You know, it’s strange how very disorganised an NT persons thought processes can be, or that’s how they used to appear to me. Now I know I just think differently. At university a number of people commented on my very clear and easy to read style of writing and the logical way I put forward my arguments. My essays always followed a very structured logical argument.
This though, is the only way I can write. I’d love to be able to write with a more carefree or loose style. I’d love to be able to write like Virginia Woolf, the way she wanders about between events that sometimes don’t even appear to be related and yet are.
When I was a film studies student we had to read lots of theoretical essays. Even though they were writing non-fiction, the style of these writers was very vague. They would jump around their subject and I found myself going back to certain passages to check what I’d just read. Sometimes I felt I was having to build the argument myself, other times I doubted there was one. Theses writers were explaining complicated ideas in a very complicated way. In what other subject would you find that? Even my NT peers would struggled to understand sometimes.
My dependency on logical and structured thought has its disadvantages in everyday life as well. One thing the psychologist recommended is that I go and see the Disability Employment Officer at the job centre. I had just found a job when I went to her. She gave me information on the things I needed to do before I started. This included making a claim for some new clothes to go to work in, getting a bus pass and finding which bus I needed to get. Also we talked about claiming disability allowance. The only problem was all this information was given to me quite randomly as we talked about the job I was starting.
I became very confused trying to put everything she was telling me into some kind of order so I could remember it. I asked her to repeat parts of what she told me, but it didn’t make any more sense. The speed at which people talk doesn’t help either. I tried a different tack and said it would help if this was written down for me. I told them how forgetful I was.
But I don’t think they realised just how confused I was, because they (she had a colleague observing) would begin repeating what they had already said. I think it was probably the third time I asked them to write it down, that her colleague put down some bullet points for me. There wasn’t much detail, but it was something. He wrote down disability allowance and then said ‘you remember where the link was for that?’. I wasn’t sure so he jogged my memory, but I knew I would probably forget these details once I had left.
NT people just think differently to autistic people. When they are explaining something to you, it could some instructions or they might be telling a story, they don‘t always follow a linear sequence. It is like they have a sequence in their mind and they can jump into it at any point and know where they are. The person listening is expected to be able to construct this sequence in their head also. Having a poor working memory I think affects my ability to hold a sequence of multiple events in my mind.
I find listening to people hard work in any case, it requires a lot of concentration. Trying to put what they’re telling me into some kind of logical order that I can remember makes it all so much harder. In a situation such as the one above I would normally just pretend I understood then go away and try and work it out for myself.
Since I’ve been diagnosed I’m trying to act more myself instead trying to act normal, which has meant I’ve started asking more questions and asking people to repeat what they’ve said. I was asking more questions at the meeting with the Disability Officer, but I didn’t come away feeling confident I had remembered everything. What I should have done, was take a pad and a pen and make notes myself. I could then have pieced everything together into a logical order later.
Monday, 11 January 2010
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Repetition and Memory
My memory skills vary for different kinds of information. Facts, like dates and names, are difficult for me to recall and consequently my general knowledge is very poor. I love quizzes but I always do badly at them, or rather the results don’t really reflect my intelligence. People think if you are good at quizzes you must be clever, what it means is you have a good memory for facts.
What I am good at remembering are concepts and theories. This is very useful to me at the moment. Writing a blog like this where I am analysing my behaviour would be very difficult if I didn’t have a good memory for the theories I’ve read and also a good memory of my different behaviours. In this way I am able to apply theory to my behaviour and find the reasons to explain why I do the things I do.
Having a poor memory for facts and a good memory for ideas seems to be contradictory at first. When I am engaged in daily activities, it is usually details I am good at and generalisation I am poor at. So why when these enter my memory is it the other way round?
Something you should know is that memory is a scare commodity for me. I put as little in it as I can. Basically because I don’t trust my memory, I know it lets me down. Sometimes I think this is because so much of my memory is used up doing tasks that other people use their thinking processes to do. An NT person will know the rules governing social interaction and use this to guide them, whereas I use past experiences and my memory of other events to guide me. NT people learnt the rules of grammar to be able to speak, whereas I memorised phrases as a child.
I don‘t like people giving me information during conversations because I‘m so forgetful, and I never seem to have a pen and paper when I need it. Emails and texts are good because then I always have something to refer back to. If I know there is somewhere I can go to find the information later then I won’t bother even trying to remember. For example, if I know it is a film someone wants to see then I shall go onto the cinema’s website later to find the details, or jog my memory. If it is a reference for an essay, I shall just try to remember which book it was in.
To remember things I need to have them repeated several times, which can become very frustrating for the person you are speaking to you if you keep asking them to repeat stuff. A fact is a very small thought, forgetting a fact is a bit like losing some change down the sofa, you don’t notice it’s gone. A concept or an idea though, now that’s a big thought and big things are more difficult to loose. Big things seem pass into my memory with much greater ease, there is no need to keep repeating them.
I never thought of thoughts as having a size before, but I suppose they must have. I suppose it’s because we don’t tend to think of thoughts as having an actual physical presence. Any mystic or psychic however will tell you that they do. In which case they must also have a mass or a charge, but I think I need to do some research.
What I am good at remembering are concepts and theories. This is very useful to me at the moment. Writing a blog like this where I am analysing my behaviour would be very difficult if I didn’t have a good memory for the theories I’ve read and also a good memory of my different behaviours. In this way I am able to apply theory to my behaviour and find the reasons to explain why I do the things I do.
Having a poor memory for facts and a good memory for ideas seems to be contradictory at first. When I am engaged in daily activities, it is usually details I am good at and generalisation I am poor at. So why when these enter my memory is it the other way round?
Something you should know is that memory is a scare commodity for me. I put as little in it as I can. Basically because I don’t trust my memory, I know it lets me down. Sometimes I think this is because so much of my memory is used up doing tasks that other people use their thinking processes to do. An NT person will know the rules governing social interaction and use this to guide them, whereas I use past experiences and my memory of other events to guide me. NT people learnt the rules of grammar to be able to speak, whereas I memorised phrases as a child.
I don‘t like people giving me information during conversations because I‘m so forgetful, and I never seem to have a pen and paper when I need it. Emails and texts are good because then I always have something to refer back to. If I know there is somewhere I can go to find the information later then I won’t bother even trying to remember. For example, if I know it is a film someone wants to see then I shall go onto the cinema’s website later to find the details, or jog my memory. If it is a reference for an essay, I shall just try to remember which book it was in.
To remember things I need to have them repeated several times, which can become very frustrating for the person you are speaking to you if you keep asking them to repeat stuff. A fact is a very small thought, forgetting a fact is a bit like losing some change down the sofa, you don’t notice it’s gone. A concept or an idea though, now that’s a big thought and big things are more difficult to loose. Big things seem pass into my memory with much greater ease, there is no need to keep repeating them.
I never thought of thoughts as having a size before, but I suppose they must have. I suppose it’s because we don’t tend to think of thoughts as having an actual physical presence. Any mystic or psychic however will tell you that they do. In which case they must also have a mass or a charge, but I think I need to do some research.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Space
Space like time, is another illusion of our universe. Like events in time, objects in space have a beginning and an end. We live in a world of beginnings and endings, and some people even believe that they have an end, that they will cease to exist when they die. However, our concepts of time and space where created to give us a specific experience that we could learn from.
By giving us lifetimes that have a beginning and an end we are able to learn much more quickly than we would otherwise. Our memories of any other lives we’ve had can be veiled and we can start afresh in a new life. We are given as many opportunities to learn as we need.
Science now tells us that time and space can be warped, and that theoretically it is even possible to travel through time. If this is so, how can anything have a beginning and an end, least of all ourselves?
Space is a concept I find difficult to navigate my way through. I can’t see it. I don’t think in terns of three dimensions. When I’m in a crowded space where there are lots of people I panic. I think everyone is going to walk into each other, including me. I’ve talked about this before. The reason I wanted to bring this up again was an experience I had a few days ago in the supermarket.
As I was entering the store, straight away I saw two people coming my direction. One was coming from my right the other from my left. I tried not to panic. Normally I would increase my pace to move out of the way as speedily as possible, but instead I decided to try and imagine where they would end up if they carried on in a straight line. I could see their paths crossing but this would be just after I had passed them, and that’s what happened. Everything was fine.
Crowds are usually a source of much anxiety for me, but I felt a bit calmer going round the shop that day. I couldn’t keep up this mental imaging though. It takes a lot of mental effort. Especially when I’m also struggling to find my way round the shop in an order that means I can get everything on my list without walking round the whole place ten times.
So shopping is really difficult for two reasons, I’m trying to create a sequence in my mind of the things I need to get, whilst avoiding running into people. I could try to work out the order I get things when I make my list, which would take some of the pressure off. Then I could concentrate on not walking into people.
I think pointing should also come under the category of space. I’ve been doing some more thinking on this point, no pun intended. When I saw those two people coming towards me and I projected their paths, I realised this is the same thing people do when they point to things.
However there is another element to pointing that makes it harder. If the object being pointed at is too far away for me to hold both the hand and the object in my vision, I am stumped. This is because I can’t hold the space occupied by the hand in my mind. As soon as I lose sight of that hand I no longer know where it is in space so I can’t project it’s line. I wonder if this is because I am such a poor visual thinker. Not all autistic people are like this, some autistic people think in pictures. I can only think in words. Maybe visual thinkers don’t have the same problems with navigating crowds and pointing?
I have been monitoring my own pointing. At first I wasn’t sure that I did point, but now I can say that I do. I don’t point to indicate the whereabouts of objects, but I do point to give directions to people. If someone asks me the way I might indicate left or right by pointing. (I’m not good at telling left and right, I have to imagine myself doing the brownie salute first). So there are two uses to pointing, one to indicate an objects position, another as a kind of sign language.
By giving us lifetimes that have a beginning and an end we are able to learn much more quickly than we would otherwise. Our memories of any other lives we’ve had can be veiled and we can start afresh in a new life. We are given as many opportunities to learn as we need.
Science now tells us that time and space can be warped, and that theoretically it is even possible to travel through time. If this is so, how can anything have a beginning and an end, least of all ourselves?
Space is a concept I find difficult to navigate my way through. I can’t see it. I don’t think in terns of three dimensions. When I’m in a crowded space where there are lots of people I panic. I think everyone is going to walk into each other, including me. I’ve talked about this before. The reason I wanted to bring this up again was an experience I had a few days ago in the supermarket.
As I was entering the store, straight away I saw two people coming my direction. One was coming from my right the other from my left. I tried not to panic. Normally I would increase my pace to move out of the way as speedily as possible, but instead I decided to try and imagine where they would end up if they carried on in a straight line. I could see their paths crossing but this would be just after I had passed them, and that’s what happened. Everything was fine.
Crowds are usually a source of much anxiety for me, but I felt a bit calmer going round the shop that day. I couldn’t keep up this mental imaging though. It takes a lot of mental effort. Especially when I’m also struggling to find my way round the shop in an order that means I can get everything on my list without walking round the whole place ten times.
So shopping is really difficult for two reasons, I’m trying to create a sequence in my mind of the things I need to get, whilst avoiding running into people. I could try to work out the order I get things when I make my list, which would take some of the pressure off. Then I could concentrate on not walking into people.
I think pointing should also come under the category of space. I’ve been doing some more thinking on this point, no pun intended. When I saw those two people coming towards me and I projected their paths, I realised this is the same thing people do when they point to things.
However there is another element to pointing that makes it harder. If the object being pointed at is too far away for me to hold both the hand and the object in my vision, I am stumped. This is because I can’t hold the space occupied by the hand in my mind. As soon as I lose sight of that hand I no longer know where it is in space so I can’t project it’s line. I wonder if this is because I am such a poor visual thinker. Not all autistic people are like this, some autistic people think in pictures. I can only think in words. Maybe visual thinkers don’t have the same problems with navigating crowds and pointing?
I have been monitoring my own pointing. At first I wasn’t sure that I did point, but now I can say that I do. I don’t point to indicate the whereabouts of objects, but I do point to give directions to people. If someone asks me the way I might indicate left or right by pointing. (I’m not good at telling left and right, I have to imagine myself doing the brownie salute first). So there are two uses to pointing, one to indicate an objects position, another as a kind of sign language.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Time
I know what it is and I can read a clock. But it’s not something that I am aware of a lot of the time. I am very poor at guessing how long a task will take me and when I am involved in a task, I am not aware of time passing. I often lose track of time in the shower and find I have gone wrinkly before I realise how long I’ve been stood there. I am a great time waster too. I will wonder from room to room picking things up, or just be sitting, messing about on my laptop before I realise it is lunchtime and I haven’t done anything constructive. I don’t like to feel rushed, people have always commented how laid back I am, that’s because I don’t have a clock inside me telling me when to do things.
Why do we separate time into sixes? Sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour and why 24 hours in a day (6 x 4). All our other systems of measurement are decimalised. I have a real difficulty calculating in my head the distance between two points in time. I can work it out if I have a pad and a pencil. But twice this week, today and yesterday I found myself in a tricky situation because I was couldn’t do these calculations with the same lightening speed as other people.
At the clinic yesterday when I went to book an appointment the receptionist told me she had an appointment available at such and such time that afternoon. I wanted to know how much time that meant I would have to wait but I didn’t know what the time was at that moment, so I asked her and she told me. But by then I had forgotten what time she had told me the appointment was. So I asked to repeat this which she did. I was trying to compare the two times in my head. If the time is in round hours that’s fine, but as soon as people start saying twenty to three or ten past two, I’m lost. Luckily she saw I was lost and told me I would have to wait half an hour to see the doctor which I did.
The same thing happened in Boots today when I went to pick up my prescription, only the lady behind the counter wasn’t as nice. She told me the Pharmacist was on her lunch break and would be back at such and such a time and did I want to wait? Only while she was asking me she had taken my prescription off me and was tearing part of it off. I was totally confused., why was she doing this? I had no idea how much time I would have to wait or why she had taken my prescription. She had assumed I was able to work out how long I would have to wait and also assumed that I knew what happens when you take a prescription in. I’ve taken a few in, but there are such large gaps between my visits I have forgotten what happens by the time I go back.
I asked her why she was tearing my prescription, and she asked me again if I wanted to wait. I asked her to repeat the times, which she did. When I said I wasn’t going to wait (I pretended I knew how much time that was) she gave me back the prescription. I stood still for a few moments not sure what to do. In my mind I was thinking she was going to put my prescription on the Pharmacist’s desk so she would have it when she came back from lunch. I assumed this because she was tearing it while she was asking me if I wanted to wait. It took till I had walked out the door (all the while listening to her laughing with her friend about my strange behaviour) that she was just a bossy woman who thought by taking my prescription off me before I had answered her question would mean I would have to wait whether I wanted to or not.
The first example was not so awkward as the second example; in fact the second was quite upsetting. The reason example two was upsetting is because the lady (who was supposed to be assisting me) was doing the classic NT thing of not meaning what she was saying. She didn’t really care if I wanted to wait or not because she had already taken my prescription. Being autistic I didn’t catch onto this till after the conversation, by which time she busy making fun of me to her friend.
The problem in these examples is that I was pretending to be normal. I pretended I could work out how much time I had to wait; I think part of me thought I might actually be able to. If, instead of asking the receptionist or the shop assistant to repeat the time, I had just asked how much time I would have to wait I could have saved myself a lot of embarrassment. I’d also have saved myself some brain power and might have figured out the prescription part instead of standing there looking dumb.
Why do we separate time into sixes? Sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour and why 24 hours in a day (6 x 4). All our other systems of measurement are decimalised. I have a real difficulty calculating in my head the distance between two points in time. I can work it out if I have a pad and a pencil. But twice this week, today and yesterday I found myself in a tricky situation because I was couldn’t do these calculations with the same lightening speed as other people.
At the clinic yesterday when I went to book an appointment the receptionist told me she had an appointment available at such and such time that afternoon. I wanted to know how much time that meant I would have to wait but I didn’t know what the time was at that moment, so I asked her and she told me. But by then I had forgotten what time she had told me the appointment was. So I asked to repeat this which she did. I was trying to compare the two times in my head. If the time is in round hours that’s fine, but as soon as people start saying twenty to three or ten past two, I’m lost. Luckily she saw I was lost and told me I would have to wait half an hour to see the doctor which I did.
The same thing happened in Boots today when I went to pick up my prescription, only the lady behind the counter wasn’t as nice. She told me the Pharmacist was on her lunch break and would be back at such and such a time and did I want to wait? Only while she was asking me she had taken my prescription off me and was tearing part of it off. I was totally confused., why was she doing this? I had no idea how much time I would have to wait or why she had taken my prescription. She had assumed I was able to work out how long I would have to wait and also assumed that I knew what happens when you take a prescription in. I’ve taken a few in, but there are such large gaps between my visits I have forgotten what happens by the time I go back.
I asked her why she was tearing my prescription, and she asked me again if I wanted to wait. I asked her to repeat the times, which she did. When I said I wasn’t going to wait (I pretended I knew how much time that was) she gave me back the prescription. I stood still for a few moments not sure what to do. In my mind I was thinking she was going to put my prescription on the Pharmacist’s desk so she would have it when she came back from lunch. I assumed this because she was tearing it while she was asking me if I wanted to wait. It took till I had walked out the door (all the while listening to her laughing with her friend about my strange behaviour) that she was just a bossy woman who thought by taking my prescription off me before I had answered her question would mean I would have to wait whether I wanted to or not.
The first example was not so awkward as the second example; in fact the second was quite upsetting. The reason example two was upsetting is because the lady (who was supposed to be assisting me) was doing the classic NT thing of not meaning what she was saying. She didn’t really care if I wanted to wait or not because she had already taken my prescription. Being autistic I didn’t catch onto this till after the conversation, by which time she busy making fun of me to her friend.
The problem in these examples is that I was pretending to be normal. I pretended I could work out how much time I had to wait; I think part of me thought I might actually be able to. If, instead of asking the receptionist or the shop assistant to repeat the time, I had just asked how much time I would have to wait I could have saved myself a lot of embarrassment. I’d also have saved myself some brain power and might have figured out the prescription part instead of standing there looking dumb.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Copying/Mimicking
NT people often mimic each others behaviour, it’s a way of bonding with someone. If a person wants to show you that they want to be your friend they may copy a mannerism or part of your accent. It all sounds very bizarre to me, as an autistic person. Actually it took me a long time to even notice this behaviour in other people.
Autistic children have very poor copying skills. I’ve also hear T. Grandin say in a talk that autistic children have to be taught to take turns at something. I think copying and turn taking are both essential skills in social interaction.
Last year I had to go and see the Disability Employment Officer my local job centre, not long after I’d got my diagnosis. I didn’t want to go. I don’t like talking about myself as having a disability, I’m better now than I was then because I recognise the advantages of talking about it. But back then I wasn’t used to talking about autism. It’s still a bit a taboo with my family. I would rather we talked about it openly, but they all seem scared to, as if it’s something shameful.
The reason I’m going to tell you this little anecdote is because it illustrates the confusion and misunderstanding created between an autistic person and an NT person when the autistic person does not understand the codes of behaviour in social interaction.
The Disability officer turned out to be a nice, friendly lady and very sympathetic. Unfortunately she didn’t know anything about autism. I tried to explain, but I didn’t communicated what I wanted to say very well as I was too nervous. I dread people asking me to define autism because there are so many different symptoms. How do you sum it up in few sentences? I wish I’d had a leaflet to give her. There must be one out there, or maybe I could try writing one.
Anyway, when I’m nervous or worried I sometimes display this in my face. (It’s one of my few facial expression, that and smiling!). I do it in the hope that the other person will see my uneasiness and offer me some comfort. But it never seemed to work and the other person would just mirror back to me the same expression. I had no idea what was going on. I wasn’t comforted by this reaction, instead I was thinking, what could I have done to make them worried?
So this is what happened during my interview with this lady. Now I know she didn’t mean to upset me, she was very nice, so she could only have done what she did to be nice. I went over in my mind the things NT people do in conversation. I realised that all she was doing was showing me she was friendly by copying my expression. This was one of those eureka moments. I suddenly realised that all the time I’d been feeling rejected, I was simply misunderstanding the other person.
Now I understand this you might think the next step would be for me to adopt the same social techniques, but this would be very difficult for me to do. I’ve said else where that I am really bad at accents; I have difficulty with pronunciation and adding changes in tone and pitch to my voice. Also autistic people don’t use expressive body language, (if they have a mannerism it is probably a disguised stimming practice). Also my range of facial expressions is quite limited, I would never attempt to copy a facial expression without a mirror, I’d have no idea what I was doing otherwise.
The actions that people mimic when they’re talking to each other are either just impossible for an autistic person to copy or feel so unnatural the autistic person will have a very strong aversion. The whole thing would be done very clumsily, probably at the wrong moments, and the other person would either think you were making fun of them or were just some weirdo. But at least now I have an understanding of theses rules so there is now less chance of misunderstandings.
Autistic children have very poor copying skills. I’ve also hear T. Grandin say in a talk that autistic children have to be taught to take turns at something. I think copying and turn taking are both essential skills in social interaction.
Last year I had to go and see the Disability Employment Officer my local job centre, not long after I’d got my diagnosis. I didn’t want to go. I don’t like talking about myself as having a disability, I’m better now than I was then because I recognise the advantages of talking about it. But back then I wasn’t used to talking about autism. It’s still a bit a taboo with my family. I would rather we talked about it openly, but they all seem scared to, as if it’s something shameful.
The reason I’m going to tell you this little anecdote is because it illustrates the confusion and misunderstanding created between an autistic person and an NT person when the autistic person does not understand the codes of behaviour in social interaction.
The Disability officer turned out to be a nice, friendly lady and very sympathetic. Unfortunately she didn’t know anything about autism. I tried to explain, but I didn’t communicated what I wanted to say very well as I was too nervous. I dread people asking me to define autism because there are so many different symptoms. How do you sum it up in few sentences? I wish I’d had a leaflet to give her. There must be one out there, or maybe I could try writing one.
Anyway, when I’m nervous or worried I sometimes display this in my face. (It’s one of my few facial expression, that and smiling!). I do it in the hope that the other person will see my uneasiness and offer me some comfort. But it never seemed to work and the other person would just mirror back to me the same expression. I had no idea what was going on. I wasn’t comforted by this reaction, instead I was thinking, what could I have done to make them worried?
So this is what happened during my interview with this lady. Now I know she didn’t mean to upset me, she was very nice, so she could only have done what she did to be nice. I went over in my mind the things NT people do in conversation. I realised that all she was doing was showing me she was friendly by copying my expression. This was one of those eureka moments. I suddenly realised that all the time I’d been feeling rejected, I was simply misunderstanding the other person.
Now I understand this you might think the next step would be for me to adopt the same social techniques, but this would be very difficult for me to do. I’ve said else where that I am really bad at accents; I have difficulty with pronunciation and adding changes in tone and pitch to my voice. Also autistic people don’t use expressive body language, (if they have a mannerism it is probably a disguised stimming practice). Also my range of facial expressions is quite limited, I would never attempt to copy a facial expression without a mirror, I’d have no idea what I was doing otherwise.
The actions that people mimic when they’re talking to each other are either just impossible for an autistic person to copy or feel so unnatural the autistic person will have a very strong aversion. The whole thing would be done very clumsily, probably at the wrong moments, and the other person would either think you were making fun of them or were just some weirdo. But at least now I have an understanding of theses rules so there is now less chance of misunderstandings.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
The Triad of Impairments - Communication
This includes both verbal and non verbal communication. In this piece I wanted to talk about the written word and the difficulties I have with it. I love writing; I have lots of thoughts throughout the day that I want to write down before I go to bed but there isn’t always enough time. I have three different blogs at the moment. One to record my dreams (I sometimes get useful information from them), my autism blog and another blog on my website which is basically a diary.
Although I love writing, I often struggle with the technicalities, mostly spelling and grammar. I haven’t ever analysed the language I use when I speak but I think if I did it would show the same problems to do with grammar. The good thing about writing of course is that you can edit it afterwards. The process of editing my own writing has been a good experience in that it has highlighted for me the different ways that autistic people use language.
I remember picking up a book my Temple Grandin one in WHSmith; it was about birds. I was really excited as I admire her a lot, also I like birds and now I knew she liked birds too. I read a few pages and noticed straight away the similarities with my own writing. There was an overuse of clichés and a repetition of particular words and phrases (I think this related to problems with grammar). Her sentences didn’t flow; they felt disjointed. I was pretty stunned. I had thought my difficulties with language were peculiar to me (I didn’t know much about autism at the time). Now I realised they weren’t.
In my writing there is the same disjointed feeling. My sentences work on their own, but they don’t fit very well together. There is a rhythm lacking in my written work that is similar to the rhythm lacking in my speech. It sounds jagged and jumpy when you read it. I think that’s what I must sound like when I speak.
I remember a poetry teacher picking me up on this once and telling me I should try using more conjunctives in my writing, which I try to do. I have a list of them on a post-it-note stuck to my laptop. My writing goes through a lot of editing before I consider it finished as I want to make it sound as naturalistic as possible and I think I do a good job, for an autistic person that is.
The second major problem I have language is grammar. I have always found grammar difficult. Fortunately or unfortunately, the only grammar I came across at school was in my French and German lessons. I was mystified but I too embarrassed to put my hand up and ask what words like ‘past participle’ meant. My classmates seemed to have worked out the rules for themselves, or maybe they were getting extra tuition at home.
I don’t seem to have this inbuilt understanding that other people have. I learnt to speak and write by memorising phrases. When I was child I didn’t speak till very late. I’d started speaking by the time I got to school but half the time the teachers couldn’t understand me. Their solution was to give me elocution lessons (it was a private girls school). Really though, I should have been seen by a speech therapist.
My Dad told me that the first sentence he heard me say was ‘Put a sock in it.’. He was driving and me and my sister were in the back of the car. She was talking away, and me, who hardly ever spoke came out with this phrase. My Dad said he cracked up, it was so funny. I find it funny when I think about it, but I doubt I saw the humour at the time. The phrase is one my Dad used a lot, I was just copying him. I think this is how I learnt to speak; by memorising phrases, Which is why it took me longer than if I’d understood the rules. I still do this now as an adult. If I’ve been watching a film or something on television and I hear phrases I like I will repeat them to myself and then excitedly wait for an opportunity to impress people with them.
I think both characteristics of autistic writing (it’s disjointedness and the repetition of words and phrases) are related to the way we use memorised phrases (which we do because grammar is difficult for us). If you are using phrases you’ve memorised to write with then you are bound to end up repeating them. You will have your favourite phrases you use often. Cliches are memorable and you will use them more often than most people because it saves you from trying to phrase something yourself. Your writing won’t flow very well either, it may sound a bit like someone has cut up a magazine and glued sentences together from different articles. However, if you are aware of these issues and you have as good ear for literature I think you should still be able to write something pretty decent.
Although I love writing, I often struggle with the technicalities, mostly spelling and grammar. I haven’t ever analysed the language I use when I speak but I think if I did it would show the same problems to do with grammar. The good thing about writing of course is that you can edit it afterwards. The process of editing my own writing has been a good experience in that it has highlighted for me the different ways that autistic people use language.
I remember picking up a book my Temple Grandin one in WHSmith; it was about birds. I was really excited as I admire her a lot, also I like birds and now I knew she liked birds too. I read a few pages and noticed straight away the similarities with my own writing. There was an overuse of clichés and a repetition of particular words and phrases (I think this related to problems with grammar). Her sentences didn’t flow; they felt disjointed. I was pretty stunned. I had thought my difficulties with language were peculiar to me (I didn’t know much about autism at the time). Now I realised they weren’t.
In my writing there is the same disjointed feeling. My sentences work on their own, but they don’t fit very well together. There is a rhythm lacking in my written work that is similar to the rhythm lacking in my speech. It sounds jagged and jumpy when you read it. I think that’s what I must sound like when I speak.
I remember a poetry teacher picking me up on this once and telling me I should try using more conjunctives in my writing, which I try to do. I have a list of them on a post-it-note stuck to my laptop. My writing goes through a lot of editing before I consider it finished as I want to make it sound as naturalistic as possible and I think I do a good job, for an autistic person that is.
The second major problem I have language is grammar. I have always found grammar difficult. Fortunately or unfortunately, the only grammar I came across at school was in my French and German lessons. I was mystified but I too embarrassed to put my hand up and ask what words like ‘past participle’ meant. My classmates seemed to have worked out the rules for themselves, or maybe they were getting extra tuition at home.
I don’t seem to have this inbuilt understanding that other people have. I learnt to speak and write by memorising phrases. When I was child I didn’t speak till very late. I’d started speaking by the time I got to school but half the time the teachers couldn’t understand me. Their solution was to give me elocution lessons (it was a private girls school). Really though, I should have been seen by a speech therapist.
My Dad told me that the first sentence he heard me say was ‘Put a sock in it.’. He was driving and me and my sister were in the back of the car. She was talking away, and me, who hardly ever spoke came out with this phrase. My Dad said he cracked up, it was so funny. I find it funny when I think about it, but I doubt I saw the humour at the time. The phrase is one my Dad used a lot, I was just copying him. I think this is how I learnt to speak; by memorising phrases, Which is why it took me longer than if I’d understood the rules. I still do this now as an adult. If I’ve been watching a film or something on television and I hear phrases I like I will repeat them to myself and then excitedly wait for an opportunity to impress people with them.
I think both characteristics of autistic writing (it’s disjointedness and the repetition of words and phrases) are related to the way we use memorised phrases (which we do because grammar is difficult for us). If you are using phrases you’ve memorised to write with then you are bound to end up repeating them. You will have your favourite phrases you use often. Cliches are memorable and you will use them more often than most people because it saves you from trying to phrase something yourself. Your writing won’t flow very well either, it may sound a bit like someone has cut up a magazine and glued sentences together from different articles. However, if you are aware of these issues and you have as good ear for literature I think you should still be able to write something pretty decent.
Monday, 4 January 2010
Relationships
I’ve just read Chapter Five of Victoria Bigg’s book ‘Caged in Chaos’. It contains lots of tips to help you improve your social skills. I was really surprised when I got to this chapter. I thought social difficulties were something only autistic people suffered from, but dyspraxic people have these same problems. Also dyspraxic people have the same honest disposition that autistic people have. This made me think the two traits must be linked, then I realised they are actually parts of the same trait. The social function has many filters for adjusting facts to make sure we are acceptable to others. Take away this function and you are left with a very honest person.
The social skills Biggs discusses include; eye contact, being able to detect sarcasm, pronunciation, taking language literally, style of speech, body language, facial expressions, humour, small talk, social etiquette. All things autistic people have problems with. She mentions autistic people and says that we also have these problems but that we seem to prefer being loners anyhow. This made me realise that it wasn’t the lack of social skills that made me anti-social, this is just an obstacle I have to get over when I need to be sociable. There must be something else about autistic people that makes us less desirous of having social interaction.
Then I remembered a short story I wrote for a creative writing class that the teacher had written ‘Relationships?’ in big red letters at the top of it. The story I had written was about a family. Although I had drawn realistic characters and created a plot, I hadn’t shown how the characters got on or what they thought of each other, I had failed to show the relationships between them. I wrote this story three years ago, before I was diagnosed with autism. I had written other short stories before this one, but they had either been about a couple, or people falling in love, or where monologues - basically situations where group dynamics where not an issue. I could talk about one relationship between two persons, but if I was writing about a group I was clueless - worse than that I didn’t even realise I was clueless.
Relationships become much more complicated in a group. It’s no longer just a questions of whether two people share the same interests or get on. I shall give you an example. (This is also to show how much I have learnt since I wrote my above short story!). It is a plot outline for a short story with four people - a single mum with one daughter and two sons:
The daughter is an insecure girl and is afraid son no.1 who is doing better at school than she is will become the favourite sibling. She works hard helping her mother around the house in order to win her affection. Son no.2, sees what is happening and thinks he would like to stir things up a bit more. He begins complaining about son no.1 being lazy and never doing his fair share around the house. The daughter realises she has an ally and joins in. Mother catches on and soon son no.1, through no fault of his own, becomes a victim of bullying in his own home. He becomes very unhappy. Over the space of a year the situation escalates to the point where he takes an overdose of paracetamol. Nobody understands why. The family say he was a loner.
This might sound like a simple example to you if you are NT - but three years ago I wouldn’t have been able to write the above outline because I wasn’t asking the right questions, e.g. how I thought they might react to each other. In my short stories I had been presenting the world from an autistic point of view. My characters were honest, they never tried to manipulate each other and they weren’t constantly having an emotional crisis. Relationships like the ones in my imaginary family, are complicated because people were being manipulative and deceitful, and basically dishonest - although not all to the same degree, dishonesty can range from a little white lie to committing a crime.
Relationships for autistic people are difficult. We often forget people aren’t always going to be honest like ourselves, also our lack of social ability means people misunderstand us and we misunderstand them. We don’t see the complicated relationships that are forming in a group which can also lead to us ’putting our foot in it’. Writing about relationships for me then, is more difficult for me than it is for my NT classmates because I’m not writing from my personal experience as they are but from my observations of other people. They are NT people writing about relationships between NT people. I am an AC person trying to write about relationships between NT people.
Now I can work out relationships between people do it in fiction, I need to apply it to real life. Celebrity Big Brother is on at the moment, it has just started, the celebs went in tonight. There are a few big names in there, people even I recognise and one lesbian rapper I don’t, but she seems nice, like a mini Mel C. I watched the show afterwards were Davina speaks to members of the public and gets their take on the housemates. They showed some of the comments on twitter about BB. People were speculating about who was going to get with who, who will have a fight with who, what roles people were going to play in the house.
I realised that none of these questions had occurred to me. I had simply been watching the housemates go in, and trying to decide whether I thought they were nice people or not and whether I would trust them. I wasn’t thinking in terms of relationships.
I think the key to being able to work out these relationships is about being able to see multiple points of view at the same time. Autistic people, as you’re probably tired of hearing me say, only see from one point of view - their own. Maybe this is why I spend so much time alone. You don’t miss what you never had, i.e. if I don’t have a brain with a social function able to see different points of view I can forget that there is social world out there. I’m pretty much the same person around other people as I am when I’m alone. As I don’t think in terms of relationships I don’t go out looking for them. That’s not to say I don’t get lonely, I still have the desire for human contact, maybe not as often as most NT people but still, it’s there. Which I think is pretty amazing considering the stress it causes me and the countless bad experiences I’ve had.
The social skills Biggs discusses include; eye contact, being able to detect sarcasm, pronunciation, taking language literally, style of speech, body language, facial expressions, humour, small talk, social etiquette. All things autistic people have problems with. She mentions autistic people and says that we also have these problems but that we seem to prefer being loners anyhow. This made me realise that it wasn’t the lack of social skills that made me anti-social, this is just an obstacle I have to get over when I need to be sociable. There must be something else about autistic people that makes us less desirous of having social interaction.
Then I remembered a short story I wrote for a creative writing class that the teacher had written ‘Relationships?’ in big red letters at the top of it. The story I had written was about a family. Although I had drawn realistic characters and created a plot, I hadn’t shown how the characters got on or what they thought of each other, I had failed to show the relationships between them. I wrote this story three years ago, before I was diagnosed with autism. I had written other short stories before this one, but they had either been about a couple, or people falling in love, or where monologues - basically situations where group dynamics where not an issue. I could talk about one relationship between two persons, but if I was writing about a group I was clueless - worse than that I didn’t even realise I was clueless.
Relationships become much more complicated in a group. It’s no longer just a questions of whether two people share the same interests or get on. I shall give you an example. (This is also to show how much I have learnt since I wrote my above short story!). It is a plot outline for a short story with four people - a single mum with one daughter and two sons:
The daughter is an insecure girl and is afraid son no.1 who is doing better at school than she is will become the favourite sibling. She works hard helping her mother around the house in order to win her affection. Son no.2, sees what is happening and thinks he would like to stir things up a bit more. He begins complaining about son no.1 being lazy and never doing his fair share around the house. The daughter realises she has an ally and joins in. Mother catches on and soon son no.1, through no fault of his own, becomes a victim of bullying in his own home. He becomes very unhappy. Over the space of a year the situation escalates to the point where he takes an overdose of paracetamol. Nobody understands why. The family say he was a loner.
This might sound like a simple example to you if you are NT - but three years ago I wouldn’t have been able to write the above outline because I wasn’t asking the right questions, e.g. how I thought they might react to each other. In my short stories I had been presenting the world from an autistic point of view. My characters were honest, they never tried to manipulate each other and they weren’t constantly having an emotional crisis. Relationships like the ones in my imaginary family, are complicated because people were being manipulative and deceitful, and basically dishonest - although not all to the same degree, dishonesty can range from a little white lie to committing a crime.
Relationships for autistic people are difficult. We often forget people aren’t always going to be honest like ourselves, also our lack of social ability means people misunderstand us and we misunderstand them. We don’t see the complicated relationships that are forming in a group which can also lead to us ’putting our foot in it’. Writing about relationships for me then, is more difficult for me than it is for my NT classmates because I’m not writing from my personal experience as they are but from my observations of other people. They are NT people writing about relationships between NT people. I am an AC person trying to write about relationships between NT people.
Now I can work out relationships between people do it in fiction, I need to apply it to real life. Celebrity Big Brother is on at the moment, it has just started, the celebs went in tonight. There are a few big names in there, people even I recognise and one lesbian rapper I don’t, but she seems nice, like a mini Mel C. I watched the show afterwards were Davina speaks to members of the public and gets their take on the housemates. They showed some of the comments on twitter about BB. People were speculating about who was going to get with who, who will have a fight with who, what roles people were going to play in the house.
I realised that none of these questions had occurred to me. I had simply been watching the housemates go in, and trying to decide whether I thought they were nice people or not and whether I would trust them. I wasn’t thinking in terms of relationships.
I think the key to being able to work out these relationships is about being able to see multiple points of view at the same time. Autistic people, as you’re probably tired of hearing me say, only see from one point of view - their own. Maybe this is why I spend so much time alone. You don’t miss what you never had, i.e. if I don’t have a brain with a social function able to see different points of view I can forget that there is social world out there. I’m pretty much the same person around other people as I am when I’m alone. As I don’t think in terms of relationships I don’t go out looking for them. That’s not to say I don’t get lonely, I still have the desire for human contact, maybe not as often as most NT people but still, it’s there. Which I think is pretty amazing considering the stress it causes me and the countless bad experiences I’ve had.
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