Wrong Planet

I wrote a piece to try to explain what it's like to be an Aspie and used the example of someone going on holiday, but landing in the wrong country and being stranded there, with no understanding or the language, culture or customs.

I'd agree with this - there's also the tiny time-delay whilst I translate the language in my head that breaks conversation flow and makes people think I'm a bit odd.

I've taken to saying I feel like I'm in another country - I've learned the language and studied the culture so I'm able to function pretty well... but I'm not a native.

This leads to issues where I might understand the words someone speaks but miss the 'real' meaning 'cos within the cultural context it's not the same as the literal meaning of the words.

Equally, I cause offence because (in this hypothetical country) I'll say something innocent like "Your garden is very pretty" and get a slap because I don't know that what that means here is "Are you a prostitute?"...

When I speak in my native language and behave in a way that is normal for 'my country' the natives of my 'adopted' country react like I'm some kind of crazy/rude/intoxicated/weird person.

Translating everything I want to say and interpreting everything I hear from one language to another plus trying to also apply the correct cultural nuances is exhausting...

I'm yet to get a diagnosis but I've started to think that it'll help only in as much as how Sybil Fawlty would explain Manuel's behaviour with a wry "He's from Barcelona..." to understanding nods from whomever she was speaking to.

But along with their understanding nods, there always seemed to be a flicker of pity in their eyes...

Loving gardening and green and wild environments as I do, I feel as though I'm on the right planet. Looking around, there's lots to keep me here, in this life. 

I am maybe in the wrong culture or tribe, though, as something has always felt out of kilter.  Plus it is when my anxiety is triggered, often due to feeling like an awkward outsider, that I've had what I've called the "2-headed alien" experience.  As if I have two pulsating heads on a long stalk and am conspicuously different from others in my surroundings, like a deformed giraffe wandering into a pride of lions.  

Perhaps I've just strayed from my habitat, though, putting myself at risk and, to use my mother's phrase "living on my nerves."  

I'm not sure.  Being fairly recently diagnosed, i wonder whether i will now become more adept at sizing up situations and people and, as they say, "finding my tribe."  And whether this will make a difference. 

I identify as Synth.  I'm certainly not completely human.  I think I'm an early model missing emotional parts and they used the space for technical information - I'm able to do many more things than normal humans - better and faster..

I like the different operating system / algarithm analogy. In the TV series "humans" androids called Synths which looked exactly like humans, but behaved in a more robotic way, had been programmed to be slaves and were being used as housekeepers, nannies etc, but a few became sentient and began living secretly as real humans. Then a human teenage girl hacked into their programming system and made all the other Synths sentient too, and the humans reacted badly as they were scared of them because they no longer had control over them.

Perhaps we're like the sentient Synths, as we behave more according to our nature rather than following human rules. Perhaps some people are a bit scared of us.

I heard it explained this way:

'ASC is not a software glitch, it's a different operating system'

I think of it as a different algorithm.

Just remember that this planet is yours too. You belong right here.

I can relate to Bookworm, Martian Tom and neekby saying about going to clubs purely for the music and beat, and not for pick-ups, as I used to do the same when I was younger.

I'm a Northern Soul fan, and it's been said before about this genre that most of the people who went to the original Northern Soul clubs did so purely to dance, and not to 'pick-up', in fact the latter would be seen as almost disrespectful to the other clubbers - everyone was just there to dance.  It would seem to be a very easy place to understand for an Aspie!  I didn't go to those clubs as I was too young, and not independent enough to be able to find my way across the country to visit the clubs.

Getting lost in the music definitely feels like being on your own planet I think!

Lets give Elon Musk a couple of years and maybe he can take us to the right planet.

I always wanted to be an android ;)  I used to wonder why other children talked as though they lived in a different dimension from me and think they were purposely lying for baffling reasons. I quite liked the 'wrong planet' thing, I have a friend who says she's a Martian, I know what she means.

I don't think it's that we're on the wrong planet. If you were alone in a forest you wouldn't be autistic, or different.

I prefer the analogy that we're like cats, trying to pretend to be dogs. We look like other humans, but were essentially different in our nature.

When I was at primary school, one day when observing the behaviour of some other children, who seemed to behave in an insensitive, uncaring way I wondered if they might be robots, not real children. Androids look like humans but are essentially different. The irony is that we are seen as having less empathy.

I had an account on it at least a decade ago, might see if I can still log in! It seemed to be a bit young for me, but maybe it's changed . . .

M people lol

I nicked the title of the thread from there...

Dancing...

Moving on Up

https://wrongplanet.net/There was an AS bulletin board called wrong planet, used to be quite a lot of discussion of positive identity on it - who knew, it's still there?!

If you were in the 'zone' dancing I doubt you even cared.... I didn't.

When I found my OH liked me it took 2 people to make me realise. Short of that he'd have had to grab me and well make it clear, suck my face literally.

I'd love to do it again but wouldn't have a clue where to go.

I found most people were so pis*ed they wouldn'n't notice anyway...

Those were the days aye.....

And 'penny drop'... looking back, if I'm aspie then that would also go a long way to explaining why I was so terrible at picking up the signs that someone might have been interested... assuming they were... though with hindsight, being a sweat-soaked dancing dervish was probably not sending the right signals... ho ho!

Reading that has just really resonated with my own youth... the times I'd go out clubbing and if the DJ was dropping the right tunes I'd spend the whole night on the dancefloor and come home a sweaty wreck!

I'll still put a tune on with a heavy beat when I'm feeling stressed - I feel like I dissolve into the music and the anxiety just ebbs away...

Get dancing!!!