"You definitely don't have Asperger's!"

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My mom used to use such threats on me when I was a kid. All it did was make me want to avoid people more, and it just make me keep my mouth shut, while I was out in public with my mom. The funny thing is, I would never say a thing, not a single word, even if my mom would ask me to. For me, it was, Mom + public = Be a mime.

As to threats, I have some memories on it:

It's so weird how my brother and sister just can't be lied to without being suspicious.

One of them is 4 and the other is 7 and man it's hard to deceive them. When I was 15 I was still taking things so literally that I would interpret things in a horrendous way very often. When I was around 10 to 11 my mother once said, during homework, that I'd need to ''grab a pencil and draw my hand so she could cut it to glue it to my notebook and then I'd be able to colour it''. I went slowly sideways out and off the chair so I could save myself from having my precious limb chopped off.

In my head I was like: "I've seen that in violent movies! CAN SHE DO THAT?! BUT SHE TOLD ME IT'S BAD TO HURT PEOPLE... I'm doomed, cause if I leave I have nowhere to go...''. As it turned out I had to choose between dying in the streets from starvation and letting her be a serial killer and, well... I was VERY RELIEVED that no blood was spilled in the process of drawing my hand on paper and letting her cut THE PAPER. ''Why didn't she tell me that before?'' For me, the hand shape drawing was to work as some kind of souvenir of that atrocity.

Till this day, NO horror movie has beaten that experience. There were many more but this one's the most memorable.

Well, it was not actually a threat, but, yeah, it very much sounded like one.

Peacefully,
Dante.

Dreadful Dante wrote: Why would I expose myself to someone's disease and endanger my health just to stand there and ask "How are you doing?". If it's not that bad, they can manage by themselves.
When I was about 20, I visited a friend in a mental hospital who'd had a nervous breakdown. I'm not sure if I'd have done that if we hadn't been in a band together, which made him very much a part of my tribe. The thing is, I said to a counsellor afterwards that I felt I'd done no good at all, and the counsellor said that just being there would have done good. He recovered, sadly he's one of those people I should have kept in touch with, but somehow forgot. Though I do have a strange and powerful aversion to reaching out to people as well (took me years to realise I had that going on), so it's hard to know what I'd have done if not for that. I was also rather like you with pets when I was a child - if it wasn't for Dad nagging me, several mice would have starved for sure. I just plain forgot.

What can I do or say to a crying someone if I don't even know how they feel? I've tried it (social pressure) and only made it worse each and every time. That's why I think I'm not that empathic. I don't think it's bad, I just wanted to name so I know why I'm like this instead of having to accept that I have a stone heart anyways.

I'm not very good at dealing with crying people either. If they cry while I'm talking with them I can't shake the ridiculously simplistic feeling that their pain is all my fault. I think sometimes all one can do is put a hand on their shoulder (though knowing my luck they'd turn out to have a thing about touch), and make them as comfortable as possible physically until they've recovered a little. Also, like for the guy who had the breakdown, I think it's good to let them talk about their feelings, once they're able to. Just listening is said to be helpful. I don't see myself as having a stone heart, I doubt that you do either. I think there's a lot of rubbish talked about stone hearts.

Excuse the multiple posts, the "Capcha Monster" is stopping me from posting it all in one go.

The captcha monster is absolutely relatable and about the dead mice, that seems to happen to some of the children I know (I asked their parents), not usually to adults, though.

I guess I don't get that ''listening helps'' thing yet, I didn't have that when growing up, just threats so I would shut up and ''behave''. I mean, in therapy I had that but it made no difference to me. Acceptance is indeed something very satisfying to have (I have it here in this forum).

When I was in therapy, the psychologist said talking about my problems and traumas would make it more clear to me so I could find a way to deal with them and find ways to cope with them ''with her guidance'' (I don't remember the exact words). After a year she asked me if I was feeling better than I was when I started, I said 'no'. I realised later how crushed she might have felt at the time for my boldness.

About the crying people, I didn't know there were different types of crying until I tried to comfort people. I don't know how to identify types of crying, for each one there's a certain way of comforting. There's one that requires cuddles to heal, there's one that requires utter silence with no physical touch, one that requires tender talking with physical closeness. Trillions of possibilites. There's some people who can identify them in a second with such precision... That's a very useful social skill.

Peacefully,
Dante.

I'd hate to receive an animal or a potted plant as a gift, that's for sure. I'd feel too guilty to let it down, but I'd be very annoyed at having my life taken over. Listening is a problem for me because my brain is weak on input and strong on output, and it's probably easily mistaken for narcissism. But my motivation to listen is strong because I can relate to the need to be listened to and understood. It's no mystery that the UK couple counselling service is called "Relate." Get that one right, and you're practically there, IMHO.

Counselling didn't seem to be doing much good for many years, but eventually I started to see benefits, as I pondered the ideas raised, over the decades, comparing them to my experiences and those of others, until I began to discover a lot about myself, and put some flesh on the spindly, bare bones of my "theory of mind." In my view, I can't properly decide what to do unless I know my nature pretty well, and with interpersonal relationships I have to also know their natures pretty well. I think you were right to tell your counsellor that you didn't feel better - it may have hurt her feelings at the time, but if you'd lied, what then? Sometimes I think all one can do is to soften the blow.

I heard a New Age co-counsellor once who said he always sought permission, in one way or another, before touching a co-counselling partner. He saw tears as a healing process. There are many different theories of the mind, I don't think anybody knows it all.

I took those Aspie tests online. Here's the results:

Asperger's Quotient: 44 of 50

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 176 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 44 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie).

Empathy Quotient: 21 of 80. ''Scores below 30 are indicative of Autism Spectrum disorder.''

On the facial recognition test I did good (17 of 20). I've been reading about those for a long time and although I can't pick up the small cues, the exaggerated ones are ''easy'' to guess (The test had it all obvious). In reality it's much lighter of a set of movements and it's not stationary as the pictures in the test.

Talking and consciously reading facial expressions simultaneously is mentally tiring, I recommend learning below-neck cues, it's a bit more clear, easier and you can pay more attention to the conversation you're having while reading with the peripheral vision.

If somebody else wants to take the tests, the links to them are posted in the General Autism Discussion list of the forum as ''set of scientific tests related to ASD''.

PS: I garantee no confirmation bias, Sonically.

Peacefully,
Dante.

Some people (e.g. me) can act NT without doing so on purpose. I have long since forgotten how not to, and even though I know it is truly just an act, trying to "act like myself" feels very unnatural now. It makes me extremely uncomfortable, much moreso than just keeping on my "mask" 24/7/365. I have internalized that mask so effectively that I am unable to take it off.

I'm curious if Dante can relate. On one hand, I hope so because it would make me feel better. On the other hand, I hope not, because it'd make it very hard to get a diagnosis.

^^
Those quiz results do seem to indicate that a full evaluation for ASD would be wise.

I think there's too much emphasis on facial contact, and I agree that there are other ways to divine people's feelings - I too can't easily listen and stare into people's eyes at the same time. I also agree that picture tests aren't the best way to measure one's face-reading skills, because as you suggest, real faces aren't static, they're dynamic. I go a lot on tone of voice and the use of emotionally-charged words. I worry a bit about what people think of me when I don't do eye contact, whether or not they're thinking "Oh no! He's looking at me askance, he doesn't respect me, he's not interested." Yet some of the deepest conversations I've had have been with people who have been with people who didn't look at me, e.g. a teacher who always closed his eyes to focus on what I was saying, and a couple of ladies who kind of hid behind their hair but proved from their responses that they were really listening. It's a shame that more people don't realise that things aren't always what they seem, though I can't myself recall receiving any complaints about the face contact thing.

Diamond,

Indeed. I study Discourse Analysis, it's a Linguistic study that covers the sensemaking and structure of our verbal AND non-verbal (but mainly verbal) communication with scientific evidence to prove the existence of specific linguistic elements to generate certain interpretations. [OBSESSION DETECTED]

It's one of the MOST AMAZING SKILLS I'VE HAVE EVER HAD. And also the one that helps me cope with speaking awkwardly and taking things in an excessively literal way.

Unfortunately, I just can't think of a way to show you material on this so you know if it can be useful to you because it's part of my College course. The theory without the practise regarding this topic is COMPLETELY USELESS.

It has many similarities to NLP, but NLP aims to creating a certain reaction, Discourse Analysis aims to analyse why those reactions, responses and interpretations are there and prove it.

The times I had the most enjoyable conversations were night time with no power. Nowadays I can excessively stare at SOME people's eyes without feeling embarrassed. Just a few, though. Still I enjoy talking with the lights out, even if it's a monologue.

Peacefully,
Dante.

Last edited by Dreadful Dante on 23 Jun 2016, 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AJ,

(If you don't want to read the whole message, just skip over to the last paragraph and you'll instantly understand what I mean. I wrote all this as a way of forming a background or description to my final words).

I DO relate, damn it! I can do a set of things that would get me acting 'ND' with people around. I need to expose myself to social situations or sensorially overwhelming environments for a few hours, minutes or even seconds are enough to drain me, depending on the kind of social situation. The mask is like that green one from the movies, I can try to take it out in social situations, but it tends to defensively snap back on due to social pressure.

I usually say I have a headache or something as an excuse to acting awkwardly or just leave and hide (100% of the times when I can - I mean literally hide, like standing behind the door, going under the bed(as a kid), on the roof, inside the wardrobe(as a kid), under the table(as a kid), turn off the lights and lock the door or sit outside if it's safe.

Other things that make me behave awkwardly is to be distracted, overestimate people's interests on me or misread their signals. I sometimes think someone is my friend when they're not or think they're not when they are and talk too much about myself or just act completely ''In my world with myself and me'' as people say. Because if I'm comfortable, I just shut off the behavioural deviation and act normal.

When I'm tired of people, the deviation snaps back by itself and I avoid every possibility of interpersonal relations. I need solitude just like I need food and water. But I also want affection, like having my hair stroked, I like that, but in the way of getting that there's all sorts of approaches, conversations, interactions, rapport creating, relationships, affection, small-talk, those kinds of limitless social stuff.

This is the last one -> To be able to be myself I need to be tired, naive, distracted, mistaken, comfortable (very improbable) or be alone.

Peacefully,
Dante.

You cant actually guarantee there is no bias because its a subconscious response, you arent aware you are doing it. Once your aware of the symptoms of autism there will be a desired result to a test and your knowledge of the symptoms will be picked. It goes both ways. If someone is taking a test and doesnt want to seem autistic or whatever theyre going to subconsciously pick the least autistic answers.

Yes, you're right. What I meant was I was and am being very honest to describe my own characteristics. Before I knew the autism spectrum I already had those traits, the only difference now is the fact they fit a specific spectrum. I have empiric data of many of my family members, audio interviews that indeed reiterate the ever existing differences. I also have written letters from them describing my behaviour since I was little.

I avoid confirmation bias at all costs, but I do agree it can only be diminished.

PS: The "subconscious" term is usually applied describe someone's mind during hypnotic trance. The state of mind in which it is possible to access the unconscious mind. I believe the correct term would be 'unconscious' as we're not at all conscious of the confirmation bias when it happens.

Thanks for you response. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Peacefully,
Dante

my big problem with trying to convince people i had aspergers was that because i'm good with empathy for the most part, people always assumed that if you were an Aspie you had to be what they would call "robotic" and "emotionless"--but i cry a lot, am able to show happiness or anger and have it be very obvious which emotion i'm feeling (and the times that i cannot empathize with people, it's very hard and scary for me and confusing) and so people dismiss me as just being a hypochondriac or something. it took 3 doctors over the course of 2 years to convince my mom that i was on the autism spectrum. then i had to convince friends. then co-workers/my boss. people invalidated me because i didn't fit this incorrect stereotype that "all Aspies have 0 emotions, none at all". (obv this isn't to say that having a hard time with emotional expression/feeling isn't common among Aspies--my best friend is that way. but we're not 'robots').

i hate having to do a tap-dance for people to convince them that i'm the way i am for a reason.

I'm curious, did you ever test at normal when you did autism tests because you didn't want to be autistic but the tests your parents and teachers took on you had the opposite answers you gave so it did put you in the autistic range?

I wonder how one can tell if their answers are accurate and they aren't being bias?

I dont have an answer since i only took the tests after my diagnoses and after my knowledge on autism.

The best way to get rid of a bias 100% is a blind test. Taking a test without knowing what the test is for and what the results might be. A lot of psychologists evaluate for autism this way and they do subtle things like casually touch the subject to see how they react and pretend to get hurt to watch the reaction of the subject. Asking a subjects opinions on things is the worst way to preform a evaluation because the subjects point of view is often exaggerated or under-exaggerated