
On emotional authenticity and masking as an autistic person - ColinWright
http://cassolotl.tumblr.com/post/160117558965
======
danellis
He says he attributes it to his autism, but maybe that isn't the cause at all.
I'm not autistic, but I recognized what he was writing about. I have
difficulty showing genuine emotions. My wife joking calls me Captain Holt (a
reference to the stoic leader of the Brooklyn 99). Encounters with strangers
are a draining experience involving a constant inner dialogue that sounds like
am-dram director: "Emote more! Bigger smile! Deliver with eye contact! Now
bring it down a notch. Act concerned by this revelation."

~~~
ColinWright
According to the profile at the top left of the page, this person's preferred
pronouns are "they" and "them". They self-identify as non-binary.

~~~
badosu
I am sorry, not a native english speaker.

What does this mean?

~~~
ColinWright
Here is my understanding, after some extensive conversations with people in
the same situation as the author.

In English one refers to a male as "him" and a female as "her". However, some
people identify as "non-binary", which means that in their own internal self
they so not feel that they are entirely male, or entirely female. As a result,
they find it not quite right to be referred to as "him", but also not quite
right to be referred to as "her".

So they prefer to be referred to in the gender-neutral "them".

If you are "traditionally aligned", if your personal self-identity matches the
body your ghost[0] inhabits, this can be totally mystifying. Personally, I've
come to accept that people are weird, and if someone says they want to be
referred to as "they" and "them" then why not?

[0] "You are a ghost driving a meat covered skeleton made from stardust[1]
riding a rock floating through space."

[1] Or nuclear waste - take your pick.

 _Edit: To the people downvoting this, it was intended to be a factual answer
to a direct and reasonable question. I have no idea why you think this comment
is inappropriate and deserves a downvote._

~~~
badosu
That must feel terrible...

Is this common? Never heard of it.

~~~
oh_sigh
It's extremely common on parts of the internet but extremely rare in normal
life

~~~
lkbm
I feel like we would've said that about gay people thirty years ago if we'd
had the Internet we do today. ' I live with one person who uses "they/them"
and have lived with three others, one of whom identified as transgendered (as
opposed to "gender queer). At the high school I worked at, we typically had a
transgendered population of 1%-5%, but no one who used they/them--just one who
used he/him/his and several that used she/her/hers. I think I've known more
transgendered people than I've known CMU, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT grads
combined, despite working in a tech startup and being the son of two CMU
grads.

Yes, it's rare, but not as rare as graduating from Harvard, and it's
definitely not just an Internet phenomenon. There are just a lot of areas
where they don't feel welcome. They're real people in real life and they tend
to congregate in places where they'll be treated as such. Right now that
includes sections of the Internet, but also quite a few real life enclaves.

~~~
oh_sigh
I agree with you, but Only a small subset of transgendered people want their
pronouns to be they/their

------
scandox
I am very far from Autistic but I think the whole idea of authentic feeling is
rather fragile. I may generate appropriate responses very smoothly but I have
no idea if they're authentic until much later. Mostly not. Mostly just what I
know people need to see and hear.

I imagine an Autistic mind-adventurer who got inside my head would be very
disappointed.

~~~
make3
This post is slightly surlrising to me, although I don't doubt that many
people feel like they need to behave that way to be accepted / loved. However,
an authentic only response exposes your true feelings and opinions about
something, and I feel like most of the time, you should be able to generate a
decently socially respectful and well attuned response without misrepresenting
yourself, even if it takes a slight bit of effort or risk feeling rejected

~~~
throwaway91111
This seems to imply there IS a current feeling. Is that that always the case?

------
dom0
> NTs seem expert at knowing which of their emotional reactions are
> appropriate, so they can effortlessly express the appropriate emotions and
> suppress the inappropriate ones.

Emotional reactions and empathy are not consciously regulated on a basic level
(at least not for me). Conscious masking of emotions still produces micro-
expressions, for example.

By the way, emulating an emotional response is not uncommon for "regular"
people, too, e.g. when attending a funeral where you don't care about the
deceased or attending a wedding where you hate the bride or groom. I'd say
it's an important skill for social survival.

(I guess it could be argued that empathy is kind-of a low-level emulation of
emotional responses... at least in some situations?)

~~~
Analemma_
> By the way, emulating an emotional response is not uncommon for "regular"
> people, too.

I think that was the author's point. Everyone, autistic or not, finds
themselves in situations where they need to fake emotions. The difference is
that "regular people" can detect if the fakery is not working, know
instinctually what the "right" response is, and can usually switch gears fast
enough to satisfy the other person and save the interaction. The author seemed
to be saying that not only do they need to operate off a "playbook" (which is
normal for everyone), but that if the playbook goes wrong, they both can't
detect it and don't have a backup plan.

> I'd say it's an important skill for social survival.

I mean, practically the defining characteristic of autism is the extreme
difficulty, if not impossibility, of getting these skills. We get them for
free "in hardware", but they're trying to do as best they can without them.
Reminders like this are kind of redundant and unhelpful.

~~~
make3
it's dumb, but in these situations I always think of the gpu vs software
rendering in 3d graphics.. how much having dedicated hardware can do a crazy
difference.. makes me wonder how much things would be different if we had
dedicated brain hardware for other things

~~~
Analemma_
It's not dumb at all IMO, this is actually my preferred metaphor for
explaining autism, at least to people who are technically-minded. When your
brain has "dedicated hardware" for some function, it's easy to miss just how
difficult the underlying problem space actually is. Being social animals, we
evolved a lot of autopilot functionality for processing social interactions,
and if this isn't working, you have to do it "in software", and that's
incredibly tricky.

------
arcbyte
I am not autistic but I relate 100% with the author. In fact I have given lots
of thought to this same subject.

I have realized that while I usually struggle to find the appropriate emotion
to express to people, sometimes I do have authentic emotional experiences, and
I wonder if the author does as well. For instance, do you laugh at jokes?

------
DenisM
There is a set of skills that might help quite a bit. Big Bang Theory to the
rescue:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkSwXL3cGUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkSwXL3cGUg)

It's not an easy skill, but it only need to be learned once.

~~~
gcr
Bringing up the Big Bang Theory as a realistic example of how to deal with a
person with autism and calling your action a "rescue" is petty and hurtful.
That show only shows harmful stereotypes of nerds for people to laugh at. What
social skills could you possibly hope to magically convey through one two-
minute laugh track? The author is fighting a lifelong battle here. Please at
least respect their struggle.

~~~
DenisM
The video is a good example of active listening. You don't have to understand
what the other person is saying in order to connect with them. It's a very
useful skill, removes a lot of stress from interaction.

~~~
gcr
Oh, that's what you were getting at. I suppose so, but it feels like that
scene was played up for laughs because of how fake Anne felt the conversation,
which completely went over Sheldon's head.

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throwaway65537
That sounds a lot like my current state of mind. Only that I'm not on the
autistic spectrum. Just did the wrong thing in trying to tough out a major
depression on my own which tuned me to feeling vaguely neutral all the time,
plus I somehow lost the ability to be empathic almost completely. I do
remember how it's supposed to look though, so hardly anyone notices.

If you're feeling like you're blowing fuses, stop what you're doing and get
help before you adapt in the worst possible way.

~~~
riyadparvez
> Just did the wrong thing in trying to tough out a major depression on my own

Can you please post what did to tough out

------
alexashka
I can relate to the frustration but this whole article is in poor-me mode.

The author expresses his/her frustration with developing connections - I
understand. The most important thing to realize is, no one wants to be around
complainers.

Except other complainers, they get together and complain, and theorize about
why the world is not the way they want it to be.

Being able to emotionally relate is honestly a false flag - there are plenty
of people who are socially oblivious and they're doing just fine.

If the author was a super athlete and couldn't relate to people, he would
simply be a 'jerk'. I bet he wouldn't have written that article :)

So really, it's not that you can't relate to people - it's that you haven't
found a way to win despite having a bit of a setback and you are spending your
energy on complaining.

Here's the solution: go and become really good at something, that other people
value, and they'll forgive your social strangeness, in fact, they'll find it
exotic and interesting.

Just go be really really good. At social dancing, at sports, at music, at
dragon boating, beach volleyball, etc. Something social that takes skill and
persistence that regular people don't have.

Autistic people have the gift of not being burdened by the same social
programming most people are living in. The ones who take advantage of it live
a great life. I mean, look at Elon Musk...

~~~
CarolineW
_> ...this whole article is in poor-me mode._

That strikes me as being very ungenerous. The article comes across to me as an
honest attempt to explain as clearly as possible the social interactions
internals of one particular autistic person - the author - to someone who is
not autistic.

I found it an interesting insight.

 _> Here's the solution: ..._

How do you know? What are your specific qualifications that let you speak with
such definite certainty?

~~~
alexashka
Caroline, you're giving me a version of 'that's just like, your opinion man',
coupled with 'I don't like your tone'.

I understand the author better than you think. The author has a worldview of
'my life is hard because X', coupled with 'X is something most people can't
relate to'.

My point is, everyone goes through 'my life is hard because X' \- the solution
is to work around it.

I offered a few options that have worked for me and people I know.

In regards to qualifications - people who have them don't go around asking,
the qualifications are implicit in the value they bring to the table.

People who explicitly ASK for qualifications, are typically just being
passive-aggressive, which's fine - it's just good to be aware of what you're
doing.

~~~
thatcat
What implicit value are you bringing here? It's important to question the
source when somthing seems like useless stereotyping and metacomplaining,
thats a form of complaining about complainers to reenforce current standards
and stifle dissent.

------
jancsika
> Imagine if you had to consciously process every breath. It would seem
> stilted and robotic. You wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate on anything
> else. Imagine how exhausting and disabling that would be!

This is a dangerous analogy. The logical consequence is that any reasonable
person with this condition would take a "cure" if (well, when) it's available.
After all, who in their right mind would want to think to breathe!

What happens when those "cured" patients want to go to sleep to revamp the
cognitive exhaustion they're used to, they're instead treated to an entire new
domain of emotional impressions and memories to process? When they try
incessantly to "solve" these emotional impressions and memories, but only end
up creating yet more emotional impressions?

What happens when they realize that "null" doesn't actually equal "0"\-- that
they cannot _ever_ turn off their new sensory perception?

~~~
tjalfi
An Experimental Autism Treatment Cost Me My Marriage[0] is a concrete example
of the costs of a cure.

Edited to add the title of the article and move the link to a footnote.

[0] [https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/an-experimental-
au...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/an-experimental-autism-
treatment-cost-me-my-marriage/?_r=0)

~~~
jancsika
That's a great example. I was speculating after having seen an interview with
someone blind from birth who had gained limited sight late in life. But it
appears the point applies quite well to this case.

------
zw123456
I have often thought that autistic people or socio-path people who have had to
learn the appropriate responses to various human emotions would be a good
resource for AI research in the area of developing more "human like"
interactions. I am not autistic but I think I have elements of that lack of
empathy, so I have had to also learn certain rule sets in a similar way: if
someone says thing A that is supposed to have reaction B. Intensity of A
implies Intensity B depending on situation C and so on. It would be
interesting to capture all those rule sets from various subjects.

~~~
throwaway91111
I always thought that austic people had an abundance of empathy but dealing
with that is very hard.

~~~
zw123456
hmmm, could be I am confusing sociopathy and autism ?

~~~
throwaway91111
I have no idea; some people on the autistic spectrum may have issues with it
too. I guess my point is that autism seems to be about ability to handle
social situations rather than the underlying reasons.

------
stared
In this subject:
[https://gist.github.com/stared/98599fc53959b77ac6769de07e759...](https://gist.github.com/stared/98599fc53959b77ac6769de07e759061)
(from A Mind-Body Look at the Concept of Asperger's Syndrome by Michael
Samsel, LMHC)

------
mcguire
NTs?

~~~
ColinWright
Neuro-Typicals

~~~
kingkawn
This concept seems like a fallacy designed to deepen one's own sense of
alienation without illuminating what it is that the others are actually doing

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Could you elaborate on this?

I disagree with what it seems you're saying, but I'm not sure I get your
point.

~~~
kingkawn
I think that the primary symptom of what is being called autism in this case
is the belief that others are better at handling social interaction. The
autistic's commitment to this belief is the cultural milieu they develop for
themselves.

I hear you, it is more of a glimmer of a thought than something that I have
worked out well, and I gladly welcome your explanation as to why I am off-
base!

It feels though that the elaborateness of this self-identity is a sign that
the person is actually quite typical, but somehow their ability to perform
critical analysis has been turned viciously against their own behavior because
of a few early formative experiences becoming the archetype of all
socialization.

In short then it is the scrutiny they are subjecting themselves to that is the
problem.

Their commitment to furthering the development of this self-identity is of
course all good, free to choose their lives as they see them. If they are in
fact in social pain about the state they discover themselves in I would
suggest to them that what they consider to be discovery is instead creation.
And creation carries no inherent obligations, and they are much freer than the
story they have learned to tell would permit them to admit.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I'm still not sure what your point is.

Mild autism (what we're talking about here), in many ways, is (to use a tech
analogy) like missing SSL offloading when everyone else has it.

You can still talk SSL, by manually doing it on the CPU, but it bogs down the
CPU with crypto and becomes overwhelming if you're trying to do other things
at the same time.

You're also not going to be as efficient at SSL, which means you can get
overwhelmed by just trying to manage SSL if there's many connections at once.

Recognizing that difference -- that there _is_ a difference in how you're
processing those things -- is the first step to doing it better.

Autistic people are literally wired differently:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4688328/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4688328/)

(Also, note that the paper uses the phrase "typically developing" to denote
non-Autistic people.)

~~~
kingkawn
Again I believe that it is the concept of not achieving typicality that is the
driving force of continuously deepening the autistic's state of alienation,
even when typicality itself is an abstract "average" state that no person
actually embodies.

edit: Just wanted to add, I'm not saying that autistics are not clearly at the
avant-garde edges of personality, I am just suggesting that the source of the
difference is created by the autistic's self-understanding.

------
Neliquat
This is here because it applies on some level to us all.

I have a couple autist friends and they are awesome, and I understand that
their emotions calibrate differently, but are still there and meaningful.
After a while, you learn to calibrate to them, and can connect on another
level. But this takes both sides letting down their guard and assuming good
intentions. Something rare enough in love, let alone friendship. The time
spent is worth it in either case.

~~~
mercer
Indeed. Autistic people are often extremely loyal, non-judgmental (in
particular ways), and lacking in much ego. If you can get past the problems
that this 'miscalibration' cause, there are a lot of benefits to having an
autistic friend!

I don't blame people who are not up to the challenge, but I do hate it when
people aren't even willing to respect the differences and instead choose to
cast moral judgment.

------
Kenji
>It’s unsafe for me to react authentically to anyone.

Not sure if that's a problem of our society or of the individuals themselves.
I feel like we have extremely low tolerance for nonstandard behaviour.

~~~
HarryHirsch
Compared to other nations, I find Americans extremely standardized. It must be
the repressive schooling combined with the extremely regimented college
experience. They have a great need to belong.

~~~
oneplane
The 'how are you doing' you always seem to get from total strangers always
baffles me when I visit that country. Whats, worse, it's not a real question,
but just a protocol that demands the "I'm fine, thank you" type of answer in
all cases. Neither party gets anything out of it, and instead of being some
sort of prelude/preamble it's just something on it's own with no use
whatsoever.

~~~
paulryanrogers
This had bothered me in the past despite growing up in a culture that demands
it. Yet many things in language are far removed from their original intent,
and we accept them (i.e. irregular verbs).

Personally I try to use less invasive openers, or at least take a moment to
genuinely respond with how I feel at the time.

------
SomeStupidPoint
I want to read this, but it's slightly too wide for my phone screen (the start
of words is cut off with no way to scroll) and I can't figure out how to
adjust it.

It starts loading where it fits, then jumps to too wide woth no ability to fix
by zooming.

Edit: Works on desktop site, so I'm sure it's just the mobile version being
"clever". But seriously, annoying.

(Left in case anyone else has the same issue -- requesting desktop site fixed
it for me.)

~~~
Analemma_
It's not just you, it started happening to me on Tumblr a lot several months
ago. Something has gone badly wrong with their mobile layout. I wouldn't be
surprised though; I can't imagine Veri-hoo considers Tumblr a priority.

