AS & adaptive skills born of adversity

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Or what I really want to say but the tittle would be too big to fit in is

Do you have AS but are able to read social situations to a very refined degree AND CAN YOU TELL WHEN PEOPLE ARE BOARD WITH YOU?

I have a formal Dx with AS and fit comfortably within the diagnostic criteria, yet cannot relate at all to the often expressed believe that people with AS cannot tell when another person is board with them, or is either rude or inconsiderate. (aspie-frankness) I am completely the opposite, and would like to explain why I think this is.

I grew up in an environment of great fear, as my parents humiliated me daily for being odd and naturally 'aspie-like' . Consequently I feel I developed a PTS hyper-vigilance around the other people mocking me or abusing me.

In other words, I developed highly advanced adaptive skills at such a tender age. Later these skills enabled me to achieve superficial social competence to a very refined degree. As a result I was able to make all the right noises, and appear very normal.

Although internally I was deeply damaged and suffered depression and anxiety all my life, I have through much help and support post dx, being able to grieve and find much healing.

However, I was curious to know if there are other aspies here that have been traumatised out of their natural expression of self, and developed skills which they would otherwise have not been able to........especially the skill of being able to read social situations to such a refined degree.

I've dealt with similar things, as a child. My parents would always be after me, for talking about my special interests, all the time, or any aspie behaviour that I'd display. I was constantly told to look them in the eye. I was also sent to my room, every time that I'd cry. I was always reprimanded for behaviour that was caused by my condition. I wasn't trying to be bad, on purpose. I was told that I have a one track mind. My parents also used bribes to get me to keep a lid, on my special interests. One time, I was trying to tell my dad, what my favourite part of an environmental commercial was, he thought that I was going to say that I liked the part, where they showed our planet, I was going to tell him, that I liked it, when the character was in his anorak. He flipped out on me, yelling that he already knew which part of the commercial that I liked, and not to talk about the same things, over again. I had a really crappy day, for the rest of the day, at school and at home, after school. I was holding a lot of swear words inside. I think I got in trouble for acting up at school, that day. It was than, that I've shut my mouth, until I've discovered the wonderful world of The Beatles. Let's just say that I've shut up about them, after three months.

Just a few months ago, I told my mum that I'm quiet, because there's not much for me to say, and that it's all been said before, (about The Kinks and me loving the original drummer, back in Hell Week, in October), without me saying the actual words.

I can usually (I think) tell when someone is making fun of me or angry with me but I have the devil of a time figuring out if someone likes me or wants to be my friend or if I should stay and interact with them some more or go away and leave them alone. Since I don't like it when people get irritated with me and make fun of me or yell at me, I usually end up erring on the side of caution and assuming people don't want me around because it's easier to be alone than to get mistreated for imposing myself on people who didn't actually want me around.

I too would fit into that category of being able to read people socially which I feel I developed as an adaptive skill. Its almost as if I scanned people to see what kind of response I was getting from them. I have found that my being "different" from the majority of people made them feel uneasy around me. If I got a response that was either condescending, forced, prejudiced or something else negative I shut down. I disengaged and move on. Thankfully, I am learning to accept who I am and I don't need validation from others. I have developed an attitude that if someone can't accept me for who I am, the hell with them. I don't need their negativity in my life.

Yes,I was,and still is for some degree,struggling my way out of a quite similar situation u described,been ridiculed,neglected,bullied and used both at home and at school i learned the hard way the endless stupidity , hypocrisy , cowardliness and all other wonderful traits of the NT's.
Since i was always alone and couldn't count on anyone i become quite an expert on the NT's ways and i can usually predict any move, behavior or the thought process behind it to a degree that would stand any scientific standards and i'ts better for anyone that i wouldn't go into details as my vision of the human race tend to be very depressive/
Like u i'm diagnosed as AS but i understand NT's much better than they understand themselves,
Perhaps it is because like u wrote, i simply had to in order to stay alive/
I think that at least as for now it is very important to AS to know how to find some way to learn to id the NT's characters and motives(they come in a lot of variation but since they all basically Ego motivated they can be summed by surprisingly small number of basic rules.
Incidentally i also became a very good natural programmer because algorithms are very good tool to described mechanical creatures such as the NT's/

Yes, me too and eventually I associated being alone with feeling safe. I became hypervigilant from watching my father's moods because you never knew what small thing was going to set him off. I also notice the exchanged glances and half smiles between two people after I've said something and I don't know why what I said was wrong or stupid.

I think my early 'adaptions' were mostly just negative and damage; i.e. self isolation and inhibition of all display, iron fisted control of emotion leading to crazed outbursts, over sensitivity and default hostile stance etc.etc.

The better adaptations occurred after I pursued self directed behaviour modification in my twenties. The process is ongoing.

I believe I can read people pretty well, these days.

I too, learned to adapt to a degree, and choose from a range of social responses:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeV-DI09Q3w[/youtube]

Thank you so much everybody for all you have contributed. Clearly I am not alone.

What also greatly interests me is how aspies, who have acquired the ability to read and discern others non-verbal expressions, are able to translate this into the area of empathy.

For example, I am able to read and see how suffering and mental distress is written all over a persons face and body. Though I don't see this as a result of my suffering in itself. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. However, I feel that much of my ability to attune myself to others feelings, be it frustration, suffering, or whatever, is directly linked to my experience of moving beyond the intellectualisation of my feelings and into the deeply felt experience of my loss and suffering.

In others words, grieving my suffering has linked me to the suffering world. And although I feel lost in the social world, with all it's small talk and insincerity, I feel well qualified to see the pain that is often just beneath the surface.

I know a friend of a friend of mine who has AS and calls herself an Emotional savant. However, she believes her ability to read others is directly linked to her 'right-brainedness'

I assume I am good at identifying emotional states in others. Or maybe I just think I am.

I took a couple of empathy tests. In the first one, a rather in depth and long test, I thought I was doing quite well. But the scores indicated that my ability to assess people's emotional states was very poor. On the next one, a rather simple test, I came out quite well and that was while being conservative with my answers.

Who is right? I have to look at how I relate to other people. I can usually accurately guess a person's emotional state in real life. If I ask how the person feels, their answer is usually quite close to my guess. But where I have trouble is how that emotional state will lead them to behave. I can usually look at behavior and make a pretty good guess as to what emotions lead to it, but knowing the emotions, I often have trouble guessing how the person will act.

As a child I was teased a lot and when I took the initiative to acquire some experience with girls... well, let's just say that didn't work out too well. I learned to keep my mouth shut, to watch and listen and collect information. I frequently used the mental tool of asking myself "what emotion would I need to feel to make me do that that other person is doing?" It's an effective way gathering information although it can lead to some wrong conlusions from time to time.

Anyway, I seem to be far better at sensing other people's emotions than even most NTs are. I do have a huge blind spot when it comes to their other's as they relate to me, but in general I seem to be good at some parts of empathy.

Lars