Normal is over-rated.

Why can't normal people see past the shallow things like outward appearance/demeanor/stylish clothing and grooming/polished manners and see the deeper value of people as unique individuals?

Why can't normal people understand that an autistic person can't always tell whether they're teasing or criticizing?

Why do neurotypical people expect me to put on a facade to spare their social sensibilities when they won't do a damn thing to spare my sensory integration sensitivities?

Why do normal people think that their neurotypical instincts to lie, manipulate, cover eachothers asses, pretend to feel one thing when they really feel another, are inherently superior ways of relating to the autistic mode of open honesty and raw feelings?

Why can't normal people just tell the truth--just say what they mean and mean what they say?

I despise the little white lies. Why do I deserve to be despised for being unwilling to tell them and unable to detect them?

Why can't normal people believe what I say when I tell them they are not reading my autistic body language/facial expressions/vocal tones correctly?

Say what you mean and mean what you say

I don't get neurotypical extroverts. I have no ability to figure whether people are saying what they're saying because it's true, or because of the effect they think it will have on the people they're saying it to. I can't weigh their sincerity. A statement that the speaker believes, a statement that was what they thought I wanted to hear, and a statement calculated to evoke anger or sorrow or guilt or fear or surprise or delight or agreement in me--they all sound the same to me. I weigh the words. Which means that people who don't say what they mean and mean what they say find me an extremely easy target for manipulation.

What the greasy poo is R-E-S-P-E-C-T anyway?

Top of every list of what wives are supposed to do:

1. Respect your husband

"Notice how it doesn't say "Respect your husband if he has earned it." A man's greatest need in this world is to be respected, and the person he desires that respect from the most is his wife. The trap that we've all been ensnared by is that they only deserve our respect when they earn it. Yes, we want our husbands to make decisions that will ultimately garner our respect, but the truth is that your husband is a human being. A human being who makes mistakes. This is the man that YOU have chosen to walk alongside you for the rest of your life, and to lead your family and he needs to be respected for that quality alone.

Take it from me – when respect is given even when he doesn't deserve it, it will motivate him to earn it. That doesn't mean you pretend that his choices are good ones when they aren't. Things like that still need to be communicated, but you can flesh out your differences WITH RESPECT. It makes all the difference in the world to him."

Nowhere in sight: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THIS RESPECT THING LOOKS LIKE OR HOW IT'S DONE, HOW IT'S SHOWN. NOT. ONE. CLUE.

Respect? I need someone to define that for me and explain how it works. Don't tell me it's something everybody just knows. Don't tell me it's a no-brainer. Don't tell me it's obvious. And please, don't tell me again that it can't be explained, you just intuitively know how to do it. I don't. I have NO INTUITION. I don't really think anyone has ever respected me, so I don't know how to show respect to anyone else. I don't understand the concept, and I would love to have someone give me a working definition that can actually be applied.

Equality doesn't seem to be it; submission doesn't seem to be it; seeking forgiveness when I believe I've screwed up doesn't seem to be it. I don't know what it is. Pretending I accept and agree with harebrained notions seems to be the closest thing to "respect" I've found so far--but that feels untrue.

I know what tolerance is--agreeing to disagree. But is respect "pretending to agree when I really don't to diffuse an argument"? I don't get it. Truth is truth. God's word is God's word. Some minute points of doctrine I can see either way. Some--like One Way: Jesus--are inarguable. So why do some people think that if I say their path to enlightenment will not lead to eternal life, it's intolerably disrespectful?? No matter how gently I try to say it?

The strongest impression I get when someone tries to explain it to me:  Pretend everything someone does is brilliant, perfect and above reproach even if you think it's 100% asinine and will never work. Prop up someone's facade of being the best example of humanity extant. Lie like a rug to protect someone's tarnished reputation. And most of all, smile real purty so everyone will think you're deliriously happy even when you feel like you need to spend a day in bed crying and eating chocolate ice cream.

WHY I DON'T LIKE THE NFL

The Seahawks played against some guys in maroon and gold uniforms. Lots of grown men lining up waiting for a chance to run at eachother and knock eachother down. I've been told it has to do with all the guys in blue and green trying to move a ball in one direction while the guys in maroon and gold try to move it in the other. I never saw any ball. Balls are round. I saw a strange oblong, pointy ended thing for a couple seconds a few times but then everybody tried to jump on it, so I couldn't see it anymore. And then they all jumped on eachother again. It looked like probably some of them got hurt a few times. That must explain why they wear helmets and lots of padding. I also saw guys in black and white stripes throwing yellow hankies around, stopping the game and stopping the clock so many times that a game that theoretically takes an hour to play (four fifteen-minute quarters equals one hour, right?) actually takes nearly four.

If I had a family member or a personal friend on one of these pro sport teams, I would probably care whether or not their team won. These people in the blue and green jerseys, though; I don't think anyone I know would even know their names if they weren't getting paid an unreasonable amount of money to play games a couple times a week. I really don't understand why people would choose to watch that on television when they could instead go to a niece’s dance recital, a cousin's kart race, a sister's choir performance, or a grandchild's school play. Maybe even a nephew's baseball game. But people in my family have consistently placed this group of strangers trying to knock eachother over to try to get possession of an odd-shaped ball, above the hobbies, talents and accomplishments of their own friends and family members. I grew up listening to my dad and brothers screaming at the television, wondering why it mattered, and asking myself why on earth they thought the referee or the quarterback or the wide receiver or whoever heard them.

I don't understand paying grown up men millions or billions of dollars to play ball games, when brilliant doctors who work hard to keep kids healthy enough to play ball games get paid less. I think the farmers who grow our food; the construction workers who build our houses, shops and roads; and the people in the sweat shops who make our clothes deserve a higher paycheck than men who can run fast, throw balls, and tackle other guys. Kids playing games makes sense to me. Paying loads of money to watch grown-ups play games doesn't.

Maybe it's because I'm a bookish, conflict-avoidant, compassionate introvert that my perspective on professional sport is so different from most other people's. Competitive extroverts--like my father, my brothers, my husband-- can be expected to enjoy being amongst a group of noisy happy people who are excited about proving their team's superiority over another's. It's really not my thing. If it works for you and the majority of people in the greater Seattle area, that's awesome. I'll wear my green and blue clothing so my colors will match the fans. It's safer to blend in with fanatics than it is to stick out, after all, and blue and green have always been among my favorite colors anyway. But that doesn't mean I care who wins and who loses. I don't know any of those guys, but I hope they all have fun and don't get hurt. I hope all the fans enjoy watching the game. I also hope that some of the players give a portion of their obscene income to charity so poor kids can grow up healthy and have fun playing sports and ball games while they're young.

Awareness? Awareness PLUS Acceptance, please!

It is not always apparent who in your life is autistic! We're not all Rain Man Raymond Babbitt. We don't all rock, or flap our hands, or talk incessantly, or refuse to speak at all. Some of us learned to speak early, and some very late. Some have savant skills--others don't. Autistics are not all boys, not all children, not all in special education, not all on meds, not all institutionalized. Not even all officially diagnosed. Some have high enough IQ's to have learned enough social skills to blend in--but are still hurt when others reject us for acting weird. When we accidentally hurt your feelings--not realizing or understanding how it happened--we might not know how to make emotional repairs so the friendship can be reconciled. Autistic people come in all ages, all skin colors, all social classes, all family types. Be aware. But don't just be aware; learn to accept!

Aspies and Autistics come in the full range of intelligence, talents and abilities. "Autistic" is not the same thing as "retarded" or "stupid." Please, learn the difference between autistic and retarded. "Retarded" has "low IQ" as part of the definition. People on the Autism Spectrum have a full range of IQ scores, from profoundly retarded autistics who need help with their everyday life functions to geniuses with IQ's around 150 and even higher. Awareness, all by itself, is not enough. Simply being aware includes recognizing dangers that need to be avoided--but autistic people should not be treated as dangerous things to be avoided! No matter how much it may seem that we want to be left alone, Aspies can be hurt by avoidance and rejection. Acceptance, on the other hand, means you understand that there are differences, and the differences are okay. Not bad things that need to be fixed and changed, just unusual things that might mean we both need to adapt and develop coping skills. You (and most of society) are probably just as confusing to that autistic person who drives you crazy as s/he is to you. But for the autistic, every neurotypical person we meet is a struggle to comprehend.

I don't know that I have Asperger's; I haven't been officially diagnosed. But I do score 141 on the Asperger scales, and around 145 on IQ tests. Autistics are not retarded. I can hide my autistic traits most of the time, because my IQ is close to my Asperger's score on the assessment scales. Both pretty high. But if I make faces that don't seem to fit the feelings of the moment--if you're having a lively discussion with a group of people and I look overwhelmed and scared--if I'm hugging the walls of a crowded room instead of forging my way into the middle and getting involved--this is why. What is often misunderstood as lack of empathy in autistic people may actually be our inability to predict what neurotypical people are most likely to do in a given situation. It's always a mystery, a question, a guessing game. When I guess wrong, I don't know how to adjust quickly. If I guessed it would be okay, and what I get looks like a negative response, I often appear angry or frightened, or I might even just "blank out."  What I really am is simply confused beyond the ability to take further action. I think it's due to sensory overload; if there are too many variables in human interaction, I get too overwhelmed to cope with people. ALL people seem spontaneous, unpredictable and capricious to me. Please understand, it isn't because there's something wrong with you, nor does it mean that I don't like you, nor even that I'm trying to control or manipulate you. Try not to take it personally. Just be gentle. I can be like a scared rabbit who just spotted the hounds. But if you'll take just a few seconds to comfort or reassure me, I might get crazy happy and talk your ear off. But I need you to help me to feel like I can trust you.

But if you've hurt me more than a few times--it's hard for me to forget. I don't understand what I did wrong, and I'm afraid I might do it again. Be patient. Be kind. Be loving. I have a lot of love and loyalty I'm ready to give to people who prove they don't want to hurt me for being weird. Weird people can be fun and interesting too. Not dangerous. Just different.

People who think that neurological differences and retardation are the same might be, though. These are the ones who demand that we perform in a way that is natural for everyone else, but decidedly abnormal for an autistic person. That think we need to be controlled, medicated, even institutionalized so that our differences won't disturb the rest of society. But we can learn to cope and to adapt, if people will just take the time and effort to codify neurotypical behavior for us. The unspoken interactions of society are learned instinctively by NT's. Autistic people need them spelled out, explained and reinforced. I'm sure it's frustrating to have to figure out a way to teach things that you learned simply by observing and participating in human interaction. But it is possible to define these "no-brainers" and make a sort of a rule-book for Aspies in the NT world. We just need a little help, a little coaching, a little tutoring, a little training, and most likely a lot of patience. We do learn best by repetition.

Eye Contact

I've read a lot about autism and Asperger's Syndrome over the last ten months or so.

Some written by autistic people about autism, some by neurotypical people and neurologists and psychiatrists about autistic people.

Some of it has been written by autistic people about neurotypical people, and some of us think that all of y'all are very intolerant, very scary, and will never understand us because all you see when you look at autism is broken people who need to be fixed so that we'll fit in.

A lot of the most prominent blogposts and adverts and articles about autism talk about eye contact: how autistic people don't make eye contact unless prompted, how we have to learn to do so, how more eye contact indicates that the therapy is working. um, yay?

No, not really yay. I'm not sure that teaching autistic people that we have to make eye contact is a good thing. It doesn't feel natural.  It's hard for us to discern exactly what kind of eye contact feels natural to the person we're looking at. We don't instinctively know when, how often, how soon to make and how long to maintain eye contact. You might feel it was too brief, and therefore "furtive" (which I think means we seem untrustworthy). You might feel we held eye contact too long, so that it becomes "staring" and therefore unnatural, making you more uncomfortable than you would've been had we not made eye contact in the first place. I'm not sure what making eye contact too soon or too late means. It's a lot easier to find articles that explain autistic people to NT's than it is to find explanations of neurotypical behavior that makes sense to Aspies. It's easier to find literature that explains animal behavior, actually, which may be why so many autistics prefer animals to people. We have books that explain them to us. There are very few books explaining NT's, because it's "normal" and therefore unspoken and understood by those of you who naturally fit in to that majority culture.

But I digress. Eye contact is something that I've thought about a lot since discovering that I'm probably autistic. And I think it's possible that most of the NT theories in neurology, psychology and behavioral science that explain why autistics don't naturally make eye contact are wrong.

Empathy? It's long been theorized that Autistics lack empathy. Not true, I say. I can understand what you're feeling and why you feel that way. I can share your joy, your pain, your excitement, your fear. I'm not as good at knowing what the correct thing to do in response to your strongest emotions is, but that doesn't mean I'm unaware of your feelings or lacking in empathy. Your feelings affect me profoundly--unless I am putting effort into blocking them out so I can concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing.

Alexithymia? Hm. Autistics with general communication disorders usually have that struggle, but they seem to lack words for a lot of other things besides their feelings. I'm actually quite good at talking about my feelings, asking others how they feel, and analyzing the emotions of myself and those around me. Once again, it's not a matter of being unable to understand, describe or share emotional states. It's more a lack of ability to know instinctively how to communicate those feelings, how to cope with those emotions and how to turn them around if they're negative, undesirable or out of place. And probably over-analyzing them because, in the lack of instinctual intuition, analysis is what I'm left with.

No, the reason for autistic lack of eye contact is related to these things, but in the opposite direction of popular theory. When I look into another's eyes, I not only see a little of how they're feeling, I get a sense of a whole bunch of different feelings, and sometimes it hits my mind like a ton of bricks.

Mirror neurons are nerve bundles in the human brain (and apparently primate brains and maybe even canine brains and others as well) that read the faces before our eyes and trigger a mirroring emotional response within us. They seem to function differently in autistic brains than in neurotypical brains, according to studies where technologies like electroencephalograms have been used to map synaptic function under various stimuli.

If other autistic minds function the way mine does, we see more than we are comfortable seeing when we look into your eyes. I see fear, confusion, anger, vengeance, impatience, xenophobia, a smug lack of acceptance, and a whole lot of other things when I look into a person's eyes. Sometimes I get all this from just one person! Along with, sometimes, a few positive happy things like pleasure, recognition, acceptance and a feeling like "maybe this is a person who can do a helpful thing for me." But the positive things are more rare. And maybe, when a neurotypical person makes eye contact, they see those things too. But maybe NT's subconsciously filter the irrelevant emotions and pick out the ones that are actually directed at themselves and the situation? I can't always do that. If I read your emotions in that flicker of eye contact, and they seem to be predominantly negative, I take it personally. I can't help it. I don't know how to relate the emotions I see in your eyes to your experience. I only see you reacting to me, to my attempt to make eye contact with you even though it's hard. I've been told that that's what normal people do. I try it, to try to fit in and see if maybe I act a little more "normal," maybe more people will accept me or like me. But sometimes, the backlash I get of another person's strong emotions flowing out of their minds through their eyes is overwhelming. So my reaction isn't what you would have expected. So I look even more strange to you, and because of xenophobia, you like me a little less.

So avoiding eye contact becomes easier; it's my default, my comfort zone, my coping strategy.

But some people are comfortable to make eye contact with. These are the people in whose eyes I have seen acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, even--dare I say it--unconditional love. These people are few and far between. With some people, I felt like I had that connection once, and then I lost it somehow. I still don't know how. I've read that autistics don't know how to do a thing called "emotional repair" without training. I think this is true. If I knew how to fix the relationships I've broken, I would do it. But with most of them, I'm not even sure what I did that damaged or broke the relationship. Where I do know, all of my tries don't seem to be enough.

Once again, I digress. My bottom line is, eye contact is, indeed, difficult for most autistic people. But probably not for the reasons you think.  Sometimes what I see in the eye contact is so overwhelming, I lose track of the words you're saying to me. I focus on your words--unless I'm looking into your eyes. Your feels are very strong in your eye contact. If my reaction is to appear pained, it's not because I don't like you or don't want to look at you or don't want to communicate with you. It's because either I don't understand your emotions and how they fit into the situation, or I can tell you're having a hard time with your own feelings and I don't know how to help. I want to be able to help. If you'll communicate what you need from me, I will try hard to accommodate you! But I probably won't just know, the way a neurotypical friend might instinctively know. I need to be told. So talk to me with your eyes. But please, add words and gestures, and if we're close enough, add physical touch. A warm hand touching my arm, shoulder or back does me a world of good when I'm floundering in a sea of other people's feels. This is not true of all Autistics--some are negatively triggered by physical touch. But I am greatly helped by it. It also helps if you can tolerate my "staring" or my breaking eye contact too soon and avoiding it while we speak! It doesn't mean I don't want to connect. It just means I connect better with words and physical touch than with eye contact.

Color Blind Aspie Analogy

What if a man was color blind, and his wife told him to go get her uniform shirt every morning. And he would do it, whether because he wants to help her get ready for work quickly or because he just always does what his wife asks him to do.

What if she then proceeded to cuss him out, call him stupid, talk about how any normal person could tell a pink shirt from a green shirt, and then he  reminded her that he’s color blind, not normal-sighted. And she said that was just a lame excuse, he should either try harder, or pray that God would fix his eyes so he could tell the difference between green and pink like normal people do. Every. Wretched. Week.

And instead of just accepting that her husband has a different way of processing color, she accused him of not loving her, of wanting her to lose her job due to wearing the wrong shirt. What if she threw it in his face as a sign that he doesn’t respect her, doesn’t care about her job performance, or was too stupid to understand that it matters what shirt she wears. Would he just ask her to either get her own shirts from the closet, or mindfully put them in order when she hangs them up so he would know that the shirt on the left was the one she needed that morning? Or would he think that meant his wife cares more about what her boss thinks of her than she does about his struggle with color-blindness? Would he feel loved, respected, cared for, empathized with--or hurt and confused and desperate for help?

What if it wasn’t just the shirt thing, but every person he worked with all day long asking him to get something of a certain color for them, and then treating him like an untouchable pariah who isn’t worth being friends with when he tried his damnedest but still guessed wrong—because he can’t tell red from blue or pink from purple? What if people used their shirt color to indicate how they were feeling, or what their social status or rank at work or whatever it is? What if the way he interacted with people depended on what shirt color they were wearing—and he were color blind and didn’t know what color their shirt was without asking somebody who understood that he is color blind and loves him anyway? Do you think it might throw a whole bucket of bolts into his social, work, and other relationships? Do you think he might get in trouble because he didn’t realize that the person he just met was someone he’s supposed to defer to, because the shirt color is supposed to say this is a person in authority, in charge, and must be obeyed or he will lose his job or have to pay a fine or get beaten or go to jail or something?

What if he were put in charge of a project and some days he has to do it alone, and on other days random people are assigned to help him. Now suppose the crew assigned to work with him on any random day expected detailed instructions from him, so they wouldn’t do anything job-related without his direction. He doesn’t know ahead of time if he’s supposed to have help that day. He’s just expected to notice them there on the floor, and tell them what to do. They aren’t color blind, so they can see that his shirt color indicates that he is supposed to instruct them regarding their duties for the day. They aren’t going to seek him out and ask what to do; they’d much rather laze around shooting the breeze. They are wearing shirts whose color would tell a normal person that they need direction and orders from him. But he never told them what to do, because he can’t tell what shirt color they’re wearing. So his project never makes enough progress, and it’s all his fault—just because he’s color-blind. And there’s a STIGMA attached to color-blindness, so instead of helping to cover for his weakness, people just treat him like a horrible rotten unacceptable freak.

What if it isn’t the husband that has this problem, it’s his wife—whom he promised to love unconditionally, to help and comfort and support, for better or for worse. Should he come alongside her and fill in the gaps so she makes those mistakes as infrequently as possible? Should he harp on her for being wrong every time she tries to guess a color from shades of gray? Should he accuse her of all kinds of wrong-doing (like disrespect, lack of love, wilful ignorance, deliberate flouting of societal norms) and call her vile names? What if he tells her continually that if she just tries harder she can learn the difference between the tone of gray that blue looks like to her and the tone of gray that red looks like to her, it’s a no brainer, any three year old can tell red from blue? Should he tell her to just pray that God will heal her eyes so she will be normal instead of color-blind? What if she doesn’t have enough faith that God will do that for her? What if the answer to her prayers for healing is “My grace is sufficient for you. I made you this way, and I will help you through it?” What if every time he is frustrated, disappointed, sad for her or angry at her for making one of these vital color mistakes, he scolds her for it as if it were something she’d chosen to do because she’s just a selfish witch? Would that damage her sense of assurance of his unconditional love?

Autism and Asperger’s are real physiological, neurological differences in the human brain—your Aspie wife needs to be understood. She needs to be accepted. If you can’t do that—if you think it’s a character flaw or a mental disorder that the right expensive therapy can cure, it would have been nice to know that before tying the knot—before she started to rely on you. If you can’t understand and accept the fact that this is how her brain was created, and it isn’t something that is going to miraculously change, don’t tell her you love her. Her definition of love might include accepting the reality of the people you love, their flaws and their needs. It probably also includes the determination to help them. Asking an NT to try to empathize with his Aspie partner is no different than neurotypicals insisting that Aspies should learn to show empathy the NT way. It should be easier. NT’s supposedly empathize intuitively—Aspies need to learn to do it in a way that seems normal and obvious to everyone else. Her brain doesn’t process social data the way yours does, and she needs you to extend some empathy, some comfort and some assurance that you are at least willing to try to understand, to keep her from emotionally hurting—maybe even from having a public meltdown. If there’s anything AsperDragonLady can do to keep him from emotionally hurting, she needs to be told about it. Please don’t expect her to intuitively know. An Aspie can usually tell if someone is hurting. Knowing why, or how (emotional? physical? mental anguish? spiritual agony?), or what to do about it--not so much. Many people on the spectrum will also assume blame for that hurt, and feel it as if it is their own. Please be gentle with your feels. We both feel them.