A somewhat convoluted question about socialization...

Post Reply New Topic

It's somewhat convoluted because I'm not sure how to ask this accurately in order to get the sort of responses I'm looking for. Not that I'm necessarily looking only for agreement. I'm just not sure how clear I'm going to be about exactly what it is I'm really asking for opinions on.

Here goes...

I've seen a lot of posts regarding being pressured into social situations. Most are in relation to situations a person is feeling pressured into participating in, and resenting the pressure.

My question is mainly in relation to schools or treatment professionals who tend to insist that high functioning kids on the spectrum ought to be "encouraged" to participate in as many social events as possible. Usually, it's because the schools or therapists feel that exposure is what the kids need in order to become better at social skills. While I totally understand the mentality behind this, I feel, based on the many posts I've seen here, along with personal experience, and watching the experiences of my own sons (all of whom are on spectrum), that the idea that "encouraging" us to participate more in situations we have no desire to be part of will actually help us, is misguided.

I know when I was a kid, I was "encouraged" to attend public events I did NOT want anything to do with. That "encouragement" was seen by me as being "forced" to participate. I ended up going to a lot of these events only because I felt pressured into doing so. I remember "putting on faces" to appear as if I was enjoying myself, because I had learned to act as other expected me to ask. I also remember internally feeling like crap the entire time. And, after all was said and done, RESENTING being "forced" to participate. As an adult, looking back on those times, but now feeling more as if I had the power to say "No!" to these situations, I chose to say "No!" and became more withdrawn from society. I'm seeing a lot of the same sort of feelings in others here on WP. As adults, it seems to me that even though we had been exposed to many social situations we'd rather not have participated in, the greatest effect being "encouraged" to do so had, was to cause us to resent those we perceived as having forced us into those situations. In other words, I think the end result of what all those well meaning people did was exactly the opposite of what they intended. It caused me to withdraw even further into my shell, and did not result in me becoming any better at socializing at all.

Also, I think most of us on the spectrum (mainly teenagers and up) have at least some ability to "fool" NT's into believing they are getting the results they seek, by acting as we think they want us to act, only long enough to "get them off our backs." After the social event is over, we quickly crawl right back into our shells, and grumble to ourselves, and each other, about how much we hated the experience.

I know we're not all the same, so I don't expect everyone to completely agree with me on this, but I suspect more will than won't.

Still, I'd love to hear from BOTH sides.

Who agrees with me on this, and feel this kind of encouragement actually backfired?

Who of you out there have good feelings about being encouraged to be more social? Who of you believe it actually HELPED you?

I'm looking to share my overall impression of all the responses with school staff working with my boys. Actually, I'm planning to put it directly into their IEP's. So any and all input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

I completely agree with you. You'll only feel angry and resentful if forced into a situation you don't want to be a part of. I know I did.

The way I developed socially was at my own pace over decades, by willingly participating in events of my own choosing.

I can tell you that I force myself to socialize. I have learned that the less I get out of the house, the harder it is for me to get out. When I go out regularly (I try to get out at least 1-2 times a week) and interface with other humans, I also am ultimately healthier than if I stayed in all the time. I think there has to be some sort of balance and if a person with ASD is suffering from co-morbids (such as depression for example) that the root-cause might be traced back to spending too much time turned inside as opposed to outward facing.

I appreciate your input kfisherx. What you are talking about though, is voluntary participation, which isn't exactly what I'm asking about. Thanks anyway. I do agree somewhat with you, in that if we force OURSELVES to get out there, that can be, and is good. It's very different though, from feeling as though it isn't your choice.

But this "learning" needs to be a part of your Aspie's education IMHO. Otherwise they end up going through periods of depression and total shutdown and/or other health consequences because they do not understand the need to get out of the house. The thing that pisses us off RE the "forced" attempts to socialize is very much the thing that makes us "Aspies" (or Auties if you are that flavor) Once our brain determines that the event is something that we do not want to do that is final. We get what is known as "rock brain" and we refuse to look at any other prespective. I understand that there needs to be consideration from NTs RE our needs to be "hermits" but we also have to be very careful that we are doing the right thing for us as opposed to the "easy" thing for us. I advocate for my 13-year old "little" (my mentee) right now on this topic. His Father called him a Hermit this weekend because he did not want to go out with me to the science museum. I corrected his Father reminding him that both the kid and I spend all week out and about and that we both could use the day off to recharge. I explained to him that we are FAR from being Hermits. The kid and I went out and did lunch on Sunday which was just the right amount of "out" for both of us. There has to be give on both sides on this topic. Best is if you can do what I managed to do this weekend and find an activity that is agreeable to everyone that is NOT alone and at home.

LOL. Any patents on the algorithms?

Initial resentment, sure..
I'm sure any effort to get me out of my shell was beneficial. I knew the effort had some practical side to it. People do things they don't want to do every day.

I think teachers in my era made it palatable with jokes about it. Some would joke about the pep rallies and would say off centered remarks. (Though given a chance I would ditch them.)

But I don't understand the lingering resentment here in the OP's experience. It's sink or swim in this world and if you lack social contact and how are you going to succeed if you can't communicate effectively by having some common experience?

I suspect a lingering resentment could come with "it" as not bearing any fruits in any way. Perhaps completely bouncing off of oneself to no effect?

..............If the entire experience was a lead balloon.

I had all sort of social situations as a kid--I think all that practice helped me out.

Wow, I am really intrigued by this thread.

Our older son was on the spectrum (aspergers) before I even knew there was a spectrum. I pushed him into social activities because that's just what parents do. I pushed him to do a lot of things he didn't want to do. He was very resistant to some (riding a bike comes to mind) even though he was extremely capable of doing it. He just either a) didn't WANT to do it, or b) was afraid to do it. After we as parents would push him to do things (but never super against his will), he got on with things and accomplished what he needed to. Later on, he learned to love riding a bike, as well other things. He also didn't want to do things, had some very negative social experiences -- and we stopped pushing that sort of stuff -- but he learned throughout high school that he was not the only odd man out, that the smart kids tended to hang together towards the end of high school, and he had a GREAT college experience.

My younger son is definitely on the spectrum (diagnosed) and he is not as resistant to things. We haven't pushed so much as provided opportunities in the past. Theatre, sports, etc. None have stuck, so you might think we failed. BUT, he tried and just said he didn't want to continue. Now, in high school, he sits home alone a lot. Well, not alone -- with us, his boring older parents. But I'm not going to sweat it. I think he will make a few friends when he gets older and his friends and he can drive. He's slow and steady. He's open to life. We are still providing new opportunities if he's open to them (Chinese language summer camp this summer), trying to place him with "his type" of people (smart and nerdy) -- but if he doesn't like it, we won't push. He may not end up being a social butterfly, but I think he will find his place in this social world -- eventually.

I really liked kfisherx's post. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I'll get right on that. Thanks for the reminder.

When I was in my late teens, I was in a few different behavior-mod type programs about socializing. One of them used rewards if I would do one social thing per day, the other one penalized me various ways if I stayed in my room (even though one of the biggest reasons I was staying in my room was that I was so overmedicated that I couldn't stay awake -- I remember them forcing me out of my room onto a couch one day at a residential facility, and I literally was sitting there in the morning and blinked and the sun was down and there was this huge pile of drool all over me).

Anyway, the two programs had a huge effect on me. They basically trained me systematically to ignore my own body. My body normally gave off signals of overload and exhaustion, and while my passivity (stemming from inability to initiate or stop/change actions easily) meant that I could not always respond to those signals, I did often respond to them. Before the behavior-mod, that is.

After the behavior-mod, when I got signals of overload or exhaustion, I (without realizing that's what I was doing) would not only ignore them, but do the opposite of what I needed to do. I would go out and socialize the moment I felt one of those signals because I had grown to associate "overloaded" or "tired" with "someone is going to force me to socialize if I don't do it myself".

Which meant that I would go out and get myself more exhausted and more overloaded. Which would lead to those inevitable body signals. Which would lead to more getting out and socializing which meant more overload and exhaustion, etc. etc. etc.

This was not useful to me. No, this was singularly worse than useless to me. I had to be just as systematically trained to respond to overload by going into a dark room and lying down. While all the way these little alarms were ringing in my head going "No, you must socialize NOW!" and I had to learn to ignore them and eventually to silence them.

If an autistic person is going to be taught about how and when to socialize, then we also have to be taught how to manage things like overload. When an autistic person is as overloaded as I was at the times I was enduring forced socialization, they will get nothing out of the interaction and will give nothing useful to the interaction either. But it has to be possible to teach an autistic person how to recognize and manage overload and how to socialize. But teaching autistic people to ignore overload in favor of socialization is not good for us at all.

(Overload isn't just a sensory thing. It's a cognitive thing -- processing too much information at once, too many thoughts, too many social signals, whatever. Social situations are great for producing overload, and therefore pretty much always shouldn't be entered into when a person is already seriously overloaded. There are of course exceptions.)

So anyway, being taught to go out and socialize the way I was taught, contributed to a decrease in my ability to do just about anything. Because my ability to do just about anything is dependent on my ability to manage overload. If someone was going to teach me social things, it would have been better to do it as part of an overall way of teaching me many different things about the world. For instance:

1. How to recognize overload (and other forms of exhaustion).
2. How to manage overload (and other forms of exhaustion).
3. Exposure to natural social situations.

#3 would have to be handled very delicately, as well. I don't do well when taught things in ways that are deliberate and obvious (this includes trying to teach myself). Anything requiring rote memorization of little bits of interaction and then remembering which social situations to apply them to, will not work on me (or on any autistic person configured much like me). It might appear to work in the short term, but it will not "stick" in my brain.

The only way for me to learn about social situations for real is for me to be involved in real social situations that are not over-formal or planned out to be "easy". At first all is chaos (and the "at first" part can last a really long time), but my brain starts sorting through the information and I start learning from the situation in a more unconscious but useful manner.

And teaching an autistic person who experiences any kind of overload (i.e. too much information to process at once, regardless of whether it appears "sensory" or not) to override #1 and #2 is simply setting them up to be incapable of doing much of anything until they learn #1 and #2 again. Because overriding those things simply results in a worse buildup of overload until Bad Things happen.

When I hear discussions like this, I often think of some kind of exchange of information that once happened between Temple Grandin and... someone. Temple Grandin talked about how useful it was to have someone grab her by the chin and turn her head to redirect her from getting lost in... okay I'm going to go look for the quote now (from Thinking in Pictures):

As usual, disclaimer that I don't agree with her ways of classifying people as LF/HF/etc. But she does have a seriously important point when she talks about the different effects of these very direct and intense "pulling autistic people into the nonautistic social world" methods on different kinds of autistic people. My brain is pretty far into the "there's a lot more going on sensory-wise than a few hypersensitivies" zone and you have to be really careful what you're trying on me.

On the one hand, I need natural situations where you're not showing any deliberate sign of teaching me anything, because those are the only situations that work for getting things into my long-term abilities. On the other hand, such situations can easily get out of hand sensory-wise.

Right now, I do two main things socially.

I go to an art program for people with developmental disabilities. I barely interact with anyone, but it's at least around people. Every time I do this, it almost completely saps my social energy until the next one.

Then, I sometimes allow people to come in and see me. This allows me to actually interact (to one degree or another) in an environment where I'm familiar with my surroundings and able to go into word-mode to interact with people. (At the art place I only have to paint, so I can tolerate a little more overload there because I don't have to be using words.)

And that's besides the fact that I have to interact with staff people -- several a day.

None of that might sound like a lot to most people but it's pushing my limits already. I did used to be better at getting out of the house (and at going to social situations that would completely overload me in an instant these days), but my suspicion is that it's the reverse of what a person might suspect. It's not so much that staying in has caused me to lose my ability to do stuff, it's that doing too much stuff has caused me to lose my ability to go out as much. Obviously there's probably a little of both, but the way it worked in my life seemed to be more the "doing too much and crashing" approach rather than the "hiding and losing abilities" approach.

So perhaps the best way for me to learn about socialization would be to combine a non-overloading approach with a not-directly-teaching approach. Not directly teaching meaning, that trying to directly teach me anything fails in the long run, but that putting me in a situation where stuff is happening causes me to absorb it unconsciously and let my brain riffle through the information at its own pace. And non-overloading means that it certainly wouldn't involve teaching me to ignore my danger signals when it comes to overload. But in more subtle terms, non-overloading would mean probably meeting people in a place that was either highly familiar to me. Or if not highly familiar, then a dark, quiet, visually non-busy location with a person or people who had soft deeper voices that don't hit the wrong harmonics, move in a way that doesn't set off my fight/flight response, etc.

Of course reality is rarely that ideal so I do what I can with what I've got, but if I had to be in a situation where I was supposed to be learning social stuff and someone was actually setting it up, that's how it would probably be best. But the moment it loses the character of a natural interaction is the moment that it loses my ability to learn from it, so it's really hard for someone to do on purpose, especially with the attitude that many people have when trying to teach disabled people various skills. It really takes a certain kind of person to pull such a thing off, and most people are not that kind of person.

I've been falling asleep randomly throughout writing this so if it looks incomplete or confused, that's why. It's been difficult to, say, not respond to interactions that happened in dreams instead of on the screen.

I suppose if the forced social engagements were of a beneficial nature, and not a laughable farce of people pretending to be nice to each other, then I get anxious.

Quality family/friends time should never be underestimated, and low quality family time should not be a compulsory attendance.

The aspie child should be free to choose his own social gatherings, as he may find a group that he/she clicks with

Thanks for bringing this subject up. As an NT parent I struggle with what I should be doing. I'm trying to strike a balance between not causing shutdown from oversocialization and not encouraging agoraphobia. Currently I do not have my daughter enrolled in any extracurricular activities but I do insist on her attendance at small family gatherings. Her family (both sides) seem able to tell how much socializing she can take, some relatives better than others. It helps to see how adults look back on their childhoods and what helped or hurt.

I think being forced by others was bad. I think making myself work on social things and do social things that I feel truly benefit me, benefits me.

I have to say that the times that I have been forced to socialize have generally been disasters for me, and have done more more harm than good. I usually ended up on the outside looking in, and ended up feeling more like an outsider.

When I have chosen to socialize, it has not always been productive, but at times it has been. At the very least, I did not feel so trapped, and sometimes I am free to leave if things get uncomfortable. When given a choice, I can avoid situations that I know are unlikely to lead to anything worthwhile.

The few times that people have encouraged me to socialize and have actually helped me to socialize have done the most good, but such opportunities have been few and far between.

For me, I need to force myself to be social. I do so in very small increments - like at the grocery store. I don't have friends. I don't invite people over. The idea of going out and socializing at an event or just at a bar holds little interest and just a bit of dread. I could probably muddle through those things but I end up bored, resentful and exhausted. Small talk is the most annoying thing in the world. Do people actually find that crap interesting? Things like mandatory workplace functions simply make my skin crawl.

As a teenager, I socialized all the time but most of that was centered around alcohol or an interest; role playing, comics, concerts. Things like school dances and such i went with my friends and pretty much hardly acknowledged the other people there. I'm not sure how I can be highly self conscious but not care what other people think at the same time, but that's how I'd explain it. Crowds of strangers don't bother me because i can pretty much forget they exist - but I am highly paranoid of what my friends think of me. Once everyone starting growing up and moving on, I lost interest in socializing at all. Trying to make friends with someone without my interests proved impossible. I'm lonely but apparently not lonely enough to change it.

My daughter is 8 and she loves socializing but if often sad because other kids don't really want to socialize with her. She is friendly, funny, outgoing, approachable - she has social skills classes and we make as many opportuinites for her as we can. I'm finding that other kids parents are the biased ones, more so than their kids. Once a parent realizes my daughter is 'a little off' the calls for playdates go unanswered over and over again. Having me as her social role model is terrifying.

So - yes - I do resent being forced into social situations as an adult. As a kid, I made the social connections I wanted without pressure or oversight (I probably should have had more oversight... I made some questionabel choices...) My daughter wants to be social so she is not being pressured - we are focusing on trying to help her make her efforts more effective.