Intuitive Social Situations Demystified

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This is interesting. I'm not sure that I agree that Aspies completely fail to process such things unconsciously. My understanding of ASDs, and what I find for myself, is that we often process things unconsciously but then aren't able to make sense of it until later - the unconscious doesn't reach our conscious in the automatic way that it does for NTs. I can often get a basic sense that I don't like someone or I like someone, and then, because it makes no sense to me, I try to override it with logic. But later I find that my first instinct was correct. For me the real difficulty is about timing and inability to make sense of and respond to multiple things at once in an on-the-spot situation. But I find that I get instincts about people that I learn to put into words later.

Actually, my Aspie nature is a strength because I refuse to follow the herd, so I'm doing it better in the end. I march to my own drum, and I refuse to do it any other way. I have my flaws, but everyone does. And compared to the people around me, my flaws are not that bad. For instance, my friend will freak out about the mess in my house. Yeah, it's just that the kids dumped the toys all over the floor with some dvd's. Well, they can't play with their toys if the toys are constantly put away. I didn't waste money for toys to sit in a chest all day long. So I wait till the end of day or next to clean it. But that's a mess to my friend. I walk in her house, and I wouldn't feel clean bathing in her tub. Sometimes, there's no soap in the bathroom sink. The dishes are being washed with a sponge that is over 30 days old and reeks of some awful odor. I keep trying to tell her to nuke it for 30 seconds and that would kill germs, but what would I know about cleanliness? The toys are always on the floor in my house. Then it's like I must scrub the walls like before the crayon on the wall declares mutiny and takes over. I figure my flaws are easily controlled compared to other peoples only because unlike most people, I'm aspie and waste a lot of my time analyzing myself and creating plans for improvement. And, because I don't follow the herd, in this one example, I know what clean is rather than what the majority declares to be clean. Most people clean for appearances. I clean for health purposes. Instead of focusing on what it looks like, I focus on making sure the environment is not germ or allergy friendly. Now whose approach is more kid friendly?

I do worry that my one year old will soon be diagnosed Aspie just because she learns from me. I also kinda worry that she will have a hard time making friends for that same reason. I obviously refuse to follow the herd, and my children, Aspie or no, will probably learn that from me. That's eventually going to create some problems. Not only with them making friends, but also with authority figures like teachers.

But then I think, if NT's mirror what they see, then why are they incapable of mirroring an autistic person? Think about it, they have no empathy for autism. Sometimes they get a false sense of empathy, like they feel sorry for an autistic child, but how many autistic children really feel sorry for themselves? That's not a mirror effect. I bolded the last part cause it's for everyone to read, and I really want to hear some opinions on that.

That's a very interesting approach. I do talk in circles, so in my case I guess, it wouldn't just be about observations of people. Another place I do that, math. I will see infinity for a second, and then I have no idea how to describe what I saw.

My mother in law, who is not aspie, will act like she won the lottery over the littlest of things. I love it. I can imagine when my husband was a kid and came home with a good report card. I couldn't even imitate it because Spanish is her first language, but I think that might be part of the culture too. Puerto Rico by the way.

When I was a kid, I always got along with everyone's parents better than them, and now that I'm a parent, I too seem to get along better now with the kids than the parents. Funny huh? I guess I was made for a different generation than the one I'm a part of.

Peace sign...love it. Yeah, my hubby is Puerto Rican (obviously), and he works with a bunch of West Virginian union workers. Well he is union too I guess. Either way, these guys are your stereotype Republicans, Pro Life, NRA members.... And, I'm sure to them, my husband looks Mexican. His partner looks like a hippie, so they are known as the Mexican and Hippie.

^ My mother is similarly extra expressive. She has exaggerated facial expressions too, revealing her intense nature.

I reckon this is so because their mirroring system is activated. Such a system is not perfect. Their systems developed from infancy while surrounded by others who share a more or less common non-verbal language. When they encounter someone from another culture or with a different neurology, the system picks up on this. It "mirrors" these non-verbal cues as abnormal and/or how they/someone like themselves would behave if they were depressed, distressed, angry etc.

The system's attached to/includes the emotional centres of the brain, and probably creates a sense of uneasiness and similar emotions around those displaying confusing or unfamiliar non-verbal signals.

So, basically, as us Aspies are using our Aspergers as an excuse for not being social butterflies, the NT's can equally use their mirror neurons as an excuse to not be so accepting of diversity.

There is a distinction between the terms excuse and reason. These things ultimately lead to debates on free will, but for the purposes of general/everyday life, there's an expectation that people overcome their prejudices (or perhaps it's really just to pretend to ) even if the cause of them was involuntary.

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this is also my experience, but perhaps not so acutely. I can feign social contact face to face for brief periods of time. I can even do it well, if prepared. BUT not for long periods of time.
but what happens long term is that people start to notice i say the same things over and over again and express the same problems and issues, am singularly interested in myself and my own special interest and not very cued in to listening to them. Their words bombard, cannot be absorbed and the snatched i can pick up on or follow are boring, uninteresting to me and completely lacking in lustre for the most part.
I also do not know how to cope with the mix of business and pleasure which is par for the course in my profession. It is all business for me. When others want to get "social" i split. yikes. get me out of there and back to the facts.

My career is pretty well run from the internet. I have all my work picked up from home an delivered to galleries. I do most stuff via email and can do the occasional phone call but am known as "have-a-chat" which really should be re-termed "have-a-monologue-on-special-interest."

My intonation is fine although is either too flat OR far too expressive and forced.
My facial expressions can be just downright weird at times - rubbermask....

oh well.

I think your worrying is justified - and is also part of the "normal" parenting process. The good thing is that you being aware of it - and deciding to do something about it is where you can make the difference.

I have two sons halftime, their mother (who is NT) and I separated six years ago. I'm very thankful for having her "balancing me out" when it comes to parenting and she does things that I would not think of. If both parents have AS, I guess the situation is more difficult and you need to find other ways to balance things - but you *can* do something about it.

Sorry if this was a bit off topic

/T

No, it's not too off topic, and I'm the one who brought it up. And, I'm not positive my husband is Aspie. If he isn't though, he still has a lot of Aspie like tendancies.

Since my family doesn't spend too much time with me, I'm getting ready to move back to my old neighborhood I grew up in high school in. It's a very normal community, and it's a close knit community. And, my best friend from high school still lives there and is looking forward to spending more time with me. Her kids are a little older than mine, but still young enough to be going through a lot of things my kids go through. So, it's cool.

See, I always defined an excuse as the reason someone might excuse their behavior, like pretend it's okay. For instance, I can't come to work today because I'm sick. But, a reason is the reason behind the behavior which in no way excuses the behavior but kinda helps one identify where the problem is. Like, I didn't do the dishes last night because the kids kept getting into things and I gave up trying. So, it's not that I'm saying I never have to do dishes again becuase the kids get into things everytime I try, but I'm saying that why I didn't do it last night, and it's an issue, and I will be more apt to do the dishes more frequently if I can resolve the issue of the kids getting into things.

In the NT world, they flip flop this. I miss work today because I'm sick. THat's okay, you shouldn't work when your sick. Nobody else wants your sickness. So, it's not an excuse. It's just a normal reason to not go to work. But if I am late for work and they ask why, and I say because I think I'm getting sick and I was busy vomiting for a good half hour, then they say that's no excuse. With them, I think the difference between excuse and reason is that, when you don't do something you should, or you do something you shouldn't, an excuse is a reason they don't justify, and a reason is a reason they do justify. Like if I told my mom I was late for work because the alarm clock didn't go off, she would consitute that as an excuse because she wakes up every morning at the same time with or without an alarm clock. My best friend or husband would see it as a reason that most workplaces don't care if it happens or not. Why? Because it happens to them all the time, so they understand where I'm coming from, and they would justify it, but they also realize people like your boss isn't going to care why you are late, no matter how good the reason is.

Maybe it might be better said that NT's see excuses as you giving a reason you think it's okay to be bad, but it's not okay to the person you are dealing with.

Either way, it's just confusing, and I think it's ridiculous that NT's make such a big issue out of excuses. I have to deal with their laziness and ignorance on too many occasions for any one of them to spit back at me about me making excuses, especially when the situation doesn't pertain to them and is frankly none of their business. Like if the only time a friend is going to stop by my house is to pick up some money I'm giving them to help them out of a jam, then the nature of my house whether it be the dishes or clutter is none of their business. They are just not here enough otherwise to have a right to an opinion on the subject. I, on the other hand, have every right to complain and criticize and play the role of "that's no excuse" to their financial management system because I seem to be the one (the person too incompetant to listen to because she has toys all over her floor and crayon on her wall) bailing them out. Either way, the word excuse is obviously a touchy subject for me. I really wish it was tangible so I can literally shove it up some people's....


Now, I do have one topic that totally disproves this mirror neuron theory. Sleep Deprivation. It's virtually impossible for anyone who got a good nights sleep to feel empathetic toward someone who hasn't slept in days.

Like you, my first glance was also at the boxes, and wondering if they were going to topple- (at one point it looked as if the top ones were going to fall). However, as the narrator was talking about empathy, I became really curious about that subject and decided to look at the people. This whole section with the boxes I found really fascinating! It looked to me like the people were staring at him blankly- (was there an expression on their faces? He called it empathy- did anyone else see that?) It reminded me that it has often happened to me before, when I´ve struggled with an extra heavy suitcase, or limped across the street because I was injured, that people have stared at me like that. Whenever this happened, I was always totally annoyed, thinking people were just staring at me because I looked out of the ordinary. However, maybe they were actually experiencing empathy??? Maybe I shouldn´t have been angry about that all those times???

Funny enough, if I had seen that man with the boxes, I probably would have felt no empathy towards him, but I would have probably just seen the problem as a problem, and, as a practical solution to the problem, I most likely would have asked if he needed help. I found it odd that those people all stared at him, yet did nothing!

I seem to also experience characteristics of mirror-neuron deficits. I guess one example of that is that I didn´t know until middle of last year that the phrase "feeling empathy"meant that one is supposed to have the SAME feeling as the person you´re empathizing with!

I remember once, I was rushed to the hospital because I had a horrible pain. I was told I needed an immediate operation, and it was unclear if I had cancer or not- (I didn´t, luckily). Well, I started to cry, because I was in a foreign country, it was my first operation, I didn´t know if I was dying, I´m freaked out by doctor stuff, etc. After awhile, I looked up and about 6 nurses were crying too! This TOTALLY terrified me: I was convinced they had some information they weren´t telling me, and that they knew I was going to die. I realize, though, that must have been empathy. At the time, I had no idea that the simple act of my crying could make all those other people cry...strange....

There are times, though, when my mirror neurons definitely do fire. Most specifically, when I see a cute young child or a baby discovering the world, playing in water or playing with a puppy and laughing hysterically, for instance. When I see a child laughing, I immediately feel happy. I think I experience more empathy with children. Maybe this is a maternal instinct? Although some of you mentioned you feel more comfortable with younger people, maybe that´s part of the same thing? With people more my age, I tend to feel the empathy-in-theory kind of thing.

What´s interesting about these mirror neuron studies so far is that they seem to have focused mainly on the visual. However, there must be another way to fire these neurons. For instance, how does a blind person experience empathy? In terms of AS people, I wonder if they´ve experimented at all with words and/or music, and see if that triggers any of these neurons. I know there are certain phrases, even whole passages in books, that bring me to tears. Likewise, different types of music; one can feel empathy with the expression in the music. In terms of feeling empathy, for me it often seems to be easier if it´s a combination of factors: situation- (i.e., I see the whole background story involved so I know what´s happening), words, maybe even music (like in a movie). That seems easier than just seeing someone´s face, out of context.

I think the point of empathy is one, you have to experience it at some point to have a basis. Like the monkeys grabbed the peanut (was it a peanut?). Then, when they see someone else do the same thing that they've experienced, they have the same emotions as if they were doing it themselves. Two, it's not about getting any feeling. It's about getting the feeling of you doing it yourself. Like I get emotional watching the movie Delta Force during the scene that the terrorists call up Jews to the front of the plane. I've never experienced watching any type of discrimination against the Jewish people outside of television and history class. I, myself, am not Jewish. But I cry every time. THat's sympathy. Not empathy. Now, if I watch an episode of Law and Order SVU, and I see a rape victim sitting in the police station answering all the questions, and I feel incredibly uncomfortable watching it because it reminds me of when I had to answer questions like that about my rape, then I'm feeling empathy. Someone else watching who has never been raped might feel sympathy for the character.

Now, as far as music is concerned, I think empathy can play a role in lets say a person who sings, and they don't have to sing well, just have to have tried it. Now, when they watch someone sing a high pitch, you almost see their faces make the similar face expressions as if they were singing it high pitch. Possibly also, maybe someone who plays a piano sonata might experience some of the same emotions to playing that song when they hear it.

I would assume a blind man could feel empathy when hears sounds associated to his experiences. It's just my guess on the situation.

But again I will repeat myself from a previous post, I don't think it works when we get into the issue of sleep deprivation. Just about everyone has gone a long time without sleep at some point in their lives. Variables do play a role like your age. Either way, people who have experienced sleep deprivation seems to lack both empathy and sympathy when they see someone else sleep deprived. I'm curious if sleep deprivation makes them forget, so then we have a memory issue. What if the monkey forgot he ever had that peanut, would he still have the mirror neuron effect when the lab tech grabbed it? Then, of course, it makes you wonder if forgetting plays a role not only on the conscious level, but also the subconscious level.

Also the yawning thing, mythbusters did an experiment with that and had a hard time getting people to yawn.

And second, what about sleep? I've never noticed people get tired watching someone else sleep. Am I wrong on that? Do people normally get tired when they watch people sleep?

Isn't the problem just context? Thats all it is for me, I've realized. Like, you're somewhere, a party for example, and all you're doing is 'being' there. The people all around you are actually 'in the party'. You don't have that context in your mind.

Lets say you go to work. Once there, you just try and preform the actions required for your job, but at the same time, you are strictly just there. Your mind doesnt have the context of you being at work, and when you leave, you feel no different, there is no 'getting off of work', there is just you leaving.

I feel like if I can somehow get brought back into their world, my 'asperger's' will not be a problem.

And really, for me, it all depends on situation. Some places i get it more than other places. I am always just being, but in some places i understand the context better.

That is why social interaction is so difficult sometimes. You're just there, trying to accomplish what you want to do, but you fail to grasp the context of the situation for everyone else involved. And I think this is something we can learn to understand. Through experience.

Edit: and let me clarify that while I know i am at the party I am not really in the party. Maybe to the others I am, but not in my reality. Ya dig?