Autism at another level.

[Suzette]

@SimonSays
Pre-emptive measure were warrenred as my dog is over 13 and getting frail. To find out if this dog was easy going, by letting nature take its course, would put my dog at unnesessary risk of injury.

But your point of acting too soon is a good one. But being able to predict outcomes is not really intuitive. The need to act is directly proportional to the risk of a nagetive outcome if one doesn't act. Only expeirnce can inform in these cases, but one doesn't allways have enough experience in any given situation to know.

 

[SimonSays]

Pre-emptive measure were warrenred as my dog is over 13 and getting frail. To find out if this dog was easy going, by letting nature take its course, would put my dog at unnesessary risk of injury.

Yes that makes a big difference in why you might feel to say something.

I suppose because my point is more about the idea of acting too soon, it is more a philosophical question rather than a direct response to your chosen way. Knowing your dog the way you do, that missing piece of information changes that particular example.

 

[SimonSays]

But it has got me thinking though. Looking at some of the examples where I have felt a need to say something for what is a reasonable reason, at least to me, only to discover that had I let things just play out, there would have been no need to. In those moments when I'm able to catch myself and wait, when I discover there was no need to say what I would have said, there is a tremendous feeling of achieving a shift in the way that I usually interact with the world. And it is good for me somehow.

It doesn't mean that every single time I always say or don't say it feels right, but the feeling I get when I am able to withhold my words, that essentially reveal what's going on inside me and are not necessarily indicative of the majority of experience of those around me, I feel like I'm more able to participate in a world that for the most part is strange to me.

 

[Suzette]

@SimonSays
I do know what you mean. Many of us feel comfort in trying to arrange and organize our life experiences. Some might say "control" but I think that word is too narrow and, culturaly laden with negative vibe.
If we can let go, if only for a moment, we find outcomes are often to our liking anyway. Sorry this isn't what I really am trying to say but husband is wanting my attentiin and distracting me.

 

[SimonSays]

If we can let go, if only for a moment, we find outcomes are often to our liking anyway.

Exactly.

And in my experience, a reality I could never have imagined. That's the downside of the control idea you mention, because we are used to getting comfort from arranging and organising our lives, we can only imagine what is within our ability to do so.

By essentially confounding that, by withholding that need to control, I allow the possibility of something unexpected to arrive. Something I couldn't have imagined. A reality that I didn't know anything about.

All those different perspectives that I don't get to experience normally, as I only experience what is in here, what I call 'me', to get the chance to see one of them, feels like going outside the box, and there is something very wonderful about going outside the box. As you say, it is only by letting go of what we think we know, that we can allow something that we actually would like to know to come in instead.

 

[Magna]

My main challenges are not that I have urges to say insulting things to people for the sake of being insulting. I would guess most of us don't do that. I don't go around saying: "You're fat.", "You're ugly.", etc.

Instead, my main challenges are wanting to say things that I think are or would be genuinely helpful but are considered inappropriate.

Here's an example I can think of where I refrained from actually saying this, but it was very difficult for me not to:

Some years ago I was talking to a younger man after church. He was married about a year prior and he and his wife were expecting their first child. His wife was past her due date, was extremely pregnant and he mentioned that she was very uncomfortable and was hoping that she'd have already gone into labor because of her discomfort.

I was just about to say the following to the man purely in the interest of helping their situation and in no way did I have any other kind of intention, salacious or otherwise: "I learned from a nurse-midwife once that there are certain prostaglandins in seminal fluid that can help initiate the labor process; you two should have sex because it could actually help your wife go into labor."

Because I didn't tell him that, I actually felt bad and felt like I was withholding information that could have genuinely helped her situation. If I had shared that info though, I know it would have been taken as being inappropriate. To this day, I don't think that information in that context should be considered inappropriate.

 

[SimonSays]

@Magna

I've heard that said before by medical professionals, and been acted upon. You are imparting a piece of knowledge, a fact that in your opinion could help the situation. If you had been a doctor would you have thought twice? Why did you think it would have been inappropriate to tell him this? Because it was after church?

 

[SimonSays]

Instead, my main challenges are wanting to say things that I think are or would be genuinely helpful but are considered inappropriate.

Hmmm...I know exactly what you mean.

So the question is... if you think something would be genuinely helpful, is it your responsibility to be concerned that someone else may consider it inappropriate?

After all, people are affected by the strangest things. Take offence at something genuinely offered. It is not our responsibility to pre-empt someone seeing it that way, only to be who we are and speak our mind. At least in theory.

In practice, it is not so straightforward, because if an unexpected response arrives, I can get quite affected by it. I think the reason is that in the past I have opened myself, felt connected, to who I see this other person as, in order to give them something I believe will help. I must do this objectively so that it doesn't matter what they do with it. If I care that I have helped them, then I am also vulnerable if I do not.

 

[Magna]

@Magna

I've heard that said before by medical professionals, and been acted upon. You are imparting a piece of knowledge, a fact that in your opinion could help the situation. If you had been a doctor would you have thought twice? Why did you think it would have been inappropriate to tell him this? Because it was after church?

I refrained from telling him that information because it was related to something personal and private between he and his wife (ie their sex life). I think sharing genuinely helpful information that in this case happened to be sexual shouldn't be considered inappropriate, but we're unfortunately not in a society in which everyone thinks that way.

 

[SimonSays]

I refrained from telling him that information because it was related to something personal and private between he and his wife (ie their sex life). I think sharing genuinely helpful information that in this case happened to be sexual shouldn't be considered inappropriate, but we're unfortunately not in a society in which everyone thinks that way.

I agree, and I do see your point. But I don't see how revealing that information was crossing the boundary in personal and private issues between him and his wife. I think, as you say, it is just imparting information and there is nothing wrong about doing so in a medical way, it's not salacious.

You may have been right by saying that it may not have been considered appropriate from their perspective, but I would say we need more people like you, and less people like them if they did take offence. I know it's not easy to have something that you've genuinely offered thrown back at you.

 

[_eri_bellehumeur]

Honestly, i would rather a person be honest and blunt. It of course depends on the context and the intent of the delivery, but I think if you're intention is simply efficient communication and you're not trying to belittle, or otherwise upset people it's perfectly fine. Unfortunately, people can misunderstand innocent remarks as something with malicious intent, but in my mind there is nothing wrong with simply clarifying your intention, or asking if you've inadvertently offended them.

 

[Au Naturel]

Speaking your mind is seen as a positive. It does depend on context though. But, as the old saying goes "honesty is the best policy".

Personally I sit on a lot of unspoken truths and thoughts which is all part and parcel of the ongoing mental health issues. I mask a lot, because if I spoke my mind I'd be out of a job and probably lose a lot of friends. I think it's to do with emotional regulation. If I blurted out my thoughts when I was annoyed, it would be catastrophic.

Ed

You and me both. But that's not an autistic trait, it is a human trait.

Nobody has just one face. Everyone has at least 3 faces, the one for public consumption, the one for close friends/family, and the one we never share with the world. There can easily be more. Perhaps a major trait of autism is the inability to separate them?

The same person can be a hard-bitten businessperson, a loving parent, a wild sex animal, and a fuzzy intellectual. Different faces, different behaviors, for different environments. I don't consider that a bad thing. It is useful adaptation.

 

[ForestGumpett]

I have embraced being a a&hole rather than being fake.

I don’t see anything wrong with that either, I can’t stand fake people and people that lie.

The more I’m around people the more I like my dogs.

 

[ForestGumpett]

@SimonSays , that is identical to what my husband would say. I wish I were able to not say anything, but like @Suzette , having dogs I’d want to say something first also and would have been in her shoes I believe. With dogs I have found it is sometimes best to ask first, dog fights are a bad thing.

This is interesting to me. I don't believe your choice of words was too abrupt per se, it was the fact that you felt the need to pre-empt what you imagined could be a problem that gave rise to that whole thing.

What if you had just let your dog come over as you'd simply intended? If there was going to be a problem it would quickly become obvious and then the two of you would work out how best to deal with it. The fact that you felt the need to ask a question that he couldn't really have known the answer to, created the possibility of being so misunderstood that he didn't even allow you to finish your sentence.

Is the spontaneous imagining of what you think might take place and saying something about it an autistic response, or is it merely a weird misunderstanding arising out of the need to say anything about the future at all?

EDIT - Additional bit...

Your example reveals that while in 99/100 similar situations, you would have been able to complete your sentence and he would have understood what you’d meant without making any assumption that you were being confrontational, feeling that you were expecting him to do something about the barking because it was bothering you, makes me think that saying anything in those kind of moments isn't necessary at all.

While it may have been the problem you had envisaged after all, and most people would probably have thought exactly the same way as you, so most reasonable in predicting it as a possibility, it reveals how fast your mind works and how much that puts you into the future, and while that does happen to me, where I say something too soon, the realisation that nothing actually needed to be said, is quite a powerful one.

You might say that in my case, I tend to go the other way, so that I don't say a word when actually I really should. I let everything happen in whatever way it's going to and just deal with what takes place as a result, rather than being a few steps ahead and doing something about a future that does not yet exist.

It may definitely be right to say something sometimes, but there are enough occasions where I realise there was no need to, so I have made it my practice to step back. In other words to observe the situation and be in the actual present, rather than in my mind's creative idea of what the future is going to be, even if it's literally just moments from now. I suppose it's all about what does it mean to be in the truly actually really present moment?

 

[Fino]

It's not about honest vs dishonest. It's about intelligently phrasing and expressing thoughts in a way that takes into consideration the fact that you're speaking to a living, breathing being who longs to be joyful just as you do.

 

[Aspychata]

So l feel for the OP. Because some dog owners will totally disregard whatever there dog is doing, ripping clothes,bitting kids, dogs. So perhaps the OP was feeling out the situation. Is this a responsible dog owner or a irresponsible dog owner? Because of the response, l would have surmised, this dog person is a jerk and l need to protect my furbaby. My mom brings her dog to outside dinning patios, and most of the people are nice but you still have those .0987523 idiots to deal with on occasion.

So l agree with the OP. I too would sorta check, if they had a misbehaving dog, it gives them a couple of minutes to get their dog under control.

 

[Suzette]

I have embraced being a a&hole rather than being fake.

I listening to an interview once and ut went something like this:
Interviewer - "You have been called an a&hole by more than one person"
Answer - "What's wrong with that?"

A very pointed reminder that we are not responsible for others opinions about us!

 

[Suzette]

My big issue has been being to blunt in a neurotypical world. I fear I may even be to blunt to autistic people in this forum. Is that possible?

I am more sparing with words on the forum. This reflects that I am typing my words one charcter at a time on my tablet. But it may appear I am more forward and direct than I am in real life.

 

[SimonSays]

This reflects that I am typing my words one charcter at a time on my tablet. But it may appear I am more forward and direct than I am in real life.

Something that most people never really think about.

Because we have all the time in the world to compose our thoughts and say what we want, we can appear completely different in text form to how we would in real life.

I was just thinking about this earlier by coincidence; the difference between interacting in real life and on a forum, where there is so much missing that we would normally conclude things from, or even just be distracted by.

Forum interactions eliminate almost everything but what is said, and yet what is said will not be a true reflection of who is speaking, especially because I am reading your words in my voice. That's why I like to share recordings sometimes so that it balances this up and people can hear how I actually speak.

I don't know if it makes any difference that we're not who we seem to be, or that people really care to know who we really are, they just see who they see, respond and move on.

 

[WildCat]

There's that saying: "if you can't take it, don't dish it out". Being blunt runs the risk of you getting your tush handed to you on a golden platter with all the trimmings (and I can attest to that), so if you can't stomach that there's the option of being tactful or simply keeping your mouth shut and/or your thoughts to yourself.