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Things you didn't comprehend as a child because of autism?

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SMARTIE
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31 Dec 2008, 7:58 am

Fuzzy wrote:
What about things that you realized later in life?

I only realized around age 30 that I could(it was possible, permissible) dislike someone purely on personality. They didnt have to do anything to earn that. Up until then, I felt that if I knew someone, I was friends with them. Otherwise we were just acquainted or that I hated them for their previous actions(and this is very rare; I hate nobody currently). I'm not the friendly type, so I wasnt really taken advantage of.

To this day my concept of friendship is shaky. I feel quite equipped to abandon anyone. I do not miss people. Perhaps I will develop that though as I aspie-mature.


I dont remember not understanding that people are real, but to this day I have a hell of a time imagining that they are off doing things outside my sight. If I imagine someone, they are static in the location I know them from; tableau.

I understand that they are real people cognitively, but never think that my (in)actions can have an effect on people who are not present. If something would not make me mad, I always think that others wont mind either.


I totally agree, this is how I feel about people and have done so all my life.

It also used to confuse me as a child when somone was described as "getting out of the wrong side of the bed" i often wondered why there wasnt a right side and if there was a right side, why they didnt get out on it.

As a child and teenager I was also described as gullible, as if a friend said something, it never occurred to me that they may not be telling the truth. And so some took advantage of me, as I always told the truth. To this day i still do, but have now learnt to be a bit more wary and that some people dont always.


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31 Dec 2008, 8:35 am

Fuzzy wrote:
I dont remember not understanding that people are real, but to this day I have a hell of a time imagining that they are off doing things outside my sight. If I imagine someone, they are static in the location I know them from; tableau.


I had a similar experience concerning all matters.

I was absolutely certain that whatever was out of sight would not change until the moment I'd see it again.


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31 Dec 2008, 8:41 am

I also tend to take things literally as well, including jokes and what-time-will-you-be-back stuff.

Then again, at 17, I am still a minor according to law. ._.


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lexis
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31 Dec 2008, 10:00 am

Sora wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
I dont remember not understanding that people are real, but to this day I have a hell of a time imagining that they are off doing things outside my sight. If I imagine someone, they are static in the location I know them from; tableau.


I had a similar experience concerning all matters.

I was absolutely certain that whatever was out of sight would not change until the moment I'd see it again.


I never considered things once they were outside of my range of perception. I remember when my mum came to collect me from my nan at the end of the xmas holidays when I was 4/5. I was very shocked, lol, I saw the face and thought (not with words but the equivalent to) 'Ah, I remember that body, I remember that hat, I remember those hands (holding a toy), I remember that person; what are they doing here- how did they get here without me expecting them?'

I had a similar mentality for most situations, and now as an adult I can't understand it because I haven't retained that mind state- I still have some rements of certain parts of me from around that time, but not that. I know that people leave, come back and do something in between but I still do have trouble remembering that people existed before I met them on an intuitive level- thankfully not on a rational level- but it's not an issue and doesn't adversely affect my perceptions.



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31 Dec 2008, 10:59 am

i once wore sunglasses into school one day. One of my teachers would always have a written conversation with me, because I had problems communicating. She kept asking me, "Is it sunny inside?". I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she meant, I was trying to NOT take it literally and thought she was talking about my mood or something. So I kept asking her what she meant but she never told me, probably thought it was funny that I didn't understand.



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31 Dec 2008, 11:16 am

Spokane_Girl wrote:
People also have poor timing concept. They might tell me, "be back in (insert number here) minutes" but don't actually come back in that many minutes. Someone might say "give me (insert number here) minutes" but they are still busy when that many minutes went by. I learned it's not that they are lying, they just have poor timing concept. They were just guessing when they will be done or when they will be back. It's also possible something came up so they were unable to get back and chat to me. I just ask them why they never came back when we talk next time.

I always knew what 5 minutes meant to other people and it greatly annoyed me as a child. I ask them to give me a real guestimate or I simply ask "really?". I know both methods may be a bit rude (and I could care less) but at least it gives me accuracy (as 5 minutes can mean anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour in practical experience).



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31 Dec 2008, 3:03 pm

lexis wrote:
I never considered things once they were outside of my range of perception.


Yup. That was me as late as my teens. I guess that I just slowly came into an understanding. It wasnt the revelation that it is for some people.


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31 Dec 2008, 3:09 pm

All of my problems were from NLD, and I still struggle with all of the following:
-How to tell time on an analog clock (specifically the hour)
-Differentiating between left and right
-Subtraction with lots of zeroes (where you need to "borrow")
-Doing math problems with percentages (I only understand fractions, not decimals or percentages)
-Anything dealing with geometry/visual-spatial estimation

-OddDuckNash99-


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Spokane_Girl

31 Dec 2008, 3:41 pm

Quote:
I only realized around age 30 that I could(it was possible, permissible) dislike someone purely on personality. They didnt have to do anything to earn that. Up until then, I felt that if I knew someone, I was friends with them. Otherwise we were just acquainted or that I hated them for their previous actions(and this is very rare; I hate nobody currently). I'm not the friendly type, so I wasnt really taken advantage of.



As a little kid, I couldn't understand why someone didn't like me so I assumed it was because I was different. Now I can guess why they didn't like me. I think of all the labels that were placed on me by other kids so those could be the reasons why. I think when I was real little, I couldn't tell if someone didn't like me, even if they were mean to me. I just didn't understand why they acted that way then so I didn't like them. I was always the innocent one but I am sure I did something to make them not like me.

But I have also learned people can dislike you for lame reasons; what you wear, the way you talk, the way you look, visible disability, your obsessions or interests, medical condition, fetish, and over a mistake you made.



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31 Dec 2008, 4:16 pm

Spokane_Girl wrote:
Quote:
I only realized around age 30 that I could(it was possible, permissible) dislike someone purely on personality. They didnt have to do anything to earn that. Up until then, I felt that if I knew someone, I was friends with them. Otherwise we were just acquainted or that I hated them for their previous actions(and this is very rare; I hate nobody currently). I'm not the friendly type, so I wasnt really taken advantage of.



As a little kid, I couldn't understand why someone didn't like me so I assumed it was because I was different. Now I can guess why they didn't like me. I think of all the labels that were placed on me by other kids so those could be the reasons why. I think when I was real little, I couldn't tell if someone didn't like me, even if they were mean to me. I just didn't understand why they acted that way then so I didn't like them. I was always the innocent one but I am sure I did something to make them not like me.

But I have also learned people can dislike you for lame reasons; what you wear, the way you talk, the way you look, visible disability, your obsessions or interests, medical condition, fetish, and over a mistake you made.


I didnt even consider if someone didnt like me. I guess I assumed everyone was as ambivalent towards others as I am.


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lexis
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31 Dec 2008, 5:57 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
lexis wrote:
I never considered things once they were outside of my range of perception.


Yup. That was me as late as my teens. I guess that I just slowly came into an understanding. It wasnt the revelation that it is for some people.


It made me become ultra-paranoid. I knew that there were people doing things, thinking things but I couldn't and still cannot really imagine what and it disturbs me.



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31 Dec 2008, 7:38 pm

Lots of very interesting posts here... ditto on literally interpreting colloquialisms. If someone said they "jumped the gun" I'd imagine them jumping over a hunting rifle.

Also, I didn't get the fact that conversation is more than just an exchange of facts. That if someone starts asking you friendly questions, they may be expressing the desire for a deeper involvement with you. I usually just treated a friendly question as a kind of database query, answering it in a monotonal, concise, matter-of-fact sort of way.



Spokane_Girl

31 Dec 2008, 8:03 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
Spokane_Girl wrote:
Quote:
I only realized around age 30 that I could(it was possible, permissible) dislike someone purely on personality. They didnt have to do anything to earn that. Up until then, I felt that if I knew someone, I was friends with them. Otherwise we were just acquainted or that I hated them for their previous actions(and this is very rare; I hate nobody currently). I'm not the friendly type, so I wasnt really taken advantage of.



As a little kid, I couldn't understand why someone didn't like me so I assumed it was because I was different. Now I can guess why they didn't like me. I think of all the labels that were placed on me by other kids so those could be the reasons why. I think when I was real little, I couldn't tell if someone didn't like me, even if they were mean to me. I just didn't understand why they acted that way then so I didn't like them. I was always the innocent one but I am sure I did something to make them not like me.

But I have also learned people can dislike you for lame reasons; what you wear, the way you talk, the way you look, visible disability, your obsessions or interests, medical condition, fetish, and over a mistake you made.


I didnt even consider if someone didnt like me. I guess I assumed everyone was as ambivalent towards others as I am.


Kids were straight forward. They would say they didn't like me and I would get told that someone doesn't like me.



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31 Dec 2008, 9:26 pm

Spokane_Girl wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
Spokane_Girl wrote:
Quote:
I only realized around age 30 that I could(it was possible, permissible) dislike someone purely on personality. They didnt have to do anything to earn that. Up until then, I felt that if I knew someone, I was friends with them. Otherwise we were just acquainted or that I hated them for their previous actions(and this is very rare; I hate nobody currently). I'm not the friendly type, so I wasnt really taken advantage of.



As a little kid, I couldn't understand why someone didn't like me so I assumed it was because I was different. Now I can guess why they didn't like me. I think of all the labels that were placed on me by other kids so those could be the reasons why. I think when I was real little, I couldn't tell if someone didn't like me, even if they were mean to me. I just didn't understand why they acted that way then so I didn't like them. I was always the innocent one but I am sure I did something to make them not like me.

But I have also learned people can dislike you for lame reasons; what you wear, the way you talk, the way you look, visible disability, your obsessions or interests, medical condition, fetish, and over a mistake you made.


I didnt even consider if someone didnt like me. I guess I assumed everyone was as ambivalent towards others as I am.


Kids were straight forward. They would say they didn't like me and I would get told that someone doesn't like me.


I am sure they told me that too, but i was oblivious.


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31 Dec 2008, 10:27 pm

I don't know if any of these have anything to do with AS or not but here goes.....

I believed everyone else was as good or better than I was in everything; school, sports, you name it. I had no special talents. Only other people had them. Eventually (in adulthood) I discovered that wasn't true.

I believed that if you had words with a friend and parted without resolving it, that was the end of the friendship, you never spoke to them again. It was not repairable because whatever was said was the truth and could not be taken back at a later date. I was well into adulthood before I partially changed my mind. I still have trouble with this one.

My grandfather was a bulimic (Yes, very unusual for a man) and had developed an ulcer mostly blocking his esophagus so he could only drink. He was too afraid of surgery to get it fixed. I thought this was just what happened to people when you got old and it would happen to me someday. I didn't know that were such things as psychological problems and that they could cause physical problems.



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31 Dec 2008, 11:23 pm

Thinking in concrete topic

My mother read murder mysteries and I would read the titles and translate them into pictures. Absurd.

The Frost fence: I thought this was a type of fence used in cold countries (like my own, Canada). Later I found out it was a brand name for a type of chain link fence. :roll:

My mother always talked about the fact my father's salary did not stretch to cover expenses. I thought she used the word "celery" and I wondered how it would "stretch" to "cover" expenses.
I imagined chopped celery spread out as a cover over potato salad. :lol:

Thinking in pictures. Who said aspies cannot appreciate humour?


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