)they can't work it out between them (they may not know they are in conflict) and 2)they are literally equal and neither of them has the greater authority.

Willmark, I couldn't do that because the "official" one of my bosses would've fired me on the spot for going over her head.

Janissy, what if the last resort you mention is not a possibility for the reason I just wrote to Willmark? What do you do?

BTW, if I'd initiated a conference call, both my bosses would've agreed to fire me on the spot - for making them do something neither of them agreed to and taking a forbidden initiative. Conference calls between higher-ups are NOT to be initiated by their subordinate.