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anneurysm
Veteran
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Joined: 25 Mar 2008
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,196
Location: Ontario, Canada

18 Dec 2012, 2:54 pm

I can imitate body language very well, but like some things in my social repetoire, it's a VERY concious process. I often mentally remind myself to uncross my legs and have an open posture towards the other person I'm talking to. Before I knew this, I'd be very bunched up with my arms and legs crossed.


_________________
Given a “tentative” diagnosis as a child as I needed services at school for what was later correctly discovered to be a major anxiety disorder.

This misdiagnosis caused me significant stress, which lessened upon finding out the truth about myself from my current and past long-term psychiatrists - that I am a highly sensitive person but do not have an autism spectrum disorder

My diagnoses - anxiety disorder, depression and traits of obsessive-compulsive disorder (all in remission).

I’m no longer involved with the ASD world.


Rational
Raven
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Joined: 3 Apr 2011
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Posts: 112
Location: UK

26 Dec 2012, 9:26 pm

anneurysm wrote:
I can imitate body language very well, but like some things in my social repetoire, it's a VERY concious process. I often mentally remind myself to uncross my legs and have an open posture towards the other person I'm talking to. Before I knew this, I'd be very bunched up with my arms and legs crossed.

Wow. Please tell me how did you learn it! It is the only thing stopping me from fully becoming a pseudo-NT.

I hope you are talking about the same thing as me, though. I learned to understand body language (generalized from some common patterns) and I can do stuff with my own body language, and while it is mostly conscious, it's also effortless, painless, and probably sustainable for unlimited periods of time. It is a habit for me to improvize my body language for the situation, although I'm not sure if I ever had to use non-open body language, I do always adapt according to what I believe should be signalling. However, there's a difference between signalling what one believes he should be signalling, and mimicking someone - not completely imitating them, but acting in a reciprocal manner, I don't know how to explain this. I am oblivious to when someone is in a moment of his speech when it's appropriate to interrupt - so when I try to interrupt people (it's often necessary when I ask a question, to stop them from going on for several minutes, repeating things I know), they ignore me and go on. This also makes group conversations very difficult for me.



chessimprov
Toucan
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Joined: 11 Jun 2010
Age: 44
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Posts: 293
Location: Philly

27 Dec 2012, 11:47 pm

I feel I learned social reciprocity by a willingness to be exposed to a variety of ideas- food, culture, well many things, and well, f*****g up infinite times too. I somehow realized that not everything I did was always my fault, and being old enough to be able to walk away from things or create my own "solutions" to problems without bothering others has helped a lot. I still wouldn't say I have a lot of friends and maybe not even any really good friends right now, but at least I know where I stand. Now, there's too many things that I want to do to really care right now, as long as I have enough connections to help me for certain things in times of need as I would try to do the same for others too.

This reminds me of how it can be frustrating when I don't get along with other aspies due to interests, their quirks and/or mine, and/or their behavior.