Treat or Torture?

[liveonearth]

To be able to see into other people's worlds.
To not be able to not see into other people's worlds.
Is this a gift or a curse?

It depends on the people around me.
When I am with people whose inner worlds are bright
Their light shines into my world.

Comments

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I certainly get *more* words/info out of my autistic friends in writing than in speech. But there's a lot of content in presence, which words cannot convey...which was the original thought behind this post.

[bobby1933.livejournal.com]

Again, "presence" may have a different significance for a person with autism. "Non verbal communication" is something that despite fifty years of study in psychology, i have never been able to understand. People simply cannot communicate with me "non-verbally," I am more likely to misunderstand the gestures and appearances and "body language" of a person than i am to "get it."

Dianne tells me i am always "ignoring" cues. such a simple question as "who is this i'm talking to?" can be a puzzle. I once failed to recognize my daughter when she walked into a room unexpectedly,

I get a lot of undeserved credit for being a faithful husband simply because i cannot tell when someone is "coming on" to me. Only twice have i felt "chemistry" between me and a person of the other sex. The second time was with Dianne, so i got that right. The first instance was a young woman who was just being a decent, friendly person and i totally misread her as being "romantic."

(Edit) Persons with autism may just find the physical presence of others to be confusing "noise" which impedes more than facilitates understanding.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Yes! And it is probably this autistic inability to fully interpret body language that provoked this discussion, to a degree. For me, people's nonverbal communication is louder (and more honest) than their verbal missives. My perception of people's body language includes that of autistic people, who can really "scream" their discomfort and desire to escape some situations and people. I took a class in nonverbal communication in undergrad school and have actively studied it ever since.....an autistic person could learn parts of it at the cognitive level. Part of the art of reading faces is in the limbic/mammalian brain, and I theorize that autism has to do with poor development in that part of the brain likely related to parental behavior very early in life---precognitive limbic wiring that is different due to experience.

[bobby1933.livejournal.com]

Yes, but maybe they cannot "hear" your screams in return? I have been rewarded by many pleasant on line contacts with other autistic people; but i have never actually observed two autistic people (even very high functioning ones) in face to face communication with each other. I was very late in discovering my own autism so i have never attended an autistic conference. But my guess is that we would find each other very noisy and distracting. I love Temple Grandin, but would i like her?

I have no theory of autism to discuss against yours. it is a mystery to me. Genetic inheritance may play some role, but who knows, it could just be early experience --post- or pre-natal. I am not aware of any blood relatives who are or were autistic (my son? maybe, and i don't communicate will with him at all well. We are like duelists, neither of whom can aim straight.)

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Well my theories are just that, theories. Adjustable with new information or even just new perspective. I notice with my autistic friends that the best thing I can do to keep them comfortable is to remain very still and quiet, and communicate as clearly as possible in nonjudgmental words. I know that they don't understand my body language, so I explain my mood and intentions to remove the mystery. It is an exercise for me in using words for things that I normally expect people to just "get". And it is fine.

[bobby1933.livejournal.com]

The ability to read body language would be very important in closing the gap between autists and neurotypicals, though other skills would probably be more important. All my life i wondered how people seemed to be able to deal with life so easily, I suspected they were having as much difficulty as i was, but they were somehow able to hide it more easily. Autism as a self diagnoses answered many questions about my behavior.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Or maybe you just couldn't read their body language that revealed how much difficulty they were having.... hard to say, not being there to observe.