Why am I so well adjusted?

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They were definitely autistic. They just mostly had different patterns of autism than I did.

Actually, with the combination of things I have going on, it really is pretty much impossible for me to do those things I was describing. Not because I can't do any one of them at any given time, but because the input-output hole starts slamming shut if I do more than 1.5 of them in a given day. Fortunately, the state recognizes this by this point and sends people out to do those things.

There are unfortunately a large number of people who don't grasp what the whole concept of that hole slamming shut means. Basically, the more input and output I have to deal with, and the more rapidly I have to deal with it, the more rapidly a buffer zone fills up. Once that buffer is full, it's full. Which means I either stop moving, stop comprehending, or both. Understanding and/or reacting to my surroundings for the duration of a day, in the absence of any pressing concerns, is sufficient to add enough cloggage to that hole that the sort of comprehension and response necessary for doing various practical things isn't going to happen.

Which means that I have developed a highly efficient way of doing things already. I only move those parts of my body that absolutely need to be moved. Everything else keeps doing whatever it was doing (stimming or sitting still). I only comprehend those aspects of my environment that I absolutely need to comprehend. Everything else remains undifferentiated until later. I string together as many automatic movements as I can possibly string together in order to do things that are important. I try not to engage in the sort of stray thoughts that waste energy.

...and even so, shutdown happens every day and the hole remains quite narrow. It took me four years to get a routine path around my apartment established enough that I could get up and walk around it, and even then I wasn't always likely to be able to exit the path at the right locations to get where I was going. At that rate, I might have the "activities of daily living" most important to survival (the ones that are not already taken care of for neurotypicals) down by the time I'm fifty (which I wouldn't mind, but which is also not a super-high priority in my life), but by then I'd be dead if I weren't getting assistance in the meantime.

I am never sure whether to explain all this, though, because I am never sure whether it is right for other people to need such an explanation in order to believe me that I really do know myself well enough to know what works and what doesn't. I know someone online who has a very rare digestive condition. I have digestive conditions too, but not the same one she does (her organs developed atypically). She sometimes asks people for advice, but if she says that a solution isn't feasible, I tend to believe her. So do all the other autistic people I know who know her. It's acknowledged that she is the one living in her body and is on much more intimate terms with it than the rest of us.

Likewise, I don't mind if people give advice when I've asked for it. Once. But when they start becoming insistent about knowing that they know solutions that I don't know or that I have already said (based on knowledge of myself) won't work, or when they start believing that it is fear or a lack of confidence causing this (may be for some people, isn't for me) after I have already corrected them on that point... then I start having a problem with it. If I repeatedly went to my friend with a severe spinal condition and told her a bunch of solutions that all happened to involve one of her weakest points (standing up for more than a few seconds), I would expect her to say "No, that solution depends on an ability that isn't there" once, and after that I'd expect to possibly get yelled at. But even after I explain in detail why, for instance, the use of checklists and recipes doesn't improve things for me significantly, I get exactly the equivalent of repeatedly telling my friend more ways to do things that all happen to involve standing.

I understand that people really can have a problem with fear or confidence levels impairing their ability to figure out what to do about something, but generally any problems I had were in the opposite direction (and I'm better about a lot of that stuff now). So my annoyance with that group was not as much that they said there was a possible solution, but that they persisted after I told them it wasn't a useful solution in my case, and then went on to dismiss food and water and such as less important than socializing. (I would not have minded if there were discussion of all three and more, but the dismissiveness was certainly a problem.)

I'm reminded, though, of something that I saw another autistic person say once. He said that the worst kind of person to get assistance from with any particular task, was someone who was just slightly better at that particular task than he was. Because such a person was much more likely to do some variant on considering him to just be "giving up," or to propose unhelpful solutions, than provide real assistance.

I have not meant to hijack this thread, though, or to convince anyone that they're not autistic because they are not identical to me, or anything like that. There are all kinds of autistic people (far more than two, far more complex than a linear spectrum), and some will relate to what I am describing -- to varying degrees -- and some will not. I think it is important to note, though, that in proposing solutions for other people, when the other person says "This doesn't work," there may be a good reason for the statement.

I don't think you have hijacked the thread and I think you crafted your words well, in a way which will make certain things clearer for those who do not understand. You almost completely summed up everything I have said about myself, however my explanation has been spread across many posts. I don't shut down every day because I have learned to avoid many of the things that I know may cause that and my companion has helped to make the environment I am in or exposed to more controled to help prevent that. However, I can't avoid everything and do shut down in the same manner in which you described. It is like the buffer you described, though I never thought of it in those terms. I have however thought of it in relationship to my computer locking up. I even told a doctor once that sometimes I think I need an upgrade. He asked what type of upgrade: hardware, software, more disk space, etc...? When I do lockup like that I it is a near total physical shutdown in which I have to be led by the hand to get from one place to another.

I also try to avoid anything that may be a waste of time, or energy, but sometimes I simply mess up in that area. If someone tries to suggest something that I think will be a waste of my time, or energy I simply will not do it. However, there are some things that I may not know will expend as much energy as they do and by the time I have attempted them it is too late. This is one reason why I am unable to keep a job. With some tasks that many people find fun and simple, I find I expend too much energy trying to even start them. I have enjoyed computer programming to an extent, but it is also one of the things that causes the most stress for me. My worst shutdowns were happening when I was trying to program a lot, but the connection was never made until I stopped programming for a while and then tried it again. As SOON as I started it again my stress levels escalated to very dangerous levels, very quickly (withing a few minutes of starting a project). I have not attempted to program since and have had less shutdowns, or "non-functional" incidents as my companion calls them. This is why music is part of my therapy, because it seems to be the only thing that actually relieves my stress. I am not sure that my reply made sense.

When it comes to understanding things like other's motivation and metaphore, etc... I have to process information like a computer. I have to recall from memory anything I have read, or heard that I think could apply in the specific situation and then weight each thing that I recall from memory against things that I observe in the environment around me. I then take the information from memory that best fits the current situation and discard the other bits. Then I apply each piece of information to the person's actions, or what has been said, or encountered and again discard of the ones that do not seem to fit the best. Once I have narrowed it down to the ones that seem to make the most sense to me then I examine each one in context of the situation and try to determine which one I believe is the right one. This almost ALWAYS fails and I either become unable to respond (lockup), or if I can communicate I may ask "what did that mean?" This thought process is time consuming. During the course of a short conversation with someone that is unaware that I may be doing this while they are talking, I often get stuck on one thing that was said for a long time, only to have missed every part of the conversation that happened after I got stuck. Often the whole topic has changed and sometimes it is weeks later by the time I say "what did that mean?" Of course, by the time I do ask that I am often bombarded by facial expressions that I can't instantly interpret and I have to go through the entire process again for each expression to try understand that. This is one reason why I just don't look at, or talk to people I am not comfortable with. I save energy that way and don't get overloaded as easily.

I couldn't understand it when my doctor said that non-auts simply know what facial expressions and body language means without having to process it in the manner that I do. I still don't understand how people just know these things, but in a way it makes sense because they don't understand how I can just know how to do certain things without ever having to be taught.

Actually, people do not 'just learn' things like metaphor and facial expressions and body language; they are in large measure socially constructed and are therefore - apart from the most obvious and extreme examples - culturally determined.

I am sure that people are familiar with the 'Mind In The Eyes' test that is loosely adapted from the Baron-Cohen test and although on my first attempt I got 10, on my second attempt I got 17, which means that memory plays a part in doing it and also repeated exposure.

Body Language comes from books - there was one by an anthropologist named Desmond Morris and the book was called 'Man Watching' and although the gestures were arbitrary and meaningless, it was possible to remember many of them.

Metaphors are learned through rote memory when people say 'a miss is as good as a mile', for example, people often follow it up with an explanation by saying that 'if you don't hit the target then you may as well have not fired the arrow', which is how I remember it. Also, metaphors can be arbitrary because I often used ones I have made up myself and I always have to explain those, so they are rote remembered rather than decrypted, unless of course, they are obvious on the basis of the words alone. Also, when I was younger, I used to sometimes pretend that I knew what a metaphor meant, because otherwise people would say I was 'thick' or 'stupid' and that is one thing I absolutely cannot stand.

Hmmm...

I did not know body language existed until I saw a book on it when I was 17. What you say about this is contrary to everything I have been told, or read. When I discussed this with my doctor and my companion, I was told that most people DO NOT have to learn body language from books, it is a social communication skill that they develop and is related to empathy.

Empathy is not learned, otherwise we could all go to empathy school to help our social skills.

Metaphores was somewhat covered elsewhere. I can be told what "apple of my eye" means so that I know what the person is talking about when they say it, though I do have to access the memory, but the language involved, the use of words contained in the metaphore, still makes NO SENSE even though I technically know what it means.

On a side note, after I looked at the the book on body language I stored many of the images in memory (prodigious visual memory). For a long time after that I was recalling those images in attempts to analyze body language in social situations. This required so much processing that I totally missed out on whole conversations because I was trying to interpret body language. My doctor told me that NT's do NOT have to think about what the body language means, that they just know and don't have to expend energy thinking about it. This makes sense, coincides with everything I have read and I believe him. I have NEVER met ANYONE that has EVER indicated that they read a book about body language.

Of course that doesn't rule out some NT conspiracy. Perhaps every NT on the planet is issued a book on body language at birth and instructed never to reveal that fact to anyone. Perhaps someone knew all along that when I was born 38 years ago that I would not be NT and that I was not to be issued a body language manual. This is partially satire. Do not assume I actually believe this has happened.

I can only relate my own experiences and perhaps I was making comments that are not universally applicable to everyone.

I do remember very clearly actually being directed to the Desmond Morris book called 'Man Watching', because I was told that I was not very 'expressive', but I was about 15 or 16 at the time. It was in the Therapeutic Community where I lived and it was one of the other residents living there who was older than me, who told me about it.

I got the idea that body language were 'culturally constructed' (meaning that they get transmitted through interaction), but that they can change over time. My reason for thinking this was that in different societies and cultures, different gestures mean different things.

I don't think universally acceptable is the right term. I think that the comments that you made simply don't apply universally. You seem to have more experience being around people that may require a book to know about body language, as compared to someone like myself that has never encountered anyone that ever discussed body language, or even mentioned the existance of books on the subject. That would probably make you think that it is typical for people to learn about it from books.

I think it may be more common than we realize for Aspies to learn about body language from books. Most likely the person that recommended the book to you had the same difficulties with body language that you experienced and he had found the book to be helpful for him. NT's don't even think about body language (which confuses me greatly). That is a difference betwen them and us. We have to think about it and try to analyze it, they don't. If we didn't have to think about it then we wouldn't need a book to show us that it even existed.

DeepThought, that's OK. I wasn't complaining, but rather explaining why I did not reply to some of your points. I didn't want to be perceived as rude, and that's why I wrote that explanation.


No, I think I am to blame. I generally have a problem with a tone of my voice and my writings. When I talk, it has led me many times into trouble. I write what I think is logical and to-the-point, and then I review the raw result several times looking at it from a social standpoint, and modifying it so that it is socially acceptable and not offensive. Still, for NTs it often is not enough, and I end up offending them inadvertently, so I just keep my mouth shut. In contrast, I wanted to be open in my posts in this thread, and so I posted them rather "raw". I also think that I wasn't clear on some points. Again, I apologize for these deficits.


My anger management is far from perfect too, despite my efforts. My girlfriend is an angel of patience, and we just leave the place if something irks me and I get cranky (for example the restaurant is crowded or the muzak is too loud, etc.).


"Empty existence" = lone life, without meaningful contact with people. At times it was without any contact at all. If I quietly died a year and a half ago, no one would notice for weeks. The world would continue as if I never existed.


Let's me give you an example. In some company the CEO earns 20 times more than a janitor. Is this because the CEO works 20 times as hard, or 20 times longer hours? If the janitor works harder sweeping floors, will he be able to match CEO's wages? No and no, of course. If the janitor wants CEO's money, he needs to "try smarter", make a career, and become a CEO in the end. (This is just an explanation, not an advice or my experience. I would very much like to earn 6-digit wages, but with my social skills I am as likely to make a corporate career as I am to become the emperor of China.)


Yes, I wanted your opinion. I am curious as to what "hidden meaning" were you able to find in my question?


My sister usually gets upset when I say that I can't cook. "Don't make an idiot out of yourself!" One of funny responses that I don't understand. The "inability" causes me no problems whatsoever. For more than 8 years I survived eating out. To make it affordable, I usually go to an inexpensive all-you-can-eat place such as Golden Corral or Cici's Pizza, at a strange hour to avoid crowds, and stuff myself for the whole day. I find cooking way too complicated and dangerous for me, and I have no intention of attempting it. But I have found a workaround that works pretty well.


OK.


I do not consider you my enemy.
Explanation of the sentence: I would only wish people X if they were my enemies. One usually wishes only bad things to one's enemies. The meaning of the sentence is that X is bad. In the context of our discussion I was saying that my social skills were so low that there would be no point suggesting that you should try harder to meet them.
Regarding the emoticon, I find it cute and use it to convey a friendly tone.


http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define. ... &dict=CALD


I will PM you about this.


I am one of these people who do not experience shutdowns, hence the concept is difficult for me to understand. Thanks for an explanation. When I get overwhelmed, I would either start running back and forth and stimming, or I will sit motionless and mindless looking at some point in front of me. The latter state has low threshold and thus happens often, but is easy to break up. It is a sort of resting phase. When my girlfriend is around, I do not stim as wildly, but we sometimes discover that I can't speak, or speak with big difficulty.


I am usually not able to understand other people's intentions in real time. This is the reason why I do not actively participate in conversations, unless when directly asked or when I can play one of my "tapes" (monologues and various stories). What I do instead is "offline processing". After the conversation ends my minds starts spinning and generating hypotheses that try to answer the question "what did they mean?". I evaluate the hypotheses, discard improbable ones and come to a conclusion (sometimes correct, sometimes wrong). This is very time consuming. A 5 minute talk may require 5 hours of offline processing. With such a response time, I hope I don't need to explain how popular guy I am [sarcasm]. This is also the reason why I reply slowly to most posts and emails. I need time to process the input and work on the output.

[Regarding facial expressions and body language]

I am somewhat befuddled by the discussion. I am pretty good in recognizing facial expressions in tests, especially when multiple choices are provided. However, in real life people use very little facial expressions and body language. I never felt "bombarded" by it. Maybe that's an illusion caused by the fact that I have no problems recognizing them. However, I certainly can't reliably recognize anger, and got into trouble many times because of that. A person may be crying, and I sit confused trying to figure out what they are doing. My aspie girlfriend told me that she uses body language very little, yet my impression is the opposite: she is the person that uses it the most! I find this matter very confusing...

I basically replid to this from the bootom up, so if something doesn't make sense near the top, it may be explained near the bottom.

I understood that you were not complaining (because of your explanation). I think sometimes when I post here that I am subconsciously making up for the fact that I don't communicate well IRL. Not sure which emoticon to use here, so I will use my default. :SHRUG:



I see no need for you to apologize. I think that the social deficits that we share just work against us sometimes and it isn't anyone's fault.



Oh, I understand. Before I had a companion I felt at times that if I died no one would notice until my body was emitting an odor so rancid that it could be smelled by the neighbors. My mom wouldn't have noticed because she would have probably hoped that I had not needed money because maybe I got a job. Now, if I died today, then I know 1 person that would notice, but I think that I would be less of a burden on them after I am gone.



I think I see what you are trying to say, but my first thought is, what if that janitor just doesn't have the ability to be anything more than a janitor?



I didn't find a hidden meaning in what you said. Sometimes I suspect that someone may mean something that they are not really saying, but I can never figure out what it could be, or even if my suspicion is correct. That suspicion is usually triggered by a dramatic change in the person's tone of voice, which makes me wonder why their voice changed like that when they said it. Then the memory kicks in and I start thinking of everything I have read that explains why people do that sort of thing and that process starts again. It may have something to do with the paranoia that comes from processing things the way I do, however, I have encountered a lot of people that seem to make statements in the form of questions. It is like they are asking a question and when I try to answer they say, "I wasn't asking I was telling." That is very confusing. It seems the more I "socialize" online, the more my IRL social deficits become apparent to me in my online communications.




I used to like CiCi's pizza, but I really gain weight fast if I eat at places like that (it's that "don't know when to start eating, don't know when to stop eating" thing that I have)



Man, I wish I could catch all of my typos and spelling errors (withing).



As soon as I got to this part of your reply "I would only wish people X if they were my enemies" I analyzed the sentence again and then I understood what you were saying. I think that is a good example of me not processing things in real time. Sometimes the processing process that I go through can make me a bit paranoid if I dwell on a wrong possible interpretation.



Well now I know what it means, which is basically what I assumed it meant because of the way it is used, but I couldn't figure out how to put the meaning I was thinking into words.



I do this myself, pacing around almost panic-like, or walking in circles while flapping and chanting and hitting myself in the head. I will also do the motioless staring things as well, and some people have accused me of pouting when that happens. This is similar to a shutdown, but this is an example of my latest shutdown. I forget what happened, but I wandered into the yard and stood in one spot for a very very long time staring at some plants. I do not know how much time passed, but I remember hearing my companion's voice next to me, I may have even seen her in my periferal vision asking me if I need help getting inside. I couldn't respond in any way. It is very hard to describe. I felt her touch my hand while she was saying that it is too hot outside and I need to be inside. I didn't even react to that. Eventually she was literally holding my hand and pulling my arm, which forced me to move my feet so I wouldn't fall and that's how she almost literally dragged me into the house and sat me on the couch. I also go for periods without being able to speak, but can wroite things down when I get that way. Sometimes I am saying something in my head like if I were speaking, but it won't come out of my mouth, as if I have verbal ability, but no motor control of my tongue. Then later I will think that I had actually said it, when I hadn't.



I am very much like this. Sometimes someone will say something and it will take a very long time for me to process it, like weeks.



I watch mouths and I notice if their mouths change. If I say something to someone and their mouth suddenly changes shape it is as if someone has slammed on the breaks in my brain and I get stuck trying to figure out why their mouth just changed shape. My doctor has this look he gives me sometimes and I have not figured out what it means and it really bugs me (yeah, I know, I need to ask him, but that isn't easy either, how do you verbally describe the way someone shaped their mouth at a certain moment in time?). If I am at a table with several people and I say something and then I notice everyone turning and looking at each other, the same thing happens. I can't figure out what they are doing and why they are doing it and I have never asked. I try to interpret it, but often just end up feeling like they think I am ret*d. Or, if I look around and see that everyone seems to be frowning, or shaking their heads then I am stuck as to why they are doing that and again I feel ret*d.

I may have learned different reasons for some of the various expressions I encounter, but applying them in real time can be very overwhelming. I can recognize extremes (that's one of those words that just doesn't look right to me). If someone is crying I can recognize that they are crying and I can think of possible reasons why they could be crying, but I have no idea why they are crying. And if I see someone crying and I know they are upset about something it doesn't affect me. Before she understood my limitations, my companion often said (usually while in tears about something I said) "can't you have just a little bit of compassion?" If someone is screaming and cussing and waving their arms at me, then I easily recognize that they are upset, but unless they are clear about the reason why they are so upset then I can't understand why and may even enjoy watching them behave in such a manner. I rarely ever feel remorse and I don't seem to feel bad when I know that someone is sad, or upset.

Just tell them "I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night." (It's an advertising campaign in Canada/USA that features ordinary people acquiring savant skills after getting a good night's sleep in a hotel.)

ROFL!! I get it! That is funny.

Have patience while I catch up.

Likely I would have made the same comment, because anyone who thinks this is easy simply doesn't think like I do. I am very fond of the term, simple, but not easy....
I probably would have used the word idiot, and it's anybody's guess if I could have stopped myself before the words came out of my mouth. My discomfort in social situations often overrides my limited social skills training.

Yes. Sucks to have this ability....

If only it were a sensitivity.
Its a curse.
I don't read people, I just get the emotion.
Sometimes I don't know what person it came from. Imagine being in a room full of people, anxious as hell and then you start feeling sad. That would be OK, except you don't often feel sad and you have nothing to feel sad about. So then you think you must be sad about something, but you cna't figure out what, and then finally you realize it's not yours.
Its a curse.