Social Skills - What do you think?

I learned another trick - be the biggest and brightest extrovert personality. I do lots of very odd hobbies and experiences so I stand out from a crowd of NTs. They then learn to expect the unexpected out of me - which masks my social deficits.

I’m a vipassana meditator and before that, I practiced transcendental meditation for 15 years as well as practicing yoga ~ this is great for loosening the rigid thought patterns.

If there is tightness in your body, it’s related to rigid thought patterns and because we barely know what the thoughts are, by working with the body, you automatically work on the thoughts, at a deeper level. 

I’m also a metaphysician with a life long passion in the mind and I’m generally going to either the school of practical philosophy or  a Buddhist centre, I’ve stayed in Ashrams in India and basically, I’ve been investigating the mind for a long time. 

But yeah, yoga definitely helps not to mention it strengthens the body and massages all of the inner organs as well as our chakras, so it’s a good all rounder :) 

But if I’m honest, it’s having this extended period of time away from nt’s and spending time, for the first time in my life, with other autistic people that’s helping me the most and helping me to get a better grip on the mind. 

I'm the same.

I think that one of the reasons that so many of the threads on this forum go off at wild tangents is because we have so much to say.  We see a point being made, so we have to jump in and respond, bringing our own perspectives, telling our own stories - which then spawns other responses which take their own tangents.

Creativity at work!

It's almost like brainstorming sometimes.

Someone (NT)  told me once that in order to talk to me he had to 'come into my head' - this was a revelation to me, on questioning he revealed that NT's create some sort of shared mental space hovering over their heads in which they converse. Who knew? I have no idea though what it might be like. I did a course in listening skills once, and if I'm really concentrating I can look somewhat like a normal person for up to 30 mins before my concentration starts to lapse and I'm interrupting and boring people again.

Most of my friends are ND but I do have one really good NT friend, when he explains NTs to me I'm absolutely fascinated. On the whole, though, they tend to make me feel conspicuously sub-normal and that's no fun. Honestly Former Member it's easy to say that we shouldn't let other people make us feel bad (my very lovely Nan used to tell me this endlessly along with other advice about being an independent woman which I mostly can't follow) but actually it's hard to just ignore a room full of people treating you like the creature from the blue lagoon. I've also never been able to explain AS to them properly, partly because they're not listening. They insist on thinking it's a mental health diagnosis and therefore act as though I'm possibly going to do something really weird any minute. They so palpably have no idea what to say to me I end up feeling like a cat on a hot tin roof as well. My mother conscientiously asks after my cat's health and then stands there looking like a rabbit in headlights.

I agree Plastic that the easiest way to deal with NT's in a non-family social event mode is to ask them a bland 'open' question and then let them rattle on about their holidays, shopping etc - you can just wander off mentally and zone back in now and again to nod sagely but it's bloody hard work.When I was young, I stayed away pretty much and avoided family gatherings but, as I've got older, I've made my peace with it a bit better, it's not nothing to just dump your family!  At family gatherings my strategy is to find one of my more eccentric rellies who actually reads a newspaper and hang out in a corner talking about current affairs.

@Binary it takes time! Once you know you're on the spectrum you can start exploring strategies and I agree with Former Member that the first step is to figure out what you actually want - realistically - from social interactions. Skills for faking it in a meeting or interview at work are one thing, skills for being able to get through a soiree without feeling like Frankenstein's monster are another. A genuine effort to be able to communicate with a decent ND who likes you are another thing again . . . It's a big topic!

I ask myself all the time whether it's worth it as, in many ways, I'm quite happy as long as I'm left alone to my routine of reading, writing, walking, cooking, hanging out with the cat watching TV and I'm certainly more stable and healthier. What drives me to engage with 'their' world is work (not a big fan of poverty) - but I also find I'm more buoyant spiritually if I do engage with other people. When I was doing my PhD back in the early 90s before it got all corporate, I developed a perfect rhythm for me - go to a few seminars/conference to get my mind wrapped around current thinking, read a lot, write a lot, burn out, withdraw and recharge for 6 weeks, rinse, repeat. But now - O Tempora, O Mores!

I agree, too.  The issue we face, of course - as with all minorities - is that because our way of doing something is 'rare', then it's 'wrong'.  This isn't true, of course.  But if you're in a situation where you have, say, 99 people who know how to do something the same way, and 1 person who does it in a different way, the majority are always going to see the different way as the wrong way.  And they have all that back-up to 'prove' it.

But then, without people doing things differently, we'd never have innovations.  We'd never have had things like Turing's code-breaking computer.  We'd never have solutions to problems - just more and more people moaning about the problems!

I always rail against that old saying 'Go with the flow'.

As far as I'm concerned, if you 'go with the flow' you'll end up on the rocks sooner or later!

I couldn’t agree more Shadow, well said ~ I would have taken 10 pages just to say that and it wouldn’t have made sense! Lol! 

I know ~ the weird thing is, it’s like intellectually I learned to sometimes see things from another person’s point of view but it’s like it still couldn’t penetrate these rigid thoughts, but without me realising it ~ which of course, is a defining trait in autism, so how could we know!

It really is like a blind spot and I’ve learned that there’s nothing I can do about it in terms of trying to see things from another person’s view etc ~ but when I don’t try and I accept, things happen, such as that girl telling me I was angry or Kitsuns post just now or some other little thing, if my mind isn’t so focussed on figuring it out or whatever it’s like it’s open to learning but in different ways from the ‘norm’. We experience the world in different ways so it makes sense we’ll learn in different ways. I’m learning so much from you right now. 

I think I understand that saying now - that you need to choose your battles ~ that’s kind of how I see life now ~ I weigh it up, is it worth it to me and I’m learning (and I’m learning this from one of my autistic friends) that if the answer is no, then I leave it at that. I don’t think about it, I don’t obsess about it, etc, I simply accept my decision. 

I’m going to check out that book because it sounds really helpful and even if I don’t need it, it’s something I can pass on to others. You’re doing great, you’ve got good insight and you’re helping me, thank you. 

In light of Kitsuns post, where she talks about her success with learning social skills, I take back everything I said before, Binary ~ well sort of. If you read what I wrote back in response to Kitsun, you’ll understand more. 

What I now realise, is that all the time I thought I was ‘masking’ I was actually learning social skills and I got really good at them. They’re actually quite easy, when you know some of the basics. But I didn’t really appreciate or understand just what I had achieved, because in my mind, all I had been doing was masking! 

I’m telling you, the mind is a very powerful thing indeed. So yes, it is definitely helpful to have some social skills at hand, that you can use when YOU want to use them for YOUR benefit. Keep it seperate from masking, they’re two different things, I understand that now. 

With regards to what you said about people saying you get aggressive. People have been saying this to me all my life and for the life of me, no matter how hard I tried, I could not see where they were coming from or what I was doing. 

A few weeks back I was at my weekly autism group and I was talking to one of the girls and a few others, I can’t remember what I was talking about, but the girl said BlueRay (insert my name, she didn’t call me BlueRay lol) is getting angry. 

I didn’t know what it was at the time, but as soon as she said that, I just stopped in my tracks. I don’t even think there were any thoughts in my head. It’s like I just stopped. Then slowly, it dawned on me that OMG I was getting angry. I couldn’t believe it. I had never noticed this before in my life in this way. At the time, I simply stopped talking about whatever it was I was talking about and started to talk about something else. 

What I’m realising now, is that when that girl said that, there was no judgement, none what so ever. She didn’t flinch when she said it. She could have said the suns in the sky today or anything. I think the fact that she just pointed it out, without any thought to stop me from being angry, or that it was wrong, or that she doesn’t like it or whatever. She was just pointing it out and I’m so glad she did because I can see now that I really was angry and I do this a lot! 

When I’m at the autism group, I’m completely myself. I’ve had melt downs there, I’ve been hyper, I’ve been all sorts of things. But nobody bats an eye. When the receptionist who works at the centre left, it totally freaked me out. Her smiling face was like an anchor point to me and when she left, it really freaked me out. But I walked into the room and everyone was freaked out! Lol! It was like, oh, you as well!!!! 

It’s like when I’m with them we’re not being judged so I don’t know, maybe that’s how I was able to listen to that girl when I’ve never listened to anybody else in my life, ever. 

I think you have summed a lot of the problem I have. My thinking process is very rigid so seeing a social situation from any other way is really difficult.

I think had I done it from a child it perhaps would have been easier. It would become a more natural part of interaction perhaps. 

You are right though. I think it is about weighing up the positives and negatives. 

It is fantastic that you are learning them to help your children and great that it benefits you at the same time.

That’s excellent Kitsun and the book sounds like an excellent resource. You’ve done really well. Well done. I’m super proud of you. 

I guess in a way, that’s what I did but without the knowledge and awareness that I was autistic, so for me, it really was masking. 

However, you’ve made me realise that it wasn’t bad what I did. It didn’t harm me in the way I thought it had.  I simply need to separate the masking from the actual learning of social skills then I can be proud of myself, super proud in fact, in that I learned the social skills, they’re mine to keep now, and use when I want or need to use them without having to use them simply to fit in. I can use them for my own benefit. 

This is a revelation to me and helps me to see myself in a whole new light, a much more positive light for sure. I can see I was doing the best I could with the knowledge and awareness I had at the time and rather than abandon myself, like I thought I had, I was simply giving every ounce of strength I had to learn these skills which meant I had no time or head space left or the knowledge to be able to evaluate and understand what was actually happening. It’s all making sense now. I thought it was my down fall but I can see now that it was an absolute triumph. 

The more I realise just how well I did, despite getting into lots of trouble and insulting people etc etc, the more I realise I really can do anything. 

Anybody who is autistic knows just how weird and difficult it is in social situations etc, it can’t be described, and to think that despite all that, I still got to the age I am in one piece. I might be in burn out, barely leaving my house, but I’ve never been in a better position in my life, and this year not only started off good, it just keeps getting better. 

Thank you so much for this. You’ve really helped me to see things more clearly. I keep saying this but I’ll say it again. I have always said I don’t need much help but I do need some help and that a little of the right help goes a long long way. It’s always in my thinking. My thinking patterns are so rigid and the normal ways of learning things don’t seem to penetrate the thought pattern. It’s things like this. Someone will say something in a certain way or something and all of a sudden it’s like the light has come on and I can see that it was my rigid thinking that was blocking any other way of seeing the situation. Yeah, this is definitely big. Thank you. Thank you so much and you’re doing great. You sound like you’ve got the kind of balance I’m looking for. I accept that I will never change, per se, no matter what I do, but I don’t need to change, and just like everybody else in the world, it’s my responsibility to live my life according to my needs etc and this new found awareness has given me more excitement at moving forward. I think, because of the nature of autism, that we’ll always have this certain something, no matter what we do, that means we need more time alone etc, and I’ve been focusing on enjoying that alone time a lot more, placing a higher value on it and really appreciating it, but mostly really enjoying it. When I start working again, I want to make sure the structures are in place to ensure that I continue with lots of lovely me time that I enjoy to the max with lots of time in nature and fresh air. It means that I’ll need to charge a higher price for my services, which means I need to put more work into making sure I give value for money and the great thing is, the things I do in my me time are the very things I need to do in order to give value for money to my customers. 

WoW, see, all I need is for one rigid thought pattern to be penetrated, and it opens up a whole host of possibilities. I guess the possibilities are always there, it’s just that they’re blocked by our rigid thinking. Anyway, thank you, I really appreciate this. 

It's a bit like the old 'theory of mind' thing.  We don't necessarily lack 'theory of mind'.  We simply have a different 'theory of mind.'

I prefer to just think about it this way. Starting Point: I'm different. Therefore, my social skills will be different. It's not that I'm necessarily lacking social skills, I just have a different set of social skills and how I go about using them. Sure, I can try to make a bit of effort to bridge the gap with other people who have a different set of social skills to me, but if they're not willing to put in any effort in bridging the gap then I'm not particularly bothered. Instead of telling me how I should talk, communicate or behave, accept the way I do talk, communicate and behave, which will likely lead to some progress. As far as I'm concerned I manage just fine so anybody that tells me differently must be the one with the problem.

I don't care if people want to make comments that I'm doing something wrong, because for me it's the right thing to do. Therefore, I'm not the one doing anything wrong, I'm just doing it differently.

I suppose it's like the idea of computers running different operating systems and software. In order to interface there needs to be something to bridge that gap so that communication between the different operating systems and software can take place.

I think it’s a case of different things are good for different people. We’re all different and it’s about weighing up whether learning social skills is in your best interests or not. Sadly, we live in a predominantly neurotypical world and while in theory, it would be nice if they adapted for us, in practice it doesn’t happen. And we have to interact with NTs at work etc it’s not really something we can avoid. Socialising is exhausting though, I’m not going to lie about that. 

Small talk is not my strong point but I’m holding out that there’s some hidden point to it that I just don’t understand yet. I guess if people say you’re being aggressive when you overreact, maybe if someone says something that you view as offensive maybe before responding, take a deep breath and count to 5 in your head, maybe ask them to clarify what they mean before you respond, hopefully the time delay in responding will allow your answer to be more measured?

Personally, it’s not just for my benefit that I’m Learning social skills, it’s also for the benefit of my children. My eldest daughter now 21 I’m sure also has AS, I pointed this out to her a couple of years ago and she’s been learning social skills herself and massively improved her own social life as a result. I’m also working with her a lot at the moment on trying to see things from other people’s perspective, something which I’m also terrible at but I’m trying to learn. My middle daughter now 4 is the neurotypical of the bunch, to the extreme, her social skills already surpass my own, as she just naturally learns them, I find it fascinating to watch her appropriate eye contact and facial expressions and reciprocal conversations, but I do worry that if I don’t learn social skills myself then I might inadvertently untrain her in social skills if that makes sense, I want to be able to support her to keep on doing what she’s doing, because she does it so wonderously well and I need to be able to socialise with the mums of her classmates to ensure that she has a good social life and lots of friends, I want her to have the social childhood that I never had. My youngest, now 22 months I’m convinced is autistic, I’ve thought that since I was 7 months pregnant with her, I can just feel it in her, and the delays and little quirks she has support my theory. I’m presently chasing her paediatrician for her long overdue review and will be insisting that they refer her for the ADOS. I’m hoping my own diagnosis will help my case with that. I need to learn social skills so that I can support her to learn them too, to help her to reach her potential and improve her quality of life as she gets older. So I guess alongside my own need to make friends, my maternal instinct and need to do my best by my children has also been a big deciding factor for me.

The thing that really bothers me is people sometimes refer to my reactions as aggressive (verbally not physically). This is not intentional and I definitely don't want to be thought of that way. But I don't actually know what I'm doing that gives off that vibe. I'm guessing it's to do with tone of voice. How can you stop doing something when you're completely unaware of it in the first place.

People I worked with said that about me too - I think its because social norms means there's a gentle rolling into a conversation, then the important part, then a roll out. I only do the middle bit so they say I'm abrupt.

Haha!  I had a similar situation when I worked on divorce at the County Court.  I noticed that petitions were coming in with a very common mistake, which meant having to send them back - which meant extra cost, and extra work for us.  People were always moaning about having to do it, too.  So I checked the guidance notes for completing petitions and found that the instructions on that particular point weren't clear.  I suggested an amendment to make it clearer.  My suggestion was approved by a judge, the notes were edited accordingly, and petitions started coming in without the mistake.  Result!  Except my co-workers were resentful about it.  It seems that some of them actually enjoyed taking the time out to send petitions back with covering letters telling petitioners, basically, that they'd made a mistake and would need to work out where and how. 

sighs

It’s like banging my head against a brick walk. Only I want to bang theirs! lol! 

Yes I had an incident like that last week at work.  Relatively simple problem, relatively simple fix that might require a small bit of tweaking to work out exactly what the product needs to work the way desired.  People have already been given all the necessary documentation (several times) plus an outline of what they need to do.

Since I'm on holiday the NTs go off a silly tangent and then moan that they don't like their way of doing it because it's hard, and are now asking for all sorts of stupid product changes.  Well if you'd done what I told you do in the first place, and asked for help at the first point it didn't work...

ARGH!

But the fact you're already sat there means you've agreed in principle to be sociable. Being a bit of a people pleaser and smiling and nodding every now and then is just polite.

I look at all these interactions as data acquisition and NT people modelling. I like to study them and their habits & interactions. Like being in a zoo that allows you to get inside the cage.

If someone tells me they have just come back from holiday I usually think “ oh my here we go, ok so tell me all about it, was it good, ? “ when basically I have no interest in hearing how wonderful it was, how expensive it was, it has no meaning to me, why should I need to fill my head with there holiday story? . I Really don’t know why my work colleagues find it so necessary to talk about such random topics, they definitely belong to a secret club I have no ambition of joining, they seem to know so much about little details, how the kids are, where they drink, whst football game they watched, 

unless it is about the work we are doing, or in some way interesting as in technical or factual about machinery ir even previous jobs that were similar or maybe could make this job easier u have no real interest,

 I also have been told I don’t allow anyone to talk, I also quite often interrupt if I have a specific relevant point to add, mostly as if I don’t do it straight away I will forget it. 

My sge has taught me how to interact, but it isn’t easy, it is an act in order to fit, it rarely causes me distress, just annoys me having to play the game,  I know the men think I am quite and even boring, if working with one for some time we talk less and less as time goes by, but if another worker joins us they light up, start rabbuting away, I like that as I no longer have to try to be civil and make conversation.

See it was actually your post about the social skills book that made me question a lot. I was already thinking about my social skills as I had become a lot more aware of them but your post saying you'd actually had success learning them made me wonder. 

It's hard thing to weigh up. On one hand I don't want to be this person that can't socialise that people find annoying etc. On the other hand like Blue ray says I imagine socialising properly would be exhausting. And should it always be me having to adapt to other people. Surely there should be an element of them adapting for me.

Small talk is the interesting because I actually hate it. I see no point in it and really don't want to take part in it. So I'm really not convinced I want to learn how to do it.

The thing that really bothers me is people sometimes refer to my reactions as aggressive (verbally not physically). This is not intentional and I definitely don't want to be thought of that way. But I don't actually know what I'm doing that gives off that vibe. I'm guessing it's to do with tone of voice. How can you stop doing something when you're completely unaware of it in the first place.

I guess it's such an individual thing it is hard to compare from each other's experiences.