From a NT's view

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I really need some help with this. I have just taken a bus ride to the nearest big city. Although it is a fairly dull day my eyes were screwed up as it seemed bright but sunglasses would have been too much and I had none with me as I was expecting rain. I took note of the sounds such as the bus accelerating, squeaky brakes when slowing down, a general squeaking of the seats etc. people talking on phones, the sound of other traffic when the bus was at a stop and so on. As I was walking home I could hear each car engine sound, noting the ones that sound like they need attention and I was aware of a noise like a clock ticking coming from something banging against my handbag. Surely that is what everyone hears? If I am in a noisy room, I am it the only person who finds it difficult to hear what is said in conversation so what is the difference. Or have I spent 60 years oblivious to sensory issues?
I am now sitting in my living room with the windows open and I can hear my dog's claws on a hard floor, lots of distant traffic noise, birds singing an occasional car passing outside and a fly buzzing. Is that not what everyone hears? There is also a sort of 'white noise' going on as well but I don't have tinnitus.

I was born about ten years after you, but yes I know what you mean, we were the only house on our street with a telephone. And we would play in the middle of the road because there were so few cars. So the world was generally a much quieter place back then!

Panddora:

Like that, except I still wear sunglasses when it's overcast or raining. Still too bright.

It's difficult for both sides but imagine lacking the skills to make small talk, suffering from a mild to severe stutter (unrelated to AS), not understand social cues and being the outcast because of this, and all the other traits required to maintain friendships. All this stems from AS. I am not trying to provide a excuse for out shortcomings but this is the underlining truth.

Panddora - You can always get some lightly tinted glasses that reduce the glare and wear them all the time. I avoid public transport myself, I ride a bike most places and it's good to keep the flies out of your eyes too. I like a sun hat with a brim in the summer as well.

My hearing is hyper sensitive too, but still can not discern one voice from another in a crowded room either.

Thank you for the advice - my mum used to wear tinted glasses and I thought they looked silly as she didn't need to wear glasses, whereas I was short sighted and needed glasses or contacts and I am vain! I only took the bus because I now have a travel pass as I am of pension age! I think it is a new obsession as I have downloaded all the timetables and am determined to take advantage of this free travel. I love riding a bike but traffic is too scary for me, I know people who have had bad accidents locally.

You could wear rose tinted spectacles while cruising around on your new transport of choice.

Seriously, the glasses I wear are safety glasses that I also use for work. They are good because the tinting is not too dark, are tough, relatively cheap and come in lots of styles. Will also keep dust out of your eyes if you wear contacts.

I use Bolle as the quality is good and the styling suits me, available in the UK. Easy to buy any brand from tool/hardware stores or on the internet where ever you are.

Enjoy your new freedom. Best wishes. NW.

I am NT, although I tend to be quite shy in person and have difficulty maintaining eye contact, particularly with men - probably due to low self esteem. I can imagine that being unable to read body language and not understanding how to behave, what to say or what is expected when speaking to people must be unimaginably difficult - I see it in my son every day and I know how he struggles. Sometimes he has a look that says "I have no idea what I am supposed to do now" - it's heartbreaking...

In reply to the first post:

I don't think we as NTs can judge if the traits those with ASD say are part of their ASD are valid. I don't think we can judge them as "over the top" or anything else. How can we claim to know more? How could an NT claim to know what it is like to be on the spectrum? (We can't.) (We can speculate and estimate but, are you really saying what they say isn't valid?)

I also think that for people to ask others if this or that is an autism trait, is perfectly valid. How else to find out?

You also seemed upset about the way NTs were discussed. No one here says NTs don't have it rough at times also. I think stick around a while longer. I feel accepted here, and I am an NT and I don't hide that fact.

But I know I'm a guest here so to speak and so if someone needs to vent about NTs once in a while I don't mind that. Where else is that person going to feel safe doing so?

Thank you

Double thank you.

I think it's good to keep in context. The human condition is a spectrum too, the NDs occupy one part of it, the NTs another.
It's also important to remember that NDs can not know what it is like to experience the world as an NT, it goes both ways. All we can do, on both sides, is try and explain the differences to those that want to listen.

Shellfish - As long as you support your kids when they are confused, you will be the best mum that a mum can be.

Last edited by neilson_wheels on 24 Jul 2013, 8:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've found another video.
A warning--it is incredibly annoying.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3af5JJ3DRJU[/youtube]

This will probably not be a popular message as I am not selling warm and fuzzy here at the expense of enquiry (not to imply the person quoted is, but this message just fits in with what I want to say). I have just read the entire thread some of the messages more than once, and it is kind of sad.

Yes, it is a form of social bonding---you have made a good point-- but it is also very often a form of venting negative emotions based on a grudge. Also this division of the world into nt and aspie is a form of encapsulation, meaning putting a wall around one perceived aspect of oneself including this or that kind of sensory functioning that is then experienced as exaggerated.

By the way I have extreme sensitivity to light and am practically helpless on a sunny day without sunglasses as I would fall over a crack on the sidewalk or down a step because it would be whited out by the light. This is genetic. I also am a synesthesiac, also probably genetic---and have always seen letters as the same specific colors from the first day I learned the alphabet and have seen and can see all kinds of unusual sensory effects, such as for fifteen years saw bright neon lights coming out of people's bodies and my own at times.....plus have poor facial recognition and it can be delayed for a couple of seconds...and people sometimes think I am snubbing them, .plus tourette;s (very mild) plus have to carry ear plugs on the bus...plus am extremely sensitive to perfume....but here is the thing: It is not this simple...plus also have some kind of brain damage from a lot of concussions......

A lot of people and many here on WP have psychological disorders and because of this tend to exaggerate what they are experiencing. It is a product of their own brain function, and some of it is genetic--this cannot be denied, but there is a tendency for certain kinds of brains to encapsulate as a form of self protection. This would be one aspie characteristic, if not even the main one that makes them/us different from so called nt's, though nt's could do it too. Yes, there is a strong genetic component, but the way it plays out can be affected and exaggerated by psychological disorder.

So a person can say his problem is because he is an aspie and then play that up so as to never really look at the psychological disorder. I see this a lot here, and it is very sad, as these are very unique and special people who have so much to give to society, and so many are cutting themselves off, but even worse, encouraging others to do the same..

From my perspective, though it is delight to see that many people here are so much like myself---a real delight---such a realization does not solve social problems or lead to inner happiness, and to see so many people suffering who are kind of clueless about how to help themselves, and to see them deflecting the possibility to help themselves by blaming and scapegoating so called nt's rather than studying their own brain function and learning how to function better is really heartbreaking. I can understand it feels warm and fuzzy and is a form of social bonding to stick together with ones own kind, and I see no harm in that, but to encapsulate even further from such an angle is, as I see it, damaging both to oneself, to other aspies and even to humanity in general.

Discussing categories as "autistic" and "NT" is not a new thing, and autistic people were already "encapsulated" from everyone else long before the word "neurotypical" was coined to address the fact that there are labels to describe autistic people but there weren't any labels to describe so-called "normal" people. This concept is discussed in sociology as "unmarked." The idea of labeling people as "neurotypical" is somehow the problem is completely backwards. The labeling was already there, the problems were already there, and the NT label is intended to address that.

Seriously: For 40-50 years, "autistic" is a label applied to a minority of the population, who were often treated badly (warehoused, for example), although this was not always consistent. Clinicians used this label with those identified autistic to claim that such children would never be capable of many things that, as it turned out, many were capable of.

Then someone comes up with the term "neurotypical" and somehow this is what causes encapsulation and segregation?

I am also hesitant to accuse people of exaggerating their difficulties or of making difficulties that are not part of autism into autism for the sake of not getting better. Unless they explicitly say something to this effect, I just don't see how to extrapolate from what people do say. I have encountered a predisposition among many people of many labels to dismiss or minimize the difficulties that disabilities can cause, and it's no less common on this forum than anywhere else.

grahamguitarman & neilson_wheels: you're welcome.

Verandi, if you are replying to my message which is at the end of the previous page, I appreciate your feedback but you seem to have almost entirely missed the gist of what I was saying. nor do you seem to get what is meant by encapsulation, or at least what I am meaning in the way I am using it. Perhaps it is because It is a kind of difficult concept to articulate. Anyway, the way a person frames what they see is the doorway to freedom or it also can turn into a jail.

Yes, of course people use labels to escape from facing certain things, and the way they mentally organize material is logically to protect themselves from further suffering, and I think many if not most people do that. It does not matter that so called nt's were labeling autistics. To me that kind of reasoning is over-generalizing and not helpful, though it may seem (meaning feel helpful to some at the time.

I knew this message would not hit the mark with most here, but it is my opinion and something I have thought about very deeply ..but I am open to seeing it from a different angle if someone can show it to me.. This is just a preliminary reply as I do not have time to write more now. And again, I do appreciate your opinion.

littlebee.