People Who Need People

A post on EA and social interactions and why the two are like water and oil. They can be mixed but eventually they will always separate by Erudite Sister.


Today I wish to discuss my sister and crowds of people. For many of us being around a group of people is hardly a panic inducing, especially when several of them are people we know fairly well. We might not necessarily enjoy the situations in which we find ourselves. I don't like crowds of people and I'd rather be at home with a few people than in some crowded place forced to talk to people I don't know. Neither does my sister. The main difference between the two of us is that I can handle it; she can't.

One such example is the full blown anxiety attack she had at our cousin's wedding several years ago. It was a very nice outdoor wedding at a winery. Granted EA wasn't the only hungry person getting patient for the newly married couple to show up so we could eat. However, she was the only who got physically ill being in an enclosed room with two hundred of her closest strangers.

EA had brought a book to read during the off times during the wedding. The three of us told her to put the book away as it was pretty rude to read at a social function. She didn't exactly agree and became quite agitated when she was eventually forced to put the book away. Erudite Brother tried to reason with her. It was our impression that she was overreacting and being dramatic. EA has been known to be overly dramatic when people just didn't listen to her and see things her way.

Though she is much better at dealing with large groups of people now, at the time she had a very hard time interacting and making small talk with people she doesn't know or know well. What exactly is one supposed to say to the bride's great-aunt who wants to know who you are and how you know her niece? For most of us we put a nice smile and say that we're cousins to the groom and that his mother is our father's sister. We might even say that we don't know the bride well but we've met her a few times and we thought she was quite lovely. We might even make some comment about how lovely the ceremony was and how much we liked the bride's gown and we'd end the conversation by remarking how proud of her niece the aunt must be.

Someone like my sister doesn't get small talk. She would never go up to a complete stranger and just talk to them unless she believed they had something in common. That a complete stranger would come up to her and start talking as if they knew each other is not within her parameters of things that make sense. And so she freezes. She hates small talk, doesn't understand the purpose of it. It's pointless and makes absolutely no sense. And knowing that she is going to be expected to talk to someone's Great Aunt Muriel* about random things is something that is going to cause her a bit of anxiety.

The logical assumption would be that she would feel anxious being around any large group of people, after all, no matter where you go there will always be those instances of small talk. It would also be logical to assume that going somewhere like Disneyland would give an Apsie like EA fits to be surrounded by so many people. The difference is expectation. Different social groups have different expectations.

At our family reunions EA has never had any anxiety attacks. She has a pretty good idea as to who is going to be there and what they expect of her. She knows that her great aunts are going to want to know about her work and love life and she has answers ready for them. She knows that her cousins are going to ask about her job and her love life and she has answers ready for them too. And then she has outs. She knows that she can escape when it gets to be a bit too much. And she does. No one expects her to be front and center all day every day. And if she chooses to sit in a corner and read the day away no one is going to accuse her of being anti-social. Someone might come and talk to her, make her play a game or two of cards but she knows that she can escape.

Similarly when we go somewhere where there are just gads of people, she knows that she doesn't actually have to interact with anyone she doesn't know. She doesn't have to smile and think of witty answers to questions nor does she have to pretend as if she cares about the orange taffeta dress the maid of honor wore that clashed with her red hair. She doesn't have to pretend she noticed that the maid of honor had red hair or that her dress was a summer color when it is obvious the MOH is a winter person. My sister doesn't even know what that means. God bless her.

What I have found to be helpful to my sister in cases where I know that floundering is to take over the conversation. EA has voiced her frustrations in small talk over the years. I have never understood why she can't just make small talk. It's not hard. It's been frustrating for me to understand why she always has a problem with something as simple as small talk. It's pointless conversation that you don't always mean and isn't really important. A concept she also doesn't understand.

But as she is my sister and I love her I have taken to watching her and noticing signs of distress. If I feel that she is at her limit I interject myself into the conversation and take over. I have no problems with commandeering a conversation and doing all the talking. It's easy for me and EA knows that, so long as I am talking she isn't expected to contribute to the conversation.

Again, it all boils down to expectations. If she knows what is expected of her in a conversation or if she knows that she doesn't have to worry about talking too much or too little then she isn't going to be anxious.

To make an Aspie's life easier when going into any social setting, help them know exactly what they are expected to do or say and I am sure that they will be grateful for the assistance.

Heck, your favorite aspie might even begin to expect it.


*Not to be confused with Great Aunt Agnes or anyone who is real or living.

Treatment for Asperger's disorder (the nitty gritty)

Yesterday I was discussing having Asperger's with a group of people, and the topic of medication came up.  The simple question is:  Are there medications specifically designed for treating people with Asperger's?

The simple answer is, no. Autism, no matter where you are on the spectrum, isn't something that can be cured or controlled through medication.  That being said, however, there are many drugs that can be prescribed to treat the symptoms of Asperger's, which are detailed in the excellent Mayo Clinic page on the subject.  SSRIs can be used to help control the repetitive movements as well as help anxiety, for example, and stimulants (much as would be prescribed for ADHD or ADD) can help the Autistic person to remain focused on a task.  I don't take any medication, but my psychiatrist has suggested that I might consider an SSRI and has a prescription for me whenever I might choose to fill it. 

So, how do you treat Asperger's?  Training, training, training, and practice in social skills, behavioral and educational intervention, psychotherapy, and similar treatments that depend on the severity of the symptoms and each individual's manifestation of the disorder.  What it all comes down to is practice, and training, and learning by rote.  We Aspies have to learn to recognize social cues, body language, general diplomatic social mores (this was and still is my particular difficulty) and a myriad of other things with the same difficulty as if learning a foreign language, and this just takes discipline and practice.  It's a tough road to follow, but it is possible.  I did it, with the erudite mom guiding me every step of the way.  Neither of us knew at the time that I had Asperger's or that she was doing exactly the right thing to train me to handle it and to be a productive, educated, and competent individual, but through the grace of God that is exactly what happened.  

Emotions

One of the reasons therapists really REALLY wanted to classify EA as bipolar was because she was so "emotional," and it really does seem like she is. I cannot tell you how many times we--especially the Erudite Brother, who is extremely rational to the point of being rather annoying about it--would tell her to take a deep breath, calm down, and try to think rationally...which she had a very difficult time doing.

It's commonly thought that those on the Autism Spectrum are lacking on the emotional front, at least when it comes to wearing your heart of your sleeve, which our EA definitely does. This is not only NOT true, because they of course do have emotions to varying degrees, it's not what the problem was all along anyway.

EA sees the world from her own unique perspective and has a very hard time seeing it from any other. It's not that she lacks empathy, she has it, but it's limited to what she understands viscerally--at the easy kind of empathy that comes naturally to most moral, ethical people. If she has to learn it by rote because it's beyond that visceral understanding, she has a harder time recognizing it in others, and finds it utterly impossible to replicate it in herself.

I've come to realize that she's not really being emotional, per se, but frustrated. She sees the world entirely through EA glasses, and feels very strongly that she is right about...well, whatever the issue is. If someone doesn't share her unique EA vision about the right thing to do in any given situation, she gets extremely agitated because for pete's sake, can't that other person see that she's right and they aren't? Since she sees the world in black and white she has never understood why she couldn't just tell the other person what they were doing wrong--with many disastrous results growing up, especially in her teens. Once she got worked up about any aspect of this she'd get distraught, and it took me hours--HOURS--to talk her down back to reality. It was exhausting for both of us because she really didn't understand and I could see that she didn't understand, worse, there was no way I could help her understand. It always came down to "Honey, the rest of the world doesn't see it the way you do, and you just don't have any more right to tell people what to do than they have to tell you what to do (and you know much you hate that)."

"But they're wrong," she'd wail, and we'd have to go back to the beginning and start all over again. Did I mention hours? Add to this the unequivocal fact that she's as pigheaded as I am (although not as experienced and I always outlasted her, not that I had much choice, I couldn't leave her like that), it was exhausting, all right. Try as she might, she never understood why this happened over and over again--until now.

She is certainly capable of deep and abiding emotion, and she recognizes it in others when it's something she shares--love, honesty, loyalty, compassion, etc. She's not so good at recognizing emotions she doesn't share, like hatred, distrust, envy, bitterness and the like. This is very endearing in her, but it also gets her in trouble from time to time.

But that's another story for another time from the Erudite Mom.

Erudite Sister

Greetings All!

I'm the sister and from time to time I too shall be logging on and giving my own two cents about what it was like to grow up with an aspie for a sister. Ever since she's been properly diagnosed all of those weird things she's said and done now make a whole world of sense. I have almost 5 years of experience working with kids from first grade to high school who have a wide range of special needs both physically and mentally, which allows me to look back and understand much better why it is my sister behaved or reacted the way she did in certain situations. If only we knew then what we know now. But because the use of Time Turners are heavily monitored by the Bureau of Magic (in the US it's the bureau not ministry), we don't have the ability to turn back time and correct the incidents that have made her life harder. What I hope to do is give little vignettes into our lives as kids and reflect on my reactions and discuss what I did or did not do and what would have been easier on my sister.

Of course, as a kid, when your sister is driving you crazy and you want to drive her crazy right back, you're not about to take her tweaked brain into account. No matter how much you might love her.

Tiny personal triumphs

Happy Sunday everyone--

One of the odd things about being an Aspie is that we tend to easily do things most people find at least a bit challenging, and we are horrible at doing other things most people do as naturally as breathing.

For example, I am practically a speed reader, and I can do it with absolute comprehension of what I am reading (this is not a skill limited to being an Aspie, but it serves as a general example).  I've been able to do this since I was about seven, and it took no extra work or effort on my part to develop this skill. My brain is just wired that way, it is an innate ability.

On the other hand, little things like going to a party and making a business phone call throw me into a tizzy.

So, without further ado, I'd like to share my triumphs over the past week.

• I managed to successfully make a very important business phone call on Thursday--successfully enough that I got the result I was hoping to get out of it.
• I went to a party with a lot of people and managed to A) not go into my normal 'I am totally overwhelmed and need to hide' mode and B) managed to not make a fool of myself.  I think.

I also read a 450 page book in just a few hours but you know...that's the easy part.

Cheers,

EA

PS--if anyone would like to see a post on a specific topic related to to Autism or Asperger's, please leave it in the comments below.

MMR does not cause Autism

Well, parents, breathe a sigh of relief.  The MMR (the Measles, mumps, rubella vaccine given to children), does not cause autism.

I've actually known this for a while, having been interested in the story for many years (way before I had a clue I could be on the Autism Spectrum myself).  I can't help ponder the history of medicine and social health in general...there was a time it was thought being dirty was actually beneficial to health because the dirt stopped any foul vapors from entering into the skin (thanks, Bill Bryson!).  You'd think that with all of our knowledge and technology we'd have progressed past the point of scaring the public with such spurious, misleading. and deliberately panic provoking science...

But I guess not.  :)

HT--Glenn Reynolds.

The glory of electronic communication--AKA, down with telephones

Good evening everyone--

When I first started researching Asperger's and Autism Spectrum disorder, one of the first things I read was that Aspies dislike talking on the telephone, and much prefer email, text messaging, and other forms of electronic communication.  I thought immediately, well, yeah.  That describes me perfectly.  I find being on the phone exhausting, difficult, and I know I don't communicate what I really feel OR understand what people are trying to tell me nearly as well as when I have words in front of my face.  This becomes a real problem when the topic of the phone call relates to important issues--medical, financial, career, etc. Heck, I can't pick up on vocal cues when I am in person, and now I am supposed to do this over the phone?  Added to this, I am a visual learner, and have a hard time absorbing what I don't see.

I know many, MANY people who feel exactly the same way who don't have Asperger's--but pretty much every Aspie I've read or talked to does.  In my case, it is definitely a family trait.  The amazing Erudite Mom is exactly the same way and she is not an Aspie, to give an example.

I am curious--how do you like to communicate?  Do you like both, depending on the situation, and if you have a preference, why?  And if you are like me and have almost a pathological hatred of making or taking phone calls, what do you do to overcome it in those situations you can't avoid that cursed invention of Mr. Bell?

My ulterior motive for writing this post?  Thursday morning I have a phone call interview (not about a job, curses!) of great importance.  I have to do a really good job of getting my point across, and I have to do it on the phone.  I have it written out what I can't forget to say, but... 

I have to admit to being very nervous that I won't do a good job, so any tips and tricks are vastly appreciated by me, and hopefully, other readers of this blog.

Here but for the grace of God go I...

EA