For Aspies with NTs...

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How do you explain to them what it's like for you? For example, my boyfriend doesn't understand why I hate eye contact so much or why I get so scared of job interviews. I'm getting better at coping but he still gets frustrated and it just puts a strain on things because then he just gets frustrated when I talk to him about my life and I get upset because he's angry at me and then we're both just upset and I don't really know how to explain it to him...

I am very lucky. We do a lot of talking. She is v. good at reading me and v. understanding. She has the patience of a saint. We discuss protcols for different situations and she calls me on my BS. More than anything, she is patient and tolerant and I love her for it.

That's not the answer you wanted, I bet. I don;t know how she puts up with me. I am just grateful that she does.

Is there anything that happens to him that makes him feel the same way that you do sometimes? Maybe he doesn't get why job interviews scare you so much, but surely SOMETHING scares him just as much. Maybe if you can explain your feelings to him using analogous situations that he can relate to, he'd understand better?

The eye contact is a thing of multiple "conversations" at once (and 1 being foreign) and keeping up with both at same time. The looking away is like saying slow down or putting foreign face on hold

hyperbole - you definitely are lucky she sounds wonderful!

mangos - I've tried to use this tactic with him, but with very limited success... he's also quite a logical thinker, and much of the time when I try to use a metaphor or parallel situation, he'll explain why it's not the same, even when I only mean to call attention to some particular points. For example, he's afraid of spiders. But, 1) he doesn't react as strongly to spiders as I do to job interviews, and 2) he's not required to deal with spiders in order to get on with his life, whereas I am required to deal with job interviews in order to get on with mine. It's not a very good analogy, I know, but it's one of the few I can get. He holds up a very strong image. He's very good at a lot of things, good at finding ways around and accepting those things he isn't good at, and I envy and respect him a lot for it. This is one of the reasons I was attracted to him; I like to be around people I can learn from. I suppose the problem is that he's so far ahead of me and so much more competent =S

Kcihtred2 - that's a really good way of explaining it, I hadn't thought about it that way! I do like to try to explain to him that it takes up 'processing power' to maintain eye contact, which distracts me from the verbal conversation itself; the only problem is, as I've just explained above, he will then point out that I'm required to learn to do both at the same time in order to get on with my life.

But I realise ours is only one example and he is definitely very headstrong. I wonder if there are any good books I could show him to explain it?

My NT husband used to be very frustrated because he didn't understand why I wouldn't get things done, why I'd claim I forgot things that can very easy to remember or why I just don't do what I say I'm going to do. He didn't understand how I could be that way and then turn around and get so upset when our plans for a day would change last minute, why I just couldn't go with the flow like he can.

Then I received a diagnosis for Asperger's Syndrome. I told him briefly what it was, the short-short version of what my psychiatrist had provided. Then he did research on the internet to learn more. By the end of that evening, our marriage had grown to a new, secure level because he'd gained an understanding of me. He could believe that I genuinely forget and that I have every intention and desire to follow through with what I say I'm going to do... and how much it kills me when I don't make that happen. He was so happy. I swear he was going to jump on the roof and shout to the neighborhood, "My Wife Really Isn't Lazy!" He helps me, gives me room, and he really is careful with how he says things to me. For example, he was collecting white clothes for a load of laundry. I told him to relax and that I will do it for him. He said, "Sweetheart, I love you but, the truth is, you have trouble with following through. I'm not mad about it or anything but I just really want this load done." He could've been far more blunt than that and I wouldn't have been upset, but I appreciate the effort he put into not hurting my feelings. That communicates love to me. As a result, I dropped what I was doing and did the load of laundry. Giving what he wanted that much focus and priority communicated love to him.

If you asked my husband if he's okay with me having AS, he'll tell you that he does wish I was able to follow through, remember things and get more things done. He won't lie about that. Life would be easier if I wasn't an aspie. But he'd also tell you that he understands that I can't help it, that my heart is good and that he loves me for who I am. That's what you deserve from a partner.

Your boyfriend can't get mad at you for sharing how you feel. It's just how you feel. It's an unrealistic expectation that everyone is going to feel the same way about things that we do. I hope he can turn this around and be more supportive and kind to you.

Yours is the kind of marriage I aspire to have one day =] kudos to your husband!

So essentially you directed him to other people's writing about Asperger's in order to get the point across that you weren't just giving your own excuses but a factual description of a real condition? I'd really like to do that... I think I'll show him some things anyway, but for now I haven't seen a doctor about it so I can't say for sure that I have Asperger's. If I was a doctor and capable of diagnosing myself, I would, because whether I get a diagnosis or not, the fact remains that I have all these traits - even if a real doctor decides it's not quite everything that makes up Asperger's. But in the meantime, it makes me feel like something of a liar to go round telling everyone I have it when in reality I haven't been assessed for it. I have problems when 2 truths are being directed at me: I just saw a video on YouTube about someone complaining about people pretending to have Asperger's on the internet, as a way of making themselves stand out or gain sympathy and promote their websites etc, when they have no formal diagnosis. So truth #1 is that people without a diagnosis aren't guaranteed to have it. But then the Asperger's diagnosis is only about as old as I am - and I'm 3 weeks shy of 20 years - so it's misdiagnosed or missed entirely a lot of the time, and lots of people report that it takes them months or even years of seeing different doctors before they finally got a diagnosis, at which point their lives changed significantly for the better through new understanding and support. So truth #2 is that even if a doctor disagrees, they may not be experienced enough to recognise Asperger's when they see it. In these situations I don't know who to side with and I get confused, and usually turn away from the issue entirely (which in this case would mean ignoring the existence of Asperger's syndrome and the possibility I might have it, which is impractical as a diagnosis would be very helpful to me in so many ways). The irony is that from what I gather it's a very Aspiesque trait, wanting to believe everything you hear -_-

I should also point out that I'm really only pointing out his bad points here because that's all I need help with! He's been very understanding and supportive for the year and a half I've been with him. Just that it's tiring him out, as it did to my two exes before him, and I don't want another repeat of last time. If he really can't cope with me then I suppose that's another issue entirely and I'll have to learn to deal with that. But I'd definitely like for him to understand everything and see all the facts before he makes up his mind, and it'd benefit me to learn more about myself whether he's in the picture or not. We both agree that we get along fine when we're having fun, but as soon as anything to do with adult responsibilities or sometimes some other things such as group situations - generally what I've learned are typical Aspie problem areas - I seem to have trouble and he doesn't see why I have so much trouble with such normal things. I don't want to drag him down but he says he wants to help me get past some things, only it stresses him out and I end up dragging him down anyway

This sounds like he's making the argument that, if he can do something, you should be able to also. That's not very considerate of him, as his experiences and abilities can't just be extrapolated to the entire population. I'm sure there are things you're better at than he is, or things you just "get" that confuse him too. Have you tried explaining to him that emotions aren't rational and that, for many people, it's impossible to just reason away your feelings with logic? Because how much it makes sense to feel a certain way about something really has nothing to do with how you actually feel about it. There's no way to just change how you feel about things overnight. Telling someone that they shouldn't feel a certain way because it isn't rational is about as useful as telling someone that 1+1 shouldn't equal 2 anymore because it hurts your feelings.

This you're exactly right about, and it's the one thing about him that makes me angry (apart from when he chases me with bananas or pokes the sensitive patch on my knee). My problem with this is that I'm not a very confrontational person. I'm very capable of throwing insults at him and listing all the things he's not good at that I can do in a heartbeat, but I don't want to be mean so I shut up. That's why normally in this situation, what he sees is that he's talking to me but I've completely shut down (ever seen the anime Chobits? The robot girls literally just shut down in a powercut, I guess I kinda look like that) and I'm not looking at him or replying, but my eyes are getting a bit wet and I'm giving really short answers and making excuses to go outside for a cigarette. In my mind, I know what I want to say, but I don't know how to say it. I have a notepad where I write letters to people I know but don't give them out, just to get things out of my system, and not long ago I wrote him a letter and then got so upset about it all that I walked to his place and put the letter through his door, just because I wanted him to know how angry and upset and incompetent it makes me feel when he says things like that.

I think it was the most drama we've had since I actually did something wrong. I said I wanted to talk to him and I was just trying to explain how I felt in those situations, and he said he wanted to ignore it. We ended up having a text conversation, which would have been easier for me if I hadn't also wanted a hug (I'm really all-of-nothing with my hugs lol) and if there hadn't been huge pauses between each text where I wondered what he was thinking or doing. I didn't even go into how I saw him and his flaws. I try to tell him that I'm not him and I can't just do things like he can, but he just doesn't seem to be able to get his head around the fact that he has feelings and manages to squirrel them away until the right moment, whereas I have feelings that completely knock me out and take over my body while I'm not looking. I feel like the only way to get through to him would be to tie him down and dangle eight harmless but icky-looking spiders over him and tell him he shouldn't be afraid because he has no reason to be, because they're not poisonous spiders and all they're doing is tickling him at best. But again... he'll tell me that most everyday life doesn't require him to interact with eight spiders, whereas lots of everyday life will require me to deal with authority, testing situations, self-discipline, etc...

This is his Aspie trait. He can be very understanding and open-minded, but I think that's because he's already got his head around some things. To continue the metaphor of having an open mind, or a broad mind - he's broadened his mind so much that it does have a lot of space for a lot of different things, but he doesn't seem to want to stretch it any further to accommodate anything new that I'm telling him. He tells me he's been patient with me and I get that, but I just want people to stop telling me I'm a lazy freak and start accepting me as a living being worthy of attention, affection, appreciation and acknowledgement whether I can do a job interview or not It's like I said... he doesn't seem to like my metaphors. If I used the 1+1 metaphor, he'd probably tell me that it doesn't apply because 1+1 DOES equal 2 and it's never going to change, or that the fact that it equals 2 is never going to hurt anyone's feelings, and completely invalidate my argument =\

Well, what he doesn't seem to get is that the same reasoning applies to you. Your fear of interviews, etc. just IS how you feel and (probably) is not going to change, at least not anytime soon. Just because it's a feeling doesn't mean that you have anymore control over it than you have control over concrete facts like math. If he thinks that you should abide by the "well, that's just how it is!" argument, then he should too. His logic is flawed because he's working under the assumption that your fears are something you can control. How rational or dysfunctional they are is completely irrelevant to whether you feel them or not. He doesn't seem to grasp this concept for some reason. There is no way to debate someone out of a feeling, and his attempts to do so are pointless. It seems to me that he's the one being irrational, because he doesn't seem to understand how emotions work.

Last edited by mangos on 06 Mar 2011, 11:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

what we do is, we just accept each others stuff we don't understand because we'd both get frustrated when we'd explain, and explain and neither side could understand.

Have you tried explaining your emotional response to these situations in detail? For example, why you hate eye contact so much? Does it make you feel vulnerable, invaded, anxious? As an NT, eye contact doesn't bother me, but I could understand a description of the feelings it evokes in you. The same goes for a job interview. Everyone gets a little nervous before a job interview....just wanting to make a good impression, knowing you'll be judged, hoping you don't forget something critical. Perhaps you could describe your reaction to whatever parts of the job interview bother you....the emotional response you have to them? He may not feel the same way, but I'd be surprised if he couldn't understand how you describe your feelings. Just a thought.

Thank you... I think I really wanted somebody to agree with me on that so I didn't feel irrational and selfish Though somehow I still seem to have trouble explaining it. I try to say that it will change, because I want it to and I've changed things about myself before, but it'll take a lot of time and understanding and space and forcing it definitely won't help. He agrees with me, and even tells me I shouldn't be so impatient and that I need to realise it's a process, but then with something else he'll say it's been so long and I haven't managed it which basically equates to saying 'wtf hurry up why haven't you done it yet?' I try to explain it to him but the problem is I hate being accusative. I don't want to say, 'you're being irrational and judgemental,' because comments like that have ALWAYS got me into big trouble in the past. I tend to clam up and stay quiet in those situations, and cry -_- so I try to say things like 'can you see how it would LOOK like you're being irrational and judgemental from my point of view?' but it doesn't seem to go through. I'm not really sure =\ I tried to say a lot of it in that letter I wrote. I think I might write another one, now that I'm less angry and therefore less likely to sound accusative - maybe I'll draw a chart to show examples of how he sees my thoughts of irrational and how I see his thoughts as irrational? I also might show him your comment if that's okay <D if only to point out that other people agree with me too so I can't be that insane lol



That's exactly what I want to do =\ my guy's a bit of an oddball and has a few Aspie traits but other than that he's pretty normal... whereas with me, I've been depressed and bulimic and still have traits of them (just not enough to warrant a full diagnosis anymore), and I have little traits of things like bipolar disorder, OCD, things like that. So he sort of understands me to an extent, but I get the feeling that the things he understands are the things he's experienced himself. So when I'm a bit frustrated about something, he'll understand because he's been a bit frustrated about something. When I'm really upset by something big, he'll understand because hey, it's something big so it makes sense that I'd be upset by it. But if it's something 'weird' then he doesn't get it and thinks I'm being irrational because he wouldn't react the same way to anything so small... I ask him if he can just kind of agree to disagree, and accept that he won't understand it; basically I guess I ask him to take my word for it and take everything at face value when it comes to this stuff. Just the same as I don't understand why some things don't scare him at all, he doesn't understand why they do scare me, and I want us both to be able to just accept that... and in the meantime, I can just do little things to gradually get over those fears. The key words being 'small' and 'gradually'... without feeling like I'm a disappointment to those around me because they're telling me to change the way I am and I already feel bad enough about not being able to do it and when I go to them for some reassurance they're just confirming everything I think about being inadequate =\



Vulnerable, invaded, anxious, and most importantly violated. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and I guess that's the problem. He'll try to counter that by saying that nobody is invading or violating me and nothing bad will happen. It's hard for me to reply to that with anything other than, 'logically I know nothing tangibly bad will happen, it's just a mental response, but I don't have a lot of control over it.' Which he isn't satisfied with because he says it's a victim's mindset. My problem is that it's not that I don't want to change (with some things anyway; others I'd just like to feel happy with and be accepted in spite of), just that I can't do it in a heartbeat. I can't just suddenly stop being afraid of making eye contact, so maybe in 5 years I might be totally unafraid of it but that's in 5 years. For now, I just want to focus on small things, like maybe maintaining eye contact for a second instead of half a second at a time. The thing is, a lot of the time he says I'm making excuses and playing the victim. This is the problem I have. Essentially, to him, anyone who 'lets their fear control them' is pretending they have no control over their life when they do. I see it this way: you have some control over your life, and life also has some control over you. For example, I didn't choose to have my parents divorce and my home broken; it happened to me, and yes logically and physically speaking I should have been able to keep functioning as normal, but I'm only human and I was upset. So when he says that I need to take control, I tell him I can't do that with everything, and he takes that as being negative - maybe because he hears 'I can't take control with anything,' when really what I mean is just to be somewhere in the middle. I don't know... it's really hard to tell =[

Lol of course it's ok I assume that anything said on a forum is kind of "public use" anyway.

Hmmm.....you said that your bf has some Aspie traits - does he seem to exhibit patterns of rigid thinking? Because it seems like he believes that the way he's chosen to cope with life, fear, etc. is the way to cope with it. As though there's no room for your experience, your feelings, your coping skills, your approach to life - in your own life. Has he read any material about Asperger's? He doesn't seem to understand the symptoms, because lots of people have problem with eye contact (either too much or too little). I think it's admirable that you want to try to desensitize yourself (if you believe the way you handle eye contact is causing you a problem) - your approach makes sense to me. Unfortunately, your bf does not seem to understand the way Aspies approach and process change.

So maybe some education about AS would benefit him (and you), so that he understands that your symptoms are not your choice. And perhaps some education around how to communicate more effectively would also benefit your relationship....he's not really listening to you, and he has to find a way to do that. Good luck, hon.

Thanks guys... HopeGrows, I think you're right. The only problem will be HOW to get through to him and make him open to the idea that he might be wrong about it, lol. I've probably mentioned, I wrote him a letter explaining a lot of things last week... He didn't want to talk about it at first but today he just asked if I'd meet him at this place in town this evening. Kinda puts the idea in my head that he's going to break up with me, and I should never have given him that letter. It's no different to what I normally think, only that time I let him read the letter instead of keeping it to myself. I suppose I'll just have to see, but still - can't help but feel like I screwed up and maybe he doesn't even want to know about Asperger's or depression or bulimia or any of my other 'quirks.' I think I tired him out.

Back to bed with my cats and my stuffed toys I guess.