Living among mind readers

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I wrote this when trying to describe what life is like to my NT counselor.

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A man was exploring an uncharted region of the world and encountered an isolated community of people who could read each others minds. They had the capability of opening up their thoughts for transmission to each other, and likewise they could close their thoughts at will but doing this was considered very rude among them. This mind reading was accepted as normal among the community, and they had developed their own social rules for its use. Fascinated, the man decided to take up camp among the apparently friendly and accepting community of mind readers for a time to get to know them better.

When the explorer met these people, of course he could not read their minds, and they could not read his. They viewed this as a deliberate act of the explorer closing of his own mind to them. They thought, what a peculiar fellow. He should be willing to open up his mind like the rest of us do. They brought this to his attention as an admonishment, and when the explorer explained that he was unable to read their minds, they did not quite believe him because after all, everybody can read minds. They said he was being stubborn and self centered closing his mind off like that. They let him know how rude he was behaving, and that he needed to be more considerate of others. The man was confused with the strange social dynamics of the community. More than half of their interpersonal communication was done through mind reading. Everyone knew what each other was thinking, and seemed to respond easily to one another. But when the explorer tried to interact with them, he was given responses of frustration because he did not pick up on what the other people were thinking. This offended the mind readers, and they started to rebuke the man for he was being rude and inconsiderate toward others, not even taking their clearly projected thoughts into account like any truly caring person would.

Constant accusations of only "living in his own world" became frustrating and nobody understood or even believed that he was simply unable to read their minds. The explorer felt frustrated and alone. He did not wish to offend others, but it seemed to happen so often he decided that it was easier to spend time alone where he would not be viewed as rude and inconsiderate. The man spent many hours alone in his hut crying and praying to the Lord to give him the gift of reading minds so he would be accepted by the others. In his heart, he felt the Lord saying, "My grace is sufficient for you. Remember, the world did not accept Me either." This helped some, but he never was able to form close relationships with the mind readers.

In April, I met a woman whose job is working with kids with AS and who gives education seminars for NTs to help them understand AS better. I told her a similar story to yours.... "Imagine waking up one day on an isolated island nation. You don't speak the language or understand the customs. You try to learn, but it is slow going, and the natives are impatient and unhelpful. Worse than that, the social customs seem to change all the time, so that what was acceptable one day is rude the next. That is what it's like to be an Aspie." She said that was a great description, and asked if she could repeat it in her talks. I said I wished she would. She said, "You are what I hope my students will grow up to be like," and I said, "Thank you, but I hope they grow up a lot better!" I bet she would love your story, too! I hope you get to share it with others.

This is a very good piece. If I ran a journal, I would publish it.

I like this!

Whatever high-minded morals or philosophies a society seems to have---whether it is a Christian version of the golden rule 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' or an Islam version 'No man can truly call himself a Muslim unless he wishes for his brother what he wants for himself,' or a Jewish version 'What is hateful to you do not do unto another. That is the whole law; all the rest is commentary.'---(single quotes because I'm not quite sure, but these are awfully close), or if we want to go further afield and find Hindu or Buddhist versions of the golden rule, once someone is 'different' . . . wow . . . for the smallest reason all that can be swept away oh so easily. Just because a more 'normal' member of society experiences petty frustration? Yes, yes, it many cases that seems to be so. And then the person intellectually justifies this spur-of-the-moment mistreatment and we have this whole dynamic put in place of this downward spiral (the 'mainstream' person seems to lack the skill of easy and matter-of-fact recovery). And the 'different' person almost has to have exceptional skills to step to the side and opt out of this downward spiral. And if you had these exceptional social skills, well, you probably wouldn't face these situations to begin with, now would you.

Well, I have kind of decided, since I'm not going to be a good follower, I might as well be a leader! Much more straightforward anyway. And a number of things have helped me, including political activism, including seeing Schindler's List in 1994, including various sales job. A number of skills, I can learn in my own way. It's about engagement, not conformity. Of course things both fail and succeed, for all kinds of quirky, offbeat, impossible-to-predict-in-advance reasons. It is just about taking the next medium good step.

hmm, well, as a Christian, I believe in absolute morality, but my point is more out of a frustration of not being accepted, rather than a retaliatory response. We are supposed to love our neighbors, but then again one would hope they would love us in return and not view us in a judgmental way just because we don't pick up on their social protocols. When I speak to my counselor about this, I'm trying very hard to draw a clear line of separation between true and apparent misbehavior. As I pointed out to him, you cannot unintentionally sin. I think this is a good argument. The aspie unintentionally neglects and offends others. This is mainly due to their not understanding our limitations of social interaction. When we "love others" it may very well look different than it does when they love others. This does not make it wrong, as we are still fulfilling the command to love others. With the story I'm really trying to help the NT person relate to what its like living in an aspie mind surrounded by NT people.

And I do believe in the statement of doing to others as you would have them do to you, but this is meant in a much more general sense than literal "I would like an ice cream cone, therefore I shall give him an ice cream cone because I like them. The context is in being good to others in general. If you want kindness, show kindness. If you want love, show love. Etc.

wow its really good Recon, you explain very well. As Mindslave mentioned, you should publish it!

Shadi

Thanks. I'm glad I wasn't off base with the analogy. Amazingly, my NT counselor actually didn't see the parallels.

Very good!

In that case, I would question their competence to counsel anyone with an AS"D". If they can't see the - blindingly obvious - parallels, then how can they possibly understand what is going on in your life?

That really is amazing. Now, he or she might be good in other regards, or might not.

Very very well written. My focus is poor today so I will try to read it properly later. You haven't read Country of the Blind by any chance?

I agree with thewanderer, I don't understand how he/she can possibly NOT see the obvious parallels.

Nope, haven't read it. Looking at the wikipedia link for it though, it looks interesting. I read the plot summary just now and I think I would be extremely frustrated reading that book because I can imagine so many creative ways to "prove" sight to a community which has never experienced sight. I certainly would not consent to having my sight removed to marry a girl. I would sooner just not talk about sight if that's what it would result in. The idea of people accusing him of imagining his sight is silly because he can plainly see how many fingers they hold up, etc. At worst, they would probably accuse him of witchcraft and banish or execute him. But I don't think he would be scoffed as insane or imagining his sight. Thanks for the reference though.

I love it..that is sooo well writen that it should be in some pamplet about understanding AS.

Or you could expand the story, and write it as a short story as well as some other works like that and get published in a book of short stories.

As far as your counselor not getting it....is this the school counselor??
If so, that explains alot, they dont exactly hire the cream of the crop.
Mostly anyone who can deal with the various ways that teenage relationships end will suffice.

Its our marriage counselor. He's a good friend with heaps of wisdom, and understands marriage how it is meant to be extremely well. Our particular marital challenges I would not trust to any other person I think. He also understands moral issues extremely well. He's just never had to deal with any people who have neurological conditions before. I don't mind that fact by itself because we're all uneducated in certain areas. I'm just frustrated that my message isn't getting through.