Discovery 2 - Let's talk about communication

Pixiefox said:

The difficulties I experience include:

Sometimes speaking too loudly or too fast

Delivering monologues about a favourite topic

Having difficulty interpreting lies, deception & mischief

Sometimes being interpreted as being too blunt or insensitive

Sometimes being unsure whether others have meant to be rude or unkind to me

Having to plan what to say and then replaying it over and over in my head afterwards

Difficulty understanding a verbal message if stressed or upset

Can be distracted  by associations cued by dialogue with others.

Yes.  This is so much me, too.  I often replay over and over something I've said without thinking and which has not elicited the expected response in the person I'm addressing.  Are they offended?  Didn't they understand me properly?  Did they mistake my meaning for something else?  Quite often I've had to resolve the situation by speaking to the person privately the next time I see them to try to explain things, and quite often too this has led to their saying that there wasn't a problem with what I said at all.  I find that dialogue with others can be very distracting which is why I prefer to not speak if I'm driving with someone else in the car or if I'm working with someone, and I realise that this can make me seem 'quiet' or uncommunicative, which I then worry about incessantly.  I always feel that it is incumbent on me to keep a conversation going long after the other person has become bored with it without my realising.  I only realise when they go quiet themselves, or change the subject, or react in some way that I hadn't expected.

I don't know if you saw the article that was flagged up earlier on another thread, but it is very worth reading.  I haven't come across writer Katherine May before, but might have to read her memoir now about the walk she took along the South West Coastal Path after being diagnosed with Asperger's autism and needing time to come to accept that.  It's called 'The Electricity of Every Living Thing'.  Here is a small part of the article that I think is quite relevant to this discussion.  I hope you won't mind if I post it here.

'To an autistic viewer like me, neurotypical life can seem astonishingly unemotional. I’m so overwhelmed by the sensory onslaught of a busy room that I’m almost tearful, while neurotypical folk appear to wade through clouds of sound, light and odour, entirely oblivious. It’s hard to resist the impression that they’re numb, or unreal somehow. They are certainly displaying a lack of affect in the face of extreme provocation. Where I am in constant movement; they are somehow still. During a networking event, I once became so agonised by the itchy label in the back of my dress that I reached behind to pull at it, and felt the fabric tear. I withdrew my hand, ashamed. I had let my mask slip.

I do not spend my time wondering, naively, what’s going on, or questioning the exact, literal meaning of everything neurotypical people say, but, distracted, I lose my words sometimes, or muddle them, or slur. Or else I go into a kind of overdrive, and pour out a barrage of speech that might not be measured, or appropriate, or relevant. As an adult, I have mostly learned to moderate this, but it’s not always effective. Either way – without words, or with too many of them – I see that discreet look that passes between neurotypical people when they’ve decided that you’re odd.

From my end of the conversation, the constant chatter seems colourless and dry. Instead of discussing their driving passions, my companions prefer to gossip about near-strangers, or to compete for airtime at the expense of listening and perhaps learning something useful. They are endlessly obsessed with their status and their identification with their tribe. As the conversation moves on to current affairs, people stumble over themselves to agree with the most influential person at the table. They seem able to assimilate news stories that I find too tragic to digest, and to flip them glibly into humour, finding glee in the kind of interpersonal politics that make the air feel thick to me. To me, their company seems superficial, blunt, emotionless.

If this seems like a terrible generalisation to you, based on a flawed understanding of someone else’s way of perceiving the world, then you’re beginning to get the point. I write these things about neurotypical people knowing that they are not true, because the culture that I’m immersed in tells me so. I am taught by books, films and TV that people have hidden depths, that their reactions do not always portray exactly what they’re feeling; I understand that people’s behaviour can be influenced by a whole range of factors that I know nothing about, and that I should not assume that they are ignorant, or stupid, or defective just because their responses do not match mine. What I ask is that the same courtesy is shown to autistics.'  Katherine May

Pixiefox said:

The difficulties I experience include:

Sometimes speaking too loudly or too fast

Delivering monologues about a favourite topic

Having difficulty interpreting lies, deception & mischief

Sometimes being interpreted as being too blunt or insensitive

Sometimes being unsure whether others have meant to be rude or unkind to me

Having to plan what to say and then replaying it over and over in my head afterwards

Difficulty understanding a verbal message if stressed or upset

Can be distracted  by associations cued by dialogue with others.

Yes.  This is so much me, too.  I often replay over and over something I've said without thinking and which has not elicited the expected response in the person I'm addressing.  Are they offended?  Didn't they understand me properly?  Did they mistake my meaning for something else?  Quite often I've had to resolve the situation by speaking to the person privately the next time I see them to try to explain things, and quite often too this has led to their saying that there wasn't a problem with what I said at all.  I find that dialogue with others can be very distracting which is why I prefer to not speak if I'm driving with someone else in the car or if I'm working with someone, and I realise that this can make me seem 'quiet' or uncommunicative, which I then worry about incessantly.  I always feel that it is incumbent on me to keep a conversation going long after the other person has become bored with it without my realising.  I only realise when they go quiet themselves, or change the subject, or react in some way that I hadn't expected.

I don't know if you saw the article that was flagged up earlier on another thread, but it is very worth reading.  I haven't come across writer Katherine May before, but might have to read her memoir now about the walk she took along the South West Coastal Path after being diagnosed with Asperger's autism and needing time to come to accept that.  It's called 'The Electricity of Every Living Thing'.  Here is a small part of the article that I think is quite relevant to this discussion.  I hope you won't mind if I post it here.

'To an autistic viewer like me, neurotypical life can seem astonishingly unemotional. I’m so overwhelmed by the sensory onslaught of a busy room that I’m almost tearful, while neurotypical folk appear to wade through clouds of sound, light and odour, entirely oblivious. It’s hard to resist the impression that they’re numb, or unreal somehow. They are certainly displaying a lack of affect in the face of extreme provocation. Where I am in constant movement; they are somehow still. During a networking event, I once became so agonised by the itchy label in the back of my dress that I reached behind to pull at it, and felt the fabric tear. I withdrew my hand, ashamed. I had let my mask slip.

I do not spend my time wondering, naively, what’s going on, or questioning the exact, literal meaning of everything neurotypical people say, but, distracted, I lose my words sometimes, or muddle them, or slur. Or else I go into a kind of overdrive, and pour out a barrage of speech that might not be measured, or appropriate, or relevant. As an adult, I have mostly learned to moderate this, but it’s not always effective. Either way – without words, or with too many of them – I see that discreet look that passes between neurotypical people when they’ve decided that you’re odd.

From my end of the conversation, the constant chatter seems colourless and dry. Instead of discussing their driving passions, my companions prefer to gossip about near-strangers, or to compete for airtime at the expense of listening and perhaps learning something useful. They are endlessly obsessed with their status and their identification with their tribe. As the conversation moves on to current affairs, people stumble over themselves to agree with the most influential person at the table. They seem able to assimilate news stories that I find too tragic to digest, and to flip them glibly into humour, finding glee in the kind of interpersonal politics that make the air feel thick to me. To me, their company seems superficial, blunt, emotionless.

If this seems like a terrible generalisation to you, based on a flawed understanding of someone else’s way of perceiving the world, then you’re beginning to get the point. I write these things about neurotypical people knowing that they are not true, because the culture that I’m immersed in tells me so. I am taught by books, films and TV that people have hidden depths, that their reactions do not always portray exactly what they’re feeling; I understand that people’s behaviour can be influenced by a whole range of factors that I know nothing about, and that I should not assume that they are ignorant, or stupid, or defective just because their responses do not match mine. What I ask is that the same courtesy is shown to autistics.'  Katherine May