Reticulating Splines vs Spoon Theory

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Oooh tactile synesthesia. That's freaky!

I think I'll say I don't have have tactile synesthesia. What I get is too specific and too narrow focused. Though it is curious.

I've watched some Utube documentaries. Fascinating stuff.

Wish I could think of more to add to this discussion. This has been my favorite thread so far

Yes, that is very similar to what I've seen some people describe as mirror-touch synesthesia. Also, empathic senses seem extremely related. I know several people on various points in the emotional & physical empath range. Specific experiences of it do seem to vary quite a bit, so I think you're safe to call yourself either type.

I have a few mirror-pain responses. Particularly when there's blood involved. It doesn't have to be something that's actually happening - imagining it happening is enough. But it has to be a real injury... fake stuff in movies doesn't usually bother me. And it has to be actual damage. Slaps don't freak me out, but broken skin or bones does. I experience it as pains in my legs or hands or arms. Usually starting in my legs. When it gets really bad, it hits me in the stomach.

I can't let anyone show me their injuries or describe them in detail. Same goes with medical stuff, surgery, etc. ugh!

I have lots of deep thoughts on the empath stuff and how it relates to autism. Obviously, autists are labeled with this totally bogus "no empathy" trait. I think this is because all humans are expected to perform a certain way socially, and when some of us don't, that was a very obvious thing that was noticed. But I think whether or not we're emapthic is completely arbitrary -- some of us are good at empathy, and some of us aren't. And there are different kinds of "being good at empathy". Feeling it and acting on it appropriately are two different things. Same with "feeling it sometimes and not others" or "feeling it so strongly you have to block it out and become an unfeeling robot just to get through life". All of these are true for different autists. Many of them are true for me.

Two empaths I know, one who is very strongly empathic, calls herself a "Highly Sensitive Person". She has enough trains in common with Aspergers that, if she were more introverted and less socially skilled, she'd be diagnosable. The trait list for HSPs (which is not official or in the DSM) matches may of the traits for autism, particularly the sensory and emotional overload stuff.

All of this makes me think, firstly, that how we've defined autism is rather limited and in part based on nonsensical traits that aren't true of everyone with autism so we put too much stock in them. And the other is that there's a root cause that for some manifests in non-verbal autism, for some as Asperger's, for some as HSP... and possibly, the same roots manifest more diversely as bipolar, schizophrenia, and so on. The internal "sensory perceptions" of these conditions all seem very similar, and quite different from plain vanilla NTs with no conditions whatsoever. It's just that certain factors cause some of us to manifest it one way or the other.

Are you familiar with the Intense World Theory of Autism? http://www.wrongplanet.net/article419.html I suspect that they will find this common type of neuron response in others who are not diagnosable as "autistic" because that diagnosis model is way too arbitrary.

It seems that empaths are just one aspect of the same root -- taking in an overwhelming about of information and processing it -- only they do it about people rather than exclusively about the nerdy subjects that most aspies find fascinating. (This empath I know is also into nerdy subjects. hehe)

I have my moments of being empathic. Aside from my hands being weak and small, I give a decent massage, too. I don't "sense" the other person's pain the way you describe, Greg, but I can feel the texture of the knots under my fingers in high detail, and I know what to do with them, how to work them to get them to loosen. When I'm connecting deeply with someone in a relationship, we can finish one-another's sentences. It's all about what is receiving my focus. If I'm able to focus on another human being, or part of them, I'm just as in tune with them as I am when I'm writing or reading about something I'm interested in. But sometimes I have to block it all out, especially pain, because I can get lost in thoughts about the miserable human condition. And dwelling on it does nothing to solve it.

It hurts when people tell me I have no empathy or that I don't care about others. They really don't get it.

Since I've become aware of this as of yesterday, and I watched some Utubes on the subject. I must have been thinking about it last night while sleeping. I had some instances of it while sleeping and my mind must have been monitoring because these instances woke me up. Since it was a dream state, I'm not going to place any importance on them. I get some fantasticly strange dreams. And last night's were definetly out of this world strange.


Same with me.
My own injuries don't bother me, but someone elses, I'm hurting inside.



Autism is a very old diagnosis. I would think that the definition they used way back then hasn't been sufficiently updated. There seems to be lot of logical problems in the psychological and diagnosis fields. I've seen it mention several times that when students at uni are creating a diagnostic sheet to hand out, many (don't know if all) of the questions are fixed, and have to conform to questions in previous studies in order to be comparable. This seems foolish to me as they are perpetuating useless information from study to study.

For reason's I can't fathom, they don't seem to care enough to actualy ask Autistics what they do, how they do it, and how they feel. It's a question driven science, but the questions don't change. They arn't gaining any new insight into the condition at all.

Re empathy.
I get emotionaly overloaded quite easily. Mainly while watching TV. I think this is because I'm simply not this close to real people in this situation. The movies gives you an inside knowlage of the relationship. Something we aren't normaly exposed to directly.

When someone at work is having challanges in their day. I don't know what is appropriate to say or do. I don't want to make the situation worse, I don't want to trivialise their plight. And if I get too involved I'll be having a breakdown myself. As you say, you harden your heart to survive the day. This is not lack of empathy.



No I'm not, but I will check it out imediatly.



One common one I get is when I'm thinking of Sandy or my mom. If I don't ring within 2 minutes, they'll ring me. This happens very often.



It hurts because they don't ask, they assume, and they believe they are correct. Then you can argue with them or just say, whatever stop bothering me.

More studies are now focusing on subjective experience descriptions by actual autists. That's one reason I really love Olga Bogdashina's books, because she is focusing on the studies that take those into account, and also includes personal quotes from autists. I am finding it is far more accurate and helpful.

I think I might have that mirror response too, but I have to really believe someone is in pain, then it freaks me out. But if it's like someone who is always whining or crying I tend to get desensitized.

One weird thing - elephants. If I see an elephant on tv and it is wailing in distress, I have to turn the tv off and leave the room. What is that?! !!

I like this thread too - Greg you should read the book. We should have a book group discussion about it.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/article419.html

This rings true. We develope coping mechanisms to cope with the world.



Punishment for most of us could be how people treat us because of something we've done or not done.

I remember asking girls out, and the girls turned their faces up at me with a snear that is still burned into my memory. And after doing that a couple times, I never asked a girl out again. It still hurts me today to remember that snear I got 30 years ago.

Reading through that article. I get the impression the researchers get lost in the details.
They are looking at a forest, but they focus all their attention on the first tree they come across and study that in minute detail. Therefor their study results are too narrow focused and not representative of the whole forest. (and probably not representative of the tree either).

Researchers need to comb through our WP threads for data.

I get highly empathic while preaching a homily sometimes -- as if I'm pushed to say something I didn't intend to. I added two words two weeks ago, "chronic grief" and apparently three mothers who had lost their kids in the past few years felt consoled by my mention of those words.

I get social cues wrong, but I can "feel" places and groups pretty accurately. I've never got a presidential election wrong.

You've convinced me. I'll order the book today. (that was difficult wasn't it lol. )
Edited to say: I've ordered both Communication & Sensory issues books. 8-16 days to arrive.



I was thinking exactly that yesterday afternoon while drinking a coffee in the garden.
This is where I've gained the best understanding of my condition. when I was first diagnosed last year I bought 4 books and read everything I could find online. The books were largely useless to me. The articles of minor interest.
The profession title "Researcher" should be renamed to "It's a day job research".

They sure don't treat it like a special interest do they?
It seems that every Aspie who takes on a special interest surpasses the standard professional by that evening in their knowlage of the subject. (perhaps a slight exageration, but I love exagerations )



I picked Obama both elections based on my belief that he was the worst possible choice for Americans, therefore it's what will happen. I think this is what they call, and emotionaly driven choice.

Last edited by GregCav on 02 Nov 2013, 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The book is helpful in the same way this thread is. You'll like it!

I told a friend of mine that I'm now an expert in Asperger's. He responded, "Well, I'm sure not an expert," and I interrupted him, "Yes, I'm an expert." I was a bit pissed at him for doubting me.


Well, I would agree with that. I can't smell out 2016 just yet.

We totally should. We could make a thread of it! I haven't finished reading it yet, because I am trying to finish my book and the autism book was very distracting. :)

On elephants, I saw a news story couple weeks ago about a mother elephant in a zoo that attacked her baby as soon as it was born, and the baby cried for hours. That depressed the crap out of me for the rest of the day. :/

Greg, yes, being rejected by our peers is a huge part of it. That compounds the social issues, right? Because on top of all the other sensory data flooding us, we then have fear and pain on top of it. I'm under this constant fear I'm going to do something wrong I don't understand. It's quite a burden.

Don't give the researchers a hard time. Actually, I'd wager that in general, all academic researchers are at a higher likelihood of being aspie over the general population. I don't know if that's been studied. :) it's clear that most of the early investigations into autism were done either by neurotypicals or by aspies before Aspergers was known, or who didn't know they had aspergers. Psychology in general is pretty primitive, as a science. They started by studying abnormality, without being too clear on what "normal" meant, other than "able to get along in society without much trouble".

Now we've tackled all the obvious abnormalities, and we're getting more refined to the more subtle things (like aspergers) and even to trying to figure out how normal works. We have better technology like fMRIs, that help scientists look at minds from a more objective point of view. I think ironically, that added objectivity allows researchers to give a little more credence to first-person internal subjective descriptions, because they can get objective data at the same time... Something they can compare the subjective data to, so people aren't just leading them all over the place. It's a really good shift. :)

I miss the vigorous activity of this thread, so I'm really happy Jamgrrl that you posted again.

I've been reflecting on synesthesia / ideasthesia and realizing that everything I see or think is placed in my mind in a "place" which is akin to an "auditory zone." It's like everything is arranged spatially, yet non-spatially. More like a kind of rolodex in which the motion of the rolodex takes place in a manner that I can't describe geometrically.

This is very confusing to me, because while my mind can lump certain "composers-architects-artists-philosophers-writers" all in one "place" in my mind, I don't really know how to describe that place! I don't know what dimension it lives in. It drives me crazy. It raises more questions than it answers.

But it's so real to me that when someone asks me, for example, "Why do you think the architect Mies Van Der Rohe and the philosopher Nietzsche have anything to do with one anther?" I just draw a blank and want to tell them, "isn't it obvious?" But then they just look at me like I'm nuts.

Of course you lump them all together. Science and the arts are connected and the people who have influenced them are connected also. The different disciplines bounce off each other and enrich each other like all the instruments in a symphony orchestra.
Contemplating the design of a building uses much the same thought processes as contemplating the design of the universe or the human mind and the same universal laws are pervasive through all these disciplines.

Fair enough! Then there is no ideasthesia going on at all.

Ok, now I'm confused - if he said, Well, I'm sure not an expert, was he not talking about himself?