Which one(s) of your eccentric habits annoy NTs the most?

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elysian1969
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19 May 2015, 2:11 pm

As a child I was constantly reminded of the things I do (without really thinking about them) that seem to annoy the NTs that surround me.

My mother was particularly vexed by my habit of "staring"- she perceived that I was always staring at people, although I still think that a lot of what she saw as "staring" was just me trying to compensate for poor vision. I was constantly getting poked, prodded or smacked for staring.

My husband can't stand it when at times I will rub my thumb and forefinger together (either hand) when I'm nervous. I don't know I'm doing it half the time unless someone points it out.

Sometimes I just have to mentally turn off for a moment or two now and then, and this can be scary because I only do that if I'm not intentionally getting enough downtime and solitude. It's one thing if I determine in advance that I want X____ block of time to just turn off, but quite another if I do it without the deliberate intent and without the assurance I will be left alone and undisturbed.

I don't know of any NT that can tolerate me when I'm turned off without either screaming at me or touching me or doing something to interrupt me, even though just being quiet and unplugged for a minute shouldn't bother them. It does though. It bothers them a lot. Even more than it bothers me when I read what they're reading upside down or backward and then get impatient with their failure to turn pages fast enough, because they read too slow. :heart: :skull:


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BirdInFlight
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19 May 2015, 6:06 pm

I have a suspicion people get annoyed the most when I keep talking at length about a subject I've warmed to. It's not even always my "special interest" but it can be anything I have an opinion about. I tend to repeat myself and that's when they start to look at me funny, I know.



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19 May 2015, 6:13 pm

That I found everything everywhere to be too loud.

My family, in particular, is REALLY loud. They interrupt each other very frequently. And, we often meet at my parents large and echoey house. I've even brought over a decibel meter to prove that the normal noise level is literally daging everyone's hearing...but they still don't care and keep at it. It seems normal to them...

(Lucky for me, my mom put a single bed in a very large closet in the most remote corner of the house for me. There is nothing else in the room to be distracted by...it's my retreat from the insane noise level and interrupting).


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dianthus
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19 May 2015, 6:16 pm

Me being quiet when they want me to talk.



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19 May 2015, 6:21 pm

It's a toss-up between being "The Voice of Doom" when I point out the flaws in their plans, and saying "I Told You So" in some way when when their plans fail.



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19 May 2015, 7:53 pm

I have no idea. If I had to guess, I would say the fact that it sometimes takes me a very long time to figure out the words I need in order to say what I want to say. That annoys me about myself.


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Aniihya
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19 May 2015, 8:22 pm

That I am vehemently analytical and will therefore turn anything into a debate about science or philosophy.



edelweiss
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19 May 2015, 9:06 pm

Apparently I "echo" . I'm not aware that I'm doing it, but it bothered my mom when I was a kid. My ex-husband would always stop me and yell at me for doing it. Apparently he thought if he embarrassed me a lot for it, I would stop. Since it wasn't something I was consciously doing though, I'm not sure how I can be expected to stop doing it.

What I do, is repeat the conversation back to myself in my head, both my words and the words of the other party. I re-think through every word and determine where I messed up, where I can improve, and what I think the other person meant by their words. Apparently, while I'm rethinking the conversation, I also SAY the conversation in a whisper with my mouth without using my voice. But people who hang out with me all the time notice it.

Since divorcing my ex four years ago, I thought that I had improved because no one was telling me I was doing it anymore. Then I mentioned it to my little sister after a five hour trip in the car last year. I was all, "So I was researching ASD because of my son, and I found a name for that thing I use to do, where I repeat conversations in a whisper right after I have them. 'echolalia' or 'palilalia' ! I didn't realize there was a name for it! I don't think I do it anymore though." And my sweet little sister was like, "Um.....you've been doing that this whole trip...."

Apparently she didn't see a need to bring it up to me prior to me mentioning it!



sonicallysensitive
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19 May 2015, 10:10 pm

I see these 'eccentricities' as our pre-packaged survival kit :)

Example - many of us hate social situations.

Solution - rock in public, or do something physically odd, and people in general keep their distance :)


We come fully equipped to deal with all scenarios ;)



Cyllya1
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19 May 2015, 10:52 pm

I think my roommate's list of complaints would be endless, especially since he used to be my spouse.

My mom always used to yell at me for compulsively touching soft things at the store.

Otherwise, people are often bothered by my incessant leg wiggling, but other than that, they don't seem to have an issue? Well, the HR department at my job would probably like if I were more punctual.


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20 May 2015, 12:59 am

I've been told several times that I "argue." I don't - what I do is clarify a lot because I want to be certain I understand correctly and am doing what's expected, and that often involves running possibilities - yes but what if this happens? Is this ok do to if I can't do what you said originally? But I may not be able to do so because of x, etc. People have often got annoyed with me and asked why I can't just do what I'm told, immediately, no questions asked. And if they do, they're asking for a rant.
People also get annoyed with me for being sensitive to what they're doing and asking them to please stop doing so. I can't stand people eating noisily (chewing with mouths open, sucking up noodles, slurping drinks, etc) so if we're eating together I will ask them to stop doing that, because it bothers me. I get angrily accused of being "social police," which is an ironic thing to say to an autistic.


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BirdInFlight
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20 May 2015, 5:42 am

C2V wrote:
People also get annoyed with me for being sensitive to what they're doing and asking them to please stop doing so. I can't stand people eating noisily (chewing with mouths open, sucking up noodles, slurping drinks, etc) so if we're eating together I will ask them to stop doing that, because it bothers me. I get angrily accused of being "social police," which is an ironic thing to say to an autistic.


This reminded me of something from way back in the past that I haven't thought about for a long time.

My ex-husband was a musician; he used to pick up his guitar often in the apartment and play. It was fine except for in one situation: if he was playing his guitar while I was fixing my hair. I didn't have an elaborate hair-do or anything, but I did kind of wrestle with it actually due to some of my sensory issues with how I need my hair to be. So it was always a moment in my day when my nerves were already kind of on edge.

The sound of his guitar playing always at the hair-styling moment for some reason sent me crazy. The auditory input was too much for me during a process that I already found to be a stressful one (weird, I know, but I did feel tense about my hair and what to do with it).

The two activities put together always made me wind up yelling at him to please stop! I tried not to really get mad but it was so hard not to just scream, because inside I was so stressed out I felt like screaming. I managed NOT to scream at him but there was still a lot of tension in my pleading. He reacted with tension too and didn't know why I was being so weird (neither did I, to be honest).

Plus, he repeatedly did the same thing. I would ask him "While I'm doing my hair and stuff, do you think you could not play just for a few mins until I'm done?"

But he always picked up the damn guitar again and never just gave me that one accommodation/request. It was a repeated situation.

It actually drove a wedge between us and caused bad feeling, because he could not understand why the sound of his guitar at that particular moment was unbearable for me. Actually, I couldn't understand either (I wasn't to be diagnosed for another 26 years....)



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20 May 2015, 6:13 am

When I laugh too much. Well, I laugh at myself quite a lot, like when I'm being awkward or fussy. But other people think I'm laughing at them, or it annoys them. But I only do it because I've learnt to laugh out loud at my awkwardness, whereas when I was a kid I used to moan about everything and people would call me ''moaning mini'', which annoyed me.


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Richard Cole
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20 May 2015, 6:26 am

Do I have to pick only one? From so many to choose, I think that while my hypersensitivity to sensory input or propensity for taking things literally/misunderstanding of slang may irritate more people, my trivial knowledge and use of the phrase "you're wrong" followed by correction probably irritates them more deeply.



elysian1969
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20 May 2015, 9:01 am

screen_name wrote:
That I found everything everywhere to be too loud.

My family, in particular, is REALLY loud. They interrupt each other very frequently. And, we often meet at my parents large and echoey house. I've even brought over a decibel meter to prove that the normal noise level is literally daging everyone's hearing...but they still don't care and keep at it. It seems normal to them...

(Lucky for me, my mom put a single bed in a very large closet in the most remote corner of the house for me. There is nothing else in the room to be distracted by...it's my retreat from the insane noise level and interrupting).


I grew up surrounded by loud NTs. Their incessant chatter used to drive me nuts but I had no practical way to escape it. That's how I learned to just turn off. I hear every sound around me- traffic, birds, someone's TV, or loud conversation, but I tune them out. I can literally tune myself out of a loud room- especially if I lose myself in a good book. It works for me when I need it to, until they wonder why I'm not paying any attention to them. :heart: :skull:


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bearded1
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20 May 2015, 9:07 am

Mine is when I try to comprehend what a person is saying to me and I have extreme difficulty understanding what they are asking. There are times that someone asks me a question or speaks to me and I am frozen and do not acknowledge them or answer. I am extremely routine driven and that drives my wife nuts. Also I don't think things through fully and that drives people nuts. I could go on and on.