Forced Awareness Hurts Too Much

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I think it's often dangerous to train autism spectrum people to be more aware in the way NTs want them to be. I'm hyper aware and can't turn it off so I feel horrible anxiety all the time. My aspy sister said she was always wishing she could be aware more like me because when she needed to understand things, she ask me to explain it. Now she says she thinks she's the lucky one because her spaciness about NTs might make her look more weird that I do but she feels safer from anxiety, shielded within her own world.

Maybe I expressed this badly but I hope you all know what I mean.

I'm raising my aspy/HFA/whatever son with an awareness of how overwhelming trying to have enough awareness to the the NT dance steps can backfire.

like i once said put a dog and a cat in one house with 20 dogs that force the cat to be like them
i think its an abusive behavior to force us to be like an NT its not like whe have it easy or something

It's very individual. People don't consider that not every person reacts the same as another person.

For me, the taught knowledge and thus hyper awareness does wonders and adds to my health and well-being in everyday life. For you, you said it's decreasing your health, because it makes you anxious and probably stresses you. I know that there are many more people who feel like me, like you or like anyone far exceeding us or in-between.

But I rarely ever see people considering that they can't just demand the very same from everyone or teach them the same in the same way as somebody else!

The answer is often 'well, then do not teach him/her that solution/fact.' But I think that's just not the right.

That would be like wanting to teach a cat to make a sound and then teach it to bark.

The answer should be 'so when and how do we teach him/her to handle the problem/improve their tools to function'. Starting with what this particular person can already do, has trouble with and wants to learn.

So teaching a cat to make a sound would only work by trying to find out how that learning-area of the cat works... to get it to meow.

Or snarl. Some cats only ever snarl hehe So yeah, I'm half-barking by the way. I think it's dumb to act only by autistic rules. It's equally dumb to my mind to act only by non-autistic rules.

I act by my rules. I'm one of the quite original cats who snarl, if I were to speak metaphorically.

Point is, I can't very well go into class and try to teach every kid by the use of the same strategy. The outcome would be disastrous. Same goes for every person of every age.

ahhhh i once learned a life truth that changed my outlook more than marginally.



normal for me is AS.

i use to think that normal for me was NT.........the anxiety that caused me was great.
the relief knowing i could be AS but still try and act non-As/NT to get by allowed me closure and acceptance of being AS.

Yes too much pressure can backfire on an already overloaded brain. I was forced to do/behave everything that the world expects me to. A child needs to know its ok to be different in order to get a sense of self.

I desperately try all the time to be alert to the social cues. This is not only maddening but also futile. My brain just isn't wired to get those cues, however much I try to absorb the body language, the words, the unsaid, etc. I do it irrationally, out of a desperate desire not to be fired once again, not to be rejected as always, etc. But it's truly painful.

I agree, too much awareness is never a good thing, for anyone. We need to be aware enough to function in this crazy world but other than that, it's not necessary.

I have this problem, I'm too aware and I hate it.

I believe my aspiesm is very mild and I'm well aware of social cues, it's just that processing it takes a bit more time and sometimes you end up looking silly anyway...

It can be very overstimulating to try to tune into all of the signals. For me, I think it is having to concentrate on keeping some eye contact while at the same time making it look like you are not staring a hole through the other person as well as not appearing like you are studying every move and syllable the person makes. This is not hard for me to do and I learn quite a lot, but this extra information is then going through my brain making it hard to concentrate on other things later in the day or night. Not too bad, but there are times where it can make going to sleep a little more difficult. It is good to be able to do it but not necessarily good to do it with every person that you meet. I'm pretty good at reading people but most of the time I don't bother to even open the book.