Board index › General Discussion › General Autism Discussion

Does anyone NOT identify with Attwood's Complete Guide?

Page 2 of 3 [ 41 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

Previous topic | Next topic

btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

22 Jun 2011, 3:48 pm

Quote:
You have to consider the reason for the diagnosis as well. Look at all the threads of people who are depressed because they can't get a gf/bf. That would fit right into Attwood's description.


Yes, I think his descriptions do make sense in light of diagnosing adults who have also experienced the comorbids associated with AS. So what needs to be questioned is whether his descriptions are of AS with depression and anxiety comorbids or just AS. I think this distinction needs to be made clear before presenting any experiences of AS. A lot of people do experience the comorbids and would find the descriptions enlightening, but the underlying experience of AS should be teased out of the overlying and possibly obfuscating conditions.

Also, I think people with AS should question themselves about whether they are depressed because they truly desire but cannot make friends or have romantic relationships or because they know that there is the NT expectation, usually from family members, that they need to make friends and have romantic relationships to be more NT, because their way of thinking and feeling is considered defective, and they themselves are considered defective if they do not have the same desires and needs as NTs. I bring this up, because for a few years, I had this exact problem myself. I was very uneasy that I could not meet the social standards I observed all around me and certainly not those set for me by my family. Eventually, I realized that I did not even have the same level of interest in meeting those standards. For me, it went from what was expected and made me defective to what I wanted for myself and made me happy being myself.


_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!


Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

22 Jun 2011, 3:51 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Also, I think people with AS should question themselves about whether they are depressed because they truly desire but cannot make friends or have romantic relationships or because they know that there is the NT expectation, usually from family members, that they need to make friends and have romantic relationships to be more NT, because their way of thinking and feeling is considered defective, and they themselves are considered defective if they do not have the same desires and needs as NTs. I bring this up, because for a few years, I had this exact problem myself. I was very uneasy that I could not meet the social standards I observed all around me and certainly not those set for me by my family. Eventually, I realized that I did not even have the same level of interest in meeting those standards. For me, it went from what was expected and made me defective to what I wanted for myself and made me happy being myself.


I had a similar problem - I looked for relationships because it was expected, but not strictly because I really wanted one. In fact, I wasn't sure what to do with one because as I had experienced during my previous long-term relationship, that I felt claustrophobic almost because of the expectation of spending so much time around one's SO.



btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

22 Jun 2011, 3:56 pm

Verdandi wrote:
I felt claustrophobic almost because of the expectation of spending so much time around one's SO.


Ha! This is why I am wary of dating and having a SO. That, and the myriad obstacles to instigating any romantic relationships in the first place, such as being able to tell if I am having a romantic relationship or not. I have actually dated people without knowing that I was dating them.


_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!


SammichEater
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Mar 2011
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,903

22 Jun 2011, 3:58 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Also, I think people with AS should question themselves about whether they are depressed because they truly desire but cannot make friends or have romantic relationships or because they know that there is the NT expectation, usually from family members, that they need to make friends and have romantic relationships to be more NT, because their way of thinking and feeling is considered defective, and they themselves are considered defective if they do not have the same desires and needs as NTs. I bring this up, because for a few years, I had this exact problem myself. I was very uneasy that I could not meet the social standards I observed all around me and certainly not those set for me by my family. Eventually, I realized that I did not even have the same level of interest in meeting those standards. For me, it went from what was expected and made me defective to what I wanted for myself and made me happy being myself.


Exactly. I'm just fine being socially isolated, but for some reason most people think that there's something seriously wrong with that. Which really doesn't even help with the cycle one bit. If people would be more tolerant and understanding, maybe, just maybe, I might come out of my shell a little bit more.


_________________
Remember, all atrocities begin in a sensible place.


Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

22 Jun 2011, 4:00 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
I felt claustrophobic almost because of the expectation of spending so much time around one's SO.


Ha! This is why I am wary of dating and having a SO. That, and the myriad obstacles to instigating any romantic relationships in the first place, such as being able to tell if I am having a romantic relationship or not. I have actually dated people without knowing that I was dating them.


This has happened to me too. I'm also oblivious to flirting.

One instance I remember clearly was a guy I met through an RPG who had his NPC try to flirt with my character, and then he asked me if I wanted to go out to the beach really late, and I never caught on that he was interested until one of my roommates told me later. I still didn't catch on that we had been on a date (probably a terrible date because I talked about my interests and there was no actual date stuff) until I was talking about this sort of thing in the past several months.

I remember another guy I went out with three or four times and I did not realize we had been dating until he told me that he had found someone else to be his girlfriend.

I kind of have to laugh when guys here say that it's easier for women to date given my own dating history.



btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

22 Jun 2011, 4:05 pm

SammichEater wrote:
I might come out of my shell a little bit more.


I actually enjoy interacting with people more now that I am free to be myself and I do not have to worry about making and keeping friends or dating.

Verdandi wrote:
I kind of have to laugh when guys here say that it's easier for women to date given my own dating history.


The part that bothers me about my dating history is that my outward behavior would indicate me as a "tease", and I really do not want to be thought of as a tease when I never ever meant to tease. Why did the guys not tell me that I was dating them??? :wink:


_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!


Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

22 Jun 2011, 4:10 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
I kind of have to laugh when guys here say that it's easier for women to date given my own dating history.


The part that bothers me about my dating history is that my outward behavior would indicate me as a "tease", and I really do not want to be thought of as a tease when I never ever meant to tease. Why did the guys not tell me that I was dating them??? :wink:


You know, that thought never actually crossed my mind but I did in fact have a few guys tell me this. The truth is I had no idea how to be in a relationship. Even in my one long-term relationship (that turned abusive), my SO basically had to explicitly tell me that I was not doing reciprocal couple things. Then again, she became emotionally abusive so I don't even trust the things she told me were expected. But it was clear I was missing something that would be expected.



btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

22 Jun 2011, 5:44 pm

Verdandi wrote:
You know, that thought never actually crossed my mind but I did in fact have a few guys tell me this. The truth is I had no idea how to be in a relationship. Even in my one long-term relationship (that turned abusive), my SO basically had to explicitly tell me that I was not doing reciprocal couple things. Then again, she became emotionally abusive so I don't even trust the things she told me were expected. But it was clear I was missing something that would be expected.


This sounds like unfun with non-verbal cues and theory of mind. I think that both people with AS and people with NT ( :twisted: ) should realize that they each have their own ToMs and that they could get along better if they wrote up their ToMs for each other. This is what I would do if I ever got into an AS-NT relationship. It is true that we have an impaired understanding of how their minds work, but they have an even more impaired understanding of how our minds work, because their minds have not needed to adapt to our minds.

As far as I can tell, the NT ToM is highly tuned into the Gigantic Social Program, what I call the "Reindeer Games", in which each social nuance impinges upon the NT mind in an instantaneous emotional manner that queries both the person's emotional state and the person's status within the social hierarchy. Both are important to the person, although the level of importance varies for each person. But I am guessing that these are mainly subconscious responses. I think that the AS mind is not tuned into the Reindeer Games, but instead into the Gigantic Physical World and our slow methodical conscious intellectual analyses and syntheses of whatever parts of it we are each interested in. Most of the time, my mind does not even remember that there exist Reindeer Games to be played, much less how I should go about puppeting myself within them. Perhaps one of the NT-AS disconnects is fast subconscious emotional processes vs. slow conscious intellectual processes, of which the former is less subject to executive control than the latter. I realize I am starting to sound very Spockian.


_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!


Janissy
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 May 2009
Age: 58
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,450
Location: x

22 Jun 2011, 5:50 pm

Callista wrote:
.

We already have a lot of autistic people writing about themselves and their lives, but they for the most part are not psychologists, neurologists, or therapists; so they can talk about being autistic, but not about being an autism researcher, therapist, or special ed teacher for autistic students.

We need more autistic writers who can study autism professionally, in order to gain the experience that these NT writers have and offer the benefit of both the clinician's experience and the insider's perspective. There aren't too many of them, but with the disability rights movement allowing us better entry into schools and universities, I'm sure that many more such "insider" experts will start to emerge.


Yes indeed. Donna Williams can't do this all by herself. The memoirs are all well and good, but there needs to be an autistic Simon Baron Cohen equivalent.



Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

22 Jun 2011, 5:54 pm

Oh yeah, like networking. I so do not get how to network. I mean, I have a friend who a) knows that I have written professionally, b) am broke, c) manages a website that pays about $50/article.

So, does she a) offer me any writing gigs, or b) tell me about all the other people she's hiring?

I find the constant stream of b) to be very frustrating.

The other frustrating thing about this is that she basically got there because I helped her into a position to get enough of an audience that she would get these opportunities. That wasn't my intent, but it was the outcome.

So how does networking work? I can't even do favors for one person and have them reciprocated.



draelynn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jan 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,304
Location: SE Pennsylvania

22 Jun 2011, 6:01 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
You know, that thought never actually crossed my mind but I did in fact have a few guys tell me this. The truth is I had no idea how to be in a relationship. Even in my one long-term relationship (that turned abusive), my SO basically had to explicitly tell me that I was not doing reciprocal couple things. Then again, she became emotionally abusive so I don't even trust the things she told me were expected. But it was clear I was missing something that would be expected.


This sounds like unfun with non-verbal cues and theory of mind. I think that both people with AS and people with NT ( :twisted: ) should realize that they each have their own ToMs and that they could get along better if they wrote up their ToMs for each other. This is what I would do if I ever got into an AS-NT relationship. It is true that we have an impaired understanding of how their minds work, but they have an even more impaired understanding of how our minds work, because their minds have not needed to adapt to our minds.

As far as I can tell, the NT ToM is highly tuned into the Gigantic Social Program, what I call the "Reindeer Games", in which each social nuance impinges upon the NT mind in an instantaneous emotional manner that queries both the person's emotional state and the person's status within the social hierarchy. Both are important to the person, although the level of importance varies for each person. But I am guessing that these are mainly subconscious responses. I think that the AS mind is not tuned into the Reindeer Games, but instead into the Gigantic Physical World and our slow methodical conscious intellectual analyses and syntheses of whatever parts of it we are each interested in. Most of the time, my mind does not even remember that there exist Reindeer Games to be played, much less how I should go about puppeting myself within them. Perhaps one of the NT-AS disconnects is fast subconscious emotional processes vs. slow conscious intellectual processes, of which the former is less subject to executive control than the latter. I realize I am starting to sound very Spockian.



Funny but not - I tried explaining to my husband why his suggestions to 'make it better' weren't going to help. It's like talking to a Japanese tourist. Some people will just talk real slow and loud and use small words as if that will somehow help a person who speaks a foreign language understand what you are saying. Meanwhile, insulted Japanese tourists are having a field day rattling off some creative insults right to your face because you can't understand them either...



btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

22 Jun 2011, 6:12 pm

I also have no idea about networking. Or even the concept of favors and reciprocating them back and forth. Others can identify what is a favor and what is not, and my mind does not even go there.

Usually, when I help someone, I do it because it feels to me like the right thing to do if I am capable of it. The idea of the act being a favor from me to someone else or of someone returning the favor to me does not cross my mind, nor does the idea that someone might NOT want me to help them in case they have to return the favor to me later. Ack! Urgh! Blorq!

Signed,

Rudolph who does not know how to play (and does not want to join in) the Reindeer Games

P.S. Verdandi, does your friend even realize that you helped her attract an audience for her website?


_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!


btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

22 Jun 2011, 6:23 pm

draelynn wrote:
Some people will just talk real slow and loud and use small words as if that will somehow help a person who speaks a foreign language understand what you are saying.


Don't forget about adopting the foreign accent in one's own language of the target's country of origin. But I'm not sure how that would translate for NT-to-AS communications or AS-to-NT communications.

When I explain my mind to my NT mother, I talk about what I do in a situation and why I do it, and when she explains her mind to me, she tells me that whatever she did was just the normal correct thing to do and she does not know why she did it. How are we supposed to learn NT ToM to get along in the NT world if the very practitioners of the ToM cannot explain it to us and just expect us to imitate them with no underlying foundation, intellectual or emotional, for the imitations?

Most of Attwoods explanations for ToM had to do with children not hurting people's feelings, but the Reindeer Games of the adult world are far more complicated than that.


_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!


Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

22 Jun 2011, 6:29 pm

btbnnyr wrote:
I also have no idea about networking. Or even the concept of favors and reciprocating them back and forth. Others can identify what is a favor and what is not, and my mind does not even go there.


I didn't do anything for her with the expectation she'd reciprocate. I asked her to explain networking and then it occurred to me that what she was describing was something that I had done for her (even though I had done it because I liked her writing, not because I expected anything). And then it struck me that she was treating me differently from other people in a particular way.

It's frustrating because I'm broke and it would be nice to be able to write a few articles so I can afford things. It is not frustrating because she "owes" me anything, because she doesn't.

Quote:
Usually, when I help someone, I do it because it feels to me like the right thing to do if I am capable of it. The idea of the act being a favor from me to someone else or of someone returning the favor to me does not cross my mind, nor does the idea that someone might NOT want me to help them in case they have to return the favor to me later. Ack! Urgh! Blorq!


Yeah, I have never helped someone with the expectation that they would help me later.

Quote:
P.S. Verdandi, does your friend even realize that you helped her attract an audience for her website?


I think she does. It was more I got her an audience (as in, my audience) and it worked out well for her and I have no idea what kind of magic she used to make it work out for her while I still have no idea how any of this works. I haven't specifically called her out on this because I don't want to say "Well, I did this thing for you with no expectation of reciprocation, but now I want it," and it would be a lie anyway. I don't want our friendship to be something like that.



Tressillian
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2011
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 61

22 Jun 2011, 7:53 pm

Verdandi wrote:
It's frustrating because I'm broke and it would be nice to be able to write a few articles so I can afford things. It is not frustrating because she "owes" me anything, because she doesn't.


What if you just asked for help? Don't bring up the reciprocating at all, just ask for help. Your friend may not understand that you would like help.



Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

22 Jun 2011, 7:57 pm

Tressillian wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
It's frustrating because I'm broke and it would be nice to be able to write a few articles so I can afford things. It is not frustrating because she "owes" me anything, because she doesn't.


What if you just asked for help? Don't bring up the reciprocating at all, just ask for help. Your friend may not understand that you would like help.


Previous requests got the answer that they've got as many writers as they can afford. I didn't ask in the context of reciprocating. I was trying to use an example of a situation which seems like the sort of thing that would get a reciprocal response but didn't.

It may be there's a lot more going on here than I realize. I mean on her end.