"I Don't Believe You" - trying to prove invisible

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I got in an argument a few days ago with a friend who claims that I must be making up everything about my sensory issues, perception, and motor skill issues. I think she believes that I'm excusing myself from working hard at something (which I already do, but in an invisible way) by claiming to have a disability which, because she can't see it and has never heard of it before, she doesn't understand or believe in. While she has, of course, heard of autism and asperger syndrome, she, like most people, has never learned more than the surface "social awkwardness" signs (which I don't show very much thanks to years of training) and of course the severe cases of autism where people are completely unable to communicate.

I've tried to make a little demonstration of my perception and how it affects my artistic skills (the thing that started our argument - she said I would improve if I just practiced more, I assured her I'd been practicing my whole life and certain things just can't be changed, and then came my attempted explanations and our argument). I've put it in my blog here: http://crowdedhead.blog.com/2012/12/27/the-details/

Also there is a second post about our argument and why it seems so impossible to communicate these things to neurotypicals: http://crowdedhead.blog.com/2012/12/27/ ... lieve-you/

I would like some feedback on this, if you guys don't mind. Do these images get the point across? Do you think they would be helpful in making NTs understand? I haven't shown this girl yet and I'm concerned that she will reject it and say I simply haven't practiced enough. I know I shouldn't care what she thinks, but to work so hard at this only to be told that I'm "making excuses" and dismissed as lazy or a hypochondriac, it just really hurts.

I'd also like to see what others can come up with. Do you guys share my difficulty with translating what you see into an image on paper? Maybe we could create a collection of these sorts of drawings compared with photographs, to try to visibly show what it is that we're experiencing. Trying to describe it verbally just isn't working.

Ditch the friend. She is only going to cause you trouble and grief, because it is obvious that she can not perceive you as a being separate from herself, and with perceptions of your own.

My concern in writing this post is less about convincing this friend (I don't actually know her well, we aren't close) and more about whether images like this might be helpful in explaining what is so hard to make NTs understand about our perception.

I am running into the same issues with my best friend and parents. My sister on the other hand is on the spectrum as well and has been supportive. I have to endure things like "You just need to practice and I don't see it. Your full of sh*t" And so on. I have noticed that NTs have a terrible "Theory of mind" or they are just oblivious to certain things. The only advise I have is to "Soldier on". After all, no one knows what goes on behind your eyes.

Yes, what you guys are saying is true, of course. On the other hand, I can sort of understand the NT impulse to reject our assertions that we have an invisible disability. We all know that it's real, and many doctors and other experts are also understanding, but I can see how it would sound incredible to someone with no experience with it. Verbally explaining it doesn't always suffice; some people will take me at my word, but many will not. It certainly can't do any harm to supplement verbal descriptions with visual ones. If we can consistently demonstrate in a visible way that our perception really is different, it will cease to be a totally invisible disability, and maybe we can achieve some better understanding on the whole between ourselves and NTs who won't simply believe everything they're told without tangible evidence.

That said, has anyone actually viewed the images, any feedback on them? I could repost them here I guess, but I've already posted them on 2 sites and I'm uneasy about simply distributing them everywhere. They're not watermarked in any way and I want them to stay connected to this explanation.

I looked at the images, and they don't match my sensory perceptions, and I don't think that they convey information to NTs about detailed perception. In my perception, detailed perception is more like focusing on the little squares of a window screen instead of the scene outside the window or the wood grains of a dresser instead of the dresser. To get even more small picture, I often focus on the white marks on the window screen squares that are made by the sun shining on the black material. If I were seeing jeans, then I would be seeing the little streaks and spots of fabric.

I have not seen the images. Where are they? I have read the story you attached in the original post.

Yes, it's the same for me. The purpose of trying to draw this is that I was following each detail, zoomed in all the way, without any regard for the "big picture." Some parts of it turned out recognizable, but for the most part, the proportions are all wrong and there's no sense of the overall scene. As I got to the bottom-right of the image (the last part I drew) I discovered that the lines didn't even come close to matching up where they were supposed to, because I could only draw each detail and had no sense of the overall scale.

Basically, this image is not intended to be a representation of what I see. It's just a representation of how my perception makes it impossible for me to accurately draw from life, to translate an image from the real world into a recognizable drawing. The girl I was talking to insisted that my drawing skill would get better with practice, even though I've been practicing for 20 years. I tried to explain to her that because I can only see one detail at a time, I can never make a complete image that looks accurate and correctly proportioned. This is when she said "I don't believe you."

Maybe it doesn't come across in the finished image. I wonder if it would be more useful to make a video of myself drawing, and explaining what I'm doing along the way.

Anyway thanks for the feedback. I will consider it some more and maybe make something new, or at least alter my blog post to explain better what I am trying to convey.

Stitch, the images are in the first link in the first post. The second link is the story.

I have also put the images on my tumblr with what might be a better explanation of what I'm trying to convey. That can be found here: http://airavj.tumblr.com/post/389658929 ... explain-to

EDIT: I've added the text from the Tumblr post to the Blog post in an attempt to make it clearer. Sadly the blog.com interface for adding images is very confusing and messy, so I will make an attempt at making the post clearer and more organized when I'm better rested. For now I hope that extra text will help.

Sorry, my computer is not cooperating today. Okay I seen them, I tend to focus on shadows, patterns not the whole picture. So yes I can relate.

I think that a drawing of what you ackshuly see would be an easier way to show other people. If I were this person, and I saw this drawing, and I heard your description, I wouldn't understand either. Ackshuly, I don't understand your eggsperience of drawing. I focus on details too, but I haven't had the same problems with overall scenes. For a scene, I often draw a little detail in the bottom right corner, then another in the middle, then another in the top left, and the big picture comes out of the little details drawn in random nonsensical order. But I relate to not being able to draw in a traditional art way.

I think your drawing is very good. I admit it's very hard to see but maybe because of too much detail so it's hard to make out what it is.

I don't have this problem fortunately. I suck at drawing for one. I have the opposite problem in fact, I just get too overwhelmed with all the details I can't even draw them. Maybe if I were a good artist I could but it's so overwhelming I don't know where to start and it's hard to draw them anyway so I focus on the basics. I don't know if this is normal and it just means I don't have the talent for drawing.

I also get overwhelmed in this way. It was extremely difficult to finish this drawing actually. I nearly quit many times because it was just TOO MUCH. But I also really wanted, at least once, to try to demonstrate this. Actually, your description of being overwhelmed by all the details supports my description of why I can't be a traditional artist.

I'm thinking based on all these comments that maybe a video would really do the job better than a finished drawing. I'd have to find a way to set up a video camera without showing my face though. Maybe I could caption the video instead of speaking, as well, to hide my voice. I'd prefer to keep this anonymous - too many people in my life who don't know I have AS and for most of them I'd like to keep it that way.

I'll see what I can do.

btbnnyr: I'm impressed that you're able to create an overall scene while still having the detail perception. If I try to draw the way you describe, or even copying an image using a grid, I still can't make the lines connect in the right place. What about scale and proportions in real life; are you able to tell if something will fit in a given space without actually putting there? Can you tell generally how far away things are just by looking, or how big things are without measuring? Maybe we have different perception in this way, if you're able to keep images to scale when you draw?

Also, I don't think it's possible for me to draw what I actually see... I've tried many times but it ends up being really tiny, and then I can just build on it by continuing in each direction, like I tried to do with this image. So I guess this drawing *is* what I actually see, but expanded outwards, since I see only one point of it at a time. Hm... I never realized how difficult it is to describe this!

I think that you should focus on drawing your way instead of the traditional way that is not working for you. I really can't draw that way either. I really suck at it. I used to draw realistic nature scenes and pictures of objects, but I don't like to do that anymore. Now, I like to draw flat cartoons without artistic techniques, but I like flatness and simplicity. I think of drawing more as a way to communicate my thoughts than as art. I suck at art.

To answer your questions, I think that our perceptions may be different when it comes to proportions and big pictures. I haven't had a problem figuring out if something will fit somewhere or how far away something is. When I'm drawing in the part by part way, I have an image of the whole scene in my head and imagine it on the paper, so it's like I am tracing little details here and there.

Why not start with a section but wait, why is that still hard?

When I took art class, I would skip drawing the details or pick something from a picture and draw that or pick a picture that didn't have lot of detail.

I have always liked drawing grids where you put a grid over the picture and draw the grid on your paper and draw each section of it.

They say autistic people tend to be very good at drawing so they draw all these little details like most artists do. Like that one savant autistic man who flew over London and drew the whole entire city in 20 minutes. Some are good and some are not. I know most artists need to sit at the scene and draw the picture while the autistic savant man did it from memory.

Yes, I do focus on my own style of art rather than traditional stuff. The purpose of this image was supposed to be trying to communicate to NTs *why* I can't be a traditional artist. Most of my friends are artists so the whole "if you practice enough you can do it" argument comes up pretty frequently. Some take my word for it that it's not possible for me but don't really understand why, and some don't believe it at all. If I could demonstrate for them, show them an example and explanation like this, it would help us understand each other. In a larger sense it could help NTs in general understand those on the spectrum better if we can show what we see/feel rather than just trying to explain it.

It can only be a good thing to improve communication somehow. I hear so many people on this forum ranting and raving about how unfair it is that NTs don't understand or don't believe us, but can anyone really blame them for not believing in something they can't understand and see no direct evidence for? You can say "they should just believe you," but I could go around telling everyone I'm actually a spy from the Martian underground government sent to steal all the bread on the planet. I wouldn't expect anyone to believe that, but telling people we have an invisible sensory disability isn't much less far-fetched in the mind of someone who has no experience with it. We all know it's real, but they do not and they have no reason to. Looking at it from their point of view, it makes sense that someone would invent something like this in order to give themselves an excuse for not trying. So basically, I sympathize with them even though I know they're wrong, and I want to do something about it and help them understand.

I had always assumed that my difficulty with proportions and scale was directly tied to my detail-oriented perception, but it seems I was wrong about that. I wonder, do others here have the same problem as me? When I'm drawing, I can't just "ignore the details" because the details are the only thing I see. Just like in real life, I absolutely cannot distinguish between what's important and what's not. I can't see the overall image, the outlines, the "big picture." So my drawings are full of things that most people would never even notice in the first place, and certainly don't belong in the picture. By the time I'm finished, aside from the last parts not matching up due to scale being all wonky, I can hold up the picture next to what I was drawing and see immediately that it is "wrong," but I can't see why. Something doesn't look right, but I can't pinpoint what it is. I go to each detail and they all look accurate, yet the overall image is still not right.

It helps if I draw from a picture rather than from life. At least there are clear boundaries on where the picture ends so I have more reference points to try to align with. Still, the final product never looks accurate and I can never figure out why.

League_Girl, who says that autistic people tend to be good at drawing? I know there are some savants who are famous for their art, but I've never heard any generalization that autistic people are on average any better at art than NTs. Drawing in detail from memory is definitely a savant thing, not a general ability. I can do certain things very well, but I can never draw what I see in any overall-accurate sort of way.