Social Skills Training for Adults

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I am not precise at all in that way with Language. Rather I am very literal. I will use a word to its meaning (or the meaning I have for it anyway) while not recognizing AT ALL the emotional context or thinking how else it might be used. I use FAT to describe people for example without even thinking about it. I use ret*d for slow, weird for different, etc... To me these words are not bad and I see little value in so much thought over words when I can see clearly what it is that I mean via pictures. It is so hard for me to remember that others cannot see what I see. So ya... My bad on that one.

Just got back from a 2 day exercise in socialization... Frock that was hard.

Yesterday I spent the full day working from my very posh hotel suite on the 7th floor overlooking the palm trees and pool below. I broke from work at 3:00ish for a swim and sun break. Then I showered and went to dinner with the group. The group consisted of about 12 people and I sat towards the end of the table. Man, I was on. I was cracking people up and staying pretty engaged. At least that is how i was for the first hour. By the end of the 4th hour and desert, I was so freaked out that I could hardly walk to my car. Slept like crap and then went through another 4 hours of meetings today. I then missed the private jet back home so had to take commercial flight. There was a fat person sitting next to me and her pudge kept touching me. I had to squeeze up against the window to keep her from touching me. She was eating the whole time and it gave off a smell.

Not in the best frame of mind right now. Am going to pass out, get up and go to social skills training tomorrow. Oh joy??? I hope I don't kill the poor guy...

Perhaps I misunderstood what Nemorosa said and took him literally.

What I meant was that I use the words that literally mean what I precisely intend. I try to be as specific as possible and leave as little room as possible for doubt as what I intend to say, although I know I do not always succeed, but that is what I aim for.

The emotional context I do know is learned by rote. I know that particular words mean things and particular statements/patterns of assertions are often used to mean particular things that are not quite what the person literally said - but this is scripted and I can easily misjudge someone who says something like that and means it as opposed to saying something like that and meaning something subtly different - like when I first replied to you here about something you said regarding people going on disability benefits. What you said was very similar to many other people I had argued with in the recent past (well, recent then) had initially said but made clear that they had outright contempt for people who choose to apply for disability, under the assumption that doing so is "giving up without trying hard enough to work." As I recall, you asked if I was NT.

But trying to keep track of all that is tiring, and trying to work out the argument someone is really trying to have vs. the one they only appear to be trying to have is annoying, and misfires cause even bigger arguments at times.

Just a quick "advocacy" update....

My Little made it through the entire rest of the school year (on my IEP) without incident. Go ASD adults advocating for ASD kids program!!

Two different shrinks have used my relationship model to effectively reach ASD clients in a way they never had done before. Success!!

I have my first speaking engagement date booked. This one is for the Hillsboro School district and its team of ASD teachers and SPED related doctors and specialists.

Have 3 medical ones up. One at OHSU, one for a group of 50 doctors or so for a local ASD clinic and education program and another for an Autism board here in town. From there we go bigger (or I collapse... not sure which yet). Two of the people who are booking me are themselves National Level speakers on Autism but are NTs and PhDs as well. I am just A.S.D.

Got a random email from one of the people involved in the coordination of these meetings and asked me to advise them on a new online program for ASD kids. Meeting next week with that group of therapists/doctors to see what this is about but determined to stay fairly non-committal due to a lack of time.

Things are moving really, really fast right now. Am feeling overwhelmed already. I know I will feel better once I have had the chance to do the first one and feel confident that this is useful on such a large scale.

I have to get the content from my windows to files this weekend so that I can wash them and start again. I have more ideas than I have time/window space to write right now....

More as it happens...

I don't think you misunderstood me. We both take care to select the right words in order for there to be as little possible room for error when communicating. To this end I'm always careful to make use of words for which I know the definition, etymology and popular significance.

I also do tend to avoid words with a strong emotional significance as these have a tendency to distract rather than to focus on the meaning. However, this is not to say emotional words don't have their uses and of course I'm human so I'll resort to that kind of language when I'm stressed or rattled.

I attach great importance to exactly what is said. This can get me into all sorts of trouble as others are not nearly as careful and has been the cause of meltdowns in the past when others apparently don't or won't understand what I say
I guess that's the aspie rigid thinking and pedanticism for you.

Attaching such importance to words probably comes from my mode of thought. Unlike what I hear from many aspies I do not think it pictures but entirely in words. I have no concept of thought without language and cannot comprehend how others can reason using images alone.

This is awesome. All that other stuff going on is awesome, too. But this is REALLY awesome.

YIKES. My sensory issues are usually not too bad, but just thinking about this makes me body tense up a little. Sounds like pure torture. Sorry you had to go through it.

Dude, it was ridiculous. But am pretty okay now. Still the trip took a lot out of me.

Yesterday's session was okay but not great. I was SUPER stressed and wanted to hit things the whole time I was sitting in there. At one point a train went by and it tooted and it kept on blowing the horn. I swear it went on for a full minute or longer. I put my head down, covered my ears and shut out the world to keep from exploding. OMG it was hard. When I came out of that trance, the Dr. introduced me to this person in town (another Dr.) who works in some sort of audio training technology whereby she thinks she can help people with audio sensory issues. I laughed because that very same Dr. and I had been communicating earlier in the week RE my talks. I told the Dr. That I was scheduled to talk to this group of Drs in town and it turns out that this guy is part of THAT group. AWKWARD for him I think. I found it funny. He said he would make sure that he did not attend to make me feel better. I told him to not be ridiculous and YES, I planned to talk about him but I would not say anything different about him than I would say to his face. If I had anything bad to say about him, I would have fired him ages ago. LOL! Seriously the way these NTs think sometimes. How sneaky they all are.

We talked a lot about that topic but other than that I got introduced to a new color of cards and this should spark some really interesting debates as I have a very strong opinion about what he is teaching. Okay so here goes.... Raw and unfiltered....

Orange cards in the game are the "positive gestures and sounds" cards. I suppose it would be akin to Body Lauguage and would include looking at the person. He immediately gave me an "out" for looking at people because I shared with him how that overwhelmed me to do. He said that could just be one of my "quirks" and that I could advocate for that by saying to someone that I cannot concentrate and look at them so please forgive me. I rolled with this plan to start.

So besides looking at someone, he produced this sheet with 10 or so different scenarios of encouraging gestures and encouraging sounds or words. These came in two matrix like tables. For example...

Gestures:
* IF something exciting happend.... 1. Nod head 2. Raise ebrows
* IF something unpleasent happened.... 1. Look concerned and nod 2. Open your eyes bigger like you care about what happened
etc..

Sounds
* If something exiting happened.... 1. "Wow" 2. "Cool" 3. "Sounds fun"
* If something unpleasant happned 1. "Yikes" 2. "Bummer" 3. "Wow, I'm sorry that happened"
etc...

I just stared at this paper and asked in disbelief, "Are you kidding me?" I have to listen to you, figure out words, and now add all these scenarios and possibilities on top of that?" He said he wasn't kidding. So we started to play the game. I had the green question cards and the orange cards too.

Funny thing was the green cards were easy because on my trip to CA we actually played an ice breaker game where we had to ask each other social questions. LOL! So I had a bunch of them stored in my memory banks. I asked him who his "hero" was. He replied and now it was time for my orange card. But his reply did not happen to "fit" any of the scenarios on the paper. So I asked him WTF now? He tried to explain that it was okay to just nod and say something like "okay". So I asked him if we could switch parts and he could demo to me. So he asked me questions and I had to watch what he did. It seemed like it was pretty simple and did not require all this matrix stuff so we went back to me asking him questions. But this time instead of using the Matrix I actually just listened to his answers and responded in "kind" to the things he was saying. IOW, I really paid close attention..... AND the result was that I naturally pulled off his requirements for "encouraging gestures and signs".

Now I was perplexed. I told him that everyone does this and that I had never run into an ASD person (no matter how severe) that did not respond to me with some sort of gesture and/or sound when I had captured their attention. He claimed that he has seen it a number of times. I completely disagree. I think that what he sees is a person with ASD NOT present. If he talks to an ASD person about their special interest, my guess is that they would ALWAYS have the correct Body Language to make an NT happy in conversing. We simply chose not to be engaged when the topic doesn't interest us. It is too much like phoney and I cannot pull off phoney. I actually have to "listen" instead and make myself engaged somehow in the converstation to pull this off correctly and then it just happens. I think that any autistic person can do this if they can comprehend and get into the topic. I think his tactic of teaching us to "act" via this complex matrix is ridiculous. We can do a "checkout" with an occasional headnod as a rule or we can change the subject to something that interests us. Pretty easy stuff in my view....

Thoughts?

That's one of my strategies to avoid having to talk a lot if I don't want to, or a way to get in to bring it around to something I want to talk about. I mean it's a deliberate thing.

My mother, interestingly, does not do this, and it gets to the point where I ask her if she heard what I said because I can't tell from body language.

This Doctor thinks that many (perhaps most) of us need help in this area. He accused me of needing help and then could not define how. Once I am engaged in the conversation I know what to do. I just have to be engaged. I was pretty easily engaged this week after spending the days prior at a social event where I really had to work the skills. Hmmmmm.... That is yet another interesting datapoint.. I really got better at the game after the days of socailizing....

It may be that many do need help. I'm not sure I don't, but I do know to at least make a pretense of sounding interested.

I suspect that using his matrix, we all need help because that sounds really confusing.

Oh for crying out loud... I can understand how this 'matrix' would work for a kid. Kids tend to be blank slates that need to be introduced to these basics. I've been teaching my daughter emotions and expressions on other peoples faces for years. Do they really think that, as an adult, you haven't been exposed to enough real life interaction to piece together these basics?

When I'm going on about something I'm interested in, I'm completely normal in the outwards sense. This is why I pick jobs that involved something I am personally interested in. It doesn't help solve all my problems but, at least, looking like I'm engaged in my job is much much easier. Because the feelings are natural. Just as, when I'm not interested in a conversation I check out because I'm not interested. NT's do this all the time. It is total fallacy to suggest that they all politely listen, and fake interest. More times than not thats when the polite - 'excuse me' bathroom runs happen and why women go to the bathroom in multiples. The more that leave the less interested they are in the conversation. A women will literally piss herself before bailing on a really good conversation. (Yes, comedic over generalization was intentional...)

Yeah, it's a give and take in conversation. you need to put up with their boring details and they, in turn, theoretically, put up with yours, right? NO. It does NOT work this way. I can't even count the number of times I've toughed it out through a mindnumbing conversation. Complete with nods, and smiles and 'oh really's only to have people excuse themselves when its my turn to speak. Or stand there glancing around, bored. Or pick their nails. Or try and jump in and change the subject midsentence. And I'm not even monologuing... I don't even get the benefit of this supposed 'polite social rule' crap because - it IS theory. Maybe it works in the royal court still. Fairytales perhaps. In practice it is a much different animal.

Little things like forcing yourself to pay attention so you can correctly read a situation is a useful skill. Obviously, you have SOME skills - you probably have more friends than your therapist. I'm not buying that other people are engaged in conversations they have no personal interest in either. They just fake looking interested in it better than us. And my question is WHY? Why is it impolite to politely excuse yourself from a boring conversation? It's not - as long as you make the effort to consider someone elses feelings. No one likes to be told, point blank, they are boring. Learning how to read the signs of other peoples body language and expressions will help you figure out what they are looking to get out of a situation. And, when those with ASD have enough interest in the topic to apply themselves to learning this skill, they can get quite good at it. NT's are not uniformly proficient in this skill either. Some are spectacularly bad. Others are entirely too self centered to care.

So he is aware that you need to run this instruction manual in your head everytime you go into a conversation right? He is aware that it is highly unlikely that it will ever become 'second nature' - it won't become natural or fluid or innate. It will always be a script. And it will always be exhausting. It may become less exhausting over time as you build up stamina and run the script faster and faster but it will always be a formula. Adding more and more to the formula sounds like a recipe for failure. And, you naturally took his lead and mirrored it.

You know my feeling on lying. And ego stroking. And emotionally needy black holes with a constant need for reassurance and self affirmation. If I suggested I wanted those things I'd be told I was narcissistic.

They feel their way through life and expect everyone else to instinctually mind those feelings. Yet 'strong' people are those that can control their feelings. Big business nearly expects someone to be a bit of a sociopath - 'it's just business' is another way of saying take your feelings out of this. Business isn't personal. That alone paints a very schizophrenic picture of what the expected 'norm' is supposed to be. And you are smack dab in the middle of that dynamic.

I think its pretty clear - this stuff makes my head hurt.

You're saying the same thing I am I think. We are not any worse at this than they are as a whole. Sure we don't read body language as well but that is different than doing this thing. If we are truly interested we can do it automatically too. The only time an autistic person doesn't show me this is when I fail to reach them. I am not going to show interest if I am not listening. LOL. My point is that he has the root cause wrong IMHO. In fact my group of asd friends are the most respectful communicators I know and super encouraging to one another. NTs could stand to learn from them on this topic IMHO.

Quick update for peeps following this thread....

I actually got quite a bit "fed up" with the direction these sessions where heading with all the other inputs coming at me. It really isn't the sessions nor the Doctor. He is really quite good at this job of teaching but the material is very overwhelming to me. This latest matrix really pushed me over the edge. How can I possibly even begin to do this stuff?

I have taken a respit and will resume the sessions again on Aug 25th to see what other layers might possibly exist.

In other news... And pretty big news too. I gave my first presentation to some of the local medical Autism professionals and the feedback from that blew me out of the water. One of the Doctors in the room made the comment that she had chills listening to the presentation. Another said he had new ideas and new thinking to use and even mentioned that he was going to use this information that day with a specific client. And then another said that she wanted to snatch me up for private consults before I got too famous. The s**t just got real with this very succesful joint presentation of NT Doctor and AS Doctor. My NT counterpart is taking very good care of me. She took care of all the administration of the meeting (like arranging it, buying snacks, printing forms, etc), she drove, made sure we got there early so I could acclimate and she intercepted all the others "socially" so that I could focus on anxiety management. During the presentation, she softened some of my messages so that I did not come off too rude. The presentation was in the giant office complex and I struggled a tiny bit absorbing it since there was so much to see. At the end my energy was waaaaay down and she was respectful of that. We were both very happy since the others received the message so well but I was pretty tired. Still I managed to find some words for the way home. They were not very profound but I did my best. Mostly I was absorbing the enormity of the moment and of the meeting. So it begins.... There is a conference in Redmond WA that I am being targeted for in Oct. I don't know if I can get ready for that but we'll see.

Oh yeah... And my "funny" moment of the day. We arrived and entered the office of the Doctor who was hosting us. I immediately was drawn to the toys as my counterpart went to do the "small talk" stuff. The other Doctor lead us down to the conference room. We had 20 minutes to kill. I acclimated my eyes and ears to the place and touched everything I could. I found that the walls had closets in them and opened each closet to see what was inside of it. I inspected all the technical equipment and found one closet with a refer and sink (wet bar). We laughed that our homes could use one of those. I asked her if I wasn't here if she would do this and she said that she would not because it isn't socially acceptable to get into closets and drawers when you are a guest somewhere. DOOOOOOOP!! ! That soooooooo never crossed my mind. I LOL'd about that one. Who knew???

Except for opening doors and drawers, this is so me. The toys would be played with it I could. I would read every chart and look at every instrument. Study any paintings on the wall. Find mistakes in the crown moldings, see spots that have been repainted, point out walls out of plumb.

Hee hee,

Glad to see you back. I noticed you had been laying low. Glad to hear it was for a well deserved rest break.

Congratulations on the presentation. I am both excited and extremely disturbed at the reactions. I'm glad they are listening and really accepting of what you have to teach them but I'm disturbed that it all seems so NEW and revolutionary to them. These are type of professionals that everyone here relys upon and they essentially just admitted that they just don't get it. So - YAY for the learning - it can't happen fast enough! It sounds like your collabortation with the doctor is working out well. Encouraging news all around.

Funny about the 'exploring the environment' aspect! I ALWAYS do that in professional locations - at the docotors office I inspect each draw and cabinet, in hotel rooms I open and play with everything - read all those little instructional things they leave laying around, in conference rooms and such I do nose around. I know other people do not do this but I chalk that up to a lack of curiosity. Those are all public or consumer intended places - I've never assumed it was 'wrong' to do so. In someones home I would never invade their privacy but 'out there', what's the harm? It's a location designed for many different people to use. *shrug*

wavefreak - do people look at you funny when you get up to look at paintings on the wall more closely? I never understood that! Art is my first and deepest interest. Art is placed on the wall to appreciate, right? Why do people think it's odd to get up and look at it?

Glad you checked in!

After thinking about it, I can't tell you. If I'm really looking that closely at a piece of art i don't know what other people are doing. I sort of get lost in my own world. I suspect I get some strange looks though.