Life with Aspergers

I was reading an article a few weeks back on the psychological reasons why some marriages last the distance when so many others fail.  It was a brilliant article and it suggested that there were two key traits that successful married couples display; 1. Both partners stay cool calm and collected during conversations 2. Both partners respond to their partner's bids for emotional connection I was thinking about how good this advice was for couples in Asperger's relationships when I suddenly realised that those traits need to operate on a wider scale than simply relationships. These are key traits that affect our interactions with everyone on a day-to-day basis.  Marriage Failures The statistics tell an alarming story on the increasing number of failing marriages. These days, we don't seem to have enough time to even listen to each other properly, let alone work on relationship building. In terms of global statistics, couples in Rome are most likely to stay to...

Of all of the bad things that men do to women, Mansplaining is the one that terrifies me the most on a personal level. This is because I believe that I'm essentially a good person and I'm in control of myself. I know that I can easily avoid most mistakes but mansplaining is different.  It's not so simple to avoid and it is something that sneaks up on me. Sometimes I don't realise that I'm doing it until I'm right in the middle of a conversation -- and then I suddenly feel like I want to run away. Mansplaining is certainly not "an autism spectrum thing" -- it's not even a "man-only" thing. I think however, that being on the spectrum may increase the likelihood of our conversations being interpreted as "mansplaining". I certainly don't mansplain for a "power trip". If and when I do it, it's  usually because I'm so poor at conversation and because I'm partially deaf. Regardless of the reasons, I...

People with ASDs often come across in conversations as very self-obsessed and this is reflected in “Aspie-type” personalities in the media, such as “ Doc Martin ” in the British TV show of the same name and “Sheldon Cooper” from the “ Big Bang Theory ”**. The question is whether this is a reputation that we deserve. It's certainly true that conversations with people with Asperger's can be an “experience” but is this a self-centred superiority complex or simply the way that a bunch of traits appear to others… and if so, what can be done about it? One Sided Conversations  Autistic people with often seem to dominate conversations, turning the topic to things that interest us (our special interests) and then talking until the listeners make their escape.  To an outsider, this appears to be “conversation dominance”. It suggests that the “aspie” is not interested in the opinions and subjects of other people. Autistic people are constantly thinking about their interests and apparentl...

Today (Yesterday for people who live in my timezone) was supposed to be a day of silence on the web. It was supposed to mark (or model?) the concept of people on the spectrum having communication difficulties. It's not working. There's quite a lot of opposition to this idea - here are my thoughts... People with autism are not silent. We do have communication challenges but we overcome them. In fact, computers are one of the best tools for overcoming these challenges and it's amazing how much has been said recently by so many people whom others believed couldn't communicate at all. Why would we want to be silent? Isn't silence a mark of respect for someone who has died? We haven't died. In fact the new-found freedom of the technological age has given us new life. The rapid shift from slow letter writing, to email and then to instant messaging has had the effect of making us louder and giving us a chance to be heard. Not that we couldn't always be heard....

It's funny but I usually don't feel like I get tripped up taking language and expressions literally. Not the way classic aspies do anyway. I'm generally clear about my expressions when I use them both in real life and on this blog. If I decide to use one: for example; "beat around the bush", I'll usually enclose it in inverted commas. Even when talking, if I use an expression, I'll either use a different inflection or I'll draw virtual inverted commas as I use it. So yeah, I like to think that I'm immune to expression problems. Even so, I've had my share of bad ones most notably my "bring a plate" cringeworthy example. I don't think I'll ever recover from that. It was very, very embarrassing. Then of course, there's the time I asked someone how badly they needed to use a toilet because ours was "only for emergencies". My wife, of course loves to remind me of the time I changed a tyre by throwing the old one a...

Last time I started on a four step process to empathy. The steps were; Receive Explore Feel Respond In my last post, I discussed receiving communications. I was actually quite amazed at how many people responded by telling me that they couldn't feel any empathy and how they couldn't process the data. It's worthwhile covering this a little before I move on. Wrapping up Receiving In my first post of this series, I talked about modern society and the way in which time has been taken away from us. It's clear that unless you can find a clear block of time, you'll never be able to feel empathy properly. It's no good being a listener when you're really thinking about other things. If your mind is preoccupied with making lists or thinking about tasks that you need to be doing, you'll never have time to process the signals which come from an empathy discussion. You need a clear head and a clear timetable. You need to simply "give yourself to the spe...

Last time, we looked at all the ways in which modern society conspires against us to reduce the amount and quality of our family time. This time I'm going to start looking at ways to begin building visible empathy. You might find that choice of words a little odd... after all, what is "visible empathy"? It's clear that aspies feel empathy for others - I don't really feel the need to reiterate that. The problems aren't with the ability to feel . The real problems facing people on the spectrum tend to be related to interpretation and demonstration. Or in plain English; How to tell what someone is feeling (indeed how to notice that something is amiss) when they're only using non-verbal language. How to respond in such a manner that your response is understood as an empathetic response rather than a knee-jerk reaction or a flippant remark. Before we begin looking at it from an aspergers/autistic point of view though, we need to first start to define what ...

I just thought I'd draw your attention to this article which appeared on the aspie teacher blog a couple of days ago. How to Prevent the Aspie Ramble http://www.aspieteacher.com/2009/08/how-to-prevent-the-aspie-ramble/ I can really relate to this. It's awful how great conversations turn sour quickly because you discover (in hindsight), that you've been hogging the conversation. The article is really interesting and has some great tips. The only thing I have against it is ... well, why should we prevent the aspie ramble? Why do we have to shut up and go away? Nobody ever wants to play Trivial Pursuit with me - not since I was a teenager, because although I suck at the sports questions, I know enough about everything else to win every time. Even worse, I've got a set of Star Wars questions for Trivial Pursuit which have never been used. Why... because people don't like to talk/play with an expert. So my question is this. If someone comes up out of the blue and o...

Once again, Part three follows on from Parts One and Two . If you haven't read those two, then this post probably won't make a whole lot of sense. Saturday Afternoon We were all asked to come inside and sit around in a big semicircle. Yep, I thought, here comes the "alcoholics anonymous" style forum. Funnily enough though, this time I was ready to share my thoughts. I was feeling positive. Perhaps we were going to read out our letters? Nope. It was time for the leaders to speak as couples. Parenting Issues - The Man's Story There were three sets of leader couples, plus one priest. As we sat there, the first and youngest couple started to speak. They took it in turns to talk, the husband would talk about long hours at work, being tired when he came home and "cactus hour" which started as soon as he walked in the door. He talked about being lumbered with all the children's discipline problems of the day. He talked about how he felt when he walked in t...

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay This post is quite a long and rambling one... my apologies. I haven't been the most supportive husband of late due mainly to two separate incidents, both of which are worth blogging about. I'll cover one incident in this post and hopefully by the time I do my next post, I'll have my head around the second. Talk is Difficult If you read most articles which cover aspie diagnostic criteria, you'll find mention of the difficulties of smalltalk. You could be forgiven for thinking that this means that aspies are hopeless at discussing off-topic things like the weather (except for the surprisingly large number for whom this is a special interest). You might also assume that aspies would be fine when talking on the job or about their special interests. That a computer aspie like myself could talk to lots of people for hours about computers - so long as nobody mentions "the weather". Similarly, you could assume that discussions with ...

It seems that aspie children are well aware of their differences from an early age and that at the very least, this has significant impact on their ability to make and retain lasting friendships. So far however, the long term negative impact has been minimal but during the teenage years, this will begin to change. When I first started at my new "secondary school", quite a large number of my primary school classmates came with me. Unfortunately, since my only friends by that stage were girls and since I was starting at a (then) all boys school, I started off with a lot of familiar names and faces but no friends. The Comedy Act My earliest forays with my classmates were in the form of comedy routines. I had no fear of acting stupid in front of others (aspie naievity) and I would be constantly harrased to perform my "invisible flea circus" act for others. I did this instead of conversation and I quickly earned a reputation for being weird. My new classmates had quickly...

A little while ago, I was asked to explain what the main differences were between aspie and NT Communication, specifically in terms of what each party receives. We're always being told that Aspies miss non-verbal cues and that they're distracted but do aspies actually pick up more or less elements in conversation? Here are a couple of lists for comparison based on a normal office desk conversation. What the NT Gets Voice Facial Expression Verbal Tone Body Language and Posture What the person is wearing Any sufficiently loud or disruptive intrusions What the Aspie Gets The Voice Non-verbals in a single swoop (discussed below) The books on the bookshelf behind the talker Other people in the room The Flashing lights on their hard drive Traffic outside the office Nice (Groovy) Patterns on the person's tie The Logo on their glasses Scuff marks on their shoes The Screen Saver on the PC behind them. It's my belief that aspies generally pick up much more of the surroundings...

I had planned to move away from adult topics for a little while and concentrate on children's issues but the following comment provides such as good opportunity to explain an integral part of the aspie condition that I'll stay with the topic a little longer... If you feel your wife's smile is like the warmth of the radiating sun (what a lucky woman) do you experience the need to show her that you feel that - in the moment, I mean? In one of your answers to the comments in Part 3 you wrote: "I feel that aspies have a greater strength of emotion than many NTs but that we often lack the means to show it (or we're "afraid" to show it). So where does the emotion go? And what is the fear about in showing it? You've really hit the nail on the head here and I realise that I have probably left too much unsaid. As I described in my post, even though aspies aren't all that great at reading facial expression, a simple smile from my wife is enough for her to e...

Introduction I've already highlighted some of the problems that aspies face in the area of touch, though I haven't yet covered the concept of love. The fact is however that most relationships are based on love and that touch plays an important part in those relationships. This post is intended to look at some of the compromises and solutions that AS/NT couples can bring to the relationship in these areas. Defining Love A few years back, my wife and I were asked (separately) how we defined love. The answers we gave weren't the ones we expected. My wife's answers all dealt with tangibles (or at least deliverables), such as hugs, kisses, presents, companionship, outings and commitment. This was in stark contrast to my own answers which were all about feelings and perception. The example I gave was; "when you look at someone and a simple smile from them carries the warmth of the sun. You find yourself basking in the sunshine of their smile and you feel that life can...