Problems in reading stories (plz move if wrong board)

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wolfkouji
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24 Jan 2012, 7:56 pm

A bit background: I am an recently diagnosed aspie (but people noticed I had aspie-like behavior long ago) and is a foreign student. My first language is Chinese. After I came to the United States, I get to known with many American people, including folks in my department and clubs, and they have names like Josh, Bryan, Timothy, Nicholas, etc.
I have a small problem recently when reading stories set in Western world; when the characters have same names as people I know in real life, I cannot help but making images of the person, which undermine my reading; especially e.g. like the real-life Katie I know is very different from the Katie in the stories, I start to make very weird or even inappropriate imagination that I can not control nor tolerant, so I have to stop reading. If the story involves things like crimes, torture or sexual attraction the problem also can be much worse. So when the names of people I know in real life become more and more, I fear I will be unable to read English stories one day.
Do anyone of you have similar experience or know how to solve this problem? Is this associated with Asperger's? Thank everyone for your time and help! :D



auntblabby
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25 Jan 2012, 12:28 am

^^^
hiya, Wolfkouji :)
welcome to the club 8)
you could try abstaining from reading about those things for a while, until you start learning so many new people's names and faces that they all sorta blend into one another, then when you start reading about those saucy things your mind will be less able to glom onto a real person or face.



wolfkouji
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25 Jan 2012, 9:01 am

auntblabby wrote:
^^^
hiya, Wolfkouji :)
welcome to the club 8)
you could try abstaining from reading about those things for a while, until you start learning so many new people's names and faces that they all sorta blend into one another, then when you start reading about those saucy things your mind will be less able to glom onto a real person or face.


Thank you. Yeah it seems a good idea, I need more time to adapt... In China people's names are less prone to be same, but if a character from my or other important people (to me)'s name pop out it will make me feel sensitive.