I did some research on this subject for a book that I've been writing... well... related subjects, I'm not sure if I gave any actual study evidence for this specific issue...
I don't think "scare" is a great word to describe what's actually happening here.
As people with AS who begin having an unusual and sometimes surreal sensory experience of the world, we become accustomed to requiring more effort when we analyze things. Granted that our brains seem to be designed to do that anyway, producing the "hyperfocus" state that Vernon Smith mentioned in an interview on CNBC and that Michael John Carly (founder of GRASP) talked about in an interview on NPR.
That's one part of it... and so our tendency is to examine things in very fine grained detail that most people don't, or arguably even can't as a result of the fact that their brains don't produce the state of hyperfocus. We might try to impart the information we've absorbed to others, but often it can be like trying to pour a pitcher of water into a coffee cup. The cup just isn't designed to hold that volume.
And then there's a 2nd part. Because of the negative experiences we have with non-autistic people (bullies in particular), at a young age we tend to become very familiar with negative experiences. This leads to a history of depression for many of us (myself included). And I feel like a lot of us because depression is such a major part of our psychological makeup, we often don't realize that depression isn't normal or that people aren't supposed to be depressed all the time (in an evolutionary sense). This is only reinforced by the hyperfocus, because then when we become depressed and we start trying to study these things that are bothering us, we are able to focus an enormous amount of attention on these negatives (compared to the amount of attention that others can or do devote to them).
In an evolutionary and statistical sense, the number of people who experience the kind of debilitating anxiety and depression that we experience are very small. The reason for this is because anxiety and depression aren't advantageous in an evolutionary sense. Both of these conditions actually are severely physically debilitating over time and so, being in the perpetual state of anxiety and depression that often consumes us is actually causing physical injury to us as well.
This is because negative emotions are designed for the purpose of dealing with immediate problems. Fear for example helps us to avoid being eaten by a tiger, but it does this by shutting off bodily systems that we need in the longer term. It's the biological equivalent of an episode of Star Trek in which the Captain orders power to be diverted from life-support to the ship's shields. You actually need the life-support, but for that brief period while the power is diverted, the shields are more important.
The problem with prolonged anxiety or depression is that the body's emergency system is sort of short-circuited. In our case, the anxiety and the depression is the body saying "hey, figure out what this problem is and fix it!" ... But our problem is very subtle and difficult to resolve. Of course, if we knew how to resolve it, then there wouldn't be a problem would there? But our mind is aware that there is a social problem and our mind wants us to find a way to fix it -- the problem comes in our inability to fix the problem, which causes the anxiety and depression to continue and to continue to cause physical injury to our bodies over time. (This is part of the reason why intestinal and digestive problems are so common among people with AS, including myself.)
So, here's where these things come together. A normal person who isn't suffering with autism experiences occasional negative emotions, instead of perpetual negative emotions. The person suffering with autism on the other hand experiences perpetual negative emotions and so we become somewhat inured to the experience. It's difficult for us to imagine life being any other way and so that too is sort of short-circuiting the body's natural mechanisms.
For the NT who is unaccustomed to prolonged depression, their body and their brain are still functioning in the normal preservation mode, which means that when they're exposed to things that are painful or uncomfortable, they look for ways to avoid the discomfort. This is actually the normal way in which the body and the brain keep them healthy. And like us, they have a difficult time imagining life being any other way.
So here you have the normal, healthy body and brain going along, doing their usually optimistic thing. And they come in contact with an aspie like us, who has known little other than suffering... and we start talking about all the different ways in which we've suffered or seen others suffer... and there's a natural instinct here as well for them to feel empathy for you or for the situations your describing. So they feel bad or uncomfortable because that's how humans are wired -- to feel bad about the misfortune of their tribe-members, so that everyone pulls together for the well-being of the tribe.
However, in many cases there isn't anything they can actually do - there's no practical direction we can give them - actions for them to take to help fix these situations we're describing. And so in the absence of having an ability to "fix the problem" (which is what we're wired to do when we experience negative emotions), they have a couple of options remaining. One is that they could simply endure until we're done with our lament and move on to either something positive or something that we can fix. This poses a problem only because as autistics, we have that unfortunate habit of trying to impart our vast repositories of information onto other people... As I mentioned above, it's like trying to pour a pitcher into a coffee cup. The second option for them is what happens when the coffee cup runs over and we're still pooring water out of the pitcher. Seeing no end in sight to the stream of problems they have no ability to "fix", they resort to the self-preservation instinct and instead remove themselves from the source of the discomfort.
I'm about to make a comment that's liable to get me flamed here... but... bear with me.
In a very real sense, avoiding "the truth" in that case of negative scenarios that you can't fix is actually more helpful than the knowledge. A lot of our knowledge about things that are negative or that might become negative is ultimately unrealized. What I mean by this is, okay it's good to know that muggers and whatnot carry guns. But if I never put myself into an area where a mugger is likely to be and therefore never make myself a potential mugging victim, whatever knowledge I might have gathered about the guns that muggers cary is unrealized in terms of helping me deal with that situation.
As an aspie, I might say take an interest in mugging. Where does it happen? When? To whom? What kind of weapons do they use? What do they want to take? What do they do when they get it? what do they do when they don't get it? If I were to take an interest in mugging (or even in crime in general), it's likely that I would ask all these questions, but also many hundreds of other questions. But the reality is that the only questions that are liable to actually help me deal with the problem of muggings, is "when and where?" If I avoid the when and the where, then I avoid the problem all-together, I don't need a gigantic catalog of information about the problem. I only need those two bits that help me deal with it personally.
However, if I'm taking this interest in mugging because I'm bothered by the fact that mugging happens or I'm afraid that it might happen to me, something else is happening in addition to my gathering a lot of unrealized information. In addition to all that information being unhelpful in dealing with the problem, the depth and breadth of my taking the interest in it would also be contributing to my anxiety and depression and as I mentioned before, injuring my physical body over time.
A while back I remember doing a google search for burglar alarm statistics. I wanted to know if it was more expensive to own a burglar alarm or to be burglarized. I remember one of the first sites I came to reported the statistic that "a home is burglarized every 10 seconds!" My god, that's awefu... uh... that's how often a baby is born... So my likelyhood of being burglarized is roughly similar to my likelyhood of fathering a child. I personally have fathered three children and not been burglarized. I'm pretty sure my lack of having anything worth stealing has contributed to the latter as well... but conceptually, the idea still stands. You could give yourself an ulcer over the fact that you might be burglarized, or you could just accept that it's a risk (a small one), move on and deal with it if it actually happens to you. The ulcer is nearly guaranteed on the one hand - the robbery is much less likely.
All the statistics and evolution are stacked on the side of an optimistic expectation being the most beneficial to you in the long-run. You'll be healthier, you'll live longer, you'll probably be paid more if you work and you'll even be smarter because anxiety and depression also inhibit neurogenesis in the hippocampus.
I've actually been through all the thoughts and feelings previously expressed in this thread. I wondered why other people just wanted to "stick their head in the sand". That was before I started doing the research. If you study the science, what you find is that this particular behavior of avoiding negative things is actually an important part of our self-preservation instinct. It's the reason why we perceive these things as being "negative" in the first place and don't just perceive everything as being inherently "neutral".
As another example, Chimaeran mentioned not liking seeing blood in a place where it's not supposed to be... Well... obviously blood is an important part of your health and if you've got blood where it's not supposed to be, then you ought to be trying to do something about that situation. So over the course of many generations, the evolutionary effect has meant that people who might have been prone to ignore blood loss... died. Weren't very healthy and didn't raise many children. Those who survived were people who had the uncomfortable "ick" experience upon seeing blood where it's not supposed to be and as a result rushed to "fix the problem". In some cases fixing the problem may mean bandaging the wound - in others it may mean "get away from this area where other people are being mauled by tigers". So our emotional responses to conversation topics follow a similar pattern -- the instinct helps us to avoid potentially harmful situations.
And I'll repost the URL for the first chapter of my book here in case anyone's interested. You may not be, but y'know, there are lots of folks on WP, so maybe some of them will be interested.
http://smolderingremains.deviantart.com ... 1-82212934
Anyway, I hope this helped to answer your question. And I hope you also find it helpful in figuring out how to work through the "scary to people" problem... I used to have that same problem... for a long time... maybe I still do, I dunno... hard to say... I don't think anyone ever used the word "scary" to me in reference to it. I remember years ago a co-worker of mine said to me "you're entirely too deep much of the time, and somewhat off-putting". He meant the same thing your mother means.
Last edited by ike on 15 Jan 2009, 10:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
14 Jan 2009, 7:22 pm
