Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi All. being new to this autism thing, I am trying to think of ways to describe what it is like.
I have created the below as a first attempt, but I'm rally not sure it gets across the 'feeling' correctly, so I wold appreciate some input.
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What is is like for me to interact with someone?
I would like to describe what it is like when I interact with someone, be they stranger, colleague, family or friend, by use of an analogy.
Imagine please, that you are in the process of learning a language. You have learnt some vocabulary and grammar and perhaps some of the polite ways to structure what you want to say.
You are now visiting the home of someone who speaks that language.
As you walk in you recognize the 'hello' and respond with the required word or phrase ... woo hoo ... first hurdle cleared! :-)
The host then comes up to you and you listen intently, trying to pick out the words you know ... "mkkh wefft like krtds coffee" ... hmm .. there was a 'like' in there and i think 'coffee' ... well, i just walked in to the gathering, so i guess that must be "would you like some coffee?" ... and after working that out you think about the polite way to say "yes please", and you respond accordingly.
The host wanders away and you worry that maybe you got that wrong and they were actually upset and had asked "Dave said you don't like my ... <something that sounds like 'coffee'>?"
Eventually the host comes back with a cup of coffee ... you say 'thanks' with relief that you got it right ...
Every interaction is the same process of straining to pick out the parts you understand, referencing them against what you understand of the social context, and doing you best to collect together the correct words and grammar and what little you understand of the polite ways to phrase things and trying to keep the conversation going without f&%*ing it up entirely ... and never really being sure you are getting any of it correct.
Perhaps a touch silly as an analogy, but the actual situation is worse. Prior to knowing you are autistic, to continue the analogy, it is like you don't even know there are the other words in there that you didn't understand. and not just additional words, but sub-text and tone of voice, idiom ... all sorts of stuff you are simply unaware of. but you see and hear the other people talking and responding, baffled at what is happening and how the can keep it all going, knowing there is something that you don't 'get'. You are straining to keep up which is exhausting, anxious that you will make some social error .. You are watching the process and trying to monitor yourself and your reactions to such an extent that you are just a witness to the interaction, not a participant in it.
You go home exhausted from the effort and wonder whether you seriously f'ed up or not .... going over the conversations over and over and over and over, trying to tease out just a little bit more understanding of what was said.
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Comparing the struggle of speaking a language you barely know, to the ongoing struggle of understanding and correctly responding to body language and facial expressions isn't perfect, but I hope it gives the flavor of the experience.For example; you walk up to someone, you can see a smile and they are waving while looking at you ... You think, it is the first time I have seen them today ... cool, this is a 'happy to see you' greeting, so you think about the correct response in the context of the event and you smile and wave and remember to look them in the eyes while doing so.
Because there is always this interpretation and assessment of what is happening, along with the doubt about what is really happening, and the historical knowledge that there is 'something else' to social interaction that you don't understand, these interactions are never fully emotionally real.
When someone says something to you in you own language, you don't need to analyse it, interpret it against the social context and determine the likely meaning ... you just 'know' it. It is immediately real to you.Social interaction is never emotionally 'real' me.
There have been two instances in my life where i have seen an expression on someone else's face and it has been immediately 'real' to me....
Thoughts? I am struggling to get across the real feeling of being a witness to social interaction, rather than a participant in it .... I hope people know what I mean by that. If anyone has any suggestions how to improve this, please feel free to offer any and all criticism.If i have completely missed that mark, please feel free to say so.
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 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 .