Published on 12, July, 2020
A thought occurred to me when I was washing the dishes, a few minutes ago, or rather it was more of a question. I thought, I wonder if somebody can be so self-obsessed that they don’t even know it, even after they have been told they are, via a diagnosis of autism. Or are there really some autistic people who aren’t self-obsessed, and what would that look like?
Maybe this is the people who are on what is commonly referred to as the ‘mild’ end of the spectrum. But if so, what would bring that type of a person forward for an assessment in the first place or how would they have got picked up as kids? What types of difficulties or struggles do they have and what makes it autism and not something else, such as OCD or social anxiety or whatever?
This whole conversation about self-obsession has really piqued my curiosity and obviously, as an autistic person, I don’t see other people’s points of view easily, unless it is spelled out to me in a way I can understand. So, I’m just wondering, is there a whole other level of autism that I am unaware of?
This is for curiosity as much as to see if it’s my autistic brain blindsiding me again, because I know I fall into the basic understanding of autism, meaning selfism, and obviously, being autistic, I assumed all other autistic people are that way as well. I know we are all sooooooooooo different, of course we are, we are human beings, all human beings are different, but I thought as autistic people, the one identifying factor, that we all share, is the thing the condition (for want of a better word) is named after, which is, of course, self-ism.
You can be sure you’re self-obsessed by certain outward signs. The signs the psychiatrists use to diagnosis and identify us. Such as difficulties in school, not making friends as easily as most of the other kids, maybe getting picked on, a history of many different jobs, generally well below a person’s capability, difficulties in personal relationships including difficulties sometimes with family members, not achieving full protentional, all those kinds of things. Which all stem from the self-obsession. But you can also be self-obsessed without those outward signs, I don’t think I had or have that many of them and I think there are many of us who don’t show the ‘typical’ types of outward signs.
I’m just wondering what none self-obsessed autistic people struggle with and why they aren’t diagnosed with that instead of autism? Or have I just missed the point all together, lol, (which wouldn’t be for the first time) and autism is something else altogether?
I also learned yesterday that some people, apparently, at least one person anyway, has a negative connotation attached to the words self-obsession and selfish. I was unaware that those words could have any negative connotations so for those who do have those negative connotations, I’m not using these words in a negative way, whatever that could be. If anybody has got better words to use instead, where people don’t have negative connotations then tell us what they are. Autism literally means, self-ism, so I fail to see how anything to do with the self can be negative, but of course, that’s just me
Anyway, this is me, doing what I can to avoid doing my course work, lol, and now I’m going to avoid it some more and take my little self for a walk through the woods to rendezvous with the trees and nature for a couple of hours.
Hope you are all having a great day
The terms selfish and self obsessed seem generally to be used with very negative connotations. People seem to be implying that such people don’t care about anyone else and will do whatever it takes to get their own way. Unless I have totally misunderstood of course. I don’t know the word for ‘relating to other people by reference to ones own experience/thoughts/feelings’ but I think that’s what makes me reach out to others, and attempt to offer help/support/comfort. I can feel deeply for people in bad situations, even though I have not been through exactly the same ordeal. I have in the past been the listener, rather than the talker, and have a strong dislike of injustice and hate seeing anyone suffer. I can now communicate better, so can reach out to help others more effectively. I always wanted to, but that invisible barrier was in the way. I do need to remember to listen now, not just jump in. The world in general seems full of misunderstandings.
So I personally don’t consider myself entirely selfish. If someone else sees me as such, I have to remind myself that’s their problem if they see me that way. And it’s not a solely or universal autistic trait. Many of all sorts of people are selfish to extremes, but probably most are not like that all the time. I would be 100 per cent selfish if I was an addict that didn’t want to address the addiction, because I am the sort of personality that cannot take illegal drugs.
Blue Ray, if you seriously do want to help others, then you’re not selfish either. We have communication difficulties that often make many of us appear not to care about anyone or maybe anything. So I’d best say goodnight now and turn in. We’ll have to find the word that describes how we relate to others.... and maybe there’s as many different words as there are autistics.
I’m not talking about not caring about other people, I’m talking about an elevated pre occupation with the self, that gets in the way of so called ‘normal’ living. It has nothing to do with not caring about others and everything to do with the brain, not people, not value judgements, plain and simple neurological differences. But thanks for your response. I really appreciate it. It does help and I will read it several times and process and absorb it.
I don’t ‘want’ to help others though, I just do, I can’t not, because that’s the way I’m wired up as well, but I’m still autistic. I am still what autism described as self obsessed. I’ll get the link to the article I linked in another thread and post it here (when I get to my computer) and see if that makes it any clearer, if you get any time to read it. I don’t expect you too of course, but I would love some input from other autistic people on this to help me process and understand it. But thank you, for your input, it has really helped
It seems like people are more interested in the ‘connotations’ of the words where as I tend to take things literally and don’t add value judgements to words or people’s actions etc, so maybe that’s why I’m able to talk about such things without the seeming emotional attachment or whatever it is that people are having with these words. To me, it’s not a bad thing to be selfish, not in the least, so that’s maybe why I look at it differently. I don’t tend to add value judgements to words or people.
And why do you think an addict, getting his fix, is any more selfish than a man with no legs wanting a wheelchair?