Expect people to understand...

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I would like to share a problem I always had and who has involved in my life a lot of distress, frustration and misunderstandings.

Not only that I always felt unable to verbally express many things such as my needs, desires or difficulties, but I expect too other people to realize without I have to tell them.

It's hard to explain but I hope, when I have a problem for exemple, that people with whom I need to talk about or whose help I could need to simply see it. In facts I know, at least I must have understand it by becoming older, that they cannot...

If they don't realize that I am frustrated/angry even though I know - at least now - they do not simply ignore me, they simply can't know !

But even assuming that the person guess from my head or my attitude that something is going wrong, for example, and that she asks me about... Again not sure I can express what should be... I might simply doing like nothing were (but that's another story).

(sorry, not sure it's understandable... )

You expect people to read your mind? Forget it. There is no such thing as mental telepathy. If you have a need express it clearly or hold your peace.

ruveyn

Maybe the problem is only that I can't express what I would or should... So my only hope is mostly to "pray" for other to understand from themselves.

I really know they can't read my mind... But I must confess that, in so many ways, I still tend to act like as if they did.

I will admit I have told Damo that "I am not a mind reader, please use your words".

Thank you for giving me an insight as to how he might feel sometimes when he wants something, but doesn't tell me.

In my experience if anything can't be expressed verbally it is a clear sign that it not clearly thought. You may express your thinking or needs in a complex manner, but you are able to express those clearly if they are clearly in your mind.

I hope it is not to bold to ask: You are clear about your "needs, desires or difficulties" in the very first place?

Hum... Good question. I think there are different cases (and of course it's not exactly the same that at time I was a little child).

I may not always be clear about those things like "needs, desires or difficulties", that must be true.

But I can often have clear thought and be able to express it verbally... I mean that I can think about something and speak it out quite clearly. But only when I'm alone... Don't know how to explain it, but when I need to tell it to people It's like I'm losing it...

It's not always that I don't know what I could say... It's more that it's absolutely difficult for me to begin a talk and that the words are not coming out from my mouth...

My (not excellent) solution, in last resort, for very important topics, is to write it...

Maybe it is impaired TOM which is said to be a standard feature of AS by researchers, though several autistic people disagree ans claim to have a perfectly normal TOM. Make of that what you will.

I know my TOM (theory of mind) is impaired. Even nowadays that I know that people have their own minds, I usually expect them to know my train of thought because I assume they have to think the same.

Sora, what do you do, what's your reaction, when you see that others do not understand what you say in the sense that you just wanted to give to your words ?

Confusion and annoyance mostly.

I am annoyed that the other doesn't understand me and might think something completely wrong. But I also feel somewhat confused because it catches me off guard to see the whole thing from a different perspective (if I'm having a debate or serious conversation).

When others miscalculate my mood or have come to wrong conclusions about something I want or talk about I usually feel surprised that they think something different from me until I remember that I'm the one who's autistic and not normal.

Thank you for the answer !

I could have nearly written the same.

i do not expect people to understand what i say unless i leave nothing to their imagination.
what i say is like a "word path" that i construct for a listener to walk along. if i leave a word out, then they may fall through that hole, and drag their understanding of my entire sentence with them as they fall into misconception.

i think that when normal people are talking about something, they use only the essential skeleton words to portray their concept, and they leave the rest up to "inference". they trust the mind of the person they are talking to and let them "fill in the gaps".

i can not do this, and i must painstakingly identify every exact step in what i am saying.
it makes people tired and bored about the slow pace of the conversation, and their lack of opportunity to participate with their own imagination stifles their enthusiasm.

normal people "hop, skip and frolic" through conversation, where i "stitch" my way through conversation, making sure every loop is tight.

i also tend to create and use many "concreting metaphors" as i call them.
i know AS people are not supposed to understand metaphors, and i do not understand metaphors that come from another mind.

i do however create my own "metaphor" like ideas.
i liken a conceptual process to a physical one by "concretion". i think that concretion is the opposite of abstraction, and concretive (?) metaphors look like "real" (abstract) metaphors, but they are really "anti-metaphors" in that they reduce an abstract thought to a concrete system, as opposed to "abstracting metaphors" (the usual type) which expand a concrete reality into an abstract concept. it is the same process, but in reverse.

when i am writing, i have to abbreviate my ideas because i can not type all the words i have to say to resolve what i mean to the point of clarity.
i like the forced summarization that the internet imposes upon me.

even though i detail my thoughts so delicately (in speech), my thoughts are usually shallow and trivial, and it is of no benefit for anyone to have to "study" what i am saying.

That's what I too have trouble with.

I expect people to know just from a comment or look that they'll know what I'm thinking. I use to think I was intentionally getting ignored until I had a person comment to me..."I'm not a mind reader you know!"

That's when I began to realize that it was mostly me and not the other person. Sometimes I have to write it all down and think of ways to put my feelings into appropriate words. This has always been a struggle with me as I tend to let emotions get in the way of my logic.

One thing I have learned through past experience is emotions are invalid to people unless you are able to articulate them. But first, know what it is that is making you feel the way you feel. Sometimes I indirectly blame people for my frustrations or why I'm feeling the way I am. So I have to be conscious of that and be able to pinpoint what exactly frustrated me before "this person" and if it was that person, what is it that they did to upset me.

Often, I don't know which words to use to express my "needs, desires or difficulties" without sounding like a wimp or idiot. Especially when I am in a stressful situation. Not being able to express it verbally makes it adds to my distress.

Writing them down is not a bad idea; not everyone will adapt, but it is a good start.


M.

My problem with this is that I find it hard to be concise (when speaking it's the same : when the things are finally coming out it's like a stream) and, when it's about a relation, I've a real lack of conscious from what the feelings of my recipient can be and I realize too late that it wasn't the good moment for example or that, before writing my things, I had a real false comprehension from the whole situation. Relationships between people are so complicated, I sometimes feel I have to do or say something but have no idea about the right thing ! That's why I often do wrong...


Yes... And then, often, when I finally success to express something - it may be something anecdotic for a "normal" one - I feel my voice becoming totally strange.