How do you (or do you) respond to this?

Post Reply New Topic

Recently, I had someone tell me that they just wished they could tell me to act normal. They said that they knew, however, that I can't do that. They also told me my ideas are crazy or my thought patterns are one. We had argued over a comment I made, and they said that I never think before I speak. One of the comments they also made was that I was like a teenager, that I keep doing the same things, and that I never learn.

This is not the first person who has spoken to me this way, nor the first time this individual has expressed these things. I do think before I speak, it's just that I think the person will react differently than they actually do. I do learn, just some things I don't understand what they want me to learn, and some things I need explained to me so I can learn.

At this point, I'm fairly sure I have Asperger's. However, when I explain that to others, they think I am just making excuses for my behaviors or just want something to be wrong with me so I can get attention. At times I think I should just go get an evaluation, but then I wonder how much that would change. If I did receive the diagnosis of Asperger's, would people be willing to help me, or would they just continue to speak to me like this?

What do you do in situations like this?

I laugh in their faces and say, "And be just like YOU?! !"

Then I laugh again and walk away.

Oh I love that! It made me laugh quite a bit. I would love to say that to someone, but I have the understanding I would be thought to be rather rude if I did so.

Of course, at this point, if they aren't willing to accept me the way I am, I guess rude is a mute point.

It's rude to be told "Be normal".

People in the world do what they can to treat others equally. In their minds, there is no AS-NT thing. So I can understand where they expect you to take responsibility for your actions. However, you do have some positive qualities that come from your AS, so do take advantage of those qualities.

I guess what bothers me is that I never mean to hurt someone's feelings. I am not intentionally rude, and when I do something that upsets someone, I do my best to fix it. I do take responsibility for what I've done wrong, but I can't always anticipate how someone will react to something I say or do...even though I try to.

I work in social services, and this person even told me that they are amazed at the work I can do and still be so inept at relating on a personal basis. I do well with social services because my experience as a child helps me to better understand what is going on in the lives of the youth I work with. I have no experience with having a good, stable relationship in my life, so it's pretty hard for me to figure out how to be what someone expects.

Ah... Well, try to avoid being a doormat like I was over the years. Someone gets rude to you, it's not your fault. I am finding from my past that I always thought it was my fault that others were rude. That itself was selfish in it's own right beause it tells others I only think about me, and it shows too much of a nice guy because you are apologizing for something you are not responsible for. Try to avoid that of course.

On the flip side, I met a cute one over the weekend. I kissed her at the end of the night on Friday. Unknown to me until last night, she says to me that she has a boyfriend, yet still gets cozy with me after revealing this (cuddling, resting her head on my shoulder.) But at the end of the night she got mad for not kissing her or hugging her goodnight. She communicated this frustration through text and even said "Screw you." My response to that was "I understand if you are upset. But I am not purposely hurting your feelings. Don't be so hard on me. I don't like that." No judgment, and no analyzations. She apologized to me and said that she is not upset.

That does make sense. In most of my relationships, I've generally been made to feel like I was "crazy" and all the problems were my fault. I've also been told that just because I believe I'm not crazy or I want to believe I don't try to hurt people does not mean it's true, as though my sense of reality is skewed and everyone else knows better what is real than I do.

While somehow I believed this (I tend to believe people wouldn't lie to me or intentionally say hurtful things), I couldn't reconcile it with what I know to be true about me - I do care deeply about how others feel, I do try my best not to hurt others, and I do know what my mental status is, and none of the challenges I have emotionally add up to me being "crazy."

I did recognize that what I said upset this person. They however, were unwilling to recognize that I did not intend to communicate what they interpreted from my message. Things like this leave me questioning, what am I really responsible for here? Maybe I should have just said I recognize that you are upset and this hurt you and left it at that, rather than trying to help them understand that I did not mean it the way they took it.

Taking responsibility vs justification. What do you respect more out of others? That is what others will likely look for from someone like me.

A person I dated once tells me that I can't hold anything they do against them when they are drunk. They are justifying their actions. But eventually, someone like this would have to realize that their actions will have consequences and they have to own up to it. What would be worse than hearing "I was drunk and went home with that guy, you can't hold that against me." That never happened to me. But she would be justifying her actions and telling me she can do whatever she wants with whoever she wants when she is drunk and not care if it hurts her boyfriend's feelings. In other words, She could reasonably foresee how her actions might affect someone that cares for her.
Likewise, with Aspie meltdowns... we can reasonably foresee how this effects others feelings for us. We don't seem to care who gets hurt when the meltdown happens. Eventually we realize how our actions effected those who cared for us if we didn't know already. Understanding and patience goes out the window when someone gets hurt. Responsibility is the only chance you have at repairing friendships it seems.

Everyone has their responsibilities. Of all the people I communicate with, it seems as if AS people are more responsible than NT's believe it or not.

this is wonderful. i am going to try this for sure.

at work i talk about my 'intent' versus my 'impact' (how my intent was perceived by the receiver).

in a perfect world, ones intent would match ones impact, but this is not the world we live in. i think the AS world creates a wider gap between those two things due to misunderstandings (a feedback loop that doesnt follow the average/normal/expected path).

when i make a misstep at work, i am clear that it was not my intent and we talk about how to modify my approach to produce the desired impact.

there are a few areas that concern me in regards to learning, though. i am not saying that i cannot learn, but learning some things is very difficult for me. sending emails is not a strength of mine. i feel like my emails are quite amazing really! they are grammatically correct, the words are well chosen and they share much information in a concise form. however, ive been told that they are 'off-putting' and to say a lot less in them because people dont know 'what im getting at.'

thats when i begin to believe that the receiver in the feedback loop should modify how they receive the information, especially if they are aware of the intent of the message sender. some of these emails are really top-notch if youd just stop thinking i was doing anything but sharing information and trying to be helpful for the sake of task completion.

you see, thats when AS becomes an explanation (rather than an excuse), i believe: to give the message receiver enough information so they can adjust the impact ouf your message so that it more accurately reflects the intent.

Muff, I have the same problem with my emails. I struggle in condensing information I want to render.

Mmm... I'm going to try that too.

Muff,

I think you are right. Maybe I should consider having the intent/impact conversation with this person when we are both at a calm place. I need for them to understand that my intent was not what they assumed, but at the same time, I recognize that they need me to understand the impact of what I said.

In most cases, I can change my behavior. However, in the "think before I speak" realm, it is nearly impossible for me to anticipate if someone will react negatively to what I say. Maybe we could come up with strategy using this, so that when I do say something that I did not expect to upset them, we can have a rational discussion rather than an all out war.

its interesting, i just thought of this. it seems like the same thing could (in some situations) be happening the other way around. a feedback loop is a 'loop' after all.

heres an example of what i mean:
i started this new job and i wore the same outfit everyday (i had bought five of each clothing item). after a little while, my staff believed that i was trying to screw with their heads so they told my boss that it made them uncomfortable (this is the impact). my boss told me to cut it out, so i did.

about a month later, they trusted me enough to tell me how off-putting my manner of clothing myself was and i shared with them that they had it all wrong. that wearing the same thing everyday was comforting to me and gave me structure in an very chaotic work environment and i ended by saying 'and you guys have damaged my level of comfort here at work in a rather long-lasting way.'

right then i could see that they realized that their intent to alleviate their own psychological suffering at the hands of my wardrobe (which was created by the impact of my wearing that wardrobe) led them to have the impact of hurting my feeling of comfort and peace in the workplace. and, in short, i could see that they felt really bad about that they had impacted me that way (it was not their intention to do so).

so, devils advocate: what is NT jerkiness is only jerkiness in impact? what if the intent isnt to harm us?

just a thought.

Thanks for sharing this example. It is helpful to see and hear good examples of the ways we often misunderstand each other.

I think person said these things out of frustration, but I feel they deliberately meant for these things to hurt me. Maybe they just wanted to stop the conversation. I'm not sure. The more I think about all of it, the more lost I feel, to be honest.

My response is always "What is normal?"

It's very easy to let yourself become a dormat for others. AS sometimes means you might say something rude or insulting without realizing it. It also means that someone might be rude or insulting to you without you realizing it or knowing how to react to it.

For the record, someone telling you you should be normal is rude.