Fighting the world (& generally getting nowhere)

I dont see metaphors literally, but frequently I dont pick up on them. I've found I've developed a spoken and written language as a bag of tricks if you will. When I know what is safe to say I tend to get hooked on phrases. This is one of the things I find most issolating. I'd love to have more charisma and flair. I hate the whole having to get to know someone thing, but If I dont do this people believe I'm significantly less intelligent than I am, probably because of my vocabulary. Very depressing.

My favourite saying is "You can't spend pat's on the back". It seems that NT's like to have there ego's praised a lot. I tend to shy away from praise, infact I hate it. A "thank you" is more than enough for me.

Well on todays "fighting the world & getting nowhere front", I have the intense desire to seek some intellectual stimulation. I infact crave it. I have no idea how this will manifest, but we'll see.

Usually I understand metaphors but the other day someone made a remark about a bag having feet and I'm still trying to work out what she meant.  Logic dictates that bags don't have feet, but I still have this amusing image in my mind.

I also thought of tails under their legs!.

Recently I made a major faux pas at the group I attend. The group leader said that a group member's tongue was 'burning to say something'. I just heard 'burning' and 'tongue' and thought her mouth was on fire, and suddenly felt very anxious until I was put right. It was the way he said it - would not have taken it literally if it was written down.

How people interpret what you say is an inevitable consequence of aspergers. The experts concentrate on our ability to read social situations. But what they seem unable to grasp is that we have trouble with our social inputs.

Oh they think they understand actual "symptoms" they think define aspergers, like cueing into a conversation, talking at people rather than engaging etc. But it is much much more fundamental than that, and until the "experts" realise this we will continue to be misunderstood.

NTs communicate by a combination of linguistics and pragmatics (looks, gestures, intonation, eye contact etc). People on the autistic spectrum cannot control their pragmatics to good effect.

The upshot is you are almost bound to have made the wrong facial expression or the wrong gesture needed to back up what you said, for the understanding of NTs. Communication relies on both language and gesture to convey any one meaning. I'm afraid its down to packs of monkeys - they have limited verbal as such, so facial expression, gesture and look are crucial. Being descended from monkeys our use of language is supplemental to pragmatics, not the other way around.

This is why, I think, people on the spectrum end up with a neutral facial expression, as the safest expression they can develop when trying to communicate.

This creates further problems. We are naturally anxious about the difficulties of conveying what we mean and being understood.

This means we are anxious lest authority, like security services, might misunderstand our intentions, and there's enough evidence of police misunderstanding and mishandling people on the spectrum. A major issue in "leading rewarduing and fulfilling lives" is the number of people on the spectrum inappropriately caught up in the judicial system.

Even though they have been shown that there is no scientific basis, the police still regard people with "shifty eyes" as suspicious and potentially criminal. That does leave the possibility that the police did raid your house because they regarded you as a suspicious person, because of slight AS mannerisms, and when you took in an Irish band, that was sufficient for them to put 2 and 2 together.

I do like your closing metaphor about the police with their tails between their legs. I have this vision now of curly tails somehow unfurling and hanging between their legs. I cannot stop the image.....

What you say makes sense Longman.

I think what most concerns me is that I think of things in a particular way, which the wider world can not comprehend.

So I might buy a book like Mein Kampf because it's interesting. Other people might buy Mein Kampf because they are part of a Neo Nazi organization. Sometimes I've had people fly of the handle for things I've said, but when questioned the people may be upset by an "implication" of what I've said, to which I puzzled as I didn't imply anything to my knowledge. I find that people interperet things inacurately. They give meaning to things that don't have any.

I once let an Irish band sleep at my home as my girlfriend was a music promoter. The police barged into my home with a warrant to search the van, the band was travelling in. They claimed they "could" be Irish terrorist's, they said they'd followed them all around the UK. After searching the van and finding some guitars, a drum kit and some cd's/shirts they left with their tails between legs. 

I think you probably have to be realistic - yes they are watching everybody in so many ways, some of them inconceivable or plain daft.

However they are watching because there are priorities around, and that's what takes up their time. Though some of their priorities are just as daft. I think back to the reports of innocent people going for a walk somewhere who left their car parked anywhere near where they were watching for hunt saboteurs for example (so their number plates went on file). Well hunt saboteurs break the law and damage the property of wealthy landowners, but there are bigger threats to worry about. Hopefully for that reason that kind of silly monitoring has died down.

There's plenty of literature around, on the web and in books about entrapment of peoples suspected of being *** in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Huge resources were expended on this, including building hiding places - being before security video cameras in the main, and whole divisions of police officers engaged in little else. The scale of this voyeuristic monitoring and surveillance suggests that with today's technology they are capable of unthinkable levels of intrusion.

So yes you probably are being checked, but unless you do something to catch attention, its probably a passing eye. A searchlight for example crossing terrain, may allow things to be seen, but only in passing and not doing any harm.

I think you have to do a sort of double think - yes they are watching, but no it doesn't bother me. But I recognise in practice that's hard to sustain. And we constantly hear about some of the things they get up to. But thank goodness we don't have the thought police and reporting networks that some countries have.

Also the lack of attention to the needs of people with disabilities suggests to me they aren't watching us particularly either. Maybe only able bodied people bother them. Now that's a potential miscalculation....