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Afasia
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01 May 2015, 6:08 am

Well, I just read a paper that I find extremely misleading and offensive toward those in the autistic spectrum disorder. The paper is 'Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency', by Kennett, J. (2002).

The author describes people in the Autistic Spectrum Disorder as totally disinterested in social interaction, as likely to consider others as objects.

I myself lack social skills and generally try to avoid groups of people. But I am interested in friendship, in talking to people, in sharing memories and opinions.

I am not particularly tolerant, flexible, involved in others' feeling and interests.

But I do not lack the desire to interact with people. I am extremely bad at it, I admit it, but I never enjoyed being excluded, I do feel sad when it happens and it does make me sad not being able to have a "normal social life".

Furthermore, she says that in people with Autism behaviors such as jealousy, attachment, and dependency from people are not found.

I take it to be another ridiculous generalization. It happen to me and to many people that I know to "fall in love", in such an insane way as to exactly become dependent on the loved person.

I really find this paper offensive, and I was wondering what you might think of that.
Don't you consider the emerging stereotype of the cold-robotic autistic just simply ridiculous and moreover outrageous?

Best,

Afasia



cavernio
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01 May 2015, 7:55 am

"But I am interested in friendship, in talking to people, in sharing memories and opinions.

I am not particularly tolerant, flexible, involved in others' feeling and interests."

The first sentence directly contradicts the bolded part.


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cavernio
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01 May 2015, 8:08 am

I'm not involved in most other people's feelings and interests either, and my perspective is that this makes me antisocial. This is not a good thing, but I can't exactly hide this from myself now that I've perceived it.

The only points in time I have had friends are when there is something mutually shared that is interesting to all people involved, which usually involved a lot of humor as well.

Now that I have few interests and am not really involved in much I am interested in few people too, except for dissemination of information. I have not tried to make a friend in well over a decade.


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Afasia
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01 May 2015, 8:36 am

cavernio wrote:
"But I am interested in friendship, in talking to people, in sharing memories and opinions.

I am not particularly tolerant, flexible, involved in others' feeling and interests."

The first sentence directly contradicts the bolded part.


It doesn't. I am interested in making friends who like to talk with me about some particular interests. I am interested in sharing memories and in MY interests...so just in the interests that we have in common. If other people come to talk to me about they own interests and I don't have the same interests I just try to cut the conversation and to talk about what interests me. I am interested in sharing opinions...about precise things, and usually only when I need those opinions, e.g. because I'm writing an essay about a determinate topic. But yes, I'm not particularly tolerant toward critics. I am not particularly tolerant toward a lot of things: noise, closeness whit people with whom I am not acquainted, etc.
I am not flexible. I hate people who are not on time, I hate changing program, etc. That's considered lack of flexibility.



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01 May 2015, 9:01 am

I think the real question that needs to be raised here is. Are you "Anti-social", or are you "socially-impaired"? Being anti-social means, you don't like to be in social situations. Not because you're afraid of them, but because you simple don't like it to begin with. Where as being socially-impaired, you want to socialize, but can't because of some kind of external impairment, i.e. asperger's, autism. You may consider yourself to be anti-social because your afraid to socialize, but that does not mean you're "anti-social".



Afasia
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01 May 2015, 9:07 am

LupaLuna wrote:
I think the real question that needs to be raised here is. Are you "Anti-social", or are you "socially-impaired"? Being anti-social means, you don't like to be in social situations. Not because you're afraid of them, but because you simple don't like it to begin with. Where as being socially-impaired, you want to socialize, but can't because of some kind of external impairment, i.e. asperger's, autism. You may consider yourself to be anti-social because your afraid to socialize, but that does not mean you're "anti-social".


Yeah, you raised the point far way better than I did! It's just that when I read on that paper that people with an ASD consider others as objects and are not interested at all in getting involved in social relation I felt kind of offended. I mean... I'm extremely awkward and I tend to socialize very little, but I don't perceive myself as anti-social.



cavernio
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01 May 2015, 9:26 am

So the only difference is self-perception whether one is anti-social versus socially impaired? That's ridiculous.

I might actually get along with more people than afasia does, might be more flexible in things, but still think of myself as antisocial because I do not particularly enjoy when I am around people.

You think of yourself as enjoying being around people, but only the exact right people at the exact right time.

I could merely change my idea of myself to that, because that applies to me, and I would then no longer think of myself as anti-social.

It's ridiculous to have a term offend and another term that -means the exact same thing- and have that one not be offensive.


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keolo
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01 May 2015, 9:40 am

This is such an interesting topic. I've always thought of myself as being anti-social. However, recently I've started to believe I am more selectively-social. This is, when I'm introduced to individuals I usually know within a few seconds whether I have any interest in getting to know that person. For example, if a person seems overly assertive or the least bit aggressive I won't even talk to them. I may not even have a reason in some cases, other than to have a lack of interest in them. But if I meet someone who is friendly, quiet and non-assertive I am interesting in getting to know that person. Granted, it may take a while before I truly take an interest in their personal feeling and likes/dislikes, etc. but it eventually happens. Having a shared interest of some kind certainly helps.

I have no doubt that in larger social group settings I am socially-impaired - being overwhelmed with the sounds, sights, smells, etc. Even when there is someone in the group that I normally would feel comfortable having a conversation with, I am virtually unable to communicate effectively when a lot of other people are around.


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Afasia
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01 May 2015, 9:54 am

cavernio wrote:
So the only difference is self-perception whether one is anti-social versus socially impaired? That's ridiculous.

I might actually get along with more people than afasia does, might be more flexible in things, but still think of myself as antisocial because I do not particularly enjoy when I am around people.

You think of yourself as enjoying being around people, but only the exact right people at the exact right time.

I could merely change my idea of myself to that, because that applies to me, and I would then no longer think of myself as anti-social.

It's ridiculous to have a term offend and another term that -means the exact same thing- and have that one not be offensive.


Oky, lets try to define the two things then:

(1) 'A is anti-social iff A doesn't show any interest in socializing'

that is, she does not want to socialize at all, she is not interested in that

(2) 'A is socially impaired - but not anti-social - iff A shows interest/feel the need of socializing, nonetheless she is not able to'.

I think I correspond to (2). I would like to have people around me once in a while, but I am extremely selective, I cannot stand people for too long time (most of them at least) and I am not able to be liked as a friend from people.

I don't see any contradiction, neither it seems to me that the two terms have the same meaning.



cavernio
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01 May 2015, 10:06 am

I think I might be incapable of expressing myself as myself when I am in person. Conversation can either be about a topic I am interested in, in which case I am fine. Conversation about uninteresting topics I will not pay attention to, which is also fine unless you're working at a business where pretending to be interested in the stuff you sell is important for your sales and survival (yeah not sure how long that will last). If conversation is about myself it is not fine, because I will only talk about how I perceive myself (if even) and not how I actually am, if that makes sense. Like, I need to have already put that particular aspect of myself into my 'communication' area and already disseminated it, where I can be emotionally unattached to it as I have made it a topic, and is not myself at that point in time.

In therapy when called upon to express something about myself at that particular moment I have serious problems; will sit silently while I think about what I'm actually like and then upon realizing I am experiencing such and such a thing, have to manage to language it and then utter it.
Years ago when I went into therapy I wouldn't even get that far and I simply stopped going, I only expressed the topic of myself, not myself. Only the past year or so have I even realized that I do this.


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omid
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01 May 2015, 10:21 am

Many psychiatrists are full of s**t, let me tell you why:

They focus on the manifestation of symptoms. They don't give a flying crap about WHY someone behaves that way. They just describe and analyze the visible symptoms and are really bad at telling "why". and they also don't care about the why that much.
Example: countless times I have tried to describe my symptoms to psychiatrists and failed miserably because I'm bad at describing my symptoms or my symptoms are just hard to explain.
Their conclusion:

The patient is bad at explaining / talks Bulls**t = Schizophrenia.
Even the best psychiatrist will rely more on the way you talk and how you arrange your words that on the damn CONTENT of what you are saying. The German ones don't even care about the content.

Psychologists are much more sane but no one pays attention to what they say because they are not "doctors".


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cavernio
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01 May 2015, 10:42 am

As human beings who are talking on a website, obviously no one here meets your, what I find, very strict criteria for anti-social. Even psychopaths do not meet your criteria for socializing, nor do people with the definitional anti-social personality disorder meet that criteria, since they do in fact interact with people and seem to take pleasure in harming them.

In fact, your self-description is the closest thing to how I would define someone who is 'anti-social', when I use the term as I would in regular conversation. You will only socialize when it fits what you want, and by your own description are uninterested in socializing unless it is about topics that you like.


Your definition of social impairment then is weird. Sensory overload, sure, that's an impairment. Being unable to find words to describe something that it seems everyone else would be able to describe easily, sure, that's an impairment. Desiring some sort of emotional bond with someone and not knowing how to get to that point with the person? That's an impairment. Being unable to pay attention to something that's utterly uninteresting to you? Maybe I'm wrong about this and am just showing my own navel-gazing, but that seems 100% normal. But the result of having narrow interests is that you will not find a lot of people to connect to. Not finding other people's general

Like, if I use the word 'selfish', it is someone who does not care for others except when it suits them. That also seems to be your self-description.

I can't say that without it coming off as negative, the only thing I can say that might make it feel less harsh is that I am certainly not altruistic and struggle with my own ideas of my own selfishness.


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