Under pressure
Jan. 11th, 2006 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zolaI was going to Friend-only this entry, but you know... I think I'll leave it for anyone to see, because maybe my insights will trigger something for someone else.
My F-List knows that I'm an autistic person. I have Asperger's. It was diagnosed two years ago, and explained a great many of the problems I have experienced throughout my life. While I can't necessarily say I define myself solely as autistic, certainly, one thing the diagnosis did was enable me to forgive myself for not being like everyone else. Now there was a reason. It wasn't character defect, nor was it lack of will. The reason I don't do things like other people do is because I'm not like most other people. I don't perceive the world in the same way.
As do many other autistic advocates, I believe it is a natural wiring difference, not a disease that needs radical correction. I don't identify myself solely as an Aspie because increasingly, the evidence shows that indeed, autism is a spectrum. Old age or brain injury could cause my sensory issues to overwhelm me and I would need just as much assistance as any person who had enough issues to be labelled autistic at an early age. It's merely a matter of degree, and degree can change. One very interesting thing that has come out recently is that people on the spectrum seem to have what they have labelled "monotropic attention". Meaning we focus on one thing at a time, and if we are given a choice of too many things to focus on, such as would happen in a room crowded with people, we get into a "choke" situation and don't know what to choose at all.
I'm sure many people have seen the handy checklists that explains things like how Aspies have trouble with social function and don't like to make eye contact, but these lists of so-called symptoms don't speak to my experience even though both statements are valid ways of summing up some of my characteristics.
For instance, saying that I have trouble with social function doesn't tell you that a lot of the problem is that I am blind to many of the cues people give through their body language. Literally blind. I don't see it. My hearing and musical ability are strong enough that in some cases I can fake it--I can detect quite a bit from the pitch of the voice and how the words are said, and I do just fine in the situations for which I know the rules, but give me uncharted territory and I'm lost. I have no idea what's expected of me, and often, when I guess, I guess wrong. I get tired of getting crap for something I have no control over, so I avoid most social situations unless I can set them up in such a way that I know I won't be standing there wondering what the fuck I did wrong. There's just too many cues and I don't know how to sort out the important ones from the background noise.
Tell me, my "normal" friends... would you voluntarily put yourself in a situation where you feel totally at a loss and like a jerk all the time? Where you don't know what to do? Where you take no pleasure in the setting? WITHOUT the compensation of receiving a paycheck for it? No? Then why do you think I'm abnormal for wanting to avoid busy social situations? A few friends are fine--I know them well enough to keep track. I can handle parties where I don't really know anyone, but you will never see me "mingle". I prefer to engage a single person or just a few people in conversation, and generally, I get them to tell me about something they do that I find interesting. Their job is a good topic, or a hobby, or a dearly held political belief.
When I ask people to tell me about neutral things like that, they usually end up carrying the burden of making conversation gladly beause they are talking about the subject most dear to their heart: themselves, and I learn something new, so both of us walk away happy, although for very different reasons. And while it's interesting, there are lots of other interesting things I like to do, so going to parties is not a priority, and since it can turn chaotic so quickly, it's not something I seek out.
As far as eye contact goes... it's not that I can't make eye contact, it's that I don't like to. Although I have learned to focus on the bridge of the nose or the corner of the eyebrow to give the illusion of making eye contact, to me, meeting eyes with someone is a very private, intimate experience. I learned at an early age that people don't like me looking into their eyes even though they claim they want me to. I've been told that I stare, that my gaze is "intense" and discomfiting.
There's a reason for that. If I look into someone's eyes, I look at them with my full attention. Most people don't want my full attention, because I turn all my processing power to the task and concentrate on it. And believe me, when I give a task my full attention, I don't miss much. When someone says they want me to look at them, I have realized, they don't really want me to scrutinize them, what they want is physical feedback such as others give them. Thus, I do the nose/eyebrow thing.
What hopefully is also coming clear as I write is that just as I don't necessarily do such a hot job at reading average people's body language, my own body language can be very misleading. We learn most of that stuff via our earliest contact with others, and it stands to reason that if I am unaware of a signal, I am sure as hell not going to be learn it.
One very perceptive friend of mine pointed out something to me that I had never realized. He had said that when he was talking there were times that I looked down to the left and frowned. He said that he initially thought that it was that I disliked and/or disagreed with what he was saying. But, he said, he knew I had no difficulty in speaking up, so he decided just to observe this trend for a while.
In very short order, he had it figured out. I did it, he said, when I was listening and thinking very hard about what he was saying. And he was absolutely right. He didn't mention the cocking one ear towards him part, but you know, that is EXACTLY what I do when I am trying to fully absorb a thing a person is telling me. It is a way of shutting down sensory channels. I cock one ear towards you to fully absorb the sound. I look down because the floor/my shoes/my knee doesn't move like a face does. And I am listening. The frown is from concentration, not emotion.
This was incredibly useful to me. I learned I could tell people this, and when they ran into it, they would say "ah HA! She's listening very hard to me!" and there were suddenly almost no misunderstandings. Further examination led to uncovering more differences, some very funny. For instance, I had a habit that drove some people crazy. They would say something to me, and I would say "What?" and then, just as they opened their mouths to repeat themselves, I would answer.
Until recently, I didn't know why I did that, but now I do. It's a combination of something that occurs with me due to the autism and a habit I formed to try to compensate so people weren't offended. When a person says something to you, they tend to want some kind of acknowledgement so they know you've heard them. This isn't particularly unreasonable, I don't think. However, just as a computer can hang up and run very slowly for a moment while it tries to finish some tasks prior to opening a new one, so can my brain.
Sometimes there is an actual, measurable lag between the sound and the processing. So in that moment that I was asking "What?" (giving the person the acknowledgment I've learned is needed), the sound finally made it from ear to comprehension.
Much like with the first example, understanding this prevented a great deal of misunderstanding, and this particular one tends to be humorous. If my kids catch it happening, they no longer try to recall what they said in order to repeat themselves, they simply smile and give me that second or two. And I'll catch the smile and laugh and say "brain lag!" and there is no issue. It has become an amusing trait instead of an annoyance.
I've also discovered I can do something that is formally labelled as a form of echolalia, which is to mimic accents. This always used to be treated as a character flaw. There were people who thought I was mocking them by assuming their accent. Now, if I run into a person with a noticeable accent, I let them know about it, and we have a really good time with it. I have a Brit friend who is just waiting for me to visit so he can take me places so we can see how well it works with heavy accents like Cockney. What used to be a big problem is now simply an amusing quirk.
Looking at myself under this new lens, I have discovered something interesting about another behavior of mine that is often labelled as the character flaw of pressuring, which I will continue in the next entry.
My F-List knows that I'm an autistic person. I have Asperger's. It was diagnosed two years ago, and explained a great many of the problems I have experienced throughout my life. While I can't necessarily say I define myself solely as autistic, certainly, one thing the diagnosis did was enable me to forgive myself for not being like everyone else. Now there was a reason. It wasn't character defect, nor was it lack of will. The reason I don't do things like other people do is because I'm not like most other people. I don't perceive the world in the same way.
As do many other autistic advocates, I believe it is a natural wiring difference, not a disease that needs radical correction. I don't identify myself solely as an Aspie because increasingly, the evidence shows that indeed, autism is a spectrum. Old age or brain injury could cause my sensory issues to overwhelm me and I would need just as much assistance as any person who had enough issues to be labelled autistic at an early age. It's merely a matter of degree, and degree can change. One very interesting thing that has come out recently is that people on the spectrum seem to have what they have labelled "monotropic attention". Meaning we focus on one thing at a time, and if we are given a choice of too many things to focus on, such as would happen in a room crowded with people, we get into a "choke" situation and don't know what to choose at all.
I'm sure many people have seen the handy checklists that explains things like how Aspies have trouble with social function and don't like to make eye contact, but these lists of so-called symptoms don't speak to my experience even though both statements are valid ways of summing up some of my characteristics.
For instance, saying that I have trouble with social function doesn't tell you that a lot of the problem is that I am blind to many of the cues people give through their body language. Literally blind. I don't see it. My hearing and musical ability are strong enough that in some cases I can fake it--I can detect quite a bit from the pitch of the voice and how the words are said, and I do just fine in the situations for which I know the rules, but give me uncharted territory and I'm lost. I have no idea what's expected of me, and often, when I guess, I guess wrong. I get tired of getting crap for something I have no control over, so I avoid most social situations unless I can set them up in such a way that I know I won't be standing there wondering what the fuck I did wrong. There's just too many cues and I don't know how to sort out the important ones from the background noise.
Tell me, my "normal" friends... would you voluntarily put yourself in a situation where you feel totally at a loss and like a jerk all the time? Where you don't know what to do? Where you take no pleasure in the setting? WITHOUT the compensation of receiving a paycheck for it? No? Then why do you think I'm abnormal for wanting to avoid busy social situations? A few friends are fine--I know them well enough to keep track. I can handle parties where I don't really know anyone, but you will never see me "mingle". I prefer to engage a single person or just a few people in conversation, and generally, I get them to tell me about something they do that I find interesting. Their job is a good topic, or a hobby, or a dearly held political belief.
When I ask people to tell me about neutral things like that, they usually end up carrying the burden of making conversation gladly beause they are talking about the subject most dear to their heart: themselves, and I learn something new, so both of us walk away happy, although for very different reasons. And while it's interesting, there are lots of other interesting things I like to do, so going to parties is not a priority, and since it can turn chaotic so quickly, it's not something I seek out.
As far as eye contact goes... it's not that I can't make eye contact, it's that I don't like to. Although I have learned to focus on the bridge of the nose or the corner of the eyebrow to give the illusion of making eye contact, to me, meeting eyes with someone is a very private, intimate experience. I learned at an early age that people don't like me looking into their eyes even though they claim they want me to. I've been told that I stare, that my gaze is "intense" and discomfiting.
There's a reason for that. If I look into someone's eyes, I look at them with my full attention. Most people don't want my full attention, because I turn all my processing power to the task and concentrate on it. And believe me, when I give a task my full attention, I don't miss much. When someone says they want me to look at them, I have realized, they don't really want me to scrutinize them, what they want is physical feedback such as others give them. Thus, I do the nose/eyebrow thing.
What hopefully is also coming clear as I write is that just as I don't necessarily do such a hot job at reading average people's body language, my own body language can be very misleading. We learn most of that stuff via our earliest contact with others, and it stands to reason that if I am unaware of a signal, I am sure as hell not going to be learn it.
One very perceptive friend of mine pointed out something to me that I had never realized. He had said that when he was talking there were times that I looked down to the left and frowned. He said that he initially thought that it was that I disliked and/or disagreed with what he was saying. But, he said, he knew I had no difficulty in speaking up, so he decided just to observe this trend for a while.
In very short order, he had it figured out. I did it, he said, when I was listening and thinking very hard about what he was saying. And he was absolutely right. He didn't mention the cocking one ear towards him part, but you know, that is EXACTLY what I do when I am trying to fully absorb a thing a person is telling me. It is a way of shutting down sensory channels. I cock one ear towards you to fully absorb the sound. I look down because the floor/my shoes/my knee doesn't move like a face does. And I am listening. The frown is from concentration, not emotion.
This was incredibly useful to me. I learned I could tell people this, and when they ran into it, they would say "ah HA! She's listening very hard to me!" and there were suddenly almost no misunderstandings. Further examination led to uncovering more differences, some very funny. For instance, I had a habit that drove some people crazy. They would say something to me, and I would say "What?" and then, just as they opened their mouths to repeat themselves, I would answer.
Until recently, I didn't know why I did that, but now I do. It's a combination of something that occurs with me due to the autism and a habit I formed to try to compensate so people weren't offended. When a person says something to you, they tend to want some kind of acknowledgement so they know you've heard them. This isn't particularly unreasonable, I don't think. However, just as a computer can hang up and run very slowly for a moment while it tries to finish some tasks prior to opening a new one, so can my brain.
Sometimes there is an actual, measurable lag between the sound and the processing. So in that moment that I was asking "What?" (giving the person the acknowledgment I've learned is needed), the sound finally made it from ear to comprehension.
Much like with the first example, understanding this prevented a great deal of misunderstanding, and this particular one tends to be humorous. If my kids catch it happening, they no longer try to recall what they said in order to repeat themselves, they simply smile and give me that second or two. And I'll catch the smile and laugh and say "brain lag!" and there is no issue. It has become an amusing trait instead of an annoyance.
I've also discovered I can do something that is formally labelled as a form of echolalia, which is to mimic accents. This always used to be treated as a character flaw. There were people who thought I was mocking them by assuming their accent. Now, if I run into a person with a noticeable accent, I let them know about it, and we have a really good time with it. I have a Brit friend who is just waiting for me to visit so he can take me places so we can see how well it works with heavy accents like Cockney. What used to be a big problem is now simply an amusing quirk.
Looking at myself under this new lens, I have discovered something interesting about another behavior of mine that is often labelled as the character flaw of pressuring, which I will continue in the next entry.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 06:56 pm (UTC)I'm very much the same way as far as crowds go. It's like trying to explain to people that I don't really like to help out in the class at my kids school. I'll work the library, stuff envelopes and do a bunch of "behind the scenes" things but please don't make me work one on one with the kids!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 06:50 am (UTC)It is interesting.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 08:33 pm (UTC)I'm strange like that though.