Faking Behaviors (Complexity)

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I have HFA diagnosed by several professional and with a relevant history onto child-hood for special education and so on like speech language.

I don't get it when people say they are faking behaviors on this forum. To me that is like acting. I think I can act. For instance if I wanted to give a speech with the recording equipment I am getting I'd listen to speeches from different people in history and current day speeches.I will change my personality slighly then what I'm used to. I'd be professional and behave unlike I do other times as an adult but also I don't have a great amount of interaction with others aside from people with disabilities and support workers. This is a diverse personality I think I have and not faking unless acting in a movie or comedy in which the intent is to fake but not in real-life.

Here is some other things I can think of. I can smile when I don't feel happy at times because the other person is smiling and I focus on peoples lips primary. Other times I do not self-observe this behavior as I am cloudy in thoughts or over stimulated so I do walk away rarely suddenly but other times end the conversation. Some people know my conversation rules like if to many conversation going on at once I am likely to want to leave or get cloudy. I have seen the notion of an A.S personality online and people say they do not want to change that. Maybe my perspective is different and people are talking about that and defining the world around them as the typical not to be like and enforcing the no change personality?

So there is allot of complex potentials in the online SPHERE and I only know myself.

Nathan Young

Faking or acting; it's a semantic thing. Either way you are not being the 'natural' you; if you need to think about and adopt the acted out role. You may be capable of doing that, and that's all to the good, it can be helpful. Some of us see ourselves in the singular, like there is one core 'me'. Some of us are aware of a multiplicity of 'me's and allow ourselves to explore the breadth and depth of all the people we can be.

This reminds me of a behaviorist that said she wanted me to have more eye contact, be more superficial and it kind of pissed me off because it was annoying to focus on these things. If I don't behave this way naturally and it I have to focus on eye contact for instance it is overwhelming whereas if I don't think about it it's more natural and I don't find any defect. I told the behaviorist she was rating eye contact to important and it was not important to me and it was \ would drive me crazy modeling and adjusting this behavior.

Nathan Young

I act not to do eye contact, only to make the lack of contact unnoticeable. When somebody talks to me, I will look elsewhere, but I will acknowledge what he says with some deep looks in the far, some "hum-uhm" "I understand" "I agree", some head motions... and I will only briefly come back to look in the eyes at some strategic moments: a new sentence, a conclusion, a word that resonates in me.

But I am clearly overacting according to my own standards. Yet it is enough to say to the person you are listening that "I am here" "I listen to you" and "I understand what you say". I don't go against what I think, I won't lie and act on something I don't believe because it would become obvious. It is just an aesthetic fix, a packaging that hides something that could interfere in the matter of the discussion.

The good side of this kind of acting, is that it gives you the chance to step into an "easier" social life without fundamentally betraying yourself. But it creates a drawback: because the resulting behavior is not completely natural for yourself, the chances to be really understood just slip away.

She had said my eye contact was not enough and I was being my natural self. So I declined and then she never mentioned again.

As one example, if you naturally stim, but suppress it in front of people, that's a form of "acting." Or, like when I'm listening to someone, I nod my head make occasional eye contact to give signals that say "I am listening" -- the point being that if I do what comes naturally I don't make eye contact and stay motionless until the person is done talking.

The trouble with that is that people tend to walk away because they assume I'm not listening. The nodding is especially "acting/fake" because it takes me a long time to process spoken language, so I am indicating that I understand even though, at that moment, I don't.

Unrelated editorial comment: It's annoying that it's assumed that "odd" or "lacking" behavior is assumed to be a lack of knowledge of social skills, rather than having reasons for having natural behavior that is off the norm.

I tend to rock in person if I am over-stimulated by social discourse. Obsessive eye contact of others, close body contact and multiple conversations going on. My other behaviorist called that stiming and I essentially told him to go to hell but nice way. I think I like some unnatural behavior but other times what seems intrusive to others to mention and ask me is that your autism I am upset by because I never noticed it and is actually part of how my mind and body regulate behavior to remain in the situation and focus.

I used to have complex ritualistic tics and partial body movements related to that. Thank goodness those went away but all in if someone don't like how I am they can take a hike. Screw the normal ideas of what is supposed to be and I don't bother thinking about normal and abnormal unless it is destructive.