What? No step by step guide for adult aspies?

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Doesn't this strike you as odd? After all, everybody knows how things really are - even we figure it out eventually. Or it's just my total lack of understanding of taboos? I can see why people don't like somebody who shouts an unpleasant truth from the rooftops - but why such reluctance of having a discreet conversation with your own child? It's not like we don't notice anyway how phony society is and we'll only judge people more harshly if these things are not explained to us. As a teenager I ended up thinking everybody uses double standards and will try to take advantage of others - it took me a very long time to understand the difference between defence mechanisms and plain cruelty.

I suspect a lot of people are actually incapable of expressing these things - they are born with an instinctive knowledge (that can be further developed) of what can/can not be said/done and just take it for granted (also assuming that everybody else has the same abilities). Some of these protocols are actually so complicated and strange when you try to put them into words and rationalize them, they seem so absurd from a strictly logical point of view - maybe that's what's causing the discomfort - to suddenly be confronted with your vain/emotional/irrational side and try to justify it in front of someone that doesn't empathise with it?

Or is it that admitting these weaknesses would imply that people should change? Many seem to perceive discussing unwritten rules as an opened and deliberate attack, like the very core of their nature and existence as social beings is being questioned and immediately become extremely defensive.

SECRET is the SECRET. Lots of books have SECRET in the title. It must appeal to common emotions. Remember "The Secret" promoted by Opera and everybody else.

^

Did i miss something, am i mean't to be picking something up? Please explain.

I think you hit the nail on the head, to be honest. I have also noticed that as you work some of these things out, if you ask people why they do/say them, they say that it 'is the way of the world.' I kindly point out to them that it doesn't have to be, it is only this way because he/she persists to do/say whatever it was. There are so many so-called games in life for which I don't have energy to participate nor work out the rules. That said, I think that most people here do in fact learn to 'get by', some with better success than others (obviously).

Sallamandrina, people thrive on their denial systems. Having to admit to the nonverbal shatters their denial and it's hard work putting it together again. A mask from oneself, I mean.

This guide is written by an aspie and is very much to the point. The section called 'Keeping a Clean Slate' is excellent and very amusing, in fact the whole online guide is delightful to read.

Coping: A Survival Guide for People with Asperger Syndrome

I should probably read through a section every week till it starts to sink in as I'm clearly better at theory than practice, then again maybe I'm not so good at theory either.

Itsallrosie, the guide you refer to in your post above is really very good. i came across it last year, and it is now that I could really do with reading it.

thanks.

I love that you said this. The truth in this statement is undeniable. It's why I could care less about what most NT's think. They have issues, and I'm rarely in the mood to deal with their fake issues.

I guess I was in the wrong thread. I wrote the 11 step guide in Greentea's thread about fitting in. What you are not getting is it is nonverbal because it is taboo. It is taboo because it is nonverbal. I don't understand you when you don't just tell me what you are saying. You can't go around the back door and imply to me that something is, unless you tell me you are doing that. I don't get the joke if you don't explain why the joke is funny.
You say to the NT you do all this nonverbal stuff I don't get, and they do a bunch of nonverbal stuff to try and get you to do something and you do something, and they think the nonverbal stuff made you do it. You say No, that is not what happened, you finally told me out loud verbally and then just told yourself I heard the bajillion nonverbals not the verbal singular thing I managed to piece together. They say what are you talking about I never said that, I would never say that, it would be taboo to say that. That is only done nonverbally.

I think the issue regarding verbal and non-verbal is that for ordinary people there is NO DICHOTOMY. It is ALL the one language. They have an instinctive understanding of this and so there is only one language for them.

We perceive it as 2 distinct languages because we only have access to one. (verbal.)And if we do develop access to the second part (the non-verbal) it is not instinctively learned but learned via cognitive channels. I can see how one would assume it is about the non-verbal just being tabou, but i do not think this is really the entire case. Is it tabou to smile knowingly at someone? Is it tabou to frown when something goes wrong? no.
there is tabou verbal and tabou non-verbal.
there is non-tabou verbal and non-tabou non-verbal.

the issue for me is I have no sense or interest in ANY of these breakdowns as I do not really operate and behave contextually - and by this I mean the context or the environment does not really impinge upon what I think and say. I can go into t room and i will sum it up on the basis of clothing, wealth, demographics, but ask me to go in and sum up the subtleties. That may be different for some others on WP. BUt in my case I know it fits in with this notion of the autistic honesty we hear so much about. I walk into t conversation and i do not pick up on "the tone" or the subtleties of the exchanges. Foot in mouth for me. AGAIN.
That translates to being full of blunder, "gauche," or a "loaded gun." We only have half the available (or less) language and so we roam around saying the wrong things in the wrong ways. For me, I do not have flat affect, but a rubber, overly expressive face and it was only the past year I realised even the inner and outer do not match. And for people with a flat affect, it is the same, - they may feel something wonderful inside, but there is no outward non-verbal expression of it and so they are read as being boring and grumpy.



For most people there is a seamless flow from verbal to non-verbal and back again in their communications exchanges. IT is all one clear and clean and undulating language that makes sense to those who can partake in it.

We only have a verbal vocabulary...or we rely on it primarily, whereas others rely on non-verbal more.

Taboo is not that which is never to be done, it is that which is only done when you turn of the lights and never acknowledge it was done outside of the doing of it. It is not the thing you don't do, it is the understanding of when it is appropriate. Your inner state is more complex than you have means to express it. It is more complex than you have means to understand it. Systems can only be grokked by that which is of greater complexity than themselves by tautological fact. It is self evident. A willingness to confront this in your every moment requires a great expenditure of will, and being born with a physiological imperative to be more aware of the process happening before you is going to impact the entire system.

NTs talk about game face the way autistics talk about off face. Decompression. Shutdown. When your brain is always either in full off or full power, everything is too intense. The pattern to your body deciding now would be a good time to just kick on full power no matter what you tell it is going to determine how well you "fit in". I'm just too intense for everybody around me, I don't know how to turn it off so I just have to channel it in the right direction so that I can feel respect for how I performed. Others will experience and decide how to cope with their own unique path.

We I You One, the same thing is never the same thing for any two people no matter how similar. One cannot grok One until One is Two. It is self evident.