Social Skills Training for Adults

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^^^ All of this - that's me!

I found that when social skills became a special interest, I just devoured the subject like any other. I think the most useful information came from learning the psychology of advertising and marketing. They are specifically designed to 'encourage' the reaction you want from people. Part of me HATED it for how maniplative it was but part of me LOVED it because - wow - it really works. People really do operate this way. Intriguing...

Still exhausting but it gave a new level for me to lose myself to in big social outings. People watching. Gesture and expression dissection. And, yes, a fair bit of experimentation which was nothing more than pure manipulation just to see what does what to whom. Not some of my prouder moments. A dx at an early age may have nipped my evil ways in the bud...

I have so much to say about this topic but right now words are failing me completely. I am a bit pissed off right now as I am working with my colleague on my next presentation and I learn that I am more severely affected in another area that I thought I was good at. As I do this work, I learn more and more about ASD and how the Doctors view this disorder and how they view me. Sadly, I also learn more and more about myself that is disturbing. It is very, very hard on my ego to discover how very affected I am. I was (in many ways) much better off not ever hearing of this thing though I am convinced it would have eventually killed me to not know of it due to how I was physically killing myself by trying so hard.

Self realization can be a hard thing in any situation and this one has knocked the wind out of my sails today. I know that I will pick myself back up and get on with the "good fight". Make no mistake... I will fight this in some intelligent way. I just cannot Language it all yet and am not even sure what my battle needs to be or where I need to fight.

I have emailed my social skills coach to suggest that perhaps I am not able to change given my level of disorder/disability in this area. It irritates me to no end that I get the concepts but cannot access them when I need them most. I am working harder and longer (and 1:1 even) then his other clients and yet seeing very little tangible results that I can use. Awaiting his reply but right now thinking I just need to possibly define myself around this area as I have defined myself around other deficits (emotions for example).

Give me some time folks. I will come back and I will face this thing in a way that makes sense.

And this is why I am pro cure. Some days it just kicks my ass like this...

Whoa there ...

So how long have you been doing this social training thing? 6 months? Autism aside, do you think ANYONE can make profound changes to a life time of habits in only 6 months? Then add autism to the mix and you've got a huge challenge.

I totally relate. Sometimes I am astonished at how completely alien my mind is. Sometimes it does feel like it's kinking my ass. But I'm also my harshest critic.

I'm thinking that if you take a deep breath, relax a bit and actually look at what you have gained and accomplished since finding you've an ASD, that objectively speaking, you are KICKING ASS. Think of it like sprint drills on the football field. Do them right and your legs are on the verge of collapse by the last rep. Your legs are fried if you put in 100%. And you might me sore the next day. But come game time?

So you're a bit gassed. YEAH BABY! That means you're working hard and it's going to pay off come game time. Hit the showers, take a massage, and come game day "Let's Get Ready to RUMBLE!"

I understand exactly where you're coming from, draelynn!

I've not been formally diagnosed...don't know when that will happen...so I don't want to sound as if I have a lock on what it's like to be AS/ASD/PDD-NOS. But what about training for what to do when all this practicing and trying goes awry? Shouldn't affected people be made aware of what to do when practice goes wrong and they descend into some sort of shutdown/meltdown that will affect their ability to perform as desired?

Does that make any sense? It not, I'm open to others' input!

Sorry you had a sh*tty day of realisation. I hate it when that happens.

I still have new realisations every day about how far reaching (in terms of how it affects me) this all is ... and I was one who had had suspicions about my autism for years before I was diagnosed. It's really hard to come to terms with those realisations sometimes ...

When I was diagnosed I thought that it would be a relief - that in some way I would feel more comfortable with myself and that I would be easier on myself when it all went wrong because I would understand why.

But I find that is not the case... I do understand why ... but it doesn't make it any less fricken' frustrating. Actually, it makes it worse. Because now I know for sure what the "problem" is, I should be able to fix it, but it doesn't work like that...



Yeah, we know you will!

Thanks man. I know that it hasn't been that long but the social skills groups that this guy runs are not as long as 6 months and his kids seem to take some skills away from that. It just seems like I should be able to do SOMETHING with those skills I learned in all those frocking sessions. Like I said. I have MUCH to say on this subject now and will come out with it as the words come. It doesn't help me to know how or why wrt social skills training. I must also somehow also actually "do" it or try it. To know and to not do is to NOT know.... I thought about it during this event but I was just too tired to even care or try. Either that or I am being stubborn about it and just did not want to do it. In a way, everything is pissing me off right now. I am really angry about having this disorder and being so blind in these areas. As I write the material for my next presentation I discover just how unaware of things I am. It hurts on a lot of levels.

But while it destroys my ego, I also know that this self-discovery will ultimately grow me and help me to be the very best "me" that I can be. So onward and upward it is. I will try to answer other posts today as I can form more words for this. THIS experience is "golden" for my lessons.

I wonder if this is partly related to the way you process things. I know that, for me at least, there is often a delay between acquiring new data and the point where it is assimilated into actionable knowledge. It seems as if there is a lot of subliminal processing going on that proceeds at its own pace. Eventually it will resurface as something integrated with the rest of my "rule set" for dealing with people. I can't ever force this.

Another thing is that in spite of never having a diagnosis you ARE successful at Intel and so many of the strategies you are using have utility. You can't simply abandon what worked before because they actually worked. You are in essence refactoring your "rule set", both through gaining new information and re-evaluating your previous adaptations.

I also know that I can get very frustrated because sometimes I grasp new ideas almost instantly and when something doesn't doesn't leap from raw data to integrated understanding in that short time span I get really annoyed. It means either that it's wrong, I don't have enough data, or that I'm actually going to have to work at it.

It doesn't surprise me that kids would have an easier time with this. I have 50+ years of habits and experiences that have to be reassessed and refactored. A child has yet to fully form their views of the world and themselves. This would definitely make it easier to adopt new strategies.

YellowBanana, I needed you to say EXACTLY what you said!

You completed my thoughts and perfectly describe what happens to me.

YellowBanana wrote:


My sponsor tells me not to isolate so much and tries to take away my cell phone so I can't play Spades. When I feel like I have something to say and can express it properly...or get a word in edgewise, I do. For those other moments when I would be sitting there looking like that phone keeps me from one of those clumsy interactions where I try to enter a conversation and it comes off inappropriately or the others look at me like It's also good for dealing with too much noise and/or too many conversations going on around me (particularly while someone is talking to me). Sometimes it's easy to fake it through those situations with a smile or a laugh. Appearing to be a good listener helps me with interacting with the more talkative types.

Those who are directly affected need to know how to handle these moments while those who care for them need to understand that social skills training does not mean fitting into a particular mold because the needs are different. Otherwise they end up like me as a 5-6 year old at a birthday party with a bunch of kids in a new neighborhood where I wound up hiding under a bed having to be coaxed from under it.

As YellowBanana said, it's not a choice.

I'm right there with everyone else - start by being as kind and as giving with yourself as you are to your Little. You may have built up some great reserves with maturity but no one - not even those at the top of their game - are totally impervious. You are digesting some pretty heavy s**t woman! You deserve the break - this isn't like learning some rote information like how to write code... You are literally changing your perceptions of the world as you knew them. That is no easy smooth task for anyone.

How long did it take for you to get where you are now? Adjusting all the things that have worked for you to incorporate the new information is going to be a long project for your psyche. And when it happens, you may not even notice it... you may just wake up one day and realize 'hey... look at that..." True change happens gradually. Give yourself that time to let it all soak in.

In art, they try and teach you how to 'see' like an artist. Many people never get the concept, some struggle with it and others take to it like fish to water. It's not in the 'seeing', it's in the cognitive process of perception. Training your brain to think in a different way. If this were an easy thing to do everyone would be Michangelo. And, the trick is - ready for this - to NOT see the big picture. To be able to see and interpret and decipher everything into parts, pieces, lines and structures. To see the details and reassemble them on paper, canvas, whathaveyou. You are doing something very similar except from the other angle. I know you CAN do it because you have already been doing some of it on your own. It's like being a self taught artist - now you're refining your skill in art school. You have the natural ability - and unlearning all those things you taught yourself is going to be hard. Just like retraining muscle memory is hard.

Enough with the cheerleader speeches! Feel free to rant, gripe, complain and rail against the world all you need to. We get it!

Guys thanks for the "cheers". I am doing much better today. Last night I spent the evening with my Little's Mom. We had another Big Brother official paperwork thingy. I was in a very bad mood and not very polite during the meeting. She helped the meeting to flow a bit. After the interview, we did dinner and I talked and talked and talked.... I never stopped and I did not let he say anything either. So many pieces came together for me through that monologue. Sometimes it helps to say things aloud even though that is most often harder.

I have MUCH work to do now to put those thoughts to paper. I also just had a talk with my boss. He thinks I did fine at the Face to Face and also said he is so "shot" from that event that he is taking off tomorrow. LOL! Apparently most of us were pretty affected by all the comotion and change. He also allowed that the PV system at the event was WAY to loud for him too. I should have advocated for myself a bit better and made them turn it down. I did make them get rid of the background music during our working sessions.

Lessons learned and painful as they are... ALL good! I will be back to talk more once I fill some of my windows and whiteboards up with these new words.

HUGE progress and learning over the past few days... Where to begin?

I got the reply from my social skills coach RE continuing. He said that it is normal to take 2 steps forward and 1 back and he doesn't see this as anything unusual. He also said that it is likely unrealistic for me to expect to be able to call on social skills in a prolonged sensory environment like that. He hinted that there were likely a few NTs also affected by the event.

Just after I read that email I had a 1:1 with my boss. My boss told me he was so wiped out that he was taking Friday off for "mental health" reasons. LOL! He assured me that I was fine and also hinted about some changes coming up so apparently I did not freak anyone out at least with my inability to be "with" the group.


I had an actual "meltdown" of sorts at an interview for Big Brothers the next day (Wed). My Little's Mom had to defuse the situation. It was about this women making me drive into town (through rush hour no less) because she had to do a face to face meeting and sign paperwork. I complied because I want my relationship with BBBS to work. So she comes in and sits down then looks directly at me and asks, "So what makes you want to be in this program?" I could not frocking believe my ears. I have answered that question no less than 7 times to them to several different people and at least 3 times it was recorded. So I sort of blew. Still trying to wrap my head around this concept of "getting to know you" and why NTs think this is the "right" thing to do. I find it sufficiently disrespectful in every single way imaginable.

Today I spent two hours talking to my colleague (PhD shrink type) and I showed her my latest work/presentation. She was very excited and told me that my story about "health" and "hypo-sensitivity" and balancing the two changed the way she views the ASD world. She and I worked out the entire presentation and we talked about website, marketing, etc... She believes this is going to be very, very hot when we go live. She says that nothing like this exists in the format or the style that we are doing it. She thinks it is easily consumable and immediately helpful. So far it has hit 100% of the people who have been exposed. I have another Dr. who offered to sponsor me as well. It's crazy... She spent part of that 2 hours helping mem to understand this thing "getting to know you". She told me that it is perfectly acceptable for me to decline the meetings and explain how I view it, but I told her I really want to understand it. She said that it is meaningless really. Then she said it was like wearing a hospital gown before seeing the doctor. He just opens it up anyway and looks in there but before he does that you have the time to be in front of him without being exposed. She explained that NTs don't feel comfortable getting to the "meat" of a conversation until they have had time to "get to know" someone or "warm up" to them.

See? This all goes back to those silly emotions that they have. Storing thoughts right away based on statements about where I eat. This is soooo hard for me to grasp but with the analogy of the hospital gown I think it will be easier for me to give them this.

Okay now off to clean house and then get into the weekend. I will be back to address some of the points you guys have hit on. They are all super important...

Perhaps this is why the book assumes that kids do not know to listen to Mom and Dad. I just learned it from getting slapped around. This is the "kinder/gentler" way I suppose...[/quote]

I think I can help you out here, in terms of understanding. I hated being a child because I saw (and still do) see it as other people taking away my freedom for no reason. I don't accept the idea of authority over someone for their own good. I would rather make my own choices all the way, no matter how bad the consequences. I may recognise authority in the sense of expertise - if someone has proven themselves good at something, I will accept their direction, which is why I had few problems at school- I accepted that my teachers were experts on chemistry/history whatever compared to me and accepted their direction. I wouldn't do PE and I wouldn't wear the uniform, and my school let me get away with that because my grades were very good. Being a mom, does not, in my eyes, give you any kind of authority whatsoever. It means you f****d someone, and you got pregnant. It means absolutely nothing. And as for paying for the roof over my head- I think that since I was thrust into the world on someone else's decision that's the least they could do.

If someone had asked me before I was born "Hey you can come and live in this world where you get to work for money and then pay for a home and stuff and eat and have these dopamine drugs which feel good sometimes sloshing around in your body, but sometimes you'll also have other drugs that feel bad sloshing around, but in return you have to obey me for 18 years and be completely dependent on me for food and shelter, otherwise you have to go without an education and live with little money and have no feel-good dopamine. " I'd have said err, no thanks, that sounds like a crappy deal, I'll just stay with the nice neutral non-existence thanks.

The upshot of all this was that my parents had 0 authority, and if they had chosen to escalate the punishments they would have been putting both themselves and me in danger of death. There is nothing I wasn't willing to give up for autonomy. I worked out that the ultimate power is being willing to give up your own life to get power over someone, and I was willing to do that. IF I'd had stronger parents, I'd probably be dead, in prison or on the streets.

Your complete lack of gratitude for everything in your life is astounding to me. Speaks volumes about your parents and your relationship to them. I am sorry, but I have ZERO ability to understand this thinking or your view and apply it to anything. My kids and I are tight and the are gracious, giving and successful young women.

I am not going to multi-quote (too hard on this board) but want to bring up the topic of communication and socialization which hits on the points you guys are making (I think) and also ties into an interesting meeting I had this weekend. Yesterday, I went to an event where there were 4 Doctors from OHSU who were doing studies on ASD and recruiting subjects. One of the Doctors is in a lab that focuses on Language and Communication. I found it fascinating that his studies ALL were about our inabilities to be social or come up with the right words to the cashier in the store (for example) but he had ZERO concept of the reason communication is so situational. I spoke at length with him after his presentation and informed him that I actually go mute sometimes. He was shocked because he looked at me as a peer during the conversation. We were taking about my invention and he even offered me the potential to get "seed monies" if I would agree to work with him and his company on assisted technologies inventions.. (another story but the respect was there). Here this man is.... Getting grant money and doing research and this basic stuff is nowhere in his mind.

Basic communication problems exist in my life because of

1. Inability to process (place is new, has too much data). The most perfect example of this is my first visit ever to therapy (grief therapy) and how it took me 7 or so sessions to process my shrink's busy office. I nearly had a shut down in his office that first day and had to stare intently at a blank spot on the wall while I stimmed (shook).
2. Am scared or otherwise simply unaware of the rules or routine. A perfect example of this is my recent foray into speaking in front of Medical type people. This is a strange/new demographic for me and I do not understand the rules so my rigidity increases (I become a PIA with my demands for agendas and rules) and Language abilities go way down... I have to actually rehearse my presentations 4-6 times.
3. Am tired (just plain low on tokens) and just do not have the energy for people. I go mute or chose to ignore people and their social communications simply to save myself. A perfect example of this is my recent 3 day face to face. By the 3rd day, I physically outside the perimeters of people at the event.

It fascinates me that NTs have such a hard time grasping the concept that I really do NOT live to be with other people or socialize. Along with the social part also comes the communication or Language part. It just isn't that big of a deal to me. I do not have to Language in their way. I can type, I can sense and I can flow. THIS is all the communication I would ever need I think…

I now have some understanding/feeling of their need to socialize (and perhaps also Language?) with my analogy of the hospital gown. My next agenda is to find some analogy that they can "feel" that will allow them to understand how small talk is so disrespectful to me. I am close to that one but not fully there…

Expecting someone to be gracious is an imposition on them. If I bought you something from the shop without asking you whether you wanted it, that you didn't like, so that I could fulfill some drive on my own part or feel better about myself, why should you feel gratitude?

Given the choice, I would have chosen not to be born. Giving me life was an imposition, and providing for me only mitigated that imposition. You are grateful for your life because you presumably find it enjoyable and are glad you were born. I am not glad I was born, and ending your life involves pain and is difficult to do. What I have been given is a painful existence I would prefer not to have. Why should I be grateful for that? No-one asked me and I wouldn't have chosen it.

Louise18, as I sit here, I'm trying to see your point of view. I haven't read all the pages in this thread...it's very long & with my ADD, well, let's just say I'd have ended before I even started!

I'm the youngest of 8 children. Mom & Dad had 11 pregnancies in 10 years; two miscarriages & 1 who died after just 2 days of living. My childhood was CHAOS. Dad trying to earn enough money to keep the family afloat & Mom, well, for some reason she was DEPRESSED all the time (w/n diagnoses/treatement). My parents really had no excuse for having 8 kids...they couldn't take care of all of us (so, they had FAVORITES.....and no, I wasn't one of 'em). So, my childhood was just hell. Put on top of all this, I have AS but wasn't diagnosed until I was 41. So, my early adulthood was pretty much shot, too!

I felt relief at my diagnosis, FINALLY knew what I'd guessed for years (there was something wrong with me) don't know where to go from there, but I can figure that one out.

Do I hate my parents? Sometimes I hate the way I was mistreated. Sometimes I can't fathom their thinking (turns out, before all the kids Mom was a devout Catholic...so, no birth control; that's the short & long of that). I still don't really LIKE my family (but that is a much more recent situation....THEIR reactions to my AS diagnosis sucked)

The thought of someone thinking a child should be in a situation where there is NO ONE in authority over them just boggles my mind. Where would you say your parents should have STARTED this "no authority" for you? At Birth? (I'd like to see a newborn change their own diaper....) As a Toddler (they can talk, let 'em go get a job to EARN the roof over their head)
If this were a viable child rearing situation, you would see it SOMEWHERE on earth.

As for gratitude; many people on the PDD spectrum can't feel it. They can, however, ACKNOWLEDGE that it does exist for the majority of people on earth.