Who wrote the social rule book?

I do tend to see things from another angle much to the tuts and head shakes of others, I call Christmas a Christian holiday for non Christian’s and make comments on how proud Jesus would be to have a chocolate Easter bunny when he comes back. All these holidays and I never understood just why? As a kid you go with the flow but when you are allowed to think more freely none of it makes any sense. Families can get together at any point of the year, why wait for the fat man in red to come down the chimney that’s been bricked up for 50 years. I know I sound like sour grapes but it’s the truth of the situation. 

TheCatWoman said:

it would be interesting to see if only children share more autistic traits than those with siblings, or even if only children are more likely to be autistic

I don't believe so. Bring autistic seems to be something that is determined by the time you are born.

After this having siblings may help you to adapt and mask better, or you may be more overloaded or overlooked, but your brain wiring and sensory issues are different from the outset. 

Does adapting better come at a greater or lesser cost, I don't know. Perhaps fitting in a bit better may help to avoid bullying and associated issues.

I'm not sure my counselling training is much help with this, some might talk about disassociation and stuff like that, but I don't think thats right.

Before I was diagnosed, I wondered if it was to do with being an only child who only played with one other child before school, just shy of my 5th birthday. I still think that has quite a bit to do with it, it would be interesting to see if only children share more autistic traits than those with siblings, or even if only children are more likely to be autistic?

In a nightclub I feel very much a stranger and can only intepret what I see through an almost anthropological lens, I see groups of men on the prowl for sex, I see women who feel mixed about the attention, some wanting it, others not, it feels feral and like I'm not part of it, but watching and commenting internally.

A lot of the time I see people going about their daily business, with friends, family etc, all seeming to move with purpose a purpose I don't really understand, I don't know why it's important to them. Once I came back from a 6 week stay at the retreat house I used to work in and found all the xmas advertising so funny, it was so blatent and obviously cynical, one friend got really put out with me for laughing. Sometimes It's been sheer loneliness thats made me feel like my own ghost, haunting life at the margins when everyone else has loads of things to do peole to be with. It was bad when I was newly single for the first time in 15 years, bank holidays and weekends were really difficult, everyone else seemed to be off playing happy families where I was alone, back in the toy box until Monday. I did eventually come to see this as a societal con, many people were just as unhappy as I was and would love to be alone and not out playing happy families.

I think being around to many people and NT people in particular makes me feel like my own ghost, it's almost like I get thinner, all the questions and unceasing noise, the need to be doing all the time and rarely thinking about what or why they do things.

Stuart333 said:

I see people say they are happy to be on their own and not engage in socialising, yet have a partner and family.

These people have found their own social group then and are getting the "need" satisfied from those few people around them.

I see plenty of people posting on here who have a few people around them who they cannot get along with (often family who are not overly accepting) and are craving finding that group, however large or small, who will give them that connection.

Stuart333 said:

I am not sure your brain can actually take total isolation, autistic or not.

I agree - this is why solitary confinement is such an effective punishment in prisons.

TheCatWoman said:

I've felt lonelier in a crowd that I've ever felt by myself.

With your understanding of the human mind from your training as a counsellor, what do you think is the cause of this? I have my suspicions but lack the formal training you have and would like to hear your thoughts.

If I go to an event, or even a pub or club, I often feel like my own ghost, it's like I'm invisible, I've even had people throw coats over me because they've not seen me. I've been sort of edged off the dance floor, even by my own friends, blokes come and push me out of the way, stand in front of me and cut me out.

People ask me if I want to and do all this again and are surprised when I say no, why would I want to do that to myself? Is it any wonder I have social phobia? What the point of getting all dressed up and screwing up my courage to go somewhere, when the above is the result?

I've felt lonelier in a crowd that I've ever felt by myself. I have my small but loving family and step son and DiL, I have a few friends I walk Fearn with and my animal family who I feel much more comfortable with than my human family. But I do interact with people, living in a small place means I know many shop staff etc so I do have social interaction. But more than this, no not for me.

I could have written that word for word! Trouble is, my wife comes from a family that does like an open door, people popping in and out etc. It does occasionally happen at our house and it never fails to annoy the hell out of me. Her brother just wandered in unannounced the other day and it was all I could do to stop myself asking him who the f**k he thinks he is! Like you I have no interest in making new friends or spending much time with other people. I would use alcohol to get through stuff like that in the past but I am trying to reduce that and live a calmer life.

I’d say I fit into the small circle, have a family and a few friends who I see probably a few times a year. I don’t outright seek friendships with people though, through my work I have met one or two people who are most likely on the spectrum themselves but this arrangement of meeting was by chance and not choice. Looking forward to or being excited about an upcoming social event isn’t something I could even imagine, I’d need a personality transplant. I think for me personally I like control over who’s in my life and when, even if that means isolating myself from most of the world and not experiencing new things. Imagine having people popping in and out of your house all the time like it’s some social hub, hell on earth.

The orange nail varnish thing reminds me of the time someone walked into the room I was sitting in at work, I had never met them before and I just said ‘you have a very squeaky shoe’ but said nothing else. It turned out they were the ward psychologist! Wonder what they made of my observation

Are we talking about the same thing?

I see people say they are happy to be on their own and not engage in socialising, yet have a partner and family. There is emotional support, physical contact, someone to talk to and company available. There may be one or two friends as well. For me this is not really bring on your own, this is just choosing to have a small circle.

Then we have people who live on their own, don't have a partner or close family, no physical contact such as a hug or holding hands, have holidays on their own, if they work are fairly isolated, and also don't socialise. This is being on your own. Just you against the world. This requires a different level of toughness and has more challenges. They may also have emotional challenges due to lack of opportunity and practice in expressing them.

I am in the second bucket. Being alone means not speaking for days. While I might have been an explorer finding new things, In a land of sabre tooth tigers I'd have been eaten. This would not have been a good strategy which is why I think a lot of this is evolutionarily quite recent.

I think few really want to be alone all the time. The desire is for a mixture of space and company, which is normal and healthy. It is how to do it that is the challenge.

I have been isolated once and developed some of the conditions people have in solitary confinement. No matter how much you want to have some quiet time, I am not sure your brain can actually take total isolation, autistic or not.

Of course many autistic people will desperately want to fit in to a social group and have meaningful relationships with other people. Maybe they will do that based on an intrinsic want, or maybe based on societal pressures based around what is "normal".

There are many people though, myself included, that have said right here that they don't "struggle" to maintain relationships because they have little interest in doing so. Who knows what the numbers are overall? I shouldn't think they are vanishingly small though.

I don't see chatting in an online community as having anything at all to do with maintaining a real life relationship.

In my case I have different interests and have done different things, so finding common ground for non-trivial conversations can be hard and somewhat forced.

I also notice things, e.g. a visitor at work today had bright orange nails, but no-one else noticed. They were unmissable.

It can make you interesting to point out things others miss, or it can make you a bit weird.

TheCatWoman said:

Are those people struggling because they really want more friends etc, or because they think they have too?

I think a great many, myself included, really like when a social interaction goes well and we feel a part of it, welcomed, accepted and valued. This is, alas, rare.

For the majority of the time it is mostly "feel like I have to" to feel less different from others and to give myself some sort of feeling of even existing.

The "have to" is often a productof work or family pressures and are the cause of many of our traumas I think.

Are those people struggling because they really want more friends etc, or because they think they have too? I think it's a very fine and difficult line, I think we all want the right sort of people around us, for some that will be 1 or 2, for others that will a couple of dozen

McFrost said:

I see exactly where you are coming from and the language "struggles with" could be more helpfully phrased as "doesn't require" or "see's no worth in".

Thank you. Glad to know it’s not just me who thinks this way. I often feel a strong urge to leave social events early (if somehow I have magically appeared at one) due to wanting to do things that I find interesting. That may be spending time on my own or playing a particular computer game that I cannot stop thinking about. Getting a hit of dopamine or whatever it may be people get from conversing and exchanging their most recent experiences  of daily life just doesn’t appeal to me. 

McFrost said:

the language "struggles with" could be more helpfully phrased as "doesn't require" or "see's no worth in"

While this may be the case for some autists, I do see a great many posts where other autists either want to or need to engage socially so they clearly will fall into the "struggle with" camp.

I think those who are in the "see's no worth in it" camp are far fewer. Those who have suffered trauma around socialising would make up the largest part of this group based on what I have seen as they have developed a coping mechanism of avoiding the thing that caused the trauma.

I'm sure there are some autists who never developed the instinct to want to be part of a pack which is a primal survival instinct, but I have yet to meet one. When you think of it, such a person would be unlikely to reach out to an online community such as this.

I agree the word struggles is unhelpful as it assumes that what we struggle with are things we want to do. I don't struggle with not having many friends and social contacts, I have very few, but thats by choice, I struggle with technology, I'm learning to do cryptic crosswords, that can be a struggle to know what the setter is on about, but then it's in the name cryptic.

I see exactly where you are coming from and the language "struggles with" could be more helpfully phrased as "doesn't require" or "see's no worth in". However, I don't really take it too personally. I have been masking for forty plus years so I have tried to act in this more socially "normal" way, and struggled. Now that I know I am autistic I can, to some extent, let the struggle go.

I see the dramas of people's relationships and the gossiping and the bitching behind people's backs etc and I don't understand it. It's alien to me and I couldn't imagine wanting to get involved in it. I have friends that I have known for a long time but these are more people that I have been thrown together with through circumstance and we have a shared history but I don't have expectations of them and I don't put any work into "nurturing" our relationship, something you occasionally hear of as being something it's necessary to do.

I like word puzzles and I think I am pretty good at them but someone who wasn't good at them would probably have less interest in doing them so wouldn't bother. It would therefore be true to say both that they see no value in them (which is a perfectly valid viewpoint) and that, if and when they do them, they struggle with them.

The language around ND will evolve over time and maybe it will be decided that "struggles with" is not appropriate any more but unfortunately everything non-typical will always be viewed through the prism of what is typical to a large extent and I can't see that changing any time soon.

I know you were just venting a bit so apologies if I have taken you too seriously!

Lotus said:

I would suggest it's not the most highly educated people that set out social norms, it's the most powerful and influential

I would consider who is powerful and influential - to me the social norms are pushed by the groups we find ourselves in - the bunch at work, the group we study with, the people in our interest groups and - of course - our families.

There is a lot of pressure to "fit in" and assimilate into the culture to the point it can be hard to simply stay quiet - not doing what others do is seen as deviance or weakness and should be crushed out of you.

That was certainly my experience growing up and in the first few decades of work until I grew confident enough to stand up to it, but that coincided with my movement to management and that meant the group I now had to deal with were the misfits who actually want to be in control of others and get off on the power play.

That led to a whole new level of problems.

I really don't see authority figures and celebrities having that much influence - they are more there to entertain us or give vague direction and it is those in contact with us all the time who are the unwitting force for this "be one of us" approach.

I would suggest it's not the most highly educated people that set out social norms, it's the most powerful and influential. Originally it would have been the tribal chiefs, later it was royalty and religious leaders, then politicians and now "celebrities" too. As others have said, it's also a species survival thing as it strengthens NT relationships and gives them security.

We are all taught the rules of our society as children, and NTs take this on board with ease. We learn that not behaving in the expected way may lead to being rejected or bullied, so we learn to mask. Most people just see us acting the same way as others and don't know we're masking. Those of us who cannot mask are seen as an exception, which is irrelevant to many people because majority rules.

We are often the "geeks" of society, thinking about stuff that others don't (as I've discussed in my thread about obsessions). But some of the geeks of the world created the technology, computers and internet that the NTs use daily to socialise and make their lives more comfortable and enjoyable. Dr Temple Grandin believes that there wouldn't have been all the technological advances we have without autistic people, and she also claims that the majority of people working in silicon valley are on the spectrum - maybe they have their own society with their own rules.