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How do you communicate to others?

Deleted User

As an autistic person many of us communicate in different ways; and even within the community there will be large heterogeneity / variation in the way we communicate.

I am curious about how hard it is to you to communicate to others in everyday life. At a general level it may make sense to distinguish between close relatives, friends, and strangers.

In my case, I tend to communicate by sharing information (links to articles, thoughts, or proposing a topic to discuss, etc.), and tend to find hard or rather exhausting to do small talk (which is normally most of what people talk, since that's not the purpose of interacting for them.)

It is I think common for autistic people to have intense interests, and some prefer "deep" topics. I don't think I make justice with this description, so hopefully you can complete or just think what it is like for you.

It must be -but I am guessing- quite frustrating when you realise most people -not all- will rather not talk to you given those obsessions, or intensity of discussion of specific topics.

With the internet, a door is opened for discussion to plenty of other humans like us / you. However, I tend to find the internet is frequently unfriendly, aggressive, quite censored, and does not normally tolerate anything that looks "unproductive". I suspect autistic discussions can look like that to many people as well i.e "unproductive".

So, feel free to reply your thoughts, but in case you'd want some concrete questions, here they go:

1. How hard do you find communication with others, by levels (either easy, medium, or hard) , that is:

    * How hard with close relatives?

    * How hard with friends?

    * How hard with strangers?

2. Do you have strategies to make it easier for you, and others, or do you simply have to mask a lot?

3. How hard is it to communicate with others in the internet / instant messaging apps / email etc. ?

4. How frequently do you feel bullied in all those cases (for number 3. above)? Do you apply any strategies besides trying to stay assertive ?

Parents
  • Unknown said:
    How hard do you find communication with others

    I find family and friends easy but strangers are trickier as you never know what they are like beneath the initial interactions. They can be as maladjusted as some autists resulting in unpredictable responses that take some adapting to and a lot of effort to keep from escalating.

    Unknown said:
    Do you have strategies to make it easier for you, and others, or do you simply have to mask a lot?

    I did make small talk and social interaction a special interest a long time ago and learned the rules and techniques to be able to mask effectively into society when I need to. I can recommend this.

    I also learned to stop caring about what other people think. This took the help of a good therapist but I can now dismiss someone who seems hell bent of hurting me an walk away to do something else without blinking.

    Unknown said:
    How hard is it to communicate with others in the internet / instant messaging apps / email etc

    Technically easy but I have to want to do it. The small talk / social interaction books gave me all the tools to read the social cues, work out how to say what I wanted etc but in the end if I cannot be bothered with it then I just leave it.

    As for frequency of bullying, I find there is probably one or two cases a week, mostly on here of all places. It makes it easy to either walk away from it or, if I'm feeling bloody minded, to use logic and reason to fight back.

    In real life it is rare as I'm capable of being physically intimidating and can mask a murderous stare if I want to. Only once has it descended to an altrication that ended very quickly.

    I think being able to not care about what they think of me lets me get off the defensive position and stand up for myself more, not in an agressive way but make it clear I won't take their bull.

Reply
  • Unknown said:
    How hard do you find communication with others

    I find family and friends easy but strangers are trickier as you never know what they are like beneath the initial interactions. They can be as maladjusted as some autists resulting in unpredictable responses that take some adapting to and a lot of effort to keep from escalating.

    Unknown said:
    Do you have strategies to make it easier for you, and others, or do you simply have to mask a lot?

    I did make small talk and social interaction a special interest a long time ago and learned the rules and techniques to be able to mask effectively into society when I need to. I can recommend this.

    I also learned to stop caring about what other people think. This took the help of a good therapist but I can now dismiss someone who seems hell bent of hurting me an walk away to do something else without blinking.

    Unknown said:
    How hard is it to communicate with others in the internet / instant messaging apps / email etc

    Technically easy but I have to want to do it. The small talk / social interaction books gave me all the tools to read the social cues, work out how to say what I wanted etc but in the end if I cannot be bothered with it then I just leave it.

    As for frequency of bullying, I find there is probably one or two cases a week, mostly on here of all places. It makes it easy to either walk away from it or, if I'm feeling bloody minded, to use logic and reason to fight back.

    In real life it is rare as I'm capable of being physically intimidating and can mask a murderous stare if I want to. Only once has it descended to an altrication that ended very quickly.

    I think being able to not care about what they think of me lets me get off the defensive position and stand up for myself more, not in an agressive way but make it clear I won't take their bull.

Children
  • in reply to Iain

    Badly mostly, well Ok a lot of the time, I think my problems is thst I tend to communicate with pretty much everybody the same way. It makes me popular with most of my regular check out people and less so with those who feel they should have special treatment because of their role.

    Most of the random people I meet are when I'm out with my dog and she gives me things to small talk about.

    I don't take any nonsense from people either, I have quite a sharp tongue and a look that manages to inimate all sorts of terrible things could happen. Like Iain, a look is usually enough, also one body language communicates a lot especially in potentially hostile situations.