General Autism Discussion

All of this talk of "mainstream humanity" and "NT society" is suggesting some antagonistic attitudes towards people without social difficulties. It's suggesting an "us and them" struggle, which is the last thing we should believe in if we want to reach out and make friends. Social interaction is challenging, and we're more likely to mess up than others, but the guy on the other end of the conversation isn't out to get us. At worse, they're ignorant of our difficulties.

There is no NT society. There is just society, and you can shape it as much as the guy next to you. I'm not saying it will be easy, but there's always an opportunity to reach out.

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

True. There are however major differences between how the two groups of people think, though, and that needs to be understood. Also, if autism is accepted, it would have to mean major changes in society, like how job interviews work, how a lot of social interactions work - some of the stupider rules would really have to go away or have major leeway.

I too used to have the ability to play little movies in my head also. Sadly, that ability is long gone. I wish I knew what caused it and how to bring it back. I really enjoyed being able to do that.

It's not two groups so much as a spectrum.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Absolutely. People should always be open to new ways of thinking, regardless of place on the spectrum. There has already been progress in a lot of workplaces - anti-discrimination laws and such. You can't be fired or rejected in a job interview purely because you have the word "autistic" on a form. Unfortunately, it's difficult to legislate personal opinion. There's not a lot we can do about the feelings of others except strive to make the best impressions on people.

I used to be terrible at job interviews, but I spend ages focusing on the skills I needed and honing them. Where to sit, posture, what language to use, what to emphasise and what to downplay, what kind of questions they might throw at you. I got a family member to roleplay as the interviewer and gave them free rein to try and throw me off, until I got good enough to impress them. Practice will always make perfect.

Job interviews are tough, and nobody on the planet looks forward to them, but they're not insurmountable.

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

Yet it's not just a spectrum, it's a bell-curve. Like most things, social "IQ" varies, with a few people at the high and low ends, and most people in the middle. HFA's are among the relatively few at one end of the curve. The thing to remember is that a lot of people have a tough time distinguishing between other people who occupy a different place on the curve than they do. What we are calling "NT" are really a very diverse group of people, with different ways of approaching things. That's part of the problem, actually, that HFA's have. Since the "NT" society is really not one large homogenous mass of like-minded people, there is no one set of "rules" that apply to all of them, even in the same situation. Even relatively formal, structured settings like job interviews work differently depending upon what type of "normal" people are participating in it. And then something informal and ambiguous like dating, well, that varies even more.

I feel you Bonsai. You arent the only one, buddy.

Couldn't have put it better myself, Demarquis.

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

To be fair, I don't have an "us vs them" attitude with Neurotypicals. I was just thinking that Autistics tend to have ideas about society that aren't typical, or "mainstream."

All this talk about job interviews shows why I think it should just be a friendly conversation, where the interviewer hits all the points as they come up naturally with the interviewee. I'd think that would be much easier for an Autistic or Aspie.

Award-winning screenwriter. Directed some movies. Trying to earn a Creator page. I do feedback here.

Of course. I didn't mean to imply you held such a mentality, I just wanted to curtail any chance that this attitude would develop in a thread like this. Plenty of autism threads off-site just become escalating echo-chambers of spite with that kind of rhetoric, and we'd all like this thread to stay firmly optimistic.

The thing about job interviews is that some of them are rather breezy and informal. It depends on who's giving it, really.

edited 1st May '14 3:04:31 AM by SR3NORMANDY

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

Also, it's not like anybody actually likes the stereotypical job interview grilling session.

Most people are nervous during a job interview because there is a lot at stake. There's reason to be nervous.

A job interview is one of those situations where you should be worried if you're not nervous...

Anyway, has anyone done anything they know is insane, stupid or surprisingly cold-blooded because they know it is Something That Has To Be Done?

Keep Rolling On

Yep. I did many things back when I was a teenager, that I would never do today. But I definately thought I had the right to do it at the time.

edited 1st May '14 4:19:29 AM by Furienna

Hey, glad I found this thread. I've been recently tested as an adult and diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder, which I've been told isn't exactly the same thing as Asperger's but still on the spectrum. From what I've been able to gather, it's a generalized term for a group of conditions that includes autism and Asperger's, among others, but in any case it apparently qualifies me for specialized job search help from the state, which was the whole point of taking the test anyway.

Well then, welcome to the thread.

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

Man this thread has been moving fast.

I used to have this problem, but I've managed to build up a circle of very close friends over the last few years. Part of this is due to having been to boarding school (people couldn't avoid me just because of the initial weird factor so they got to know me properly) and partly because while I have had very close friends end friendships without explanation I've also got a big enough hero complex that I tend to help people in need whenever I can, which seems to work for me as a good way to make friends.

Oddly enough this was the one thing I had a lot of trouble with when it came to drawing, I could do other stuff but perspective was always a difficult one (though this may be related to me having bad eyesight).

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

"people couldn't avoid me just because of the initial weird factor"

The fact that people do try to do that is still sad. This probably explains why small, simple settings help autists better.

Plus it helped that my school tended to draw in people with alternative ways of thinking, it isn't a special needs school, but it sure does work well for special needs kids.

I think a big problem is getting past that initial social barrier, I get past it largely by being there for people when shit hits the fan, but that's not easy (or probably healthy).

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

My mother and my sister have always been better at drawing than what I am. I'm just average, I'm afraid. I can do some perspective, but I have needed some help some times.

edited 1st May '14 12:33:30 PM by Furienna

I used to draw a lot and be good at it, but for some reason I stopped and my drawing got sloppy. My mom thinks it was a prescription medicine given to me when I was 7

Someone else said that when she took some kind of medication that was supposed to calm down ADHD, her imagination got seriously destroyed, like a mental "block" of some kind had appeared. She told her parents about her distress, and they stopped the medication right away. And her imagination returned.

The human brain is a very complex thing.

I have to be grateful then that I never had any such effects from a medication. For me, my medication not only relieved me from the worst of my panic anxiety. I also get many fewer anger outbursts than what I did before.

My main issue with medication is that it hasn't effected me much at all. Except for Adderall, that turned me into a zombie.

I've never been on medication before.

What kind of impact does it have?

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

It varies from person to person, drug to drug.

To be expected, naturally.

What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

I did get (and still do) a prescription for Ritalin, but given that it has some annoying side effects (namely, that it leaves me confused and with "wandering thoughts" for a while) I've agreed with Maria Asperger to only take it for extremely stressful situations like exams.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman