Being wrong about your own ToM-skills

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I do not understand the door one. I actually get told to open the door more than close the door.

OH YEAH. sigh. I'm 45, and I did cry. I thought the problem was "them" but turns out, it's me. Ouch. I suddenly feel old, and the fight has mostly gone outta me. "They" win.

I would say the knowledge is life changing. I totally relate to what you're saying, but I would add that it's a lot more depressing than how you describe it. A LOT more depressing. Punch in the gut.

You young folks should be glad you know early, instead of later--instead of always wondering why the world is so hostile and ignorant, and feeling on the defensive and not knowing why. Not knowing that everybody, I mean everybody can see it but you. I try not to even think about what people must have said behind my back... for years O.M.G. think I'm gonna puke

I don't even know if I have ToM problems. One thing I do, and I am also told I do, is thinking in my head and then in mid thought start saying something about it to someone. And they ask, what? It happened the other day and I realized I didn't say my other thoughts out loud. But sometimes I am not even aware of doing it because I have been told by someone that she is used to me doing that and yet it seems like I really don't do that very much at all. I don't know if that is ToM for sure or not. This same person has read some of my posts on other sites, which has to do with my main interest, and she says I will say things in ways that only make sense to me. I don't have examples because I don't know exactly what she meant.

There might be other things but that's all I want to say.

Before I was diagnosed I thought sitting with a group of people and barely speaking meant I had social skills. I still do that now and I don't mind just sitting and listening.

I think I have been very wrong about theory of mind in the past. The latest one was feeling confused about why someone would yell at me and hurl insults at me when I tried to give them some tips to overcome depression and anxiety by telling them that I'd been through it and sort of...overcame it.

I never knew about the door thing. I would close a front door because of a draft or so the neighbours don't come in.

I wonder what else there is I don't know?

Also, how does one say "you owe me $200" in the nicest way possible?

I'd do it direct and through a phone call. I'd move it to the point. But that's my style. I wouldn't bill someone face to face unless they expected it as per job done.

It was not that I thought that I had good ToM skills when I had bad ToM skills, but that I did not know that there were any ToM skills to be had or not had by me or anyone else.

Something that popped in my head today:

How do we know for sure we are having TOM issues? How do we know it's not the other person who is misreading us or that it's them with the problem? How do we know it's not the other person who is misunderstanding us? I can either assume it's always them or assume it's never me and it's always them. I take my pick but I am not sure if I am always right.

I've had it runaway from me. It's a scenario to where it blows up in your face. People tolerate the "misses" for so long and are forcibly nice to a
point- then Ka Boom.

It's seems minor and picking many nits, and the 'lack' communicates a message that you don't care or care enough about it. It can convey lazy, self centered, thus a wanting in ethics/ morals, etc.

It's a confusing state of mind when this happens because you think you did and always do OK, (as everyone thinks they're all a OK').

This social consciousness is very important to people, and they generally practice what they preach. When younger up to my 30's, I've found it very difficult to meet all of the expectations.

I've seem to have grown more aware now and mesh O.K.

Both autistics and NTs have ToM issues during interactions with each other.

Autistic ToM issues have to do with ooops I forgot to think about what others are thinking - lack of mental state attribution due to lack of knowing that self or others have mental states - and ohohoho I remembered to think about what others are thinking but I am not sure what others are thinking - lack of mental state attribution due to lack of social-emotional knowledge - and dohohoh I remembered to think about what others are thinking and I think that I know what others are thinking but I am wrong but I do not know that I am wrong - wrong mental state attribution due to lack of knowing that NT others think differently from autistic self and lack of knowing of how NTs think.

NT ToM issues have to do with hahaha I think that I know what others are thinking but I am wrong but I do not know that I am wrong - wrong mental state attribution due to lack of knowing that autistic others thinks differently from NT self and lack of knowing of how autistics think.

In the Autistic case, lack of mental state attribution predominates, and in the NT case, wrong mental state attribution predominates.

Redacted

Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 6:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

NTs have theory of mind problems with a lot of groups, or in a lot of contexts. It's not this power that all NTs have and can access all the time, and often they choose not to. Heterosexual men, for example, tend to lose their theory of mind when looking at scantily clad women they find attractive (there's research out there by a woman named Susan Fiske that demonstrated this). And people in general tend to dehumanize all kinds of people who are not like them in some way they consider fundamental, like being gay or disabled or transgender, or having a different skin color.

This is one of many reasons I think that the whole notion of "lack of theory of mind being central to autism" strikes me as ridiculously oversimplified.

Anyway, I didn't know about my own problems with this. I didn't even know there was a "this" to have problems with. Usually I'd reason out people's motives or actions based on empirical information available to me. I was not always wrong, and could often deduce information that others might find difficult via more neurotypical methods. But it's not something that works well in real-time interactions.

After a lot of research, I'm currently at the conclusion that ToM problems are impossible for the aspie to be certain about. In the absence of ToM, everything is self justifying, in its presence errors are self correcting. As the population of self aware and well informed adult aspies grows, the non-spectrum majority are going to have to move over a bit and make room.

Could you expand on what you mean by self-justifying and self-correcting?

This is my most obvious issue with ToM. I'll frequently resume a conversation out of nowhere, or say something related to a thought I'd been having in my head, and it catches people off guard. You know, I might say something like:

"Oh, he was in such-and-such a movie!"

and the people around me will be like, WHO was in such-and-such a movie. I don't realize that just because I had been thinking about it all day, that others won't be on the same page with me.

It most often happens because a conversation may have ended prematurely, before I got to conclude my thoughts, and it could be minutes or hours, but once there is a clear break in whatever the new topic is or a clear break from whatever the distraction was, I will just pick up and be like "so, yeah, yada yada yada", and people don't realize I'm resuming an old topic of conversation.

I asked to a friend and she says that this could work:
"Do you remember I lent you $200? Do you think you can give then back soon? I need them"
Say it after some conversation, like if it was something you have just remembered.

However, there are some bad people who don't want to give money back and dissapear(One of my mum's ex-friends disapeared because she didn't wanted to give her back $40 ) or they will try to make you feel guilty, they are manipulators, if being nice doesn't work you will need to be direct.