Emotional Intelligence And Moving Out

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Right now, I have a issue. I have been waiting to move out for years for now and I pay $300 month for independent living coaches out of my pocket. I have many, many people that I spend time with and I feel that I am making progress about moving out.

My problem is that my psychologist is telling me that I cannot move out until I have a better spare-time management skills. He states that I cannot spend all of my time on the computer, even though I got socially with friends almost every week and I attend four AA meetings a week. (Note: I am sober for two years now and do not have problem with alcohol).

He tells me that I have to read fictional novels and that I overload my brain with information. He states that my emotional intelligence is low and that it is significantly underdeveloped. He states that I need to read fiction books and watch tons and tons of movie on how to learn emotional intelligence and social skills. He states that a drastic reduction in the amount of news and information that I consume so this development can get it full attention that it needs.

It means that I have to read one fictional book every two weeks, watch five sitcoms per week, and watch two movies that involve emotional or social skills every week. From watching all of the shows and reading the books, the psychologist is supposed to teach emotional intelligence from the subject shows.

He says that I cannot move out until I start to do this on habitual habit. He states that it is emotional intelligence is critical for social development and bonding with NTs. I also have to call three recovered alcoholics each day and they have to answer the phone even if I do not know them.

It seems that all of my spare time will be consumed with that and that does not count the time that I need to spend with people. I cannot date until the subject task is done. I cannot move forward with any personal goals until I fully emotional intelligence and be a very highly, developed level.

Essentially, he wants strong emotional relationships with other men before I can move out. He wants me to live with my folks until this habit becomes done without question.

What is your thoughts on this issue?

The psychologists suggestions are good, but he may be asking a lot of you. If you want to move out, then move out. Simple as that. Don't let someone else dictate your life. It looks like your psychologist is about playing it safe, but if you play life safe, it might take you much longer to reach your destination.

Ask yourself, do you want to move out, and do you feel ready to move out? If yes to both, then do what needs to be done. Remember, no one can make up decisions for you except yourself. Your destiny is your choice. Do not have regrets because of what someone else has told you.

uh, 5 sitcoms and 2 movies only comes out to be 6 1/2 hours a week. then however long it takes to read a book which doesn't have to take all day and with what you said about reading news and informative things it really shouldn't take long to complete a short novel. how much time a week do you spend online or reading non-fictions stuff? probably a lot more than that.

Moving out? Are you currently living in some kind of institution or supported housing?

If that's the case, then I think you're probably going to have to do exactly what your psychologist and independent living coach say. It's not that much of a sacrifice, is it, surely, if it helps you achieve what you want?

Why not start a thread asking for suggestions for movies or sitcoms to watch, and then maybe you can chat online afterwards about whether you understood the social interactions between the characters, maybe learn about what subtle behaviours or lines meant? Why not do as the pyschologist said, and then dissect and critique the movies and sitcoms afterwards?

If you haven't seen this movie, then I recommend it:

As Good As It Gets
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119822

The Melvin Udall character, played by Jack Nicholson, has quite low emotional intelligence. He doesn't realise, because he's just being himself, and he can't 'put himself in someone else's shoes' and see how his behaviour looks or feels to other people. But by watching the movie, you can see from the reactions of the other characters around him the impact of his selfish and self-engrossed behaviour. And you see him take an emotional journey, learning to care about and think about other people, and how he personally benefits from that.

And how about Snow Cake?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448124

That's also brilliantly acted. Sigourney Weaver plays a high-functioning autistic woman, so again there's a character who has low emotional intelligence and poor social skills, and sometimes the character's behaviour makes those around her feel awkward or sad or uncomfortable, sometimes it just confuses them and they can't understand her, sometimes her behaviour is funny.

But again, you get to see and hear the impact of what a character who has low intelligence and poor social skills says and does through the reactions of the characters around her. You get to see things like behaviour X makes other people upset, behaviour Y makes other people angry. If you say XYZ to someone, their feelings will be hurt.

So maybe you might be able to relate to Sigourney Weaver's character (I know I did, to an extent), so it might help to watch her character and how she interacts with the others - or fails to interact appropriately with them. And watching her might help give you some idea of what other people feel like watching you when you say or do similar things (if you do similar things, I know I do).

I find that even though you can be hopelessly emotionally unintelligent, you can emulate some things. I cannot emulate things like empathy because I do not know where to put it else than when someone dies. You cannot emulate emotions and reactions, if you do not know where to put them because generally NTs can be unpredictable. So when someone cries, how do you know they are tears of joy, sadness, pain etc. if you cannot get the context of the trigger? Until now, my best change of getting through life without understanding emotions was to remain my calm as this causes the least problems and gets me compliments and gifts that I didn't ask for (such as a drink from someone who admires you for your levelheadedness or people "liking" you, which I don't really want. All I want is a life without conflict and that no one bothers me as I at least understand my own annoyance.).

The key thing is to not to copy everything but to adapt. If you are smart you can make observations. Reading fiction doesn't really cut it, as that only tell you about how people think they behave not how they actually behave. Inherent behavior is not a wholly conscious thing.

The concept of emotional intelligence or especially "age" is controversial topic at best. I would argue that many people move out when they are not emotional very mature, in some respects, but it doesn't necessarily mean they fail.

The accepted definition of empathy isn't actually the reality IMO. Rather then being an ability to "put yourself in other people's shoes", it more a relativist sympathy with cues. The relation is actually in the "belief of common experience" rather than actual common experience of mind eye, which is an unknown.

Empathy is very selectively applied, it is not a moral high ground.

Nevertheless I dispute that people on the spectrum are really lacking empathy, they might express emotions differently. They might have a very different experience that may put them out of sync with some of the population but that is far from lacking the capacity for empathy.