I need your help with understanding some things.

Post Reply New Topic

1. I often find myself not knowing what to do in certain situations. Example: if someone (child or adult) trips/falls and hurts themselves (or if they trip/fall without getting hurt) I get very confused. I never know how to act or what to do in those situations. Should I say something? Do they want me to do something? Most of the time I just stay put and do nothing and sometimes I, a bit awkwardly, say "are you ok?". I only ask "are you ok?" if I know the person and even if I know the person I don't always ask.

If someone's crying I get the same feeling of confusion but I often manage to ask what's going on (if I know the person that is) and depending on who's crying I ask if they want a hug.

Why do I have this problem? Is it a confidence problem? What do people really want me to do in situations like these?

2. I've always (for as long as I can remember) felt different and I've felt like I view the world in a different way than the people around me. One example of this is that when I go outside I often don't just go outside; I think about everything (not always but often). I think about what the air I breathe in consists of, I think about how the respiratory system works, I think about how it's taken 8 minutes for the light I see to travel to Earth and I think about the fact that I sort of look back 8 minutes in time all the time. I think about the colours of things and I wonder if people see for example the colour green the same way as I do. And I think about why I can see that green colour. Loads of things like that. When I mention it to people they say "be careful about saying that to people or they might think you're weird." Not sure they were serious?

I hope you understand what I mean. It's a bit difficult to explain. Anyway, am I the only one who do this?

Last edited by rebbieh on 29 Jul 2012, 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

I relate to both points you made, but mainly the first. I have no idea how to comfort people, or what to do when someone is crying. I sort of just stand or sit there, looking around thinking like "f**k, what do I do?"

The second, I do take in my surroundings kind of, but not as much as you pointed out. I like to look at plants and stuff. I like bright green plants and I like flowers and stuff. The outdoor kind though. Indoors when flowers are around, I don't care about or appreciate.

I think there are a variety of reasons. If you don't know someone you don't know how much of an intrusion they might take your help or intervention as. Sadly strangers don't always appreciate help, and some can even be abusive. Also, if you can't see a practical solution, it's a bit bewildering to know what to do. Another thing is, in today's society if it's a child that needed help, you don't know if the parents or other people might think you're some sort of deviant in helping to pick up a child that fell near you. As a parent, I can understand this element.

I think anxiety also plays a big part of course. Once I was walking home from work and an elderly lady collapsed outside a newsagent shop. There was no-one else immediately around and I felt terrified but that I had no choice as that is what people would expect. So I went to her aid, and saw she was confused and had a minor cut from falling and some mucous on her face. I'm horribly sqeamish as well. I ran to the shopkeeper and asked him to help because I didn't know what to do. He called an ambulance and got her a blanket. I felt obliged to stay on the scene until the ambulance staff came in case they needed to know what happened. After she was attended to, I began walking back home and I almost collapsed. I had to sit on a wall for a while. I was dizzy and almost hyperventilating. I know it was the shock, but I'm sure a lot of other people wouldn't have reacted so badly as I did.

I feel really uncomfortable if people I don't know cry. I would feel awkward as to what to do.

It's hard to judge situations really, whether to help or not. If I knew I could do something practical to help I would probably try but the emotional effects it might have on me would probably make me check whether anyone 'more suitable' could help beforehand and I'd only do so if I felt I had no other choice.

About the way you view the world, I read that people on the spectrum tend to think quite philosphically, if that's waht you mean. I think I think like that.

I'm okay if I see something concrete I can do to help... helping up someone who falls, returning a lost kid to its family, etc. But I find it very disconcerting when people cry or get emotional in front of me. I just freeze up. If I'm really close to someone, I don't mind giving a hug and saying "I'm sorry you're upset," but beyond that I have no idea how to respond. I think it's one of those kinds of situations that's too complicated and personal for there to be a single correct response. That makes it a lot more difficult to navigate if you don't have an intuitive understanding of what the other person needs, which I imagine is something a lot of us have trouble with.

This is me exactly. If there is something that can be done, such as fetching someone a cup of tea, or administering First Aid then I am fine. In fact in situations where someone is badly hurt I am pretty good - over the years I've dealt with a few stabbings (the area where I used to live is not very nice) and I have always coped very well in those situations. However, If the person is just upset then I panic because I can't control the situation or make it better for the person who is upset. I find that very difficult.

I have this problem too, and although there's a lack of confidence involved I think that's caused by the confusion instead of the other way around. It seems as though my response is supposed to be automatic and instinctive, but I don't normally have any intuitive response to the situation (other than being distressed and feeling as if I should do something) and so I'm left trying to recall all the times I've cried and wanted either to be comforted, helped, or left alone, and guessing which applies.

When a person falls over, though, it usually seems safe to ask "are you OK?", although I don't think I always do.



I do this too. The people who say that you might look weird might be serious, since being weird is a terrible thing in the eyes of some. An alternative might be if they are friends who think you're weird and like you for it, in which case they may be joking, meaning that you are weird.
At least that's my best attempt at figuring it out. What sort of expression do they have when they say it? Do they know you well or not?

The guy who said it knows me, but he doesn't know me too well. He sort of smiled before he said it so I'm not sure if he was joking or not. Not that I care. I really like thinking about things like that when I for example walk outside. I'm mostly wondering if someone else is thinking about these things as well, because most people don't seem to do so.

Confidence has nothing to do with it, it's a problem with not understanding the unspoken social rules.
NT's just act on what they *feel* in the moment, instead of thinking *at all* about it. This instinctive behaviour comes natural to them, and thus it seems normal, easy and not something you need to talk about/teach...
Thus I too have no idea what to do, and generally pretend to ignore the situation whilst getting extremely anxious.
Then, like you, I keep worrying about it afterwards.


Not so, the light is 8 minutes old when it reaches the planet, but it only takes a minute fraction of a second for it to bounce off of stuff around you into your eye.
So what you see is stuff like it was a fraction of a second ago, unless you look directly into the sun!

I know exactly what you mean. I think it's really sad that most NTs miss out on that view of the world. When I look up at a blue sky I think about how I can't see them right now, but there are countless stars and countless galaxies full of countless stars out there, above my head, waaaaaaaaay out of human reach. I think about how enormous the universe is and how long ago the Big Bang was an how long it will be before it's all over. I wonder if there's a multiverse out there and what the other universes are like and if they can be reached. I visualize the ground I'm standing on as a collection of rocks floating in space, and I imagine I can sense the curve of the Earth and all the people, plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, viruses, amoebas and other life forms we share it with. I feel the breeze on my face and know it's a tiny portion of the atmosphere swishing around.

Then people act like I'm the weird one when I don't understand why they give a s**t about their myopic little issue like whether or not their pants are too short. So I fake it, and I do it well, and I don't talk about the things I'm really thinking about, and people accuse me of being too quiet, and someone says "she's just reserved," and by that they mean I'm a little bit shy and snobby... but all I really wanted in the first place was for someone to tell me they're as dazzled as I am by the grandeur of it all, or wonder with me what it's like to be that squirrel we just walked past. Where's he going, anyway? What does he see when he looks at a blue sky?

But then I realize I'm twenty minutes late for an appointment, and I've been pulling at my necklace hard enough to leave a mark on my neck, and someone is staring at me, and my companion is snapping his fingers in front of my face because I'm spaced out again, and I still haven't paid my cable bill. Then I say something wrong and someone gets mad at me. Whoops. What fun.

Of course. My bad. It's cool to think about though, isn't it? There it is. The sun. A gigantic nuclear fusion reactor about 1.496 x 10^8 kilometers away from us, keeping us alive. And every time I look at it I see it as it was about 8 minutes ago. It could die and I wouldn't notice until 8 minutes later. Blows my mind.

I do that too. Sometimes when walking outside I think about how the Earth is orbiting the sun at an average orbital speed of 107 200 km/h and how the Earth at the same time rotates around its own axis. And we live here, on a tiny speck in a vast universe containing billions and billions of galaxies (which in turn contain billions and billions of stars). Seriously, just writing about this makes me really excited. Almost bouncing in my chair.

Sorry if it was an offensive comment, I just go into this automatic mode where I think my comment is helpful.
And NT's ALWAYS get snarky/angry when you suggest an honest tweak or point out an inaccuracy, which is the opposite of what I wanted to accomplish...

OT: Yes, it's mindbogglingly awesome, all this science!
I've thought about your inital comment a bit more, and I think you might start thinking of these science things when going outside to prevent your mind from wandering into more stressful areas.
Because if you're thinking about alvioli you can't think about that a random person you vaguely know (or not at all) might bug you in the street about some thing, or that something will go wrong in the store, etc. etc.

My therapist worded it to me like this once; "When you're lying awake at night and get pissed that you're not sleeping but wasting time on thinking the same mundane things over and over again, just remember that it's preventing you from thinking about worse things (that might actually be stressing you out and causing you to be unable to sleep)".
Ever since then when I find myself frustrated about worrying hours on end in bed I at least don't ADD to my stress by getting angry at my brain for going on and on about nonsense.
Like explaining how the sun works to my therapist. It's extremely unlikely that situation ever comes up, so why "rehearse" that anyway?
And now you know why

It wasn't offensive. I had written down the wrong facts and you were right. It's as simple as that

Science is awesome. It's my biggest and most intense interest. Love it! I'm not sure what it has to do with not being able to sleep though? Care to explain it again? I don't think I understood what you meant.

I can sort of relate to your first problem. Except with me it's not so much people injuring themselves it's helping people. Well, it's hard to explain because when I'm home I always love to help out my parents and I even like to help out others in all ways possible but I get shy to ask sometimes which makes me feel somewhat awkward. You know like when we go to a family party or cookout or something and I see people working/setting up or cooking food or something I want to help them and I feel weird just standing there while the people are working but I am too shy to go up to the people and ask them if they need any help as much as I really would like to help. That's why when we're there my mom will say something like "hey you should go see if they need help" and I'll reply by saying something quietly like "that's a good idea but I'm not sure what they're doing or they seem to have it under control" or sometimes I might just say that I'm too shy to ask. I have no idea why this is as it happens in many situations. It's not that I don't want to help the person I'm just to shy to offer so it is awkward. I wish I knew why that was but yes I can relate to you.