a curious nt

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Don't mind the hostility nt123. Its great that an NT is curious about what its like to be an aspie.

It is hard for people on a forum to speak for all AS individuals as we're all different. I can try and speculate though.

I sometimes bite my fingernails or pick my skin when I'm focusing/concentrating hard. It's not an easy habit to break as it breaks my concentration if I have to constantly remind myself to abstain. It can also be uncomfortable to abstain, much like it's uncomfortable for smokers to abstain from smoking even though it's often considered socially unacceptable to smoke near non-smokers.

So basically certain quirks and habits are difficult to break for NT and AS alike. It's just that people with AS are likely to have more quarks due to the way their brain is wired.

Also, most people, NT and AS alike, are not 100% aware of thier own behaviors. A lot of behavior gets triggered on a subconscious level. I don't think a lot of people are 100% aware of their posture, gaze, facial expressions, tone and pitch of their voice, etc... 100% of the time either. NT's don't have to "work at" appearing normal as it comes instinctively. For someone with AS though, "appearing normal" won't come instinctively.

Hope this helps.

Probably I was a bit harsh in my reply, specially because I made the reply before reading all the thread and your subsequent posts.

Your mention of that has reminded me my mother used to pick at her cuticles a lot and even to the point where they bled when she had nothing else to do with her hands (like while sitting through sermons), and then my father was constantly telling her to "Stop that!" or even just reaching over and slapping one of her hands away from the other ...

... but I somehow came through all of that just fine, of course ...

Ahem.

I certainly intend no hostility. I want you to feel welcome.

I hope my posts didn't come off as hostile either. I am all for aspies changing and adapting to society. I suppose it was wrong of kids and teachers to tell me to stop pacing? That part was directed at aspies that compared our condition to gays and Jewish and wheelchair people.

I have been contemplating a film concept that would expose the audience to some of what it is like for me to be autistic . . . I was told nobody would sit through it though.

Imagine a film where every face was sensored out - made fuzzy (try to keep track of the charecters) - watch this film wearing a suit made of steel wool (don't pick at yourself!).

Get the sound guy to occasionally distort to create a homogonous sound where the speaker is indistinguishable from the various background sounds - sometimes draw out the wrong sound so instead of hearing the speaker, some other inane sound becomes the focus (try to keep track of the plot) Play with the lighting when these sound distortions occur making it blindingly bright.

Perhaps the charecter has a siezure - everything goes dark

Leave out a few crucial moments - the charecter is disorientated and the veiwer ungrounded from the story line . . . clearly a few moments have been missed (siezure)

Perhaps this charecter is a calculous student (there will be a test at the end of this film)

These are some of the more physical aspects of MY autism - which includes sensory issues and epilepsy- not necessarily the same for everyone . . . but maybe gives you some idea of why someone might be reacting differently if their physical experience of the environment is radically different

I'm not saying that is what it is like for your classmate - If you've met one person with autism




, , ,you've met one person with autism


What I am saying is that there are physiological differences that create the behviours you may be noticing (some are more subtle than these examples but neurological none the less). To understand then what's going on in their minds, you have to ask, what's going on in their bodies.

Don't mistake directness for hostility. For better or worse, Spectrum-ites tend to say exactly what they are thinking, not really intending any offense.

Having reread the entire thread, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that there is any significant hostility towards you. Try to read the posts you believe are hostile from the perspective of the person who wrote it, only this time do it without any emotive context. Although most of us prefer written communication to verbal, the one drawback seems to be that NTs will infer unintended meaning from a simple statement.

Also, if you encounter criticism from a WP user, try not to take that personally. You'll probably find that - from their perspective (or even a neutral one) - the criticism was both non-judgemental and well-reasoned.

Or the short version:

I'd have to say that in MOST instances, we don't even know we are doing x. I've offended an absolute boatload of people throughout my life...and I have NO idea how I did it. Like, so offended, that I made some apparently permanent enemies. And I'm betting most of them have forgotten the specifics but retain the hatred.

So out of frustration, if some people do manage to find out a few things that they were doing that were 'wrong', they just say eff it it doesn't matter, it's not like we can stop it anyway. Because if we learn ONE thing is wrong, it doesn't necessarily follow that a lightbulb will go off in our heads and the REST of the stuff we do will suddenly be recognized. It just doesn't work that way. And quite often, we get it in our heads that if something doesn't offend us personally, it can't possibly be offensive to anyone else.

Us autistics NEED specifics. PAINFULLY DETAILED specifics. Just as others can misinterpret us, so can we misinterpret them. The ambiguous case is a killer. The NT habit of NOT being very detailed/specific can really throw us.

I don't think it's hostility so much as frustration. We put in so much effort to get through the day, and then questions like yours look like "Can't you even do x?". Which probably isn't intended, but it's how it comes across.
Imagine if you had a broken leg, and people were asking "Why won't you even walk?". You'd soon get snappish.

Great post. I always think that if NT's and Aspies could get together somehow and learn from each other it would be a powerful force for change. I would love if we could have a class of some sort that explores this. If they included such a class on the school curiculm it would be a good thing. So before kids leave school they would have an appreciation of how communication is different for everyone and that we should never take for granted that someone else has understood what we have said. Also Aspies would learn which aspects of their behaviour cause the most irritation in NT's. Unfortunately at the moment there are too many people who think their way is right and everyone elses way is wrong.

It is very difficult for Aspies to put themselves in the mind of someone else, especially when they are in their presence interacting with them. That is why we get accused of being rude and ignorant and uncaring. Also the paying attention thing you mention is also extremely hard for aspies. I tend to focus on the one important thing I have to pay attention to (in your example the teacher of the class). It would be too much to then try to pay attention to the rest of the class at the same time. That will lead to overload. Also Aspies don't tend to link social rules together. What I tend to learn in one social situation (like not interrupting or not talking loudly etc) does not get carried over to my next social situation. I think that is true of all aspies. So the guy in your class has no intuitive way of knowing what he should and shouldn't do in each social situation until that social situation is over and he's had time to think if over. But then its too late! And whatever he learns may not get taken into account the next time he is in that situation. Hope this helps.

Yeah. That.

I am pretty well practiced at bumping my way through the NT world, but it's a fools game for me. I repeatedly find out information TOO LATE to deal with socially embedded situations. It's not a choice about ignoring social conventions and cues. I am BLIND to them.



That too. People seem offended for reasons that utterly baffle me. I've been in conversations with my boss where if I say something it will be misunderstood and if I say nothing at all it will be taken as stubborn aloofness. I am well and truly f****d whether I speak or not.

The part about the opening post in this thread, about dressing and presentation really threw me off, so I've responded right away in a way that makes sense to me. I've told it like it is and I might have thrown the OP off. Too often NTs will try to get their AS friends to comform in dress and behaviour without realizing that their unusual clothes might be a part of their identities.