I’m a selfish person. I must be – people tell me I am all the time. “You’re so self-centered,” “you need to think about people more.” My own mother said that. I mean the person who raised me thinks I’m a selfish person. She thinks I have a choice in the matter.
Fact is sometimes I’m not even aware about how much I should think about a person. I try my hardest, often after I realise I’ve upset them or insulted them beyond all forgiveness. I’m an honest person and don’t agree that people should hold things in or lie just so we can all better get along. I try my best to not be rude and if I’m actually aware about what I’m thinking about saying could be misinterpreted I’d rather say nothing at all. I’d rather just ignore the whole damn situation.
Most people respond more emotionally to me. I react with heightened and unregulated moods, but I’m for the most part able to analyze my own emotions, re-direct my thinking and choose my words carefully so I don’t hurt people too much. Or I just ignore the situation.
If people still get hurt by my somewhat Vulcanesque response then it’s their problem. I went to a whole lot of effort to not just vent my frustrations at them and I can do no more. I’d like them to completely detach their emotions using kolinahr and come up with the most logical solution to this little dispute that’s only happening because people are letting their emotions get the better of them.
Another thing is that I can get so absorbed in what we in autistic community call a special interest that we can completely be blind to what is happening in the world outside of it. It becomes our whole world and completely takes over our personality. Not in the same way a personality disorder does. It just changes a few characteristics around, like for example I might be playing my Batman video game for hours a day for a week and my hometown might just start looking like Arkham City. Or all I’m capable talking about are Marvel comic books and will relate almost every subject no matter how disconnected it is to it. I’m not even making this up. My whole voice, dress and mannerisms can mimic that of one of my favourite sci-fi characters without any conscious effort on my part.
Those interests become the center of our world and everything else is in the background or puts up a barrier between us getting to spend time on them. They become less important.
If you think this makes me a selfish person then fine, think that. I’ve worked very hard to build my empathic skills and there are still a few gaps. I do eventually get a basic idea of what someone must have been feeling and I learn from that and I try my best to adjust my responses based on that understanding. That’s also called emotional intelligence.
Theory of mind is when a person has a basic idea of what people will be collectively thinking about. All humans follow a pattern of behaviour and I think learning this pattern made it easier for me to gain a better theory of mind. People without autism or social development issues will have this inherit ability from a young age and be able to pick up on the feelings of others more and more as they grow. I wonder if this is where the whole ‘you know what I mean’ statement comes from. Because I have never understood what a person meant when they said it. However, I could tell they got impatient with me if I said I didn’t so I just said yes. Then when my mother said it to me it was more like, ‘come on, YOU know WHAT I MEANNNN!!’
I apologise to my mother for keep using her in examples but I must tell the truth. The truth was I was a very confused child who never quite understood why people got angry with me, and I was mostly scared into changing my behaviour. I may have been responding to what she said with exaggerated emotions when any other child might have not even blinked at her disapproving tone of voice. Bringing this up may help other parents with autistic children properly respond to them. We can’t just be brought up the same way as non-autistic children and there was hardly any education for this twenty years ago. It’s now known that certain words always make us feel threatened; saying ‘no’ is like a slap in the face. You might have well said ‘no, you little retarded monkey. My God, are you so dense. As if I would have said yes. Now go chain yourself back in the attic, you’re an embarrassment to be called my spawn.”
That might have been a slight exaggeration but I just mean we can feel threatened by fairly innocuous responses. When I say ‘no’ myself I utter it under my breath as though it’s a forbidden cursed word to use. I anticipate a challenge and when someone just accepts it I return my sword to its sheath. I still look on like a guard dog lowly growling to give a warning to not come any closer.
Socialising is an agonising business for me. I can’t usually say much after the greeting and if I do it’s an impulsive jumble of the latest subjects that has excited me. I find it difficult to make eye contact and talk at the same time or even at all. It really depends on my mood. If I’m a lot more hyper than usual I’ll probably make too much eye contact and bounce up and down on my heels, and won’t be capable of zipping my lip. My thoughts are even more randomised and it becomes excruciatingly painful to allow pauses in between talking.
I’m usually fine to just chat to people about my interests, or the news, if I’m actually going out and doing something, or my cats, but when someone says something unexpected which my oppositional brain just pegs as a good opportunity to show that I’m an individual with my own opinions, I might end up in the middle of an argument and the other person either gets exasperated and gives up or launches an offensive of their own in which in this passionate moment I will refuse to back down. Sometimes I will be impossibly to convince, even if my opinion is completely ludicrous. And yes, it has been. Basically, when someone is manic they feel like they are in a higher state of enlightenment and everyone else is just too stupid to get it. They’re just being unreasonable and deliberately disagreeing with you, refusing to open their minds up to greater ideas that challenge our conventional ways of thinking, and the laws of physics sometimes. There’s a whole lot more to it but I won’t go into it, and yes, I do become manic. I possibly have been while writing this post.
I can live with the arguments, even though they throw me off what I was going to talk about because I must be prepared for everything. I don’t do well with change. Yes, even such a small change as someone bringing up a topic or responding in such a way I didn’t expect. How dare they!
The social drama is where I really get stuck. It’s when people are angry enough to stop talking to me or having lasting negative feelings toward me. I might have personally insulted them, at least in their mind or I may have just…pissed them off. The only way I know how to get out of it is to explain the situation rationally. “Oh you thought I…no, that’s not what I meant at all,” or “I was acting that way because…” It doesn’t have the desired effect which befuddles me because I’m putting out factual information, without any feelings involved. I think the correct way to do it is say something like ‘man, you’ve been so good at putting up with me. Wow, you are strong to just ignore me and then be a complete passive aggressive bastard. Yes I was wrong and you were right. I suppose if I want things to work out I should just grovel on hand and knee for your forgiveness and essentially lie and say that none of it was your fault and it was all down to me – you know, the one with a goddamned social communication delay. How could I just miss those cues. I mean, it’s not like I’m autistic, or anything.” Woops.
Some sarcasm may have been used in the above paragraph. Oh my God, I can actually do sarcasm! Does this mean I no longer have the autisms?
Sorry. I’m venting.
I’m basically saying that I don’t agree with many social conventions, especially the one where I have to continually stroke a person’s ego just so they like me. I’d rather just go through friendships in a trial and error way. As a child I had no interest to be social, I was pressured into wanting it because people thought it would make me happy. It’s made me see that people are bullies, not willing to listen to reason, you must always agree with them even if you are smarter and think they can control you. That’s not all from one person. I’ve had good times with friends too. Early in my social development my skills were so poor I didn’t want to be more than a drinking buddy with people. But now I operate from a strict ‘Kiss and Make Up’ policy i.e I want to be able to maturely discuss our disagreements and not just go back to pretending everything is normal between us. I grew up having none of that until I moved out and lived with my sister. We apologised to each other and explained why we got so mad in the first place. Now I won’t take anything less. And if people aren’t willing to talk through our problems then I’ll completely close myself to them by not discussing any personal matters. I’ve been hurt so many times before and I’m just not going to risk getting hurt again.
For now, I’m happy to be the lone wolf. My interests keep me occupied and my strong will helps me be a rational person even when deep down my emotions are screaming out to be heard. The whole ‘willpower’ thing I actually borrowed from The Green Lantern film and is not based on any peer reviewed science studies. It basically helps me deal with my emotional responses.
I like having friends. I like having a good time with them but I think for now I’ll just have what I call a superficial relationship with them. The drinking buddy is back. I don’t really want to know someone enough to discover how much they irritate me because almost everyone does.
I know I’m not being willfully selfish. I have autism which means I have a bit of a wonky theory of mind ability and don’t always empathise when I should, but I’m not incapable of it. I feel guilty when I realise when I should have been thinking about another person more and I keep trying to do better. But in order for friendships to work both people have to do their part to let the other know that they care about them at all. You’d think finding someone with the equal amount of mental health problems would make this an almost symbiotic relationship but as it turns out it’s like arguing with yourself. It’s like that evil voice in your head that tells you you’re no good that you try your best to ignore, but when it’s from another person you just feel like giving into it. You’re right, I am selfish. I’m horrible. I care only for myself. So, why do you even like me?
Is there any point for me to keep trying to make friends when I keep being reminded time and time again that I don’t always care about them? Seems pretty unfair to keep putting myself out there when I can’t reciprocate enough emotional understanding they require to actually feel loved.
PDA Rebellion 