Published on 12, July, 2020
I was diagnosed with Aspergers a few weeks ago (at 40 years old). During the assessment I was amazed when the specialist explained how most NTs would have answered the questions and how different that is from how I think. The adaptive strategies we develop allow us to pass as NT but the thought processes behind the actions are so different! I recently read that NTs typically maintain eye contact 50 - 70% of the time during conversation and this blew my mind. I am really interested to hear other people's thoughts and experiences of atypyical thinking in social contexts. I'm planning to get some specialist counselling to help me think through it all but I'd love to hear other lived experiences. Thanks!
Hi Jen
I might sound really harsh on this one - I've done a lot of analysis on the subject.
I'd say the biggest difference is their ability to lie.
The entire NT culture is based around status so they continually lie to promote themselves (eg. Facebook). It's mostly small stuff - exaggeration - but it's constant and pervasive. From signing out from work 5 mins early to avoid traffic to making promises to appease but with no intention of follow-through.
It means you're actually never dealing with the true person - you're interfacing with their surface web of lies - so your version/impression of that person is different to another person's view of them depending on which lies have been spun to which people.
It does my head in.
Your spot on in my opinion. I think they have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT world view to us. I don't know if they are all like that as I have NT relatives who seem pretty decent (maybe I don't see how they are with others? ) but in general that's fairly accurate. They are constantly in that game. On of the biggest things I notice of all is the level of twofacedness (I think this is a diagnostic trait of an NT person :) ) It seems second nature to them. They enjoy that. Thats one of the reasons I'm grateful to be autistic.