Do you ever feel like you don't have common sense?

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I mean, I think the entire notion of "common sense" is a sloppy social construct. But the idea that there are a set of things that people realize are a good idea or a bad idea, things to avoid, things you should do.

I think sometimes I act with what appears to be a lack of common sense. I don't know for sure and I can't even give good examples (except maybe one: I put a piece of information on my SSI function report that I should not have put about physical activities I may be capable of. I wasn't even capable of the activity in question, but was frustrated with people blowing me off when I offer to help with stuff).

Mostly, I just have how people react to me and tell me that people are just supposed to know not to do certain things. Like, on one occasion, my niece got mad at me because the belt in the vacuum cleaner broke while I was trying to use it. The thing is noisy and I was trying to handle it and disorientation from the noise, and the belt snaps. My niece assumes that there was some kind of cue that I should have spotted so the belt didn't break, but the cue in question came maybe a second before the break - or at least that's when I noticed it. And also, I think the belt was going to break no matter what no matter who was using it because it was not even a full minute after I turned the thing on.

I think a lot of the time, these things are just people looking for a reason to blame me for something, but I also wonder if I just fail to do things that NTs would consider normal/reasonable/intelligent to do.

Until today, I mostly assumed people were in the wrong and trying to blame me for stuff, but I read some discussion about this kind of thing and realized that maybe I do lack this trait in some circumstances. But I don't know.

I can't say much about the vacuum cleaner. I don't know how familiar you or your niece were with it, and whether or not either of you could tell the belt was about to break.

As for the the thing about the SSI, could you be more specific? It's hard to follow what you're getting at here. If there was no way you could perform an activity, why would you say that you possibly could?

I don't remember why I wrote it down. I didn't even remember it was in the paperwork until it was read back to me. I know that I am frustrated with a particular dynamic that sometimes seems to come up here, though: That I don't help out enough, but when I offer to help out I am turned down, and I think it had to do with that, and also I didn't fully understand the function report in the first place.

I think that the vacuum cleaner was happenstance, having described the situation. But I have lots of situations like that - like forgetting to do something obvious or doing something that's apparently obviously a bad idea. I am having trouble producing specifics for those others, but I will likely recall later once I can build the associations and categories necessary to link them to this topic.

Partly it is tied to sensory sensitivity, just as you mentioned the issue with that belt.

I think that the whole lacking of common sense thing has something to do with emotional disregulation. I've read somewhere that after a person (an NT) had a brain injury so that it affected his ability to feel emotions he could no longer make right decisions in terms of common sense. I certainly experience something similar on a daily basis, either I'm disinterested in doing something or making a decision or I have those emotional outbursts over petty unfortunate things that happen to me (part of it is sensory or routine based).

I guess there's support from research that humans are in fact more emotion-based and less rational than they would admit to themselves.

That's an interesting connection. I've read similar (or the same) research. That people who have impaired emotional control or awareness tend to make worse decisions, or can't even make some decisions at all.

Ha, common sense the bane of my life! All through school I was constantly told 'You have no common sense at all' and 'You'd try the patience of a Saint!' I still have no idea what common sense really is, it seems to be a very subjective concept. As far as I understand it, having common sense is about making well thought out decisions. I try and think my actions through carefully and not rush into things.

Hooray for abnormal prefrontal cortices!

Yeah, I think it's about "well thought out decisions." The thing is I can't tell which of my decisions are well thought out or not until they reap consequences, and then I have to connect the consequences to the decision. Anyway, I agree it's pretty subjective.

My stepfather is constantly criticizing how I do things. I have a glass I use every day to drink from. When I get up I rinse it out and wipe it off - basically, clean it. He got on me because he thought I was drying it (I wasn't) and then immediately putting ice in it. Thing is he does this so often that I am never sure if what I am doing is really that bad or if he's just being mean, or both. Some things (like the glass) are obviously fine, but other things are not.



I think I quoted some research here in response to someone who was saying "Logic is good, emotions are bad." I do connect my difficulty making some decisions to not having easy access to my emotions. If I knew what I wanted better, I might be able to decide on what to eat in a timely fashion more frequently. And not get caught up in not knowing to the point I don't eat at all.

Other possible causes of apparent lack of common sense:

- OCD-ish behavior, autistic inertia, focusing too much on detail, not being able to see the whole picture

- Being indulged in special interests. Other people may see it as something out of norm.

- Too much rationalization of events due to lack of instinctive / spontaneous understanding of them and difficulties understanding speech. Common sense is not always obviously rational, the more it is based on emotions the more it is likely to have some hidden rationale (deeper in the conscious-instinctive spectrum).

Ojani, that list is brilliant. It makes a lot of sense to me, and I think that helps a lot to answer my questions about this issue.

I constantly get told I'm smart but stupid, and that I lack common sense sometimes.
I think common sense is just a set of unspoken rules society has said that everybody should automatically know... I also think these rules are extremely subjective and change a lot with different demographic groups....

That sucks! Or rather it doesn't erm...

I agree to some extent. I think it also includes things like "don't run out into traffic" (I've done this as an adult, btw. I am glad I have quick reflexes, they saved my life, or at least bodily integrity on one occasion) and other dangerous actions.

Also things like not putting metal into the microwave - I didn't do this, but I remember getting up and running my housemates' microwave without noticing they had removed the back, leaving metal fans exposed to the microwaves. Yeah, fun.



It achieves suckage and a lack of suckage at the same time. Contemplating this paradox, I was illuminated.

I think consequences are part of it. The problem is that it is very difficult for us to judge consequences that involve how others may react. I am often surprised or horrified when people react completely differently to the way I would have expected. I've learned that my reactions are very different from other people's so I try and ask someone else for advice about a situation that involves others.

I think drying the cup to put ice in it makes sense. You wouldn't want the outside to be wet as it would feel horrible, and I wouldn't like the rim to be wet except on the side I was drinking from. Perhaps you could ask your stepfather to make it very clear when you are doing something that is definitely wrong.

Yes, indeed. My mother annoys me by saying "Surely you can predict how I/your sister/etc will react." but I can't always do that. I can look at behavior and say from experience "I think my sister is doing this specific thing" because I know how she behaves. But I can't always say "If I say X, then she'll say Y." And she tends to flip out over relatively pointless, irrelevant things.



Right. His theory was I was drying out the inside, but I wasn't actually. I was just wiping the glass down with a wet paper towel because I hate what the dishrags feel like and won't touch anything after a dishrag's touched it anyway, at least not before it's been put through the dishwasher.

I find it very difficult to talk to my stepfather, so I don't think asking him to approach me like that would help. Besides, he's mocked one previous attempt to ask that he accommodate my communication problems.

I rarely know how anyone will react, even people I know well like my Mum or sister. They've got used to this now. I've also realised that the things that make me upset are things that other people take in their stride (such as a change in plans) whereas things that other people find very, very upsetting are things which I can't fathom (a common one is when my female friends become upset when their partners look at ahem 'inappropriate things' on the internet). So now I try and ask my boyfriend what he thinks will happen if I do or say X,Y.Z. His reactions are usually pretty easy to predict.

I am just like you with the dishrags, I have a fear of them. I use sponges which I change regularly (I find them less creepy, I think they feel nicer than dishrags). I also dry things thoroughly. I don't think that's the wrong thing to do I think that some people are simply sloppy or unhygienic.