
Secret Life of an Autistic Stripper - mercutio2
http://narrative.ly/secret-life-of-an-autistic-stripper/
======
DoreenMichele
_But in the private rooms at the club, there were no outside stimuli. The
rules were clear, the distractions minimal, so I could focus and interact._

My ex likely qualifies as ASD, though he was never diagnosed. He is terrible
with faces. Faceblindness is common among ASD individuals. He had a lot of
other issues.

He was career military. A common recommendation for ASD individuals is to let
them wear the same stuff over and over, to get them multiple copies of their
favorite items to wear. Wearing the same thing helps accommodate their sensory
issues.

In the military, he was required to wear a uniform. He had multiple copies of
it. A lot of people who have to wear a uniform get tired of it. It's boring.
It's stultifying. But ASD individuals find it a comfort.

He didn't have to remember faces. Everyone's last name was displayed on their
uniform.

He had handwriting issues, probably dysgraphia. He had his favorite pen. As an
adult, he didn't need a file giving him permission to use a particular writing
instrument to accommodate his issues. He had choice and it was chalked up to
personal preference.

If we happen to find a situation that's a good fit for how we are, we look
competent and brilliant. If we are expected to do things that don't work well
for us, performance suffers.

There's really nothing magical or mysterious about that. It's just a shame we
so often require people to have justification for their preferences.

~~~
jl2718
Probably ASD, and military was great, but only in training and deployment to
an actual war zone. Garrison was hell, all politics. Tried stripping too. War
and stripping are similar: de-personalizing, over-stimulating, immediate flow
state rush. Normal social anxieties go away, the rules no longer apply.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I have seen studies that suggest the best war time soldiers are probably ASD
or ADHD. Unsurprisingly, great war time soldiers often suck during peace time.
If you read a little history, this has long been true.

I read a history piece that suggested that we only had one Civil War in the US
because the General that accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox was a chronic
alcoholic and ne'er-do-well who learned compassion because of it. He was an
excellent wartime soldier. He was chronically in trouble the rest of the time.
He also was a callous bastard that was sending so many bodies back from the
front that Lincoln was being harangued to remove him from command. He was
considered to be a monster.

~~~
baron_x
It was Ulysses S Grant, also the 18th President of United States. Fun fact,
they both went to West Point and Lee graduated 2nd in his class whereas Grant
was an average student at best, but during the civil war, Grant was the better
tactician by most accounts and was willing to take heavy losses.

Grant was an alcoholic and his presidency was riddled with corruption and his
reputation was damaged by the Lost Cause revisionists after his death, but
compared to the other historical figures we regularly call 'great' he is a
better person that most of them and I wouldn't think of him as a monster, he
was an interesting and complicated chartacter.

Source: [https://www.amazon.com/Grant-Ron-
Chernow/dp/159420487X](https://www.amazon.com/Grant-Ron-Chernow/dp/159420487X)

~~~
megaman22
Grant was probably a better strategist (or at least he understood his
advantages and how to make use of them), but I've never seen it seriously
suggested that he was a brilliant tactician. Relentless might be the best
description of Grant. There's very little brilliance in the Overland Campaign
of 1864; the primary thing that set Grant apart was that he continued pressing
on after being bloodied, rather than scurrying back to Washington, feeding men
into the meat grinder knowing that he could trade bodies for far longer than
Lee could.

~~~
baron_x
I agree with the north's advantage being in numbers and resources, but I think
it's more complicated than him trying to batter down Lee with it. This image
of Grant throwing lives away needlessly comes from the Overland campaign in
the war, and it was a complex situation with both of them probing for
advantage and Grant eventually pushing him into a siege. Lee lost initiative
and wasn't able to recover from that. Sherman, another Union General was able
to go into the deep south after that and destroy the south's ability to fight
leading to a surrender. I think strategically, he was able to out-perform Lee
which no other Union general was able to do in the civil war, which was pretty
different from how wars were fought up until that point.

Comments on this post lays it out in much more detail.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1uabom/grant...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1uabom/grant_is_often_contrasted_against_lee_as_being/)

------
jscholes
> Facial expressions, body language, and eye contact are the bones of
> communication and it’s quite difficult to build and maintain relationships
> without the ability to read them.

As a blind person this was quite difficult to read (emotionally). I don't have
any additional mental needs, but for obvious reasons I'm unable to read other
peoples' visual body language, maintain eye contact or gauge their facial
expressions. And because I can't do those things, and have never been able to
do those things, they don't always come naturally to me either. I have a
habbit of appearing to have a very serious expression on my face when actually
I feel quite light and carefree, for instance. Maybe great in a poker game, I
don't know.

As an example of this, I never learned to nod or shake my head in response to
questions until a recent trip to visit my partner in Mexico. Her sister is
hearing-impaired, and so gestures like those were often the simplest way to
communicate meaning. My partner, who is also blind, has grown up using those
gestures because of her sister, but for me it was like learning something new.

~~~
freeflight
Makes me wonder if you would outperform seeing people in recognizing audio
cues, like the tone of the voice to interpret emotion?

~~~
jscholes
> Makes me wonder if you would outperform seeing people in recognizing audio
> cues, like the tone of the voice to interpret emotion?

By necessity I have to be tuned in to the sounds in my physical environment,
to pick up any clues which give me an edge when navigating that space. I'd say
it was fairly likely that I do the same when communicating with other people -
one of the things that attracts me to people is the sound and tone of their
voice. I find it difficult to enjoy acting performances, conference talks, etc
when something is off about a person's vocal delivery, however small. Although
that probably also has to do with the fact that for much of the day I'm
listening to a rapidly-speaking text-to-speech engine.

------
vinceguidry
Since she didn't seek out a diagnosis, her actual pathology is still up in the
air and I personally don't think autism is a good fit. The fact of the matter
is, empathy can be a hard thing to develop, and I think many people's
upbringings can cause it to not fully develop even into adulthood.

I remember at one point sometime around the age of 20 I felt like there was
something I was missing. I've always had a pretty good intuition and my
intuition led me to explore a lot of really really sad anime. The exposure to
so much tragedy seemed to kick-start my emotional processing system and I was
able to interact with people a lot more authentically after that.

15 years later, I can now recognize the signs of an immature emotional
processing center in others and I absolutely see them in her. It's a hard
cross to bear, instead of just feeling things, you have to think your way into
feeling them. Your 'range' is limited to a small spectrum.

It doesn't affect the ability to function, there's nothing 'really' wrong with
you, your emotional system _does_ work. It's just that everything's, well,
blunted.

Once I got my emotional center processing again, I started to recognize
feelings that I had had in the past, but didn't recognize. It's a strange
thing thinking back to your childhood and realizing you were feeling things
that you didn't understand that you were feeling. Not entirely sure how common
it is, but I do run across immature emotional processing very often.

Now that I've had this opportunity to think about it more, it's like the
cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part. So
much of your emotions never really reach conscious awareness. If you see a lot
of really ugly, senseless, or violent crap as a kid, I think you're prone to
this kind of disconnection. Then by the time you're an adult, it almost
ossifies. You can work on it, but you have to be motivated to somehow.

~~~
mockingbirdy
> it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the
> emotional part

I have this problem. Most of the time I call it autism for convenience
although I know it isn't accurate. Deficient/Immature emotional processing is
a better phrase that is more accurate.

I think that development issues in the psyche can lead to delays in areas like
emotional processing and theory of mind. Oftentimes I have to simulate
emotions because I don't feel them in myself and others. The good thing is
that I've become very good at analyzing people and their motivations using
knowledge of psychology - it's all conscious. I can understand people better
on a rational level because my explanations incorporate negative thoughts
people may have about themselves without realizing them (negative unconscious
thoughts - mostly fear and anxiety). But I have to allow myself explicitly to
feel something because my emotional regulation is very high - I think this
stems from fear.

There's a wish to control social situations to feel safe. Maybe individuals
who have this problem had negative social experiences because their
perceptions were off in such situations and they realized that their
assessments were wrong which lead to a deficit in self-esteem. To an untrained
eye, this may look like autistic behavior, but it's mostly based on anxiety
and a deficit in emotional processing.

It's possible to overcome that, but I have to admit that it has positive
effects: I don't get emotional easily, I can control social situations and I
don't feel fear or embarrassment. Feeling is a choice and having empathy feels
like a tool. Sounds sociopathic to me (autistic people also have sociopathic
symptoms), so I don't really wish this to anybody.

~~~
vinceguidry
I'm starting to call it "cognitive empathy". Rather than having emotions and
theory of mind operate in the limbic system where they belong, and not having
the option of not having an empathic center, the mind starts to build its own
version of the limbic system in the forebrain. This brings the functioning of
that system into the cognitive purview.

It's definitely in the Cluster B 'spectrum' but in order to make sense of it I
think the best approach is to understand where in early development mind
started to get disordered, and just how 'off' you really are.

Autism Spectrum Disorder happens extremely early, while the mind is
developing. Only the precisely correct form of early intervention will restore
some degree of normalcy to the person.

Personality disorders are not quite as dramatic, and start to develop in
childhood. Traumatic things happen to you that affect the way your brain
develops and it deeply affects you all the way down to your basal ganglia. The
amygdala has the ability to completely override the forebrain and cognitive
processing, so when it malfunctions, or is disordered, it seriously affects
your ability to function in society.

What I'm calling here 'cognitive empathy' is when the trauma doesn't really
reach the point where it affects functioning. The person knows _something_ is
wrong but can't put a finger on it. What's happened is rather than trauma
pushing all the way down into the reptile brain / basal ganglia, or so deep
into the limbic system that it rewires or completely turning emotional
processing off, (psychopathy) the person gets 'shadows' of emotional
processing that they then need to 'shore up' with cognitive processing.

Those with personality disorders don't really have a choice other than to
develop a 'mask'. Their emotional centers just don't function well enough, no
amount of watching sad anime will cause any form of feeling to arise. Normal
people are really sensitive to the subtleties of emotional response hitting
your face, and so psychopaths simply can't have a 'normal' conversation with
people unless they 'put on their masks'. The mask is a wholesale cognitive
recreation of the limbic system, crafted over years of getting it wrong until
they finally figure it out.

I think most people that describe having cognitive empathy aren't this badly
damaged. Their limbic systems function, just not well. They can improve, often
just by seeking out feeling wherever they can find it. So many people describe
operating cognitively until one day in adulthood they managed to start
processing, then all of a sudden it's like a new world opened up for them.
It's their limbic system finally making connections with the forebrain. They
have to keep working on it throughout their lives to increase the trickle into
a working and healthy interconnection.

Really good empathy involves lots of back and forth communication between the
forebrain and the limbic system. Empathy that's only cognitive needs to be
controlled and extreme anxiety results when the control isn't maintained.
Anxiety results when you get amygdala activation as a result of a feeling of
lack of control. It overrides your forebrain and places in the forefront of
the mind, "get back to safety." With good limbic system function then the
person can better orient themselves in uncertain situations. A lot of this is
due to empathy, the 'mirror neuron' system. You can look around, sense that no
one is trying to judge you or anything, and start to relax. But if all that is
happening cognitively, it won't happen fast enough to keep up with the
amygdala's defense mechanisms.

~~~
mockingbirdy
> I'm starting to call it "cognitive empathy". Rather than having emotions and
> theory of mind operate in the limbic system where they belong, and not
> having the option of not having an empathic center, the mind starts to build
> its own version of the limbic system in the forebrain. This brings the
> functioning of that system into the cognitive purview.

You describe the exact model I have created for my brain as well. It's exactly
this. A separate thing that simulates the activity of the limbic system, but
I'm still unsure if I'm not simply reusing the limbic system for that (would
need a fMRI to test this hypothesis).

> What I'm calling here 'cognitive empathy' is when the trauma doesn't really
> reach the point where it affects functioning.

I can't remember being traumatized, but I know that I didn't seek affection as
a kid (my sister told me that hugging me etc. didn't affect me, any type of
punishment didn't affect me on an emotional level - there were some autistic
tendencies).

I got my IQ tested (because I misbehaved in school and teachers thought either
I'm stupid or highly gifted) and got many points (got downvoted the last time
I wrote that number down here). If the numbers are correct I'm part of the top
1% with my intelligence. I guess I had to pay a price for that. Are there
studies that show a correlation between highly gifted kids and problems with
the linking of the limbic system?

\- - -

> It's their limbic system finally making connections with the forebrain.

> Empathy that's only cognitive needs to be controlled and extreme anxiety
> results when the control isn't maintained.

> You can look around, sense that no one is trying to judge you or anything,
> and start to relax.

Very accurate observation, although I can easily recognize if I get judged or
if people focus on me - I wasn't able to do this in the past (people told me),
but I'm getting better and I'm now on a par with "normal" people (and I have
the advantage that all this information is conscious so I can act on it faster
and more rational). But I also think that this is based on my forebrain. The
limbic system feels something (but retrieving this information is more
demanding). Normally I maintain a feeling of apatheia in my limbic system (I
can control this most of the time). Once I've set the emotion, it's hard for
anything (myself included) to change it. I don't even care about death in that
state which is a bit dangerous (had some very dangerous situations in the past
because of that) - I'm completely content, very stoic and don't feel ego in
that state.

> But if all that is happening cognitively, it won't happen fast enough to
> keep up with the amygdala's defense mechanisms.

Sometimes I feel that I'm actively suppressing defense mechanisms because my
consciousness overrides the emotional response. I think it's a matter of
training. It's hard to be faster, but most of the time you get the control
back pretty fast. Using knowledge of cognitive biases, human tendencies,
evolutionary psychology and rationalizations are extremely helpful to achieve
that.

\- - -

Sometimes I let it slip and I'm positive about being able to feel something -
I can remember that I was grateful that I was able to cry when one of my ex-
girlfriends left me: I didn't had to and I had to convince myself, but I felt
like a human being doing that. I thought: "Very good, I'm crying. Like a
normal person. I'm still human". I was able to stop crying in every second,
everything was very controlled - I don't know if this is normal, but this fits
to your statement: "They can improve, often just by seeking out feeling
wherever they can find it."

I'm trying to do that. But I have to say: My best improvements came through
improving my knowledge about psychology. I'm making better predictions about
human behavior and slowly it's better than most people with their intuition.
I'm slowly achieving above-average insight into human nature compared to my
surroundings. I use feedback loops to ensure that my assumptions are correct
(not always very nice: I ask people very intimate things, bypass their
emotional defenses or analyze them thoroughly). But it's the only way to be
sure that I'm actually improving and not falling for self-delusion.

~~~
vinceguidry
> My best improvements came through improving my knowledge about psychology.

Studying psychology gives you more cognitive resources, allowing your brain to
wrap itself better around certain concepts. I think it's easy for intellectual
types to put too much emphasis on cognitive development and they need to be
encouraged to actually develop their limbic system.

The cognitive wants to get better, constantly constantly better. The limbic
wants harmony. I also have had the experience of being prideful of the
capacity to be emotional. Over time I've been able to gradually cede the
compulsion of the cognitive to allow the limbic to do its job. It makes life
much, much, much simpler, to be able to turn off the need to constantly
_understand_ everything.

~~~
Fnoord
> The cognitive wants to get better, constantly constantly better. The limbic
> wants harmony. I also have had the experience of being prideful of the
> capacity to be emotional. Over time I've been able to gradually cede the
> compulsion of the cognitive to allow the limbic to do its job. It makes life
> much, much, much simpler, to be able to turn off the need to constantly
> understand everything.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: mindfulness can aid with that.

~~~
vinceguidry
The technique of choice for this is catharsis. This is why watching and
reading tragic media is so useful to people. It's tailor made to engage the
limbic system. Watching people deal with really awful situations primes the
mind to release emotional energy and engages neural pathways that aren't often
active.

Mindfulness is useful for when you have uncontrolled emotions flooding your
forebrain and making it difficult for you to function. Forcing your mind to
watch the processes as they're happening allows the forebrain to come up with
novel ways to make sense of what the rest of the brain is doing.

You want to release, then integrate emotion. Catharsis, then mindfulness.

~~~
mockingbirdy
Ok. I will watch Hachiko and use the resulting sentimentality to train my
limbic system and its connection with my neocortex. I will try to feel
something.

I've heard that many people get tears while watching it, although many people
don't score high on standardized psychopathy tests.

~~~
vinceguidry
You may get results out of repetition. When I was a kid, I remember reading
and rereading the same books over and over again, and really getting to know
the characters and the storyline. You experience each new watching / reading
in a different way, bypassing the cognitive mind a little bit by not giving it
as much work to do. You'll get more limbic immersion this way.

~~~
mockingbirdy
Thanks, that's a great tip although it sounds extremely boring. I spend most
of my time juggling with philosophical or abstract thoughts, planning the
business and working on projects. Doing something which isn't intellectually
rewarding sounds like a challenge.

~~~
vinceguidry
If you're looking for emotional activation, both boredom and frustration are a
good ones to use. :-) I like to let any and all negative emotions I feel free
reign over my mind. It can become a kind of meditation.

------
kryogen1c
"I've always had trouble reading social cues, but in the strip club, where
rules and roles are crystal clear, I finally learned to connect."

I work in IT and I find this to be very true, personally. I'm not a socialite
and wouldn't talk to strangers at a party, but customer phone calls are not
that. We're both there for a purpose and working to meet our goals together
through banter and small talk is a non-issue.

------
JohnJamesRambo
My mother teaches autistic children and I think this woman must have an
incredibly mild version. My mother’s students can barely take care of
themselves and touching someone is largely out of the question. I’d love to
see her face when I mentioned I read an article about a woman with autism
being a stripper.

And yes I know there is a spectrum of autism from severe to not as severe, but
when someone is as high functioning as this does the word have any meaning
anymore?

~~~
amorphid
Having a mild form can be even more difficult. You appear different enough
that people can tell, but your similar enough to other people that people
don't understand the difference between you not getting it and simply
misbehaving. When someone who will never get why they're being disciplined for
what to them is acting normally keeps getting repeatedly punished, it's
usually going to go poorly.

~~~
kstenerud
Yes, it is difficult and stunting. Your actions and body language and even
voice land you deep in the uncanny valley, and that makes people
uncomfortable, even though they can't articulate why.

I've lost plenty of jobs because of it, and for the longest time I just
figured people like to be mean, because when I was fired, nobody would ever
say why, even when I pressed them for a reason. When I was shunned or
excluded, people feigned ignorance and looked for a quick way out of the
conversation when I asked why. It's incredibly frustrating and saddening
feeling like people pick on you for no reason, when you know that there IS a
reason, but nobody will say what it is, or how to fix it.

I've tried being extra friendly (people think you've got an angle), being
strictly professional (people think you don't care about anything), more
helpful (people think you're brown nosing), more talkative (people think
you're a buffoon), less talkative (you become the guy nobody knows, and are
the first to go at layoffs). And since there's no apparent rhyme or reason to
their reactions, your life becomes a series of ticking time bombs until a
relationship ends, a friendship ends, a job ends... Who you are means nothing
if it slowly creeps people out.

~~~
strictfp
The sad truth is that most people just aren't very self-aware.

I had one wake-up call when I was called wierd by my training buddy, him
question why I even took part in the classes we were taking. I asked him why,
he responded that my T-shirt was cryptic.

After explaining the print to him (it was a film reference), he thought
everything was fine again.

That's sadly the level some people operate on.

------
teddyc
I am autistic and this is a fascinating read. Haven't finished it yet, but
needed to comment to encourage others.

One thing I learned early on in IT is: It is now how you fix the problem, it
is how people feel when you fixed it.

This is tough to deal with b/c you can fix the "problem" but still have
fallout from the situation b/c the way people felt from interacting with you.

~~~
kryogen1c
> One thing I learned early on in IT is: It is now how you fix the problem, it
> is how people feel when you fixed it.

Like we say at our company, don't manage problems - manage clients.

~~~
booleandilemma
So much of tech support is hand-holding and telling the user everything is
going to be ok.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Yup, and reassuring them that they didn't do anything wrong.

------
throwaway_65534
Damn, the description of problems in social situations feel like it's written
about my wife.

She's mostly OK (if a little over-bearing and too trusting) in 1 on 1
conversation, but has huge problems behaving "normally" when there's many
people, often answers in detail to throwaway questions and monopolizes the
time and focus in a discussion. She comes out as egocentric and a very weird
person.

She also does this detailed analysis of really obvious (to me) situations, to
the point that it's sometimes frustrating to see her struggle on whether
particular thing she did or said was OK or not (when for me it's obvious it
doesn't matter and certainly doesn't warrant 40 minutes of analysis).

She worked in like 10 different schools teaching math, each time for 1 year or
less. Mostly the problem was - she was unable to play the politics game,
especially when it comes to grading kids unfairly well to please the parents
so they don't go to the director and demand her gone.

At the moment she's looking for a new job, economically we're ok but it's not
very good to be unemployed for years. Maybe someone have any recommendations
for a trade that's a good fit? Doesn't have to be very profitable. She's
pretty good with math and computers, graduated math and economy, speaks Polish
and English pretty well. She was writing books as a hobby at one point but
stopped decades ago, I was suggesting trying that, but she doesn't believe
there will ever be money in it. I've also tried to teach her programming (she
already knew some basic stuff) but she just doesn't like it, or maybe I'm a
bad teacher.

~~~
blanche_
IT is a good fit, just show her project euler or more math heavy branches of
IT like machine learning. Oddballs like people on the spectrum are fine here.

------
sperg1
I struggled for years after being diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school. My
parents didn’t believe in medication so I was never out on anything, which I
am thankful for.

After struggling tremendously with math and social interactions as well as
school in general, I spiraled into deep depression. I was bullied, something
which I now blame on my lack of normal social defenses. People would say
things to me and I would become overwhelmed and shocked and unable to respond.
Normal teenagers seem to be quick with comebacks, it literally takes me days
to figure out what I should say or how I should react to common scenarios like
off comments.

It took me over a decade to get out of it. I recently began reading about the
symptoms of aspergers and nearly everything fit.

Extremely high and inappropriate language skills e.g. using words that I
really shouldn’t, check. Inability to detect and respond appropriately to
emotions. Dyscalculia (inability to do math), something that can be associated
with aspergers.

I watched some videos of some people who had been through similar situations
and likewise fallen into depression upon hitting the social conditions that
occur in teenage years.

It now makes sense why I have to plan my facial expressions before I get
Starbucks. If I don’t, I have this horrible death stare and scare the shit out
of people.

What really depresses me still to this day is just how sensitive most people
in society are to aspergers. Once people detect there is something off about
you, you are done. It happens within minutes.

There is nothing I can really do, I can only imagine how many relationships
and life experiences Inhave missed due to being rapidly discarded by my peer
group due to these kinds of eccentricities.

~~~
voltagex_
What do you mean using words you shouldn't?

~~~
dayofthedaleks
Grandiloquence, or using words like 'grandiloquence.'

------
stared
One of my friends is a sex worker with Asperger's. She is very prone to
overstimulation. Though, when I asked her about her work - apparetenly
Asperger's does not affect her much (meetings have concrete goal and
structure, so implicit communication is not as important as is managing more
open-ended social interactions) plus in 1-1 there aren't too many people (or
too loud sound/noise).

As a side note, in this topic, one of the most illuminating things I found:

Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context (a chapter from A Mind-Body
Look at the Concept of Asperger's Syndrome (pdf) by Michael Samsel, LMHC):

[https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c...](https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c19d)

~~~
enb
Thank you for this link. I'm startled at how clearly it describes these
traits. I will read the entire document. Thank you again

------
JackMorgan
This whole thread is fascinating to me because I seem to respond the opposite:
every word, facial change, and body adjustment is densely packed with
emotional weight. Sometimes simple conversations feel like a dramatic opera.
Sometimes I'll pull out a massively wrong signal from a simple one sentence
exchange.

Obviously, this can be exhausting, so tech is great for me! Many coworkers
appear to have the opposite: an emotional intensity as muted as mine is
strong. We get along great, like zebras and giraffes. They often apply logic
to social interactions, and I often apply emotional intuition. As long as we
both learn to respect and trust the other's reality, together we can be better
than separate.

------
wasx
I don't know if I'm on the spectrum or not but I empathize a lot with the
experiences of autistic people, most stories I read could almost verbatim be
applied to myself. Including this womans experience (minus the stripping, but
finding a comfortable environment where all but the rules are stripped away).

This entailed years and years of awkward social experiences, and terrible
self-loathing and embarrassing gaffs. The single biggest benefit I ever gained
was learning that people actually have emotional basis to almost everything
they say, as the author herself identifies in her post. For me I never had
really any emotional content underneath my words unless I was being
overwhelmed by emotion, and because of that I never saw that in other people.

Learning that people are emotional first and rational second has led me to
rapid improvements in my social life, including developing a group of friends
and even a romantic relationship. I stopped trying to mask myself and instead
approached every interaction knowing that the other person was experiencing
some emotional reaction to it, and just behaved as myself with that knowledge.
I'm still off-beat and I still get called weird but I have friends and a
romance and it all seems to be going well, people will adjust to who you are.
People I've found normally seek a positive interaction, and acting friendly
and seeking more details for what they've said, as well as talking about your
own similar events or experiences is the way to pull that off.

I've found a good ratatat is to ask about something (normally people will lead
off with some experience they've had or story they want to tell, but you can
ask to kickstart it) inquire about a detail you would like them to elaborate
and then chip in with your own similar experience or somehow pulling the focus
off them and back onto yourself before the conversation inevitably bounces
back and returns. Before long it's flowing naturally and biology sort of takes
over and you're engaged in conversation. Too many questions or too much on
yourself and it will all get uncomfortable or rude, so balance is key but if
you keep bouncing around like this you will learn the balance for that
individual and yourself. I still struggle with identifying what emotion people
are trying to convey if it's not a simple and easily visible one like
happiness, sadness or anger. But people I've found will normally pick up on
the fact you've missed it and be more direct. It's very exhausting if you
don't have a natural instinct for emotions, but it is rewarding because we are
still emotional creatures.

This is the basis of conversation. Understanding this has also allowed me to
attach emotion to my words and people are very receptive to this, and very
importantly it has made me feel a lot better and manage stress. More
importantly conversation has become much easier as time has gone on and I've
begun learning the hints that forever eluded me because I was not interacting
on the same foundational base as most other people.

There's more I've learnt about engaging with people than I can write here but
they're subtle details that I learnt in the moment. I still over anaylze and I
still struggle with my emotions and filtering information but I think I'm on a
good path and I think that many neurodiverse people would benefit from similar
realizations to what I have had.

------
jawns
It's worth mentioning that autistic women tend to be at risk of sexual
exploitation.

Here's a little video by Kati Morton that explains how autism is different in
girls/women than in boys/men. At 6:07, she talks about vulnerability to
exploitation:

[https://youtu.be/gpJ6bJHEc-k?t=6m7s](https://youtu.be/gpJ6bJHEc-k?t=6m7s)

"Research also finds that females with ASD, since they tend to take things
literally and are direct, that they can more easily fall victim to sexual
exploitation, such as assault or getting stuck in an abusive relationship."

------
theshadowknows
I’ve often wondered if I’m ASD or if I’m just an asshole. I’m horrible with
faces/names. I’ve seen people daily for two years, and every day it’s like
they’re someone new. But at the end of the day...I just don’t care.

Then there’s the stimulus thing. I’d rather go hungry than go to a crowded
grocery store. I can’t stand it. It makes me want to scream. So I usually just
order a pizza. Which itself is awkward and I hate it but at least it’s over
quickly.

But with technical things I typically pick them up quickly. And I enjoy them
so long as their sufficiently challenging. I get bored easily though and
prefer to just abandon problems once I’ve solved them or pass the solution on
to someone else to implement. So maybe I am just an asshole.

~~~
bitexploder
Why not both? If you can identify a "ideal/expected" choice in most situations
but purposefully decide to do something that is more "convenient" it certainly
merits some internal reflectio. I know for a lot of folks the decision isn't
really a decision, so I used quotes. But, like the author, many ASD sufferers
build scripts of what the world around them expects and executed those when
their real time processing would fail them.

As someone with ADHD, though, the solving something and then dropping it thing
is a real problem. Inability to complete a project or task can be hard. I can
work a problem until I am satisfied I got to the core of it, got my dopamine
hit from that satisfaction. Then I will leave the problem rough around the
edges sometimes. Or just abandon it. I don't know how ADHD and ASD intersect
though I imagine having both is quite possible?

------
chaoticmass
I've never been given an ASD diagnosis, but have wondered if I was on the
spectrum. Regardless, I've struggled with reading faces, and generally just
being weird/awkward in social situations. One thing that really helped me
though was my first job where I worked retail selling computers. Initially the
hardest part was approaching people. Once I approached someone and they seemed
interested in a PC or Laptop it was easy, I just had to talk to them about one
of my favorite topics (computers). I ended up being one of the top sales
associates, and this gave me confidence to be more outgoing and social outside
of work.

------
yenwel
I think high functioning autism is just a DSM-isation (label as disease) of
people with high introversion, neurotism and/or disagreeableness. Read "The
silent power of introverts" by Susan Cain. People are people. We all evolved
traits to fill our biological niche. Highly vocal people with little fears
(extraverted and neurotypical) are just that: more "confident" and vocal about
how great they are. Corporate sociopaths will say you have a too high feeling
for justice to silence you. Realize that this is your strength to realize what
is ethical and a blind spot for them and their greatest weakness. Dark triad
people will black/white label to control you since you are more prone to be
sensitive and isolated. You have to realize that your greatest strength is
your greatest weakness. That counts for every person where ever on the
spectrum. As highly sensitive individual you are just more focused on the
negative of your (in)ability to function in a certain biological niche. You
are also more realistic of your and other people's abilities and talents
(Dunning–Kruger effect). You are a animal on the savanna that is sensitive to
the sounds of the predator approaching. And you survive. And the cycle
continues.

~~~
blanche_
Autistic are not necessarily introverts. Autism is more like social blindness
than introversion. Considering the fact that human is highly social animal it
makes life harder. Calling people with ASD introverts is like calling people
with depression just sad.

~~~
yenwel
Autism is a problem with cognitive empathy (understanding and recognizing
emotions in one self and others). Versus sociopathy and other dark triads
which have a problem with affective empathy (experiencing an mirror emotion to
the emotion of others). The latter makes sociopaths able to exploit people
around them (recognizing emotions and no bad feeling exploiting it). You can
also miss both but these will be severely ineffective interacting and being
accepted by society (in extreme low functioning sociopaths like serial killers
and mass murderers). Highly intelligent and/or sensitive people have the
ability to process large amounts of information ("detailism" in a negative
tone). They have complex emotions, mixed with their environment whereas less
sensitive people have more control of how to filter the input of their
environment. So highly sensitive and intelligent have a lot of input from
technical information but also complex social situations (over thinking it).
This makes it highly tiring to work in large social groups (vs extraverted
people) and leads to isolating to small social groups (introversion) and
diving deep in a limited subject of interest to limit this input. I posit that
so called high functioning autists are not socially blind but actually very
receptive for all kinds of information including social cues and emotions of
their environment, overwhelming them. See the work by Simon Baron-Cohen.

~~~
emodendroket
In fact sociopaths are often exceptionally successful in society because
they're very good at manipulating people. It's in some sense the opposite of
autism: the actual emotion is not there but they are very natural at feigning
it.

------
newnewpdro
This person hasn't even been diagnosed with autism by a professional, yet the
title strongly suggests so. I guess the article wouldn't be particularly
appealing with "Autistic" missing from the title.

I've met a few people who have self-diagnosed themselves as autistic. It's
kind of become a catch-all for people with eccentricities and/or offensive
tendencies. In the cases I've seen, the people are either just unsocialized
having spent most of their lives alone at a computer, or simply very selfish
and can't be bothered to make an effort towards not saying things which might
offend sensitive people.

It also seems like there's such a strong pressure now for people to fit in
with the masses that anyone who has gone a very individualistic route in their
life needs to be explained by having some kind of disorder, then labeled and
treated as such. I find it paradoxical; we tell people to be themselves, think
for themselves, disregard what others think, and just live their lives, but
then when they actually do that and the results turn out to conflict with the
majority's expectations, it's a disorder and we assign professionals to treat
it.

 _shrug_

~~~
Fnoord
First of all, I agree with you that self-diagnosis is dangerous. However, I'm
from a rich country with a great healthcare system (The Netherlands). Others
with ASD might not be as fortunate as I am.

> I've met a few people who have self-diagnosed themselves as autistic. It's
> kind of become a catch-all for people with eccentricities and/or offensive
> tendencies. In the cases I've seen, the people are either just unsocialized
> having spent most of their lives alone at a computer, or simply very selfish
> and can't be bothered to make an effort towards not saying things which
> might offend sensitive people.

Typical NT denial that mild ASD is more rampant in society than they'd like to
admit.

> It also seems like there's such a strong pressure now for people to fit in
> with the masses

That pressure was much stronger in the past where you were either Christian or
dead. You either functioned (worked), or you were a beggar on the street.
Psychology? Diagnosis? Autism? Unheard of. ASD umbrella is new in DSM-V. The
amount of undiagnosed people who now get diagnosed is increasing in this
century. My simple explanation for that is: "we understand autism better
nowadays" and "mild autism is part of the ASD spectrum".

> it's a disorder and we assign professionals to treat it.

ASD cannot be treated. You can learn to cope with it, live with it, but you
cannot _make it go away_ (ie. treat a _disease_ ).

> _shrug_

 _shrug_ indeed. "Move along, move along"

~~~
emodendroket
> However, I'm from a rich country with a great healthcare system (The
> Netherlands). Others with ASD might not be as fortunate as I am.

I feel reasonably comfortable saying that strip clubs are probably not
generally giving their dancers generous healthcare plans; if the woman feels
like she's got things under control it's hard to say what benefit an expensive
diagnosis would give her, beyond satisfying doubting online commenters.

------
Tycho
Has there been any studies linking ASD/Aspergers to exogenous circumstances of
childhood? (eg. older than average parents, lack of playmates, frequent re-
locations...)

~~~
taneq
Autism is associated with advanced maternal age:
[https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20100208/autism-
risk...](https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20100208/autism-risk-rises-
with-mothers-age#1)

I believe there's more recent evidence suggesting that paternal age may also
play a role but there's a confounding factor there that paternal age is
strongly linked to maternal age.

~~~
Fnoord
Is that because parents with autism have children later in life than those
without? I mean, what exactly is the link? FTA: "So what's going on? That
isn't clear. Older parents' genes can undergo changes caused by aging and by
the environment"

------
timwaagh
i find it disheartening to know that so many autistic women end up in the sex
industry or related fields. the problem is that girls are given too much room
to do whatever they please because the expectation still is that they will
become hired just to talk to people. but since autistics are bad at this, this
is not going to happen. because autistics being undisciplined by nature on top
of this their chances of learning a trade by themselves are low. so this is
how they end up. maybe they also like this better than normal women, however
the fact is that it remains shitty work.

------
Madmallard
autism is a spectrum. shes probably in it. quit trying to explain away her
issues other posters.

