Published on 12, July, 2020
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:
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.
This... I'm done with Christmas Cards - I think your premise that NTs are 'opposite' to us NAs is flawed and as NAS64857 says, some NTs don't enjoy the stuff you list any more than we do.
FWIW, my musings...
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...
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.
Thanks OP - I thought someone would have done it :-)
"A field guide to Earthlings"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Field-Guide-Earthlings-autistic-neurotypical/dp/0615426190/ref=asc_df_0615426190/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=255746763591&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2066416341720373278&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007259&hvtargid=pla-684728271312&psc=1&th=1&psc=1
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.
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.