Do you ever get 'glimpses'?
Do you ever get brief glimpses when you suddenly transcend your autism/aspergers?
Like when you can be spontaneous in a conversation, joke around and generally seem neurotypical.
And how long do these glimpses last?
When im feeling good, I can seem neurotypical for about a week if I immerse myself in social situations but unfortunately this usually leads to a meltdown.
Thanks in advance for any responses
how exactly do you mean? do i suddenly or spontaneously know what to say in conversations? i can make people laugh, even without trying. its because i am so "strange" and sometimes, people find it endearing. like dry humor.
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AQ Score [39]
Your Aspie score [157 of 200]
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score [51 of 200]
Aiming to see a clinician in 2012 to get some answers.
blackcat
Veteran
Joined: 16 Nov 2006
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,142
Location: 10 miles south of sanity.
no. never. but i do have instances where i can join a conversation, awkwardly, with ease. where i can joke (also awkwardly). where i can just DO it and screw the consequences or how i look, sound, of "come off". and during those times...i am happy. and i am generally very well received. people will laugh, say "you're so weird" or "you're hilarious" or "i like how honest you are". i'd say that, while not perfect or normal, it is better than being to afraid to speak up stuck in my head overanalyzing every response that i think of.
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I think I know. I don't think I know. I don't think I think I know. I don't think I think.
I don't know I am very false most of the time I have been doing it for so long I find it very easy to "act" like an nt but will nearly allways have a melt down after a social gathering from the pressure, and somtimes as i'm getting ready before I leave the house I nearly allways break down and cry shouting about my shoes and my phone and the train and sitting on the train and all the stress and how its too hot in here!!
then I pull myself together, I leave I act like a bundle of fun everyone loves me and then I come home and feel very depressed.
somtimes If i am nervous the mask will slip and I forget how the hell to talk to people and then I feel even worse like "guuuh I embarrassed myself"
SoundOfRain
Blue Jay
Joined: 7 Jun 2011
Age: 46
Gender: Female
Posts: 97
Location: Hampshire, England, UK
Yes I do get those times. If they happen when I'm with people in general, then usually it doesn't last long!
Also, I find that when I feel "socially sucessful" is usually when I am expressing something learned in general, or something around a common subject/interest/activity. NTs don't mind repeating the same old jokes and I don't either if it means having a laugh together and they also like having "In" jokes, which basically means something only that particular group would understand.
When I am with my close friends it is easy. Because some of them are younger, but also I met them all through a common interest. So unlike the times I burn out through socialising in general, I usually return energised, because I have been able to express a huge part of my mind and I can also share some of my feelings because the common interest is Feminism, which means I can complain and celebrate my humanistic sensibilities, which they mostly understand.
One thing about being energised though is that I find it hard to come down again, so that will eventually lead to burn out of some kind if I don't make an effort to relax when I have come home and back to real life again.
They are quite sensitive (so pick up on what I'm thinking and feeling), and they are also realisitic and can laugh at themselves, so they don't mind my honesty! It's blissful to have friends I can express myself with.
I would never underestimate having the right bunch of people to hang out with.
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Your Aspie score: 123 of 200. Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 86 of 200. You are very likely an Aspie
Yes. Only rarely, but they are significant moments for me. I've always interpreted this as some sort of 'spiritual' (for want of a better word) experience.
For me it's like becoming self-aware and lucid. Hard to know what causes them, difficult to reproduce.
I don't know if I become neurotypical during these fragmentary moments. I suspect something much better than that.
Generally speaking I can hold my own in a conversation but as soon as it starts getting on a personal level of any type I am completely lost, does the opening poster mean that he can do everything an NT can or certain aspects?
While I like going out I often simply observe and listen, I have never understood this drive to be the centre of attention and quite frankly it irritates the hell out of me when people are like this, forced joviality is so annoying.
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AQ Test = 36
This is as hard to write about as the thread about fitting in. I left that thread without putting a note into it, but I'm going to try, here. Remember, I spent 62 years of life not really knowing there was anything "wrong" with me, other than high IQ and Clinical Depression. I guess you could say my "glimpses" were the times I really felt like an alien. Then for my daughter's 37 years of life (ALL of them!) she's been informing me of every faux pas. But there have also been times when I felt I "belonged", maybe even more total time than not.
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Asperges me, Domine
Almost all the time, and it makes me question whether Im on the spectrum...however I know I am still on there, and heres why...
No matter how much I act spontaneous, joke around,and generally be socially successful, I am using a different part of my brain than other people are in order to do so. The connections that enable me to do this are logic oriented and something I have to conciously think about, rather than something I just know.
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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.
The closest would be my saying things spontaneously that I thought were funny, but turn out to be inappropriate. At my grandfather's funeral I could not contain my laughter as I was speaking. My aunt told me it was very funny, but the wrong time and place, and started crying.
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'You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. 'Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'
then I pull myself together, I leave I act like a bundle of fun everyone loves me and then I come home and feel very depressed.
somtimes If i am nervous the mask will slip and I forget how the hell to talk to people and then I feel even worse like "guuuh I embarrassed myself"
This sounds just like me throughout my teens - early twenties!! Especially the break down when about to leave the house, every time i was getting ready for a night out there would be a manic stampede through the house whilst screaming that i had lost my make up/keys/bag etc. It drove my parents crazy and meant i was late for absolutely everything! Actually.. although i try to keep the raging bull behaviour toned down these days but everything else you mentioned still happens to me.
then I pull myself together, I leave I act like a bundle of fun everyone loves me and then I come home and feel very depressed.
somtimes If i am nervous the mask will slip and I forget how the hell to talk to people and then I feel even worse like "guuuh I embarrassed myself"
Yeah, this describes me as well. I've figured out that I "fake NT" so well that people forget that I'm not NT until my AS kicks my ass. I also find that I drop really hard after most social events. And sometimes the pressure will make me feel anxious and panicky before I go to events, as well.
I think all of us can fire on all cylinders, or feel top of the the world, but am wary if this implies lack of autistic programming
Rather then amelioration of the symptoms while a specimen expresses in their best manner and in good heart
Tony Attwood says aspergers sufferers mainly suffer other people, to themselves they are happy enough
historically by my dim reckoning, the times I seemed less aspie, were bereft of the usual daily grind, and had an extra or wild card aspect like travelling or extreme fitness.
The procreative urge within may allow for temporal reduction of the autistic expression, as in a subconscious attempt to allow mating to occur. A critical moment indeed for the dna