Kat_1234567890
Active Member
Hello!
I would like to ask about a specific behaviour of my neighbour which happens to be autistic and how to best handle it.
He lives in the apartment right up mine. I have first noticed weird noises back in 2013. Weird, repetitive, almost mechanic sounding short outbursts of laughter at all times but most annoyingly, also late at night - like 2-3 in the morning. They weren't very loud back then so I convinced myself I have to tolerate this, though they were annoying.
With the time they got much louder, to the point of waking me at night and making falling asleep impossible. I had to use earplugs basically every night. At that point I thought of complaining thousand of times but was afraid of confrontation and conflict... so I tried to brush it away every morning, after getting totally pissed (almost) each night.
It was just couple of nights ago that I finally concluded this is unbearable... since some time already, the laughter was totally wild, laud.... starting for example at 2 am and continuing in regular outbursts till 6 am. So I wrote a couple of sentences, saying basically "Please respect the noise curfew from 10 pm to 6 am (which is a local law here) and explaining that the noises I hear almost every night are waking me up ad that I will complain to the flat owners community (we have such a thing here) if it doesn't stop. I threw the message into his mailbox.
I live in a country where the language spoken is not my native (not English which is also not my native, in case anybody missed it
) and my listening comprehension is not perfect. He is a native speaker.
So today he rang at my door... His first sentence (as I think now) was "I'm an autist living upstairs", than he said his surname. I dismissed the word "autist" since I thought at the moment I misheard and he said something else... Then he asked, what noises you mean. I said, this insane laughter. He appeared very surprised and said, how come, I don't make any noises, don't laugh aloud and at night I'm asleep. It didn't look like acting, he looked very genuinely baffled saying this... But I said, come on, why are you doing this, we both know what I'm speaking about, nobody else lives in your apartment so it must be you. Then I tried to explain to him that at night the noises sound really loud and I said, I can even hear when you walk, I know when you're not sleeping at night. I said, last night was quiet but the night before it started just after 4am and continued until about 5:30. He said, he was asleep at that time - not in an arguing tone but with disbelief.
Then he started to sound very apologetic, like "I'll try to be as quiet as possible" etc. to the point where I felt guilty, so I tried to make clear I don't want a fight or something, I just want to have peace at night. I said, I'm glad he came and we talked.
He went up and in a minute he's ringing again.... standing there with a pack of Snickers.
I accepted them, said that's really cute, did my best to sound super kind and said I didn't want to cause him a distress... at that point I really felt bad about the whole situation.
After that I kept thinking about how he could have used such an absurd defense, denying everything, and how it somehow looked genuine, as if he wasn't aware of making these noises. He even said at one point "is this possible that I do it while asleep" to which I said, I can hear you walking (surely not only me, it sounds like a hoard of elephants, frankly) so I know you're not sleeping. It just didn't make sense why he'd deny this. Then I remembered the word I disregarded at the time... and suddenly it clicked.
I had only like 2-3 interactions with him in the past but he was always super awkward... like looking at the floor while speaking to me... or not saying anything when I brought him his parcel (he just opened the door to the necessary minimum and grabbed it). Once he came to me to pick up his parcel and he looked as if he was paralyzed with fear - head down, looking at the floor and speaking with this squeaky voice, like when you're so stressed your throat kind of locks up (I suffered from it as a teenager so I know).
It's kind of weird to me I didn't recognize this as autism, which I had read quite a bit about.
He may be in his late 30s, lives on his own, seems generally to manage well, so guess he's the so called "high functioning" autist.
Now my question is:
Is it possible that he's genuinely not aware he has this loud outbursts of laughter? Or not aware of how loud they are? Is it possible that he doesn't recall that just in the last week he stayed up all night up until 5 or 6 am, on a couple of succeeding nights? Or that he has generally quite awkward sleeping patterns, often staying up until morning hours? (And then he sometimes gets up just 2-3 hours later - I wish I could do that!)
I have googled an article on a self-awareness in autistic people (Understanding the Self in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): A Review of Literature) so I am aware they have generally problems in this area but can it have these specific manifestations?
Or was he just regularly lying, maybe not being aware of how absurd his denial sounds? (which actually would also hint at some lack of self-awareness)
And then of course, can I do something now, after this exchange? I don't want him to feel intimidated or something but would like these noises to stop.
Have I done something wrong and can I correct it? What do you advice generally?
(And thanks to everybody who read all of above, I like to be specific and well... also like to write so it mostly comes out looooooooooooooooooooong.)
I would like to ask about a specific behaviour of my neighbour which happens to be autistic and how to best handle it.
He lives in the apartment right up mine. I have first noticed weird noises back in 2013. Weird, repetitive, almost mechanic sounding short outbursts of laughter at all times but most annoyingly, also late at night - like 2-3 in the morning. They weren't very loud back then so I convinced myself I have to tolerate this, though they were annoying.
With the time they got much louder, to the point of waking me at night and making falling asleep impossible. I had to use earplugs basically every night. At that point I thought of complaining thousand of times but was afraid of confrontation and conflict... so I tried to brush it away every morning, after getting totally pissed (almost) each night.
It was just couple of nights ago that I finally concluded this is unbearable... since some time already, the laughter was totally wild, laud.... starting for example at 2 am and continuing in regular outbursts till 6 am. So I wrote a couple of sentences, saying basically "Please respect the noise curfew from 10 pm to 6 am (which is a local law here) and explaining that the noises I hear almost every night are waking me up ad that I will complain to the flat owners community (we have such a thing here) if it doesn't stop. I threw the message into his mailbox.
I live in a country where the language spoken is not my native (not English which is also not my native, in case anybody missed it
) and my listening comprehension is not perfect. He is a native speaker.So today he rang at my door... His first sentence (as I think now) was "I'm an autist living upstairs", than he said his surname. I dismissed the word "autist" since I thought at the moment I misheard and he said something else... Then he asked, what noises you mean. I said, this insane laughter. He appeared very surprised and said, how come, I don't make any noises, don't laugh aloud and at night I'm asleep. It didn't look like acting, he looked very genuinely baffled saying this... But I said, come on, why are you doing this, we both know what I'm speaking about, nobody else lives in your apartment so it must be you. Then I tried to explain to him that at night the noises sound really loud and I said, I can even hear when you walk, I know when you're not sleeping at night. I said, last night was quiet but the night before it started just after 4am and continued until about 5:30. He said, he was asleep at that time - not in an arguing tone but with disbelief.
Then he started to sound very apologetic, like "I'll try to be as quiet as possible" etc. to the point where I felt guilty, so I tried to make clear I don't want a fight or something, I just want to have peace at night. I said, I'm glad he came and we talked.
He went up and in a minute he's ringing again.... standing there with a pack of Snickers.
I accepted them, said that's really cute, did my best to sound super kind and said I didn't want to cause him a distress... at that point I really felt bad about the whole situation.After that I kept thinking about how he could have used such an absurd defense, denying everything, and how it somehow looked genuine, as if he wasn't aware of making these noises. He even said at one point "is this possible that I do it while asleep" to which I said, I can hear you walking (surely not only me, it sounds like a hoard of elephants, frankly) so I know you're not sleeping. It just didn't make sense why he'd deny this. Then I remembered the word I disregarded at the time... and suddenly it clicked.
I had only like 2-3 interactions with him in the past but he was always super awkward... like looking at the floor while speaking to me... or not saying anything when I brought him his parcel (he just opened the door to the necessary minimum and grabbed it). Once he came to me to pick up his parcel and he looked as if he was paralyzed with fear - head down, looking at the floor and speaking with this squeaky voice, like when you're so stressed your throat kind of locks up (I suffered from it as a teenager so I know
).It's kind of weird to me I didn't recognize this as autism, which I had read quite a bit about.
He may be in his late 30s, lives on his own, seems generally to manage well, so guess he's the so called "high functioning" autist.
Now my question is:
Is it possible that he's genuinely not aware he has this loud outbursts of laughter? Or not aware of how loud they are? Is it possible that he doesn't recall that just in the last week he stayed up all night up until 5 or 6 am, on a couple of succeeding nights? Or that he has generally quite awkward sleeping patterns, often staying up until morning hours? (And then he sometimes gets up just 2-3 hours later - I wish I could do that!)
I have googled an article on a self-awareness in autistic people (Understanding the Self in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): A Review of Literature) so I am aware they have generally problems in this area but can it have these specific manifestations?
Or was he just regularly lying, maybe not being aware of how absurd his denial sounds? (which actually would also hint at some lack of self-awareness)
And then of course, can I do something now, after this exchange? I don't want him to feel intimidated or something but would like these noises to stop.
Have I done something wrong and can I correct it? What do you advice generally?
(And thanks to everybody who read all of above, I like to be specific and well... also like to write so it mostly comes out looooooooooooooooooooong.)
