How to explain how i feels to a neuro-typical person

Thanks bats, that seems like a good way to say it when trying to keep it brief.

Actually, another big part of my lack of understanding of the state of the other person comes from the fact that I can focus on one thing at a time, either on me and my feelings, needs, words and self-expression and my part of the discussion OR the other person facial expressions, expectations and feelings. I still don't know how to balance doing both at the same time so I miss lot of details about their expressions because I'm busy forming words or checking my feelings or figuring out "the dance" of the conversation. So I could agree that I also notice the changes in faces only when they get big.

This is how I describe it too. You've given a much more detailed version of it than mine though- I don't have the patience!

I usually just say "Imagine you're in a place where you don't know much of the language, just enough to get by in a few common situations. Being autistic feels like that all the time."

Richard said:

Have you any friends that have ASD ?

I haven't had 'friends' for 10 years or so now.  I have been friendly-ish with wok colleagues, but that is it.  I just cant keep friendships going ... or at least I couldn't when I didn't understand why they were going wrong.   My hope is that, if I can explain the problem well enough, maybe i will be able to maintain .. something.

I can definately relate to that last paragraph , which is why I tend to just keep a small group of friends rather than gathering new ones 

My wife sometimes says 'why don't you want more friends,everyone likes you ?'

And the main  reason is your last paragraph - i just don't want to go through the process over and over again ,and just feel comfortable with the ones I have .

In general life it's not so tough for me as I seem to be able to do the basic chit chat well but anything more than that and I am exhausted with it all if it's somebody new .

Thanks Ree.  I think I need to study more about eyebrows and what they mean! :-)

I am aware that a face needs to get really negative before I 'get it'.  Learnt that the hard way.

Thanks.  I have started to do this. I am trying to come up with a good way to explain to them what it is like for me to help them understand.  It still needs some refinement.

Very accurate description of how my brain works in most social interactions. When I know the person for sometime, I could figure out what they are saying because I have more info about them personally. There preferences, passions and usual expressions so I sort of have more "evidence" to help me to understand what they want. I am very good at masking and it's true that this struggle became part of my socialising experience that I wasn't even aware of it happening anymore. The only thing I knew is that I process slowly and that conversations take me more time to understand and lot of my energy and that I don't like talking. Until the diagnosis, I started to pay attention to my brain processes, how they work and so on.

Facial expressions, well I notice when they change in someone and I notice if they are positive or negative and the rest is more detective work. I start thinking about the last thing I said or did to them and try to figure out what possibly could cause them to change their expressions so suddenly. Again, I collected lot of data about that, meaning that I've learned to recognise some expressions "raised eyebrows means probably something surprised them, tense eyebrows means something bothered them" ext.. the scariest is When they look at me in what looks like evil or upset way without saying anything. I could think about it for days or weeks trying to figure out what that was.

 The better I know the person the easier I could tell because I memorize the expressions with the reactions, and with enough time and closeness to this one person I could actually read them very well, simply because I have put lot of work in memorising how they react to things. 

It's also easier when situations repeat and they do. Meeting a person for the first time and they start asking me questions to learn about who I am and I forget that I am expected to ask them similarly small superficial questions to learn about who they are and I remind myself to do it because I'm interested in actually eventually starting an interesting conversation with the person and actually getting to know them so I have to pass this superficial chitchat first.

I know it can be terribly difficult . For me i just tell people you need to tell me what you are thinking because i do not probably understand any other way really  , which has made it a lot easier for people closer to me and help me understand how they are feeling rather than having to 'read between the lines ' 

I only see the 'big' expressions, big smile, laugh and "bad" - but not what they mean - i guess I just recognise that the face has a certain shape and I then have to work out what it means.  all the subtlety is lost on me.

I don't even know what facial expressions are , and not being able to understand people feelings has always been a struggle for me .

Have you any friends that have ASD ?

I only have one good friend with it but I see him every so often because a lot of the things you are saying he 'just gets it ' we go out for drinks every so often and don't always even talk much at all just sort of exist together and then messsge each other every so often for a meet up - we only ever became friends really because he thought i had it and bluntly said 'you have got it havent you ' (hes a workmate )and i wondered what he was talking about but then we became quite good friends .

A lot of your points ring true for me especially when i was younger , but winging it and pushing myself means the masking now does not seem as difficult as it once was .

hmmm.  I need to add more detail about only seeing the 'big' facial expressions and none of the subtleties around them...