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

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Thanks, O. I just wish people would answer my requests with

1. No thanks
2. Here is a suggestion, or
3 Get lost.

At least I would know. But when she ignored countless requests i got the message. But I would not do this to others. I would rather tell them, even in writing, NO.

But, it meant I had to do it myself. And I am glad I could. [/quote]<<

Hey, did ever get to your mind that she maybe wanted to send you what you asked for but, just didn't find a time. Maybe she has small kids, or sick husband, or hectic job or something else happened. Did you bothered to find out why she is not responding? Maybe you did something rude or unplite so it is payback. You gave her complete negative review. ) Then again, maybe she deserves it! Well, ASPIs are same. Do you think that final result is any different, if she would say your honest "NO!!" or "Get lost!" Then, you would torment yourself, asking - why she didn't give me? And for suggestion - you found it just fine without her input - didn't you? She is not smarter than you are! Well, if you want something done good way - do it yourself! Greetings! )

<<

Hey, did ever get to your mind that she maybe wanted to send you what you asked for but, just didn't find a time. Maybe she has small kids, or sick husband, or hectic job or something else happened. Did you bothered to find out why she is not responding? Maybe you did something rude or unplite so it is payback. You gave her complete negative review. ) Then again, maybe she deserves it! Well, ASPIs are same. Do you think that final result is any different, if she would say your honest "NO!!" or "Get lost!" Then, you would torment yourself, asking - why she didn't give me? And for suggestion - you found it just fine without her input - didn't you? She is not smarter than you are! Well, if you want something done good way - do it yourself! Greetings! )[/quote]

For Andrijana topic

You are right. And I did get the info from another source. Not everyone is as fast as I am to respond. Must quickly send letter of thanks.

For British Iles Aspies:

Is there one place in the UK where there is a higher concentration of Autistics? I ask because many of the English ancestors I have been searching (on mother's and father's side) seem to come from one particular area in South west part of England. Just wondering, or maybe just a coincidence? I live in Barrie, Ontario, Canada.

NT's: do you remember the details of conversations that took place between yourself and other people after like, let's say, several weeks that passed since then, let alone months or whole years? And, regardless of the answer concerning YOU, do you think it's typical for neurotypical people to store the memories on the details of the conversations for a long period of time or do they rather forget them very soon? Are NT's as a whole generally able to elicit them from their memory after a longer time that has passed since the conversation?

I think in images, feelings and sounds. It depends. Any images that I got from hearing the conversation, I will remember. Images tend to stick in my memory forever. Sometimes years later, particularly if my feelings got hurt, all I will remember is how it made me feel, but more recent things, or if the event impressed me, or effected me intensely for some reason, or whatever, I will recall it in all six senses, and it plays in my mind like a recording. I call it re-experiencing memory. However people, NT's included, have different learning styles, and some people have better memory that others. It is hard to answer this generically because everyone is different.

I am one who does what I call reprocessing. This is where my brain, at a time when I have some solitude will bring up memories of things read, or conversations heard, and it will replay them like a recording. And it's during this time that things will occur to me that I didn't think of during the time that I was experiencing it, and I often think of something that I want to ask the person who said something, some question that didn't occur to me when I heard it the first time, and about half the time, the person has long since forgotten that they were even saying what I was asking about, so there's no way to get my question answered. This happens with NT's and I am an NT. You see, it just depends.

Last edited by willmark on 26 Feb 2010, 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes. Not a very satisfying answer, I know, but I can clarify. For myself, I can remember details that occurred days and weeks ago from conversations that occurred when I was under stress or my adrenaline was running high, such as certain work-related or family-related conversations. However, for most casual conversations, it is very difficult for me to recall details of the conversations. This is one reason I keep a journal, to mark down the details of important conversations.



I won't generalize or typify NT behavior because I don't relate to most NTs, and I don't think its possible or even fair to generalize NT behavior like this. In my experience, people are all over the place in terms of behavior/memory and are individuals. I have met NTs with incredible memories that are able to recall details of conversations and experiences well into the past. I have also met NTs with very poor memories. Again, probably not a very satisfying answer...but its truthful.

Hope this helps

Memory is a fascinating thing, so that's a cool question, Irulan!
Why are you asking, specifically? I'd have actually guessed that some people on the autism spectrum are far better at this than NTs in general.

In my experience

1) As DenvrDave says, some people have good memories and some have really bad ones. Mine is pretty bad except when it comes to something my husband did wrong ten years ago. :p. (When this got mentioned at a family gathering, both my mother in law and my mother burst out laughing and all the men rolled their eyes, so I figure it's a gender based habit.)
2) People will remember some conversations better than others
3) Which conversations they remember doesn't necessarily relate to how important these conversations were to them
4) In fact, very often, conversations that people seem to remember clearly they often remember wrongly. Their perception and therefore their memory of the event is coloured and if you were to present them with a transcript of what was actually said, they would be surprised - they'd have sworn it was different!
5) A lot of memory you seem to remember most clearly (you can repeat word for word) is actually a secondary memory. That is, people have told you about your trip to the zoo as a kid. Or you yourself have spent time telling someone of that trip, or fantasizing about it later so often, that what you remember is actually the bits you told other people, or yourself. Memorising techniques cash in on this tendency.

To sum it up, I can remember details from some conversations, but those are usually ones I wrote in my diary later, or told to others, or obsessed about again and again shortly afterwards. And what's more, I'm pretty certain that the exact words I am remembering are actually wrong.
The things I remember from my conversations are the kinds of things I am interested in: I will instantly forget the person's company name, real name, and any other factoids generally considered important, but will remember for ages that the person has a difficult relationship with his uncle. It drives my husband nuts because his interests are exactly the opposite.
I will remember conversations with strangers, but only have the basic details of the conversation my mum had with me when she threatened to throw me out of the house as a teenager - even though the latter is clearly more important.

Did that help?

Thank you all for your detailed answers I didn't expect the answers to be posted so soon and be so helpful I wanted to compare the experiences of neurotypical people with mine because I always remember such details (in majority of cases at least) and I couldn't imagine how it could be for NT's.

I have also some other question: a belief I often find expressed in the texts by psychiatrists is that aspies have often severe difficuties with imagining they're someone else. Well, I am able to imagine easily that I am someone else but only in the sense of someone being in a different position, like living in a different time/place, being old/child, "filthy rich"/living in extreme poverty, being male etc. but my imagination fails me when I'm trying to imagine myself having different opinions and ways of thinking than mine. Is it ever possible to imagine something like that?

Hmmm. You think you can imagine what it's like to be a guy eh? I used to think I could imagine what it was line to be woman until I started reading threads of posts written by women, especially of them talking about their frustrations of dealing with how women experience sexual attraction, and other things that are experienced only by women, and soon discovered I was clueless on what it would be like to be a woman. There are many things that they face on a daily bases that would not occur to me unless the explained it to me. By the same token I really don't think you can really imagine what it's like to be a guy either, though it amazes me how often women think that they can.

But that doesn't answer your question. Yes it can be hard to imagine what it's like say to be a different personality type than mine. I can read many posts that were written by people who have a different personality type and get to where I can recognize people who have that type by recognizing patterns in things they say about themselves, and I can get to where I am almost able to convince them by knowing what to say, that I am one of them, but that doesn't mean I know what it's like to be them.

I can relate to attributes that I have in common with them, and with experiences that I have also experienced, and I can take similar experiences, like I don't know what it's like to be bullied for misreading verbal cues, but I know what it's like to be bullied because my voice hadn't changed by age 16. However, lack of acceptance probably feels very similar regardless of why you aren't being accepted so on that basis I might know how it might feel to you to be bullied. Does that make sense? I can place myself into your shoes and try to imagine what it might be like for me to experience what you go through. And if you tell me what it's like to live in your shoes, translate that to what you can do and what you can't do, and sometimes I can glean that from your descriptions of your experiences, I sometimes can develop a mental image maybe of how you feel in your shoes. You see it's not easy for me either.

Is any of this answering your question?

And now that I have given you a nice long wordy answer, you will get other responses that will explain it much better than I did.

If one doesn't feel any attachment to the concept of their being a member of a particular sex, I don't see any problem with their imagining they are a representative of a different sex than they actually belong to. When I happen to read discussions on boards dominated by women, it feels like I was reading posts written by beings belonging to a completely different species, I'd compare it to a situation when I arrived at a different planet the inhabitants of which are completely different mentally than earthlings. They have such weird problems, I just can't put myself into their shoes. I even don't ever come to the Women Discussions section in here. In fact, practically the only reason for my coming to female boards is that I hope that I'll find some funny (to me, at least) topic which will be a source of a good laugh to me I can relate to males much, much better.

I understand how you feel except from the opposite direction. I find I have almost nothing in common with most guys. In debates between a woman and a guy, I find myself relating more to the woman's point of view much more often than the guy. Of course I don't relate real well often to what I call girly girl women either. If I let myself, I can become convinced that I am really a third gender; still heterosexual, but not really like either male or female stereotype. I find I have the most in common with Tomboys like yourself, but Tomboys are still female and there is always a point in which I can't totally relate. After all I am still male. At those points it can feel really lonely for me. You see, guys who are sensitive, kind hearted who cry easily because they love deeply, also tend to hide those attributes in themselves to try to gain acceptance by reshaping themselves trying to fit the male stereotype, and most guys who fit the stereotype, tend not to be very relational, and when they are attempting to be relational, I find myself not really relating to their way of doing it. Most guys are only interested in women for romantic relationships, and likewise most women seem to only be interested in men for that motivation. My interest in women, except for my interest in my wife, is for platonic relationships. Most guys believe that platonic relationships with people of the opposite gender is impossible. Go tell my female friends that.

I have a question for anyone who knows about maintaining friendships.

I have one real life friend, she's NT (gosh I hate that term!), very nice to me and knows about my AS but it still doesn't make our interractions any easier. I get tired very quickly when I'm with her because she's a very active, talkative person and I'm a quiet person who never knows what to talk about. The whole time I'm around her I'm constantly thinking of what to say next, even to the extent of mentally planning a conversation an hour ahead of time. Sometimes it just gets too much and I need to be by myself but I don't know how to tell her this. Then I end up shutting down and not wanting to do any activities or talk, and she thinks it's because of something that she has done wrong but it isn't. My question is...How do I explain to her that I have a limit on the amount of socialization that I can take before it becomes too much? Also, what do I do when I'm around her and my brain has gone into shutdown mode?

Thank you.

I'm not sure if this was the right place to ask this so if it wasn't then please let me know.

Yes, this is a good place to ask your question. It may not be the only place. I am non AS, but I, like you, am an introvert, or as you put it, a quiet person. In my opinion, your responses might be typical AS, but your issue is a personality difference. I would probably have problems with your situation too. For introverts, the verbal interaction tends to be very draining, even for non AS introverts. People who are extroverted are energized by verbal interactions. Your friend is giving you what energizes her, probably assuming it energizes you too, and when it exhausts you instead she assumes it's her fault. Introverts need frequent periods of solitude to recoup their energy. I expect this is nothing new to you. Perhaps your friend would benefit by gaining some understanding of introversion. You might want to go Google the word 'introvert' and then go read about yourself.

As for shutdown, I am not totally sure I understand what exactly that involves. Perhaps someone here who is AS could give you some good suggestions. I may experience it but think of it in other terms, I don't know. However, I assume that when your brain has gone into shutdown mode, what you need is rest and solitude. Your friend just needs to understand that this is not about her.

Hi Brittany, the best explanation I have seen for what you are experiencing was recently described as having a "social battery." I think everyone (even NTs) has a social battery that gets run down and needs to be re-charged from time to time. The thing is, everyone's social battery has a different capacity and in some people it runs down very quickly and in others it lasts longer. You can read about this analogy here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt120383.html

As far as what to do when the brain goes into shutdown mode, one suggestion is more communication with your friend. Perhaps talk with your friend ahead of time, in a quiet place, and explain how you feel and what happens...before it happens. This way, your friend may be more understanding if/when it does happen. Maybe ahead of time you and your friend could select a codeword like "shutdown" where, if you say this word, your friend will know what's going on and not take it personally. We used this method successfully with my son, who had a codeword for shutdown mode. Of course, this will require understanding and patience on your friend's part.

Best of luck!

Willmark – my friend knows that I’m an introvert and I know that I’m an introvert. It’s just that she always wants to be doing something active and talkative and when I’m not wanting to or when I want to do something more quiet, she thinks that it’s boring or that I don’t want to be around her (which isn’t true). It’s a problem that we’ve had since the first time we met. Maybe we’re just both really bad at trying to do what each other wants, I don’t really know.

DenvrDave – I actually posted in the thread about the social battery and didn’t connect that to the problems I was having with my friend until now. Thanks for letting me know, I guess that sometimes I miss the obvious. I will also try to explain to my friend about what it’s like when my brain goes into shutdown mode but I don’t know how to explain it. Any suggestions? I mean, I know you can’t tell me how I feel but I wouldn’t even know where to start in a way that she would understand. It’s a good idea about having a code word though.

I don't know Brittany, that's a difficult, profound question that poets and philosophers have struggled with for ages...how to express our feelings and our "inner world" in plain language. An analogy for example, "when my brain wants to shut down it feels like being really, really tired, and I cannot even think straight." Poetry? I think that a true friend would want to, and try to understand what you are trying to convey. So I think the important thing is...try your best. Good luck, hang in there

Do you think your friend might be able to understand this:

http://www.ingridloosmiller.com/files/SI-SDinAutism.pdf