Non Aspies Explaining Things To Us

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Interesting.

Who are non-Aspies? NTs? what about non-Aspies with mental illness?

Aspergers doesn't exist anymore so you'd be needing to explain something from a historical perspective and finally;

The tax paying public are largely apathetic to other people's problems so long as i) other people's problems don't cost them more tax. ii) their children aren't disadvantaged at school having to share the same classroom as an Aspie or equivalent (believe it or not some parents actually think this) or iii) they feel unsafe that people with diagnosed mental illness such as Adam Lanza are wandering the streets.

Well I don't know why you would exclude non Aspies with mental illness from being able to be educated about what Asperger's is.

As for Asperger's being outdated, I want to break it down by symptoms and show how it moves a long a spectrum. I can explain about Asperger's. And yeah you're right, the tax paying public doesn't give a horse's a** about us, but they didn't care to know that blacks were not subhuman, that people in wheelchairs were more than "cripples," that gays can have loving relationships and raise kids either. Most of them now now those things.

The latter don't really impact on them. Gay people, black people and even cripples can work 9-5 pay taxes and be law abiding. Bottom line is they just mind their business.

People with mental illness on the other hand "want something" from the tax payer whether it be help in the form of support or financial assistance to cover medical costs etc. The only reason people even get remotely interested in Aspergers is if it effects their immediate family or if they are looking for a charitable cause.

I am in the midst of doing this with my teen daughter (me NT, her AS) and it is fraught with the problems you anticipate.

When done in the middle of a conversation it immediately derails the conversation and turns it into a teaching moment rather than a conversation. Waiting until the conversation is over at least doesn't derail it but then all the movements and turns of phrase have to be repeated with a "did you see what I did there?" explanation that feels clumsy at best. There is also the inevitable teacher/student power dynamic which is appropriate between parent and child but could be really weird between friends or coworkers, depending on the relationship.

The least awkward tool for this that I've found is using interactions with TV/movie characters to explain things. That at least doesn't derail a conversation. She also has started analyzing scenes on her own and re-hashing interactions she's had and analyzing what classmates did. She is also getting a lot better at doing it in real time during a conversation. Yay her!

The problem is in the places loosewheel describes. Some of the more overt gestures are static, but subtle ones are dynamic and sometimes group specific. Subtle ones are also pretty darn subtle and hard to both teach and catch in real time.

My advice for people here is to use movies and TV. If you start a discussion with an NT about the emotional tone in a particular scene you both saw then you can avoid the incredibly awkward teacher/student power dynamic and also not derail real time conversations. It's also easier for NTs to describe something they just saw on a screen rather than something they themselves just did since everything on the screen is deliberate and plot related and not subconscious. Somebody might be unaware that their own eyes just got squinty but it's easy to see on a screen. This has been a successful tool at my house and could be less awkward than trying to get Nts to explain what they themselves just did.

These are some of the things NTs don't normally worry about.

But the reality of growing up aspie is these questions you propose are not even the tip of the iceberg. If you try to explain further to an NT that the above examples times (X) 1,000 or 10,000 are more like an accurate picture of AS, it sounds like you're just being a whiner. I doubt an average NT can comprehend this as merely giving an example of your actual life.

And how would you explain to an NT the world in which you even stop trying to make friends because of the inevitable pain, which makes our separation even greater.

I've yet to run into an NT that was interested in hearing the whole truth. I get the feeling, at times, that they think the above is all made up.

denny

I think this is a good idea. If you (wozeree or syndicate) made a repository for submissions for any scene/snippets/images/dialog/stories/etc that people have used successfully. You could display them for others to try and feed back, so you can test effectiveness and categorise them as universal, broad cultural, regional/context specific, etc. You could use them as instructional type material (careful of any copyright) or as research for a printed manual, or whatever form you choose. It could be a place to start.

I agree with Janissy's sentiment that understanding the "principle of operation" so to speak is better than rote behavioural methods. It has a far better potential for individuals to adapt to changing circumstances.

I think Fnord's ideas were great - what I believe he was getting at was that even non Aspies have MOMENTS where they feel isolated, or confused or not getting what the crowd is doing - so the point is to bring the feelings of those moments back and have them understand it's like that for us all the time.

Understanding the principals of operations is important, but I think there are a ton of books about that. Anybody can memorzie stuff like: don't go on too long or you'll bore everyone, or don't interrupt other people - the thing I'm aiming for are the things that are harder to explain, the things we can't see.

But again you guys gave me a ton of great stuff. I really appreciate all the time you took to write it out. And I think that tv/movie idea is a good one.

I'm not sure it's totally important to go into issues like this. I think this is more important for individuals to express when they are telling their own stories. It clearly doesn't represent every Aspie along the spectrum anyway.


Thanks so much everyone!