Partnering with an Aspie

I spent a couple hours today chatting with an NT (neurotypical) friend who has an Aspie (Asperger) husband. It was a great conversation. Some things that came up:

Understand that geeks and Aspies have "incoming filters" rather than "outgoing filters" when it comes to being tactful. (See http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html for an awesome description of this.)

I suggested she could help him prepare for a job interview by roleplaying potential questions and helping him learn how to phrase things to avoid the "excessive honesty" that Aspies sometimes exhibit. For example, rather than answering "why did you leave your last job" by saying "my boss was scum", explain that "we had some differences of opinion on IP". Still honest, just less 'burn your bridges'. A great article I read recently on this was:  http://www.mendix.com/think-tank/really-great-ways-to-ruin-a-job-interview/

I explained, as well, that many Aspies have difficulty grasping that a sentence can have multiple meanings - or guessing what those multiple meanings might be. Metaphors and analogies are often lost on Aspies. It helps to have some explain those things out loud and to learn to look for them.

Many Aspies are "unanchored in time" - many of us live in an eternal "now" and thus, everything subjectively "takes forever". There's no internal "sense of time". I can tell you what I need to do Tuesday at 12:30 - I just don't have any internal prompt that "today is Tuesday and it's 12:30 now". Believe me - I tried for years (nay, decades) to develop a sense of time and it just didn't work.  It takes some of us a while to realize that we need to separate "remembering that" from "remembering to". I can "remember that" I need to do x, y and z at d:h:m. Will I "remember to" do those things when it's d:h:m? Probably not, not without an external prompt. But it took years for me to figure out why I wasn't getting things done.  It wasn't until I gave up and recognized I have this "deficiency" and developed a workaround that I was able to get past the "I was gonna" and actually get to "I did". Too many NT's think that "if you really cared", you'd get it done. Well, yes - now that I have my workaround (my smartphone pinging me an alert) - I care enough to enter it into my calendar so I remember to do it.

On the same topic, it's really hard to guess how long something will take, when everything is "now". I remember that my ex used to get really ticked at me for not wiping up the crumbs when I made toast. What would happen is - I didn't want to wipe it up immediately because I wanted to eat my toast while it's hot. But if I didn't do it immediately, I'd often get distracted and forget to do it after eating. What finally worked was to do an experiment - I pulled out a stopwatch and timed how long it took to wipe up the crumbs. And found out that something that felt like it would take a long time, really only took like 3 seconds. And that my toast was still warm when I was done wiping up. After that, I used that trick for many maintenance-type things around the house - figuring out that I could do certain tasks in seconds or minutes and thus, work them into my routine. But, until I did that, it felt like everything would take "forever", so I couldn't figure out when and how to fit it in, and would get overwhelmed. Now - I know better. Even if I don't think I can get *all* of something done, I set a timer for 15 minutes (thank you Flylady) and just do it until the timer goes off. Often, I am done. Or I've made such significant progress on the task that it doesn't feel overwhelming anymore. (See www.flylady.net for more on this.)


As we talked, I reminded her that he isn't doing these things "deliberately" or "carelessly"; his brain works differently from hers. Yes, it can be frustrating (for her and for him), but it's not because he doesn't care enough. (That's like accusing someone with no legs for not caring enough because they don't go dancing with you.)


Another thing that we discussed was crowds. I asked her if she had ever travelled and how she feels when she's surrounded by natives speaking with each other in their own language. She answered that if they're talking too fast, eventually she kind of tunes out. I explained that, for Aspies, it may feel like that - like we're in a foreign culture and everyone is talking too fast in a language we only can catch a few words in here and there. She suddenly gasped and asked "so that's why he can only handle about 5 minutes when I have a bunch of friends over?" Yep!

I also explained how valuable it is, after a day of having to navigate the NT world, to be able to come home and *not* be "on stage". How relaxing it is to not have to guess what people mean and hint and expect, and how important that is to have from a partner.

I'm lucky - my husband isn't American - so he doesn't have the American cultural assumptions about how I should act or what I should know. And he knows that we have different backgrounds so he assumes there's things he won't understand, which makes for much better communication between us.

The final issue we discussed was her frustration that whenever she would clean something, he would mess it up immediately. I drilled down into this. Turns out, for example, she would clean the front walk, he would see it and immediately go climb up on the roof to hose off the solar panels and get dirt all over her clean walk. This would drive her crazy! He was deliberately messing up her work! I laughed and explained that she had just *cued* him (with her cleaning the walkway) to go clean the solar panels. That, far from trying to mess up her work, he was being *inspired* and *prompted* by her work to clean something too! She looked thunderstruck. It had never occurred to her to view it that way.

I suspect they're going to have some pretty intense conversations when she gets home. And may figure out some things that have been plaguing their relationship for some time now.

Note: if you've met one Aspie (or Autist), you've met one Aspie. Every Aspie and Autist has different strengths and weaknesses (just like every NT is unique). I've found that some of us share some of these traits that I've described, but you or your Aspie/Autist friend may not.

odd brainstate

I'm sitting here - my plans for this evening went away POOF because I'd thought I was going to SF to a meeting but the meeting is tomorrow. And I also got some interesting information in the mail. Nothing earth-shattering - just my Social Security statement. I realized how little I've made over my lifetime. In 31 years, the average has been less than $10k a year. Yet on that, I bought a house, two cars, and raised two kids - up to the day I married Alex. It's really odd to consider.

But - mostly, where my brain is - is away. I'm feeling - quiet.
Slowed down.
My brain has gone into relaxation mode - theta state.
I am aware, conscious, but simply here. No planning, no tomorrow or yesterday. Just now.
I get this sometime.s
It's a good place to be - except that most of the time my life doesn't permit me to remain. Most of the time, I am expected to be here by this time and there by that time and very time oriented and time consciouse. And yet, I am amused by all the people who mediatate or take drugs to achieve thius state of no time. In this state, I simply am - no awareness of time flow. I can guess that time has changed - becuase there are different items in the collection of memories in my brain - and yet - I have no *experience* of time "passing" or "moving" or "flowing".
It's amazing how much trouble such states have gotten me into in the past, how little tolerance our society has for people who live in this brainstate - in this timeless existence. And how many think they want it.

Amusing.

And now - and I know NOW when I am done for now writing this post and so I am ready to move to the new "now" thing of checking the pasta pot and finding out if water is boiling so we can cook dinner.
But for now - I sit - quiet and still - and smile. and breathe. and watch and listen and feel.

Now - in this state - I hear and feel things differently - textures are all important and I crave texture - but only when I am moving. Other times, I am simply istting - and feeling and hearing and sensing but not deciding, not "thinking". Just here now.
.
.
.
Deep breath. Some unknowable, uncounted period of time (so the standard language usage claims) later, I breathe deeply, and move to go look at the stove.

Transitions and changes

I've been sitting on this one for a couple days, before posting it. Note that some of the effects I was having were likely hormonal-induced - ah the joys of being a female aspie... In any case, here's the post, for whatever it's worth.
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"The shortcomings that can occur in this method such as the basis instability, the collision of hash table, and the noise sensitivity will be discussed. Among them the noise sensitivity is a serious problem. This can always cause the recognition procedure to fail." -- Kao, Chang-Lung
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA225839


So, usually I'm pretty flexible, I think. I handle changes and transitions pretty good for an Aspie. Some days, when I'm stressed, it's harder. And it always catches me by surprise, and worse, catches others by surprise.

A couple days ago was an example. I had a good but full day. Had everything planned out and things went pretty smoothly. I even got my last paper of the quarter finished. Woot! Then had the eye exam (my and my son) from hell - I hate when they shine the damn lights in your eyes, and worse is flashed light, and there was this machine that we had to flash my eye repeatedly (to take a picture) because she couldn't explain clearly to me what I was supposed to do and when I finally understood (after a dozen flashes into my light-sensitive eyes), we got a decent picture of each first try. So, I wasn't in the best shape after that but I survived, so I went to Costco and grabbed stuff quickly since I was on a deadline, and managed to get checked out reasonably quickly. Even got the stuff home okay and son helped unload. Headed off to pick up sweetie for a meeting.

Then, in rapid succession, I tried to park (and had trouble with other cars and shuttles and buses) - but parking there is always a hassle. So then I finally park and call sweetie to tell him I'm there (cuz we have a meeting to go to, so there's a deadline to beat), and my bluetooth earbud doesn't work, but I don't realize that at first, and finally realize that he's already answered and I just can't hear him thru the damn earbud, so I put the phone up to my ear and say hello a couple of times and FINALLy hear *him* but of course, by this time we're both frustrated.

So I tell him I'm there and he says to meet him in the lobby of building 40. So I go there and of course, it's locked, because it's almost 6pm. So someone lets me in and I wait, and he arrives and we go to get food.

We'd planned to just grab and go - he wanted to be to the meeting on time (so did I), and he worried that my usual "take a bit of many things" style of eating there took too much time. So I'd already offered to just grab a salad. This is what we planned this morning. But - there's a barbecue. So he says we should get barbecue. It smelled awful, and I was confused because I thought he wanted to grab and go, and then thought well, maybe he just wanted to have something besides salad. I tried to explain that he could grab whatever he wanted, we didn't have to have barbecue, but that didn't work. And he somehow got the impression I was upset at him.

So then, I have to try to explain why I'm upset. I wasn't upset at him. I was just tired and stressed out and having trouble with all the changes of plan that were happening (the phone, and the bbq, and sitting down to eat instead of grab-and-go) and the horrid smell of the barbecue (it ended up much better than I'd feared - I was able to get some reasonably unsmoked stuff - it smelled like they were doing severely "hickory-smoked" stuff... or over-using the liquid smoke or something.) but I can't explain things like that on the spur of the moment well. I'd gotten my tastebuds up for a fresh, light salad, and suddenly I was facing heavy, strongly flavored hot foods. He wanted to know what was wrong, and kept wanting explanations but my explanations weren't helping things at all and I was just getting more stressed because how do I describe all this when I'm already stressed. I tried saying I was just tired and he responded that maybe we should just go home.

I finally managed to say, "Just let me sit quietly for a minute to settle down." And he let me alone so I could regroup. And the evening ended up turning out just fine.

I want to be clear - he wasn't being obnoxious about his questions - they were perfectly valid questions and he wasn't yelling or chastising me or anything, just I couldn't explain well and it wasn't getting better with me trying.

Yeah - I normally have no obvious problems with changes and transitions (or when I do, I cover it pretty well) but sometimes, like after the hectic quarter I've had, it's just harder to cover. Sometimes, I get reminded forcibly that, oh yeah, I'm really not neurotypical, even if I can often pass as normal these days.

So - how does it feel - changes, transitions...
it feels like standing on a moving surface - having to constantly adjust and shift balance while juggling multiple fragile plates and smile dammit and don't forget to make eye contact, and don't talk too loud or too soft, and don't swing your arms too far, and remember all the things you'll have to juggle tomorrow too, and here - add this teacup in to the juggling and oh - the surface just started shifting on another axis, so don't try to keep balance the old way, gotta do the new balancing act - but suddenly, and by the way, there's only room to stand on one leg now... and why are you acting so upset? Explain yourself coherently dammit!

It's not always this bad. It's rarely this bad. I've worked really hard on dealing with transitions, being flexible, not being too tied into expectations while still managing to not completely get lost in the chaos and shifting sands of spacetime...

Just, sometimes, it's hard. Sometimes, I can't just suddenly go with the flow. And it's even harder when I'm trying really hard to meet someone elses's deadlines and schedule. I can easily go with the flow if I can just go with the flow and don't have any external deadlines to meet. I just can't do both at once. If I have to *be* somewhere, then I have a deadline and I'm in "logistics" mode and switching out of planning and logistics mode while still maintaining some hold on the logistics and planning... it's just not easy for me.

I don't know if I'm explaining this well. I'm trying to just give you all a view into what it looks like from the inside, not *always*, just sometimes. And I'm not saying there's anything anyone needs to do different, just trying to explain now so that maybe, when I'm in the midst of another time where I'm having trouble, I can maybe just say "remember the post on transitions and changes? I'm having one of those days right now." The hardest part is convincing the other person that it really truly has nothing to do with them. It's a reaction to all the little things that all happen within quick succession on top of each other to unbalance me.

What does help: just give me some space and time (quiet, no demands or questions or processing) to decompress, to regroup. Don't try to interpret my bodylanguage or tone of voice when a sudden change or transition has happened - mostly, you'll probably not be terribly accurate. I'm likely not upset at you, or angry, or anything like that. I'm most likely, just trying to re-orient myself to the new situation. And frustrated at my own lack of flexibility. Mostly, I just need to be informed of the new situation and then left alone for a short time to re-integrate everything.

It's like trying to modify a list while sorting on it, (or trying to modify a hashtable while it's being rehashed?). It's often a pretty unstable process. Let me just finish processing everything first, then we can go on from there.