Seeing and analyzing yourself from a third party perspective

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How many of you can do this? This is a hugely important skill for me as it helps me literally survive. Some of my Autistic friends do it as well. I am curious as to how many of us do.

The way it works for me is that I can feel things happening in my body. Then my brain makes a mental visual and I watch it in my mind as if watching a movie and I am able to understand and analyze what is happening in my body.

I also do this with interactions with other people. I will relive them and replay them in my head but when I am doing this I am actually watching myself interacting with the other person from a third party perspective, again, as if watching a movie. That way I can understand and analyze what happened in that interaction a little better. I can also rehearse for future interactions using this same mental movie method.

When I try to explain this to my nt friends, they cannot grasp this concept. I am wondering if it is an Autism thing and if you guys do it too.

I understand completely what you're saying. I think it is an autism thing because we are known to ruminate so much, and mirror the behaviour of others. It seems that we have to see ourselves objectively like "others" sometimes, to analyse our patterns.

I am not able to visualise myself the way you do, but I do replay interactions over and over including what I said and how I felt, or how the other person seemed to respond. I also form sensory imprints from the interaction, which become permanent (e.g., associating a smell or a temperature with the memory). It's as if I'm invisible, though. If I imagine a glimpse of myself it is very fleeting and I never see my face, just my posture. The ruminating is very cognitive, sensory and emotional. The other person is always visible, just not me.

I am so in love with your avatar!!

Yes, this skill actually makes it possible for me to analyze in a very objective way. People often don't believe that I can be so objective about myself but I can because I take myself out of the scene to watch myself and I am as critical of myself as I would be about someone else because in that "movie" it's like I am someone else so there is no emotional attachment to hinder the objectivity. I also coach myself, often out loud, when I am skiing or kayaking or doing a sport or music or something like that.

I love what you said about the imprints. It makes me think of Twilight! That is so cool that you do that. I think there may be times when I might do that visually or with audio but I will have to pay more attention to know if I do it or not.

Yes, I do the same. But for me, it is more projecting my feeling onto a third person to referee the encounter. And of course the referee agrees with me

Trying to relive the encounter from the perspective of the other person is way beyond my abilities and that is why I ask an imaginary referee, in the guise of a person I know, to evaluate the encounter

That is interesting.

Funny!
And it took me five minutes to make this post! Shows you how slow my coding is!

Thanks, Skibum. That was my first avatar and it felt nice to go back to basics.

I'm glad you understood my "imprints" comment because I felt like I was straying off topic and that no one would understand. I don't know Twilight (never read it or saw it, although I've heard it's similar to Wuthering Heights .... didn't like the concept that she gave up her soul for a man ... but that's another topic ... ), but yes everything has an imprint.

I hope I'm not taking this off topic again but since you seem to relate to what I'm saying, I'll describe more. Does the following make any sense to you? I've tried in vain to explain it to a few people but they don't get it at all.

I usually remember what I was thinking or visualising during a given situation, more than the actual memory.

Examples:
When I play "Two Truths" on WP, I always picture the lakeside dock at my friend's house. The two are irrevocably imprinted together in my mind. Did I ever play "Two Truths" while sitting on that dock? NO! The imprint happened because the first time I played "Two Truths", I was randomly THINKING about the dock, like a fleeting thought or vision that crossed my mind. Now, they are forever linked together. I can't play "Two Truths" without associating a visual imprint of the dock, even though I wasn't there playing the game.

I went to DisneyWorld as a child. I don't remember DisneyWorld at all. I remember what I was thinking, though. I was thinking about the song "Please Mr. Postman" (again just a random thought which crossed my mind, while there). Now I associate the two forever. I don't even associate Donald Duck or any typical imagery.

On any given day I can walk outside, smell the air, choose a time frame, and transport myself to a variety of memories that happened when the air smelled that way. Pick a decade, any decade. Then I don't remember the flashbacks in a normal way. It's not "Oh, this scent reminds me of going swimming....". It's never episodic. The scent will remind of "Oh, when I was seven the air smelled like this, and I was randomly picturing dolphins in my train of thought. I have no idea where I was or what I was doing in real life, but I was picturing dolphins for no reason, and my left sock was itchy".

etc.

Maybe some of this is synaesthesia because I'm imprinting sensory with sensory, but I don't know how else to explain it. Basically, I don't remember actual memories. I remember what I was thinking or feeling, which is quite often completely unrelated to the actual event.

That makes complete and total sense. I understand it perfectly. Your brain makes associations based on what is important to it. And for you, the important information in a situation is the sensory aspect of that situation as your brain processes sensory stimuli. Your memories are built and organized and stored on what your brain finds important and that is why it is linking the sensory stimuli to the organization of memories.

I am not a doctor or a scientist but I have a knack at understanding concepts like this because I can physically see them. I can visualize exactly what makes logical sense in this situation and actually visually see a movie of it happening in my mind. So yeah, I totally get it. Now am I right? I can't say for 100% certain or course because I am not a doctor or a scientist and I have not studied this. But could I possibly be close? I don't see why not.

Now what I absolutely cannot see at all is how Wuthering Heights is similar to Twilight. I LOVE Twilight. The giving herself to a man correlation is so vague it's ridiculous. As far as Wuthering Heights goes, and I know lots of people love it and I say more power to them, I totally respect that, but on my bookshelf, it belongs right next to Pride and Prejudice, on the shelf of books that I would never willingly read again and even if a gun were held to my head, I would rather take the bullet. If you love it, I totally respect that but I won't read it again!

But yeah, I totally understand what you are saying about your associations and I think it's really very super cool that you make associations and store information that way.

Cool, I love novels. The subject and posts made me think about how a good novel is structured. I like to use novels as a means to explain the world and how people behave. Authors have a genius for getting into the head of other people, which just blows my mind.

I got stuck on The Canterbury Tales and had to give up, switched to a le Carre to settle my brain.

Lol that's funny about Wuthering Heights. I haven't read Twilight to compare, but I did read that it's a modern knock-off of the tale.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/wuther ... light.html

https://twilightsaga.fandom.com/wiki/Wuthering_Heights

I haven't read these articles, but thought you might find them interesting.

I laugh also because I despise Jane Austen, and I wouldn't read her with a gun to my head either!

Thanks for validating the way I think. You're the first and only person to get it.

Very cool!

I do not see that connection at all. Maybe that's just me!


I will check out the articles but hopefully they won't put any distaste on Twilight for me. I often steer clear of people analyzing books and movies too much because other people's opinions can sometimes ruin a book or movie that I love. I love to just enjoy the purity of what my heart feels in the story. I respect that others have different opinions but because books and movies are emotional to me, I experience them at a very young age level so I like to keep the innocence.

I get you so much. I think you and I are extremely similar in how our Autism presents. Even in the way that we process information in how it relates to this thread, even though it is so different, we can understand each other perfectly because we are so incredibly similar in so many ways. I also find that StarTrekker and I are like Aspie twins as well. There are a couple of women here at WP that I feel are extremely similar to me in how our Autism affects us. I really love that because I am really involved in advocacy now and I want to teach people that Autism is a lot more than they know or are taught in their training courses. I have used the stories you shared on my first responder thread many times especially at the hospitals. It is important that we learn all of these things and get beyond the superficial topics that are just constantly repeated over and over again if we are to make a difference in how we are treated.

Thanks for your sweet words, Skibum! I feel like we are on the same wavelength as well, especially with our shutdowns, mutism and unique ways of processing information.

I really hope your advocacy work is going well.

Here's another anecdote to add to your files (wrong thread, I realise ... sorry). Last week I met a doctor for the first time. In our introductory chat I told her that I was autistic. She said "Oh! Well you must be High Functioning, then!"

My issues were

a) She was stereotyping based on the fact I was verbal and intelligent.

b) She treated "High Functioning" as if it were a consolation prize, without any challenges.

c) She implied she was paying me a compliment by saying "High Functioning", like I should thank her?

d) She seemed to think the only options were "High Functioning" vs. "Low Functioning", with no spectrum between.

My response was "Actually, no. I'm not High Functioning. I am Moderate functioning. I fake it very well when possible, to make other people happy. Masking nearly cost me my life".

Well, that seemed to get her attention.

I was frustrated that she judged me HFA based on appearances, rather than asking directly about my needs.


----

Sidenote:
Another example of my weird imprints which I mentioned earlier. There is a member on WP who I associate with a flashback of my friend's kitchen from childhood. When this member first joined, I happened to be thinking of my friend's kitchen. Now, every time I see this member's avatar or read their posts, I picture the kitchen and imagine that she lives there.

LOL.

P.S. It's MartianPrincess. I hope she doesn't mind!

Awww, Martian Princess, you are special now! That is so cool!

No worries about mixing the threads. I do that too sometimes. Every response you felt towards that person saying how high functioning you must be is a thought that I have also had myself whenever I get told that. As soon as someone tells me that I get on my soapbox and start my rant about what "high functioning" really means and that after being "high functioning" for 52 years, it has cost me so dearly that people who really know me well cannot believe that I am actually still alive. Then I let them know what the suicide rate for "high functioning" people is and why it is so insanely high. And then I tell them that after the leading cause of death among us, suicide, the second leading cause of death is stress related heart failure and the third is epilepsy and that we are the youngest dying demographic. Then I give them an example of what a typical 24 hours might be for me. By the time I am just getting warmed up in my rant, they are usually in tears or apologizing profusely.

One of my psychologists once told me that I should be careful how I word things because I make nts feel bad. I told him that I choose my words very carefully and if he and other nts feel bad by my experiences with trying to live in their world and how I am so often treated by them, then they should feel bad. I told him that I am not the one making them feel bad, their consciences are and I make no apologies for that. Maybe if they feel bad enough, things will start to change and the disabled communities will begin to be treated like respected human beings.

I gave him the quote that says, "Mild Autism does not mean that I experience my Autism mildly. Mild Autism means that YOU experience my Autism mildly." He printed that and put it on the wall in his office.

Brilliant.

I get tongue-tied trying to explain what autism is like for people who don't get it. I'm able to describe my stress level and the ramifications of masking (e.g., my breakdowns and my stroke), but the details of what it's like day to day are so hard to articulate, especially by talking. I could possibly type it, but saying it aloud on the spot would be very difficult.

That's incredible that you are able to do so!

I used to do it all the time. I had no idea it wasn't a normal thing everyone does.
It gave me a lot of anxiety. I always feared being wrong and everyone was my judge.

Only now, after over two years of therapy, I started noticing that the model of insane me and normal others was completely false. Every person I know has some issues. Then I can have mine and... shrug. If you don't like the way I look, talk, act - it's your right not to like me.

Not needing others to validate me was such an unbelievable relief.

I am so glad that you have gotten to this point. It is wonderful because the alternative can really be destructive. You have done really good work.