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

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Yes, I do experience projection.

I think it's pretty simple. A lot of aspies hate being treated differently, so they act NT hoping to be treated normally. A lot of times they also act NT to keep a job.

I have a question for NTs. Why do you out people as autistic without their permission?

I (AS) analyse and understand feelings of others. But i don't at all feel it as if i was the other person.
NTs feel the feelings of the other. This is different from analyse and understand the situation.

I think that NTs act and respond more upon their feelings, than upon their analisis and understanding of a situation. (because feeling a strong emotion can prevent you from analyzing objectively).
Result:
The other person feels understood because you are mirroring his/her emotion, but less probably gets an appropriate and objective response.

I (AS) act and respond more upon my frozen cold analizes of the situation, than upon my feelings.
Result:
-If i don't find a way to help: the other person feels misunderstood or think i must obviously hate her/him and that i don't care, and feels even worse and angry because i don't share the emotion.
-If i can provide help it is quite often a well-thought out objective solution, the other person finds, in average, a better response than what she/he would have found by an NT's.
-Sometimes NTs complain only to find empathy, not at all a solution. In this case i show myself as a very poor interlocutor...

Projection, as I understand it, goes normally the other way around, e.g. you have suicidal thoughts, because your partner wants to separate from you and and you project your anxieties on your ex-partner saying that he or she wants to commit suicide.

Last edited by Evam on 15 Jan 2016, 7:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I (NT) strongly disgree with this. Cognitive empathy requires a lot of cognitive operations, it is just that they are automized to a high degree in an NT. Aspergers can add interesting points of view, because of their different perception and focus. NTs perceive their own emotions better and are better able to regulate them, while Aspergers often think that they are emotionless or calm, but actually they arent, and sometimes even not at all. Some have even serious emotion regulation problems and anxiety disorders, so tend to act particularly irrationally. Then there is the problem with egocentric thinking.

You should not underestimate the cognitive and emotional problems of people on the spectrum, and do as if they did not exist, or had kind of a reverse effect on their power of judging.

Hello, I like the way you call it "cognitive empathy".

There is "natural empathy" based on feeling the emotion of the other and there is "cognitive empathy", or i would even call "Active" empathy".

It seems to me that people around me (mostly NT) have more "empathy" for people they feel close with. (because it initially starts with an emotional reaction, even if it is followed by "cognitive empathy")

I however never feel closer to one person than to an others. As a result, i have the same "cognitive empathy" for strangers, for family, for people i know, for people who are nice to me or for people who are not nice to me. (because it initially starts with an conscious choice and not with an emotion)

When i said that emotion can lead to less objective response with NTs, i was thinking of
1/ the first reaction which is often very emotional (good or bad emotion) and
2/ the level of emotion involved in the relationship with a person (how much you feel close)

About managing feelings, it is possible that NTs in average manage it better, but like you say for some AS emotions are so strong and overwhelming that it leads sometimes to meltdowns (if i understood it well), this is not the case for me.

I am highly sensitive to many "details" and i have a lot of anxiety but i do not act unrealistic nor have meltdowns.
However i don't have an egocentric thinking, quite opposite. I am very altruistic, i'm just happy when i can help . My empathy is an altruistic way of thinking that i choose.

I did generalize too much in my previous post, indeed, sorry. It's only been two weeks that i know i am Asperger, since i know, i understood so many things about me, i got informed and read a lot. It is like going out of jail for me. I felt an urging need to talk and understand it all.

So even if i do not completly agree with what you say, thank you for pointing out that i was minimizing some of the AS symptoms which i personally have not experimented.

I have just taken over the wording of the "Empathy Imbalance Hypothesis of Autism" (http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcon ... ntext=tpr=): "According to this account, people with autism have a deficit of cognitive
empathy but a surfeit of emotional empathy."


Yes, some Aspergers have an amazing openess for everybody, and their altruism is linked to it. But I would not say that this applies to every Asperger, or that Aspergers are more altruistic than neurotypics.

What I said about the cognitive problems of Aspergers, applies to ALL Aspergers as it is part of the definition of what Asperger is. A high IQ does not mean that someone has better cognitive skills than someone else. The IQ tests test what they test, and many developpers of IQ tests must have been on the spectrum themselves. The tests measure more skills where high-functioning Asperger are good at (spacial, visual, numeric tests prevail) than high-functioning NT skills (understanding the complexities of the psychosocial world).

Aspergers indeed don't have an intuitive understanding of the complexities of the social interactions.

However Aspergers can very well learn it. I leaned it.

I understand that in the NT social paradigm, there are a lot of truths you may not say (which NT call "politeness"). I understand that the NT social paradigm is based on competition and therefore, you should hide your emotions, hide your personal real objectives, hide your weaknesses, show yourself as better than you are.

Indeed, in the NT social paradigm, if you say the truth, if you don't compete but you are altruistic, if you show your real objectives, if you show your weaknesses...
... the others will feel hurt, take a defensive positions, will attack you when you are not there, take advantage of you or discriminate you. So in order to protect yourself, you have to lie nearly all the time.

I don't support this social NT paradigm because, to my opinion, you cannot base anything constructive on lies. I also think that this fear of other and this mad competition leads to little and big wars.

That is why i consciously remain open to everyone and altruistic, and say truth (in a diplomatic way), even if i know i will have to suffer the consequences.

I have a question(s) for NTs:

When you see someone is lying to you or trying to deceive you, or transforms the truth to his/her advantage...

1/ Do you tell it to this other person in a way, or make him/her understand?

2/ Can you continue to trust the others knowing that most of people lie?
Or maybe truth, lie, trust has no importance for you, only your objectives would have importance?

Great idea! I'm an NT. I work in the Silicon Valley as a teacher and so many of the students I work with are on the spectrum because our area attracts a lot of Scientists, and computer engineers.....technical fields...
I want to know how to meet my students' needs better so I signed up for Wrong Planet.

In addition the love of my life and bf of 7 years has undiagnosed high functioning aspergers and works in the tech industry. He is undiagnosed and we are in therapy to help us communicate better.

Question for AS members: Some people prefer not to be diagnosed or even labeled...what is your opinion of this..can they ever truly tackle some of the challenges in life...and how might this effect depression?

1/ If it is bigger lies or I am more bothered by it, yes. Since I know what Asperger is, I feel compelled to do it more often directly also.

2/ I dont think that most people lie a lot. Most people say the truth most of the time, and lie mostly for small things only, and mostly for a small convenience at the very moment than to get a real advantage out of it. For NTs this is not a lie, because they generally assume that all people see that it is a small lie which has no bigger importance, and take it as what it is meant to be: most often an excuse and voicing that one is sorry. Strange as it might sound, this assumption is at work to a certain degree, even if you actually know that this particular kind of person doesnt see it, or at least not very well. I understand that for aspies who are confronted much more often with those kind of social lies than us neurotypical folks, because people actually dont want to meet them so often, they amount to a pretty disturbing phenomena. But I can see it only now clearly that I know what ASD is. If people would fake less to be NT, we NTs would get it more easily that we should avoid these convenient excuses with some people.

Let us now go to the big lies.

There are lots of people who fake to be NT most of the time, or even cant stop for the rest of the time. But I would not consider this as lying that much, although I think it is not good neither for them nor for others. However, I think this NT faking has some very negative side effects: It makes them go more for the feigned stuff in general, leads to a dangerous pendant for the manipulative and heightens their overall anxiety. What is worst is the illusions many of the very high-functioning people on the spectrum have talked themselves into and uphold, although they actually know better, in particular that they are better at judging people than other people, although they clearly are not. I sometimes like to scream at them to stop it, in particular those who are doing a lot of harm to others. I am doing it from time to time, somehow at least, and it makes me feel better. A lot of self-loathing of people here on wrongplanet comes from getting aware of this delusional thinking.

I have met only very few compulsive liars, and now that I have understood that they are on the spectrum and do it mostly out of a habit to constantly responding to the expectations of others, I have become both, more patient and more strict, with it.

I have always been O.K. also with the following kind of lies, although they make me feel uncomfortable, too, and I feel now that I should deal with them differently, but dont know yet how:

JakJak: "I dealt with a lot of abuse and neglect at home, which made me pretty much become obedient to everyone around me, including my so called friends, who I also allowed to abuse me.. on a much smaller scale.. But aside from physical touching and physical harm.. they would also take my things.. they would lock me up in places like closets or a storage building as a joke.. they would do things at school, such as put gum on a desk, and then tattle on me for doing it.. I even had a couple of friends, when I was about 14.. who just picked me up and carried me outside and put me in the trunk of their car, and drove around to different places, stopping and getting out... and just leaving me in the trunk the entire time.. And with all of this going on, you can only imagine what my physical encounters with people were like..

But if we'd met before I learned about autism and started to understand more about myself... and we were swapping stories... You'd have just heard me talking casually about it.. even as if I found those pranks funny.. or talking about situations in which I was around, while other people were having fun and getting along, but I was being quiet and not really part of the group... But, the stories that I was not technically involved in are still fun to tell, and still give off the vibes that I had close friends, when I really didn't.

And this isn't lying... it's more... basically like you have the lack of words to describe what's really happened."

I know that this is not quite the answer you were expecting, but I hope to have given you some pieces of thought.

^^^
I am sorry to read that you are having a hard time on World Planet.

I am happy to have understood that there are "important" and "not important" lies for NTs depending on the stakes. I was not perceiving that difference.

Thanks for your response. (i did not "expect a kind of response", i asked an open question, so feel free) Thank you.

NTs: Do you tend to hide feelings of stress and worry when you're around other people and pretend that everything is fine? Especially, did you do this when you were a teenager? Also, when you're socializing with close friends, do your stress and worry just go away?

I think what you just said is universal with every person.

I believe EVERYBODY seeks to hide feelings of stress and worry when they're around other people

I believe EVERYBODY feels better when socializing with close friends. Stress and worry seem to go away on these occasions.