Life with Aspergers

When I was little, I was always fighting for a little attention. My parents used to tell me to "shut up" constantly but I never understood why.  I didn't understand then why my obsessive discussions about Star Wars and Doctor Who were so annoying to them.  They didn't want to know about the propulsion systems or torpedo systems used in Luke's x-wing fighter or about how the TARDIS's dimensional transcendentalism was achieved. Nope, they just wanted to hear the boring "real-life" stories. I on the other hand didn't want to discuss my "real-life" stories, especially since I used to spend all day dreaming my way out of them.  I didn't want to talk about how I played with nobody or how I took a ball to school and the other kids played with it but excluded me. My fantasy worlds were what kept me going. I soon learned that the best way to be listened to was to talk about real things but make them exciting.  To talk about the endin...

One of those inexplicable myths about adults and children on the spectrum is that we can't lie but I assure you that we can. I've discussed it before (see: Do Aspies Make Good Liars ). There are different types and levels of lying though and my previous discussions focused on deliberate misdirection. Today, I want to talk about embellishment and the embedding of lies in our everyday language.  Everyday Experience Everyone embellishes stuff and it would be a pretty boring world to live in if we didn't. When someone tells us that they saw a rat as big as a cat, we know that it's crap. (That is; the less literal-minded of us, know that it's crap) but we don't point at them and call out "liar!". We accept that it's a nice way of saying (as Sam L Jackson would say; " It was a huge m.....f... of a rat "). We use these lies casually all the time in our everyday conversation;  "It rained all day"   (the whole day, really?)  ...

Don't ask me where I get these topics from (sigh). They usually come up because I read someone's comments about something in a forum and start applying them to myself to see if they fit. The answer is; Amongst People who don't know them very well - NO Amongst Friends - YES. Why is this? There are a lot of social cues that people use to determine whether or not someone is lying. These include; Eye Contact (which aspies have trouble doing) Certain "nervous" body gestures like clasping hands (which aspies do naturally) Differences in vocal tone (which aspies don't vary as much) Facial Tics or twitches (which aspies often have naturally) This means that when someone who doesn't know the aspie well is talking to them, they often interpret the aspie as lying even when they're telling the truth. Conversely, when someone who knows the aspie and their behavior very well is talking to them, they won't be able to use these things as clues. They know that ...