Are there any Old and Very Naïve Aspies out there?

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Animals do know when they are needed. That know when you are lonely or 'down', and if you go to bed sick, you will awake with a furball curled next to you, trying to be a comfort. Sylkat

I too am permanently naive. There have been so many not-so-good results in my life from this fact. To attempt to compensate I 'seem' to be suspicious of everything and almost everyone. But I get hurt and damaged so easily I have to be on guard, or walled off to protect myself when anywhere except at home with my cats (3) or by myself way out in nature where it's really quiet. Now that I've found out why - I'm AS - it doesn't panic me as much when I have to do something like go to a store. I still don't like it, and still can't go certain places or events at all, but can put up the masks and barriers for a time to handle necessary challenges. Then, I rest and recuperate. whoa, long winded; I'll stop here.

Dear Mtn13, Write, share, talk all you want or need; that is what WP is for...to give us voices and to give us listeners. The more that Aspies, Auties, BPs, Tourettesers ( SOMEBODY give me the proper term!), share and express themselves, the more I understand my instincts and impulses, and resulting odd behaviors...I sincerely thank everyone who opens up about their experience/ life with these disorders, because it means the world to me to not feel like I am the only one!! Sylkat.

hartzofspace said:

Hartz, I talk back to cats, and dogs and horses and ferrets and even Dana the Brain-Dead Ostrich who was hatched here and whom I keep as a pet. At least, I tell people, they listen to me! I'm sorry you can't own pets of your own; I would be utterly lost without them.

NTBad, I do make eye contact well with animals and a bit weirdly, when at all, with humans. I am fascinated by the physical appearance of the iris; I have a neighbor who has a very oddly-colored iris and I can't help stare at it. I wonder, though, how much of my total disregard of making eye contact with humans is being an Aspie and how much is being a native New Yorker. In New York, you never make eye contact with people on the street, and absolutely, positively never in a lift! It is considered rude and sometimes even threatening. New York is so crowded that you need to pretend other people aren't there if only to keep yourself from going nuts. (I did find, once, when out with a friend, that I could stop traffic on King's Highway by walking out into the roadway and staring straight into the eyes of oncoming drivers. My friend was laughing so hard when she saw this she couldn't cross the street!)

But I do remember being yelled at again, and again, and again, by my mother, saying, "Why don't you ever smile?!" and "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

My dog and cat are very vocal, I talk with them allot. Some people have said they had no idea cats could be so attentive.

Cats are a lot more attentive than people give them credit for. And I think that's true of all animals. As an old horseman once said, "They act how you treat them."

Oh boy, the cat people have hijacked this thread!
I think we have gone off-topic a bit here, but I will admit, some of my greatest discoveries were via tangents.

I am going to close my post with a return to the MarchHare's question, but first...

hartzofspace said:

Dear NTbadMEgood, I don't think it's 'cat people' per se, but rather an ADD trait that many Aspies are prone to...we are very good at tangents, and the one here is a very nice one. And the 'cat people' here are very nice, too. I talk to mine, too, and my chiweenie, too...her name is Sugar. Sylkat

Getting back to the main topic... Re coping, as in, trying to be an NT... I never did. Ever. And I don't plan to start now.

I have gotten used to, but am still infuriated by, the fact that "I'll be there at 3:00" means "I'll be there sometime this afternoon, maybe" and that "I'll call you later" means absolutely nothing. And that the usual excuse, "Oh, well, something piddling's come up, I can't be there five minutes ago, but that's okay, you understand" ... oh yeah, I understand perfectly well: you have no respect for me at all.

I write science fiction stories about a first contactor who is, essentially, a wild animal. The people on whose behalf Maki works choose this particular breed of "wild animal" because for the newly contacted species it is Time To Grow Up Now, and learn to cope with something that is very pointedly not going to learn to cope with them (in so far as is practical). I've always been that way, except that I never had any expectation that anyone would learn to cope with me, and later lost all hope that anyone would even _want_ to cope with me. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Yeah, I talk to myself. In a stage whisper. I rehearse whatever I'm going to say (or type, I'm doing it now) out loud. I have become a little more circumspect about doing it whilst walking down the street than I used to be but.... For the last five years that I lived in New York City, people called me "The Sicilian Spitfire" behind my back and I didn't find out until a few years ago. I was so proud.

I am constantly told by my boss, and players on the computer game where I am both a developer and a moderator, that I am "incredibly rude." I want to say, "Honey, I was born in Brooklyn when being From Brooklyn actually meant something. If I deliberately start being rude, your hair will spontaneously combust." Instead I ask for clarification. I listen, then I realize--and I may be entirely wrong about this, who knows?--that the level of "polite" they expect from me is what in old Brooklyn was reserved for three kinds of people: Nuns, Mafia dons, and Those We Intend To Destroy. Or maybe it wasn't "we." Maybe it was just "I." I have no idea.

(Excuse me, I have just been told that it is Time To Spin The Cat in her spinning chair...)

Am I rude? Even for an Aspie? Haven't the faintest idea. All I know is I came by it honestly; I had to raise my three brothers, and being the Alpha b***h was the only thing that kept me sane. Okay, relatively sane. I still give people a hard time when they say they are going to be here at 3:00 and at 3:45 I'm still waiting. Is it rude to expect people to keep their word? Apparently so. Well... oh well. I have grey hair now. I am a Senior Citizen, and was taught when I was young that you show at least a formal respect toward a Senior Citizen.

(gives the cat another spin)

The problem seems to be that even though I don't make eye contact with people unless I want to scare them (works great on Algebra teachers!) and am still more easily startled by loud noises or sudden touches than anyone else I know, that I still have a hard time telling faces apart and am always the last to realize that something was said sarcastically or to get a joke, I enjoy the company of creative people. When I finally found...

(gives cat another spin)

... science fiction fandom and soon had a small group of good friends, that was just amazing. But it didn't last. Oh well.

Well, this has been partially a post and partially a vent. Please feel free to ignore, sneer or laugh.

(gives cat another spin. This is one weird cat.)

anyway, imho it's better to be naive than to be some jerk who shows off how 'perfect', knowledgeable, sophisticated, and mean they are.
... like some members of my family.

The reality I’m finding, that stuff goes wrong – both mentally and physically - is extremely hard to take

My experience: Medications don't seem to help. Time alone helps. Anyone around me makes it worse. It's hard to explain the feeling & reasoning to anyone else. Anything that might distract me from my stress ie music, stimming, good TV, housework - helps. A good cry or wail can help too. You just have to go with it.