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

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It is clear that the first person you need to teach about autism is the minister. He DOESN'T know about autism (nor does anybody in the Church) so he doesn't have a clue that greeting would be so stressful for you. You need to tell him you aren't comfortable doing this and why.

I think this would be a great teaching moment. The minister knows nothing about autism other than you have it. Same with everybody in the congregation. Not a single one of them will know WHY you weren't at the door. Maybe a good opener for your talk would be, "Maybe all of you are wondering why I didn't greet you at the door. Doing that makes me very uncomfortable and here's why......." then explain why and go on with the rest of your prepared speech.

I think he just showed you how much there is left to learn by him and the congregation.

No, I wouldn't be offended if you hadn't introduced yourself at the door. It's one of those nice, warm gesture things, but not universal.

Yes, I think you should call him back and explain that this is exactly the sort of thing your autism makes it difficult for you to do. While some autistics get good at it using a version of acting, that isn't common and its still much more stressful than NT's can ever relate to. If he agrees, you can even use this story as part of your speech.

Hi janissy. Looks like we were crossing in cyberspace. Sorry for basically repeating, lol.

I would definitely tell him and you probably have some reasons scripted out by now. Long ago I decided to face these sorts of situations head on and tell people when there was something I could not do and why. I may have left some people disappointed but never mad.

The issue at the top of my list is that I never accept an invitation to eat a meal at someone's home that I don't know very well. Too many times I got served meals that I really couldn't eat. That's a worse situation than simply turning down the invitation.

I agree. I just know that with guys it seems that not being able to laugh at yourself isn't seen as a good trait. I agree that too much self-deprecating humor isn't a good coping mechanism either. Maybe there's some kind of delicate balance but it beats me how to know what it is. I also agree though that it's impossible to accept being made fun of by "friends" when you've been bullied growing up.

I think if people refuse to be sensitive even when you ask they aren't good friends. I don't know what else to say. A lot of guys are insensitive and suck. I really do prefer people who can be serious and honest but they can be hard to find. Banter and sarcasm all the time is pretty lame, it's teenage behavior. But most of the guys I was around in college were sarcastic all the time. Maybe I shouldn't frame this as just a guy thing, I just don't personally know girls who insist on teasing the way guys do.

I want to sincerely thank Janissy, DW_a_mom, and Lepidoptera for your advice. Your advice will be taken.

To Janissy: The great teaching moment seems like it will work. I was searching for a way to begin my music ministry and nothing was seeming to fit---but the idea of telling the congregation why I am not at the door is brilliant. I now have an introduction. And I believe you are right---the minister and congregation does not have a clue what autism is like. Thank you very much, you have taken care of my introduction.

To DW_a_mom: Yes, the minister has shown how much there is left to learn about autism. I have worked with him on two occasions before, so I think he will understand with calling him back about the greeting at the door thing. I haven't greeted in the past, but this is the first time a minister won't be present---so I am a little nervous/anxious about it. Before, the minister sort of provides my support, but now, I am more on my own with it. Your support means a lot---especially since it is so similar to Janissy's---it must be the right thing to do.

To Lepidoptera: I actually need to script out a way of telling him since I should let him know. This church seems a little more formal than the ones I have played at in the past. I need to better prepare myself for these kinds of situations so I can take care of them before. The thing is, if I make myself greet people, I will get very worn out mentally and then I have to do the music ministry. To do a good job, I must be fully charged mentally. That is why I like little contact with anyone beforehand. Good advice about not eating meals at someone's house you don't know well.

I feel better now about my upcoming service. You have really helped me. I plan on scripting out my opening speech tonight. I am not ashamed to use scripting---as my therapist told me that scripting was a good idea. It isn't false since it is actually just making a script of my actual feelings and what's on my mind. That brings up something that happened several months ago---a minister commented that I would probably get better at my ministry by not having to read notes---I told him I had to script because it is so difficult to just try to talk off the top of my head---I fumble around and get frustrated---very awkward. I should mention too that many of us with autism have to script out our feelings and thoughts. Thanks again.

glider18

Question for NTs!

What do you think when you see someone staring blankly into the distance or at a wall for a long time?

A teacher sat me down and asked me this once, because I did it a lot in school. I want to know what NTs think when they see people (or kids, if that makes a difference..) doing it.

(What it means when I stare at a wall, by the way, is that I'm thinking. I assumed that was something people would be able to figure out... but apparently not?;; So now I suspect it looks like I just have an empty head or something, so please don't be afraid to say if that's what it looks like..)

Question to the NTs:

How does an NT explain meanness to themselves? I ask because, with my lack of Theory of Mind, I'm not able to understand why people are so mean to others, and this is the reason I can't make peace with memories of horrible things people have done to me and my loved ones. If I go to a therapist, they don't understand that my problem is not that I hang on to the pain, but that I can't apply any method to make peace with the memories because I lack the ToM necessary to grasp how these things can happen to start with. I can't make peace with something that I don't understand!

The global answer is because it isn't literally possible to feel another person's pain. You can only guess at it, and after guessing, decide if that is reason enough for you to stop (or not do in the first place) whatever the mean thing is.

Subcategorically to that, there are lots and lots of reasons. Which one applies to an old memory you have or a situation you more recently experienced depends entirely on the experience. Even then, describing the experience may or may not shed light because you can't really know for sure about another person's motivations. You can only make an educated guess.

Here is a very partial list that I've ranked from most benign to most toxic (in my opinion, this is all my opinion, there are no links to back it up):

it wasn't actually mean: I'm sure my daughter thinks it is pure vindictive malice that I've declared certain music and movies off limits. I'm not being mean. I just don't want certain words added to her vocabulary for as long as I can keep her from hearing them. Teens are especially prone to mistaking parental kindness for meaness.

it was mean but it wasn't meant to be: According to several threads this is an Aspie specialty. Of course Aspies have no monopoly on it. Everybody has committed accidental meaness at some point in their lives. I confidentally use the absolute "everybody" because it's such an easy blunder. I'm sure even the Dalai Lamai has done it, although maybe not since he was 15.

it was mean but it wasn't personal: This is the "bad day" or "straw that broke the camel's back" meanness. The person has a pile-up of bad things and lashes out at whatever unsuspecting person happens to cross their path at a particular moment. This is a parent specialty although of course parents have no monopoly on it. It's just that children will inevitably cross their parents' path on that fateful bad day and will inevitably be lashed out at.

meaness that comes from a chronic problem that the person has: This is a meaness that happens frequenly, not just on that bad day, even if the person doesn't in their heart really want to be mean. But they are. This is especially hurtful to children because children have no way of understanding that it is Daddy/Mommy's alcoholism/depression/untreated mental illness/etc. that is causing the meanness and not some fault of their own or anything they did. Therapists see this so often that they can get stuck on it in the adults they treat and be blinded to anything else that is going on.

meaness to build power]stepping on other people not because you specifically wish to hurt them but because they are obstacles in the way of your goal. You don't take literal pleasure in their pain but neither do you have remorse. You just don't think about their pain one way or the other. It's irrelevent. The only relevent thing is how far you go personally or how much wealth you gain.

bonding meaness: this is when a group solidifies its group identity by being mean to somebody who is not in the group. There can't be an Us without a Them. It's at the heart of bullying so every Aspie has been there. Lots of NTs have also been labelled one of Them, not Us and bullied but I think if you are NT you can move process it and box it off and move beyond it because being NT means the ability to gather your own group of Them's together until it becomes Us- and so the Castro District in San Franciso was born, and every other subculture gathering of NT people who got bullied as children. Aspies have a much harder time doing this but various threads show me the desire is strongly there. On a lrger scale, this happens during every political upheaval or war. A group gets scapegoated or is the non-combatant victim of war crimes. It's also at the heart of racism and all other mean acts that arise from an "ism". The group that is Them will be treated with cruelty.

meaness to retain power:you've already got power within your sphere but it will slip away from you if nobody fears you. So you use meaness as the means to an end of maintaining fear. This is the pimp who beats the hookers, the gangsters who shoot through windows in driveby shootings, the organized crime boss who kills snitches and all dictators.

meaness because it's funpure sadism.

meaness to destroy a group:you aren't looking to make them afraid of you or to corrall them into a Them group of outcasts. You want them to just stop existing once and for all. Genocide.

wow Janissy, that helps me very much, thanks! Could you please take a glance at the thread I posted today in The Haven, and tell me if it might be an example of one of your last 6 categories?

Link to thread in The Haven

I've encountered this too, and I am, well, mostly NT. Many people have no way to relate to going inside oneself and contemplating, so they cannot understand it in others. I would assume you are doing what you say you are doing, because I also do this. And I too have been accused of analyzing my navel, or zoning out, or other not so complimentary things. Folks also have difficulty understanding how I could do this and also claim to almost never experience mental silence.

A question for Aspies.

Can you explain the concept of ToM to me? The definitions I have read online are confusing to me because it sounds like not understanding that other people have separate minds, or that another person's mind is different. I don't understand how a person would not obviously know this when they keep tripping over or getting slapped in the face by those differences. There must be something I am not grasping.

Two possibilities come to mind.

meaness that comes from a chronic problem the person has: in this case the often cited, hard to verify, but nevertheless a possibility Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It's all about her. She hurts other people consistently because she takes literally no notice of their feelings. It's not the struggle to understand other people's cryptic feelings that is often discussed here. It's a total lack of trying because other people's feelings aren't important because other people aren't her. And it's all about her. This is an actual lack of empathy.

or maybe it's

meaness to build power: she has an agenda for how she wants her life to be and you and her parents just don't figure into it. "Loyalty is for chumps" is the motto of this person. Anybody who isn't furthering her agenda gets cut loose even if they are family. She's a classic user. Of course lots of people will think the world of her because as long as they are furthering her agenda, she has use for them and so treats them well so as not to alienate them and lose their usefullness. If they ever stop being useful, they will discover her lack of loyalty but then she will have moved on. This sort of person will tend to accumulate financial success because loyalty and ethics can get in the way of acquiring money. As every CEO knows who hasn't been arrested yet.

Thank you, Janissy. Your words did me good. Once in a while I have a crisis about this sister-issue. I think it's the latter possibility, because she kind of said so herself several times, and has shown it with actions too: a person is only worth what they can give her at any given moment in time. I wonder...should we all be like her, seeing as it brings her riches and love and a life just the way she wants to live it and enjoy it?

What's ToM

Willmark, I find that the definitions of symptoms and phenomena of the AS professionals are very underdeveloped and therefore, like the Bible, can be interpreted in as many ways as there are people who read them.

Therefore, I adopted my own definition of ToM. For me, it's the ability a baby is born with (just like the ability to acquire language and the ability to learn how to walk) to acquire an intuitive knowledge of what humans are psychologically like. At ages 3-4, this inborn, latent ability wakes up and the child starts learning, extremely fast and intuitively (unconsciously) the ways they have to interact to get their desired outcomes, based on what works and doesn't work with people. This is when a child starts learning how to manipulate their parents to get them to buy her candy, for example. Or to get their sibling punished instead of themselves.

(I once read a few lines from an internet article where a professional explained it just like I'm explaining it, but the article is not for free so I didn't download it to read it all and I don't have a link.)

Lack of ToM: I'll tell someone something and I'll think it's perfectly OK, and then I'll be all surprised at how they took it. This doesn't happen to NTs. NTs have a general, theoretical, more or less accurate (intuitive) idea of how a human will react to an action or words from them. It's not acquired wisdom from deep analysis, it's not decades of experience, it's an inborn ability that then the child naturally develops as he interacts and relates with other humans.