The Collaborative Shut-Out

A Major-League baseball team had an intriguing game recently ... a collaborative no-hitter (or "shut-out"). Something like five or six different pitchers were involved for their team, ranging from a few innings to a couple batters faced, yet none allowed a hit by a batter of the other team. It was a new record for how many pitchers collaborated to make a no-hitter. It may have been a record as a collaborative event in baseball, but ... it's nothing new or unusual for Neuro-Typical conversations.

Friend and fellow "free-range Aspergian" Bryan made a comment a few posts back that for Neuro-Typicals (NT's for now?), conversations are essentially a collaborative process, rather than each person actually trying to communicate their thoughts individually. That conversations aren't composed of individuals sharing their own thoughts with the group so much as a "thought-process" being shared by the group.

Fragmental thoughts shared and combined as a collaborative thought process ... that is as NT as you can get. I think that is especially the form that general time-killing/filling conversations take among NT's. Someone starts things off saying "X" ... which may be either a complete "classical" sentence or two, or perhaps just a clause of a sentence, a fragment of a thought. Someone else will say some other little bit that in some way seems to them have something to do with the first thought-fragment; then another makes a similar fragmental comment but ... spun to something a bit different. Then someone else makes a comment that somehow takes off from the last fragment (but to what seems for us Aspy's a completely different subject matter), and the process repeats itself. Over and over.

As close to "normal" as I appear to most people, this sort of discussion is a LANDMINE waiting to explode around me (and all other Aspy's) any moment. It's based heavily on that shared data-flow of eye/vocal/facial/body/breath inflections that NT's gather without needing to think about, and which shapes their concepts of "what" the conversation is about each moment. 

Remember the explanation above ... the part where I noted the spins and take-offs to what seems a different subject matter? Think about any "general" conversation you are part of. The subject matter of the words does jump around a lot ... but yet in reality to the NT's, the conversation apparently continues without such a jump. All the NT's there seem to understand the links between the "apparent" jumps, or at least, understand that this shift in word-subject is simply part of continuing the same conversational pattern of the group. It is the pattern of  the conversation that is really the main shared communication. This group collaborative-talking process.

We Spectrumites may see some of the 'connecting' pieces between the fragments, and we may say something that feels a 'fit' to the other NT folks there. But no matter how hard we study NT's in real-life, in real-time we will miss probably 80% or more of the full information the rest of the group gets from each comment/commenter.There is no way we can track such complicated thought processes based on data we don't even "see". We're going to say something ... wrong.

I've studied such conversational patterns for many years now. I've had them analyzed and detailed for me by close friends and delightedly blunt enemies. For most of my life, the explanations have been given by people assuming that if I had half a brain and was actually concerned enough about other people and not so self-centered, I'd learn it ... quickly. And that the only reason for not gaining the understanding they were trying to teach to me was if I did not really want to learn how to get along with others. If I was ... selfish. Self-centered. A boor. Thoughtless. A pig.

After one is told this so many times, well, it must be true, right? John Elder Robison talks of how he heard the same comment so many times as a child, from SO many people (from school counselors and teachers to family members and strangers), that it must be true. However odd it seemed to him, they couldn't ALL be wrong. He was clearly a self-centered psychopath/ax-murder-in-waiting! He actually felt he should study which kind of prison he should "aim" for when he finally became what they all saw in him. Not because he felt any urge or inclination to become an ax-murderer/psychopath, but simply because EVERYONE around him couldn't be wrong, could they? (By the way, Federal prisons are better.)

Well ... they were wrong. John wasn't a self-centered psychopath in any way shape or form. His brain was just wired differently, so his interactions appeared differently and were misinterpreted by those around him. Seriously misinterpreted. But my corollary of the last post still applies: this is a two-way smash-up in progress. They misinterpreted him, just as he misinterpreted them.

And just as I and those around me do. And those wonderful little conversational jumps that aren't really jumps? I haven't a clue how they work to NT's. An NT says one set of words that (to me) completely changes the "apparent" subject matter of a flowing conversation ... but it isn't a change to the conversational pattern. Yet any slight change in "apparent" subject matter that I might provide is quite possibly going to be seen as a rude and dismissive commandeering of the group's conversation. With the other folks shaking their heads at how thoughtless I am.

I can't get it, and I certainly can't "win" at conversation either, though I've gotten better at fighting it to a draw or at least a stand-still. Participation is Hell on wheels, and staying aloof and "outside" is not much better. I know that if I say anything, eventually (and sooner rather than later) I will insult or anger someone or multiple someone's. Or at the least, I will be taken as thoughtless, boorish, self-centered, egotistical, and rude. If I don't say anything, eventually I will come across as either disinterested in others, ridiculously shy, or lacking in proper social graces by refusing to engage with others in "proper" social interactions. A self-centered boor by a different means.

But life is a participation sport, just like baseball. It's a "purist" sport, however. No designated conversationalists or relief-talkers allowed ... but oh well, many consider the designated hitter an apostasy even in baseball.

Verbally Blind

Although it may seem that the last few posts are discussing mostly the problems I have being understood by others, it's really a completely equal two-way smashup. True, I can't get a lot of "content" through in any attempt at detailed discussion. But the corollary ... is that I miss SO much of the "intended" communications of those around me that they send to me. I just can't "grok" the meanings they want to get into my head anymore than they seem able to "grok" mine.

And it's dastardly ... bizarre. You see, it isn't that I (or most other high-functioning Aspergians) don't get, for example,  satiric or ironic comments ... because I and "we" ... use them and enjoy such things. I/we understand most jokes and forms of humor, and both respond to and employ these things in ways so close to the Neruro-Typical or "Enty" way of doing it that we tend to do pretty well (at least most of the time!) within these forms of the obviously different-from-dictionary word usage. These "altered meaning" practices tend to be pretty obviously ... altered. We're cool with that.

Where we Spectrumites fall on our faces is in the rather normal, mundane and "straight-forward" discussions that make up the majority of human interaction. The ones everyone is presumed able to understand. The "face value" comments and statements, that it turns out ... aren't nearly as "face value" as they supposedly are.

Or perhaps, that's really the problem ... for the Enty population,  face is valuable. It's nearly everything. Remember those paragraphs explaining how Enty's take all that sensorial data in along with the words? In their brains, it's all inter-connected and the words only "mean" what the totality of data says they mean. In our brains, out on our spectrum, it isn't. Oh, really ANGRY faces we see ... and really any "something" faces. We do see them. Though even then, as we note internally that the person is in whatever emotional state they are showing, we only see it as a side-detail to the conversation. The words are still the words, right?

No ... the words aren't just the words. They never ... or rarely ... are. And it's in the most subtle facial/vocal/breath/body/eye-corner details, in the more "bland" or straight-forward-seeming sentences and comments ... that those other details matter far more than the words. That those other details give the intended meaning to the words. So often completely at digression from a straight literal dictionary translation of the words stated, if done word-by-word.

I, and others on the spectrum, can neither "see" nor interpret those very important data bits any more than a blind person can tell you how many posters are stuck to the wall by just looking at the wall. In both cases, the wiring simply isn't there. Even knowing this is the process, there's no way I can guess either. I don't see (in literal reality) those subtle shifts at the corners of the eyes. And if I do see them, I've no way to understand how to interpret them, from the thousands of meanings they could have.

I'm damn near "verbally blind", as are most of my "ilk". And that's a right uncomfortable thing to be.

Autism/Aspergers vs "Normal" Communication Part II

John Elder Robison has an example of how differently we Spectrumites communicate from EnTy's, about our typical lack of complex motives when we on the Spectrum speak. His example: If we tell someone that the red dress they're wearing today makes them look fat (or if we've learned some sophistication, "heavy") and the blue dress they wore yesterday doesn't, it's simply a direct attempt to help them look their best. We're only passing on useful information. They should go home and put the blue dress back on.

There's no emotional content nor any other implication intended within the comment. It is a purely factual communication. Direct, simple, straightforward, and most importantly to us, useful for the other person. The best kind of communication, right? They should even thank us for it.

However, what most EnTy's will "hear" is that we intentended to insult them, and they will never ... ever ... believe otherwise. And worse, they'll KNOW that any attempt by us to "explain" our silly excuse for reasoning is just a show of  how STUPID we think they are (that we think they'd believe such crap!). Once they've taken a comment 'wrong', there's no recovery possible, or at least, likely.

Mr. Robison's example is straight-forward and in some ways comical, and I know many EnTy's will consider it perhaps 'extreme'. My experience is similar to Mr. Robison's, but ... in real life it goes ever so much farther than his example. Everything I say to an EnTy is processed in the same way. Every instruction to an employee, every suggestion in a meeting, every conversational comment to clients or friends ... it is all processed this way by the other side, in a way which I can neither natively understand, predict, nor accomplish on my own.

Even in this, as I'm trying to be precise in an attempt to communicate clearly, I will probably fail with many (or probably most) of the people who may ever read this LONG epistle. It will be all sorts of things "wrong" but not the right things "right". Because I've found, even in written language, there's something different about the way En-Ty's perceive my words that I can't ... fathom.

The few times I've had "successes" at getting much meaning across have been only a partial success ... a few percent of the idea made it across. It's been rare to actually get any complex idea absorbed in a way that it is still useful to others in the way that I meant it, so that they acted on it as I had envisioned. And as always, if I try to correct the perceptions of what I'd said, people get puzzled ... then they get ticked at me.

My communications successes have mostly been in dire emergencies. It seems that the ONE time that EnTy's shut down that predictive-meaning facility is in DIRE emergencies, when most people's upper-brain functions shut down in general. Suddenly, they hear my commands as simply and exactly the words I intend them to be, follow precisely my bluntly stated commands, and ... we get through, with everyone amazed at how strange it was that I could communicate so clearly and take command so easily. But as soon as their brains relax, it's back to ... normal.

John Elder Robison and Temple Grandin and others all say that with time and experience "we" get better at getting along in EnTy society. We become functionally near enough to "normal" as to be fine and enjoy life with and among EnTy's  just dandy (or at least, close enough).

I've not found that the case. Most people I'm around don't even realize I am on that spectrum. I'm not such a display-case that it's obvious except to those with good experience in these things. One would think that being (at least in appearance) closer to "normal" than most of my true peers, I should have somewhat better communication results. Or at least, some ability to improve the quality of my communications with EnTy's to a sort-of comfortable state. Not so, at least, not with only 37 years of adult attempts.

The only way I've really found to achieve a "comfortable" state in communications with EnTy's is ... to stop almost all attempts to talk with EnTy's on anything past the weather and how old their kids are. In any subject past that, there will be miss-communications galore. At some point, I'll make what seems a simple straight-forward comment, perhaps even just a hmmm of agreement, and the conversation hits a hard STOP as they're standing there somehow completely puzzled by my response. And when I realize it's happened again, if I try to correct the "miss", it makes the personal interaction worse. So it's much easier (both socially and emotionally) to try and fade into the woodwork, to become ... less. Less obvious, less "there", and less ... me.

But that of course makes it impossible for me to get anything done that matters to me. Life is created by the doing of something worthwhile. For my business to take good care of my family (and make some sort of non-peon retirement possible) I need to be able to make things happen. And yet as I spin my mental wheels in all this analytical mud, my brain racing around trying to find SOME way to get traction and move forward somehow, all that this excellent reasoning power of my brain shows me is that ... This Is The Way It Is. This Is Why It Is. And ... It ... just ... IS.

And so far, it seems there's no way to fix it. Every communication of any length or depth I have with every Enty I meet always leaves me aware I've ... surprised them somehow. That I didn't communicate something that I'd expected, wanted, or needed to with them. That I've left them wondering about some puzzling comment or pause or whatever. And it leaves me feeling very isolated, singular, and separate.

No, I'm neither proud of nor comfortable with being a Spectrumite. It's what I am, similar to being say left-handed or long-bodied/short-legged. It just is. It is often a cause of embarrassment and emotional hurts, both for myself and sadly (and to my shame) for others. But my continual lack of ability to get traction burns.

I should be able to do better than this ... and I will always try.

Autism/Aspergers versus "Normal" Communication

In tested mental capabilities, I'm HEAVILY geared for analysis/synthesis, and that capability comes with a ton of native "horsepower". Which naturally means I look at things around me, analyze, re-think, and envision alternate ways of doing anything. That's me. That's how I see the world every minute. I analyze, I pull things apart in my head, and see if there's another way to put them back together that might be better for at least some purpose than the way things are now. And truthfully, there are always ways to improve things.

But I'm not a tin-pot dictator in some third-world country with the self-awarded title of "Colonel", wearing a cute quasi-military uniform I designed for myself. And no, I don't even have those darling aviator "shades". So I can't order anyone to follow my ideas and threaten them with torture for failing to understand me. Not even within my own business. I have to use words to illustrate and define my ideas, and make my thoughts understandable to and for those who must then help plan the implementation and carry out my ideas and goals.

I was an English Lit major in college, and compared to my peers in the department, writing was a strength. But as an adult, even though interpersonal communication seems like something I should be able to do in my sleep, it has been so often a botch-job that I learned to dread meetings. Not that my efforts always seem so "botched" by others, but that so rarely does any real depth of my intent get across the Great Divide.

As part of my continuing studies of the Autism/Aspergers spectrum, I have learned to understand some of the communications differences between those of us who are "Spectrumites" (my newly-minted term) to those who are "Neuro-typical", or "N/T's" (let's call them "En-Ty's", for short). And yes, there is a sort of code-book situation going on. A horrifying one from the vantage point of those of us on the spectrum.

In verbal conversations, most "En-Ty" brains absorb the words they hear as only part of the context of the situation they hear them in. That context is a very complex compendium of their own sensory perceptions of the face, body, breath-patterns, vocal and other 'inflections' they perceive from the one who's speaking. From all this, and AS the words and sensory perceptions come in, they determine what is the most likely motive that one who would use such words would have for saying those words in that way in this situation here and now. THEN, having deduced the true motive behind the words being used, they determine the true or intended meaning of the person who just said the words they heard.

Let's recap: first, they take everything they've mentally and sensorially experienced/noticed/perceived from the speaker (with the actual words being only a small part of the total input); from the total received intake they then they deduce a motive for the communication; THEN they determine what the true or intended meaning of the comment was ... from the motive and perceptions of delivery they just deduced.

EnTy's do all this instantly, and most of them don't even have a clue that this is the process they use to give meaning to the words they hear. It truly is an amazing bit of mental gymnastics, exceeding the capability of a quad-core computer chip in near-instantaneous processing speed. Brains can be marvelous devices, you know.

But there is a horrific part in all this for us Spectrumites. We're mostly to COMPLETELY oblivious to all of this "extra" mental thought-processing. Not because we haven't bothered to learn it, as so many folks tell us. But because our brains aren't hard-wired to do it as theirs are. After studying this communications dissimilarity for a couple years, I can logically understand how it works, but I cannot possibly apply that knowledge in "real-time". I don't have the automatic sensor-connection between the parts of the brain that control my eyes and ears to my "thinking" section that would make all those data-bits (that don't seem at all inter-connected to my brain) somehow affect the meaning of the words I hear. In many situations, this action by EnTy's seems to completely replace the meaning of the literal words with another "thought" entirely, one in complete opposition to the stated words. I can't figure out how to do that.

Nor can any EnTy for whom this is "natural", turn the process off when they're around someone who doesn't share the ability. In fact, those who do this most strongly are highly likely to insist that they DON'T do any such thing at all. It is probable they will take great offense at the mere implication that they would. And so, they insist we've just made a statement that bears no relation we of the Spectrum can tell to any words, thoughts, or understanding we've ever had in our lives. Let alone the words we just said. It's often infuriating to both sides. What a life, eh?

LIving a Spectrumite Life in an En-Ty World

Some of my peers choose humorous ways to talk about living as a member of the Aspergers/Autism "spectrum", such as John Elder Robison's self-created title as a "Free-range Aspergian". That has a bit of whimsy, of "cuteness" to it, doesn't it? Mr. Robison and Temple Grandin (another noted Autistic/"Spectrumite") even make the point both in their books and their lecture appearances that they wouldn't want to change anything about themselves or their presence "on the spectrum". They're comfortable being who and what they are. They feel of those of us with Autism/Aspergers ... conditions? ... have also been given enough advantages over "Neuro-Typicals" that they prefer life on the spectrum. Or, as I call it, being a "Spectrumite" versus being an "En-Ty".

For me, learning about my own hardwired limitations as a Spectrumite these last couple years has been brutal. Just as brutal as living on that spectrum has been for lo these 58 years. Yes, I finally have some understanding of how and why interpersonal communications and relations for my entire life have been ... "odd". For both myself and everyone around me, as I'm very aware that I do continually cause confusion and discomfort in others. I understand why some people react so strongly, so negatively,  on just being in a room with me. Why so many attempts at simple conversations go so ... uncomfortable. In three sentences or less.

But for all those years before "understanding" attacked, I kept up an optimism that someday, somehow, I'd figure out how to blend in with most people. How to get along, have "normal" conversations at parties and professional meetings; even how to relate with people without seeing the faces of this or that person simply cringe upon seeing me for the first time, and before I've even said a word to them. Because, yes, I've always seen this happen, and yes, it has always hurt. Not everyone reacts to me with such dismay, and yes, I have managed a few friends over the years. But I've not seen my friends and acquaintances receive such reactions ever. I do.

As someone who'd been a Secondary-Education/English Lit major in college, and an acquaintance of people with Autistic/Aspergers kids, I knew of the existence of the "Spectrum". But it was out there, of course, not ... here. Then a few years back, in short succession I had both a 5-year old son and a 26 year old daughter (a grad-school  student in a Lutheran Seminary) diagnosed as "on the spectrum". For him, the diagnosis was high-functioning Autism; for her, Aspergers.

For an involved dad like myself, this was quite a jolt. As a very active parent, I set out to learn the differences, the determining factors, of being "on the spectrum" as opposed to being "normal", with my typically intense ability to focus and absorb. What did this mean in REAL terms, and ... how does one mitigate the known problems? What do you do after the diagnosis?

During those studies, with the focus and passion that (I would soon learn) those of us on that spectrum are so often capable of, and with the firm (if unappreciated!) nudge of a close friend, I came to the inevitable if startlingly uncomfortable conclusion: two of my children, my self, and my late father all existed on that same spectrum. I didn't like the conclusion one little bit. But ... I am an analysis whiz. It is one of the few things I'm hot at. And once I started looking at the possibility of my own 'existence' as a Spectrumite, I couldn't find any missing pieces. All I found was supportive evidence. Solid supportive evidence. A lot of solid, supportive evidence.

When I first mentioned this idea (of my "inclusion") during a meeting with our son's teachers and specialists they had no reaction at all. Or rather, not verbally. They just looked sideways at each other, and ... the meeting moved on. It seemed it had been obvious to them earlier in our 'relationship'. Checking in with a couple of them later ... well, yes ... they had all noticed the rather obvious link, and had even discussed it among themselves long before it had occurred to me.

Would a test be useful, I mused? (Note: I was still looking for an "out", a possibility that my conclusion was wrong.) The response was disheartening: Um ... well ... no, not really, it would mostly be a waste of time and money; I was certainly welcome to go get tested, but ... the direct answer was that while I may not look and seem to most people to be "obviously suffering" from Autism/Aspergers, to someone who works in the field ... I light up the indicator lights all over the board. Bluntly, if this is a game of tag, I'm "it".

As I noted at the beginning, both John Robison Elder and Temple Grandin are comfortable with (or actually prefer) being a Spectrumite to being an En-Ty. At the present time, I can't join them "there". Maybe someday. I've been so aware my whole life of the difficulties I have both in business and personal situations, of some interference with my ability to communicate specific meanings and ideas on a predictable, solid basis to other humans, that finding out that there really is no solution to my problem isn't ... comforting. I've struggled mightily with the loss of hope. I've have many damn rough days and nights.

I've had to realize that for all it's prowess and capabilities, my brain doesn't use language quite like any of the En-Ty's I know or work with. Not even my wife and closest friends. This limits everything I try to do to such an extent that at times I wonder why I even bother trying anything. Having learned it's a permanent hard-wiring problem, I keep looking for the equivalent of a software "patch". Some way to actually get my thoughts out "there" such that others can understand the depth and width of what I try to communicate.

I'm not having any luck. Knowing the cause hasn't provided (at least yet) any assistance at amelioration. There has been a ton of new emotional baggage to work through, not least of which is the realization that ... this is permanent. There may be no fix for my communication/interpersonal struggles.

The supposed definition of insanity is trying the same action over and over and expecting a different outcome. But all I've got left is to keep trying to improve my ability to communicate with the En-Ty world I live in, and hope that eventually I'll find a way to maybe double the percentage of accurate  'content' I manage to get across. Someday, someway, I'll maybe hit a 4% -transmission of ideas to someone. It ain't much ... but it would be better than I'm getting now. It would be ... something.

It would bring so much hope back ...