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How do neurologically typical people feel & experience life?

I'm done with Christmas Cards
over 4 years ago

I know this is pretty futile musing, although maybe some of the more neurologically typical people on here can help! (I shy away from using the term "NT's" because it feels a bit "them and us" to me).

I've found myself wondering, as I'm accepting, exploring and deepening my understanding of my own atypicalness & ASD diagnosis, about what it's like for others.

For every "aha!" moment I have about e.g. noisy restaurants, eye contact, lack of capability / impetus to maintain friendships, exhaustion in social situations, there is a corresponding "What's it like for others?" moment.

So for example, for typical people:

  • How does the world *sound*? Is it muted, filtered by attention etc?
  • How does eye contact *feel* when experienced as something that you *want* to do? Even with strangers?
  • What's it like to be drawn to want to be with a group of other people?
  • What's it like to enjoy a day out with friends, and not be exhausted (except in a tired & content kind of way)?
  • What's it like to be thrilled at the prospect of going out every single evening for days in a row?
  • What's it like to want to ask other people where they went on holiday, and be interested in what they tell you about where they went and what they saw?
  • What's it like to say the opposite of what you mean, because for e.g. you're being polite, and yet know that everyone knows what you actually mean?
  • What's it like to wish that you had more time for travel, seeing family members, more face to face meetings etc?
Parents
  • over 4 years ago

    I can tell you even neurologically typical people struggle with most of those . As a NT person I don't really have any interest in what other people did on their holidays,I'm certainty not thrilled at the prospect of going out several evenings in a row and an constantly exhausted after social events with friends .There are no absolutes for NT people because as the old saying goes we are all on the spectrum.

  • over 4 years ago in reply to NAS64857

    Point upThis... - I think your premise that NTs are 'opposite' to us NAs is flawed and as says, some NTs don't enjoy the stuff you list any more than we do.

    FWIW, my musings...

    • How does the world *sound*? Is it muted, filtered by attention etc? It just sounds the way it sounds, they are just better able to 'tune in' to sources of interest and/or 'tune out' background noise...
    • How does eye contact *feel* when experienced as something that you *want* to do? Even with strangers? It doesn't feel like anything, but it's absence is noted - like if there was a reassuring background sound (I like the tick of my watch) and it was absent, you'd notice the absence...
    • What's it like to be drawn to want to be with a group of other people? The same as being drawn to a 'special interest' for us I's guess...
    • What's it like to enjoy a day out with friends, and not be exhausted (except in a tired & content kind of way)? The same as for us to enjoy a day of undertaking something we were interested in...
    • What's it like to be thrilled at the prospect of going out every single evening for days in a row? I suspect very few NTs are and the ones that are have some kind of neurological disorder of their own!
    • What's it like to want to ask other people where they went on holiday, and be interested in what they tell you about where they went and what they saw? Most of them them don't - do you 'want' to breathe? No, you do it by reflex... it's just 'social noise' like monkey's grooming each other's fur...
    • What's it like to say the opposite of what you mean, because for e.g. you're being polite, and yet know that everyone knows what you actually mean? They ARE saying what they mean, just they don't say it with the words themselves so as far as their concerned they aren't saying the opposite of what they mean
    • What's it like to wish that you had more time for travel, seeing family members, more face to face meetings etc? Same as wishing you had more time to do anything you couldn't do as much as you wanted due to time constraints...

    I think you're ascribing too much difference to NTs... they're more like us than you think - just 'diluted' and more their interests tend to be 'odd' from our perspective...

    Wink

  • over 4 years ago in reply to Original Prankster
    Original Prankster said:
    some NTs don't enjoy the stuff you list any more than we do.

    For sure. What I was trying to understand was what it might be like for people who *do* enjoy it. Maybe people are right when they say that I think too much. 

Reply Children
  • over 4 years ago in reply to Original Prankster

    Thanks OP - I thought someone would have done it :-)

  • over 4 years ago in reply to Deleted user

    Thank you :-). I think this thread has generated some material that gets me thinking about writing "A guide to NT experience for autistic people" or something (I need to check first if that has already been done).

    I'm really starting to understand the weight of what "Pervasive" means in "Pervasive developmental disorder", and wanting to put some thought into how our personalities grow in and around the branches of the autistic tree at the heart of us. (I used this analogy once before when I saw the leaves of my tree as my mask, which were incinerated in my burnout leaving the bare trunk of autism exposed).

    Perhaps this lays behind why I'm intrigued to find out how it "feels" to be typical, i.e. in order to add even more understanding to my own differences by providing a contrasting picture.

    Like you, I've also suffered suicidal thoughts, basically because the effort & pain of life seems to outweigh the pleasure.

    I stepped down from a minor leadership position shortly after my burnout, and part of what I couldn't cope with was the unending sequence of obligations around events and my behaviours (always on show, acting, self monitoring) and set-piece "kick off meetings" and the like. Like you say, you can't just "not go" even if you're not feeling it, and it comes attached to obligations to "do" lunch and dinner and be convivial in the bar later.

  • over 4 years ago in reply to I'm done with Christmas Cards

    Well I found it helpful anyway.  It's not just about enjoy/ not enjoy but the potentially serious escalations around not enjoying.

    As I have experienced, some of these things drive me to have suicidal thoughts because I am not good at experiencing the effects and the overwhelming feelings.  They are not just preferences and I'm not good at avoiding them either, because the subtleties of handling these preferences are not there. So, taking a social situation , i can spend days beforehand dreading it, the occasion itself in a peak of adrenaline, the day or two after recovering and regretting, and it can feel not just uncomfortable but devastating.  I have been off this forum for a week because I have felt suicidal in the days before and after the office christmas party, but if I had just not gone I would have felt like a coward because I'm a senior person in the office who is expected to chip in towards the bar tab. 

    This last weekend I had a meltdown in a shoe shop (yes I'm a 52 year old well educated lady, that was not a moment of glory).  I just couldn't deal with a situation that started with a small conversation.  Afterwards I spent the rest of the weekend recovering.