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Egocentricity
“Most Asperger difficulties centre around social competencies. A characteristic of young children is egocentrism. People with Asperger’s remain in this egocentric state, unable to interpret the thoughts and emotions of others, just like people with Autism.” — Autistic Society Organization
Isn’t it just lovely the way that the Autistic Society organization describes Asperger’s Syndrome in their encyclopedia? I’d love to ask them, “What the *#@% does egocentrism have to do with neurology?!”¹
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted about Aspie myths and I’d probably quit doing so if I could avoid seeing any more degrading remarks said about Aspies. To make my point on this myth, I’ll just throw the matching shoe onto the other foot for better balance:
“Most neurotypical difficulties centre around social competencies. A characteristic of young children is egocentrism. People with neurotypical brains remain in this egocentric state, unable to interpret the thoughts and emotions of others, just like unregenerate people.” — Neurotypical Society Organization
Let me ask those ignorant NTs who act like they know it all (as found in many of the Autistic Society Organizations) this question:
If NTs grow up to be so free from egocentrism, then why the *#@% do they need seminars, textbooks, training, etc. if they are able to interpret the thoughts and emotions of others (like Aspies and Auties)?! That would be like a person telling cats to shut up (assuming cats had a way to communicate with people on their level) so he can write a book explaining how cats think!
¹egocentric — noun; a self-centered person with little regard for others. — adjective; limited to or caring only about yourself and your own needs.
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Aspies ‘n crocs
Being the recluse that I am, I might be one of the last to hear about crocs shoes. Just recently I found a store that sells these popular shoes. My feet were in a lot of pain by that time of the day (1 pm?), so that made it extra hard for me to make shopping decisions. It wasn’t tough to know whether or not to buy a pair of these croc shoes. The tough part was deciding how many to get (1 or 2 pairs?). I always feel like once I find something I love, it disappears! I bought 2 pairs that day and a 3rd pair today (online)!
I’m not a ’shoe’ person. I can be happy with owning only one pair of shoes, if those shoes are kind to my feet that is. My feet are so difficult to please! It’s a good thing my mother has passed away and has not lived to see what I’ve done now! She’d have a heart attack over how ugly (in her mind) my new shoes are! Before my mother died, we often argued over the shoes I’d choose for myself. She envisioned me in: high heels; classy dress; long, painted fingernails; curled hair; make-up; perfume; jewelry; blah, blah, blah, etc. This is not what she had in mind for my feet to be displaying:
←for outdoors/for indoors→
Anyhow, it seemed to me that if crocs are popular with most people, then they’re probably extra popular for highly sensitive aspies! Low and behold… they are! Visit crocs online and read all about them.
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Audible Impressions
Here are the top ten sounds I’ve grown to dislike, especially since all they will do is increase over time:
- Chain Saws
- Lawn Mowers
- Heavy Equipment Backup Beeping
- Trucks, motorcycles, and other motorized vehicles
- Fire Whistles and Sirens of any sort
- Airplanes, Jets, and Helicopters (especially during the night!)
- Neighborhood dogs barking
- Television background noise
- Women singing on my favorite radio station
- Fireworks exploding
Here are my top ten favorite sounds:
- Water trickling down a brook
- Birds singing (crows are my favorite!)
- Horses chewing grain
- Crickets
- Frogs
- Chickens (including roosters crowing!)
- Cats purring
- Leaves being rustled by the wind
- Wood crackling and snapping when burning
- Rain
The sounds I’ve grown to detest are not to be compared with locations. They’ve developed over time. It’s all about how often they’re heard. As a child, I rarely heard any annoying sounds. It was quiet almost all of the time.
Decades passed. The population increased. Houses crop up fast and have taken over all the beautiful places. I feel like I might be the only one who actually has discovered a highly enjoyable aspect of higher fuel prices→ the amount of local traffic has decreased noticeably!
All throughout my life, I’ve either taken long solitary rides on horseback in the woods and fields or I’ve explored the back roads using my bicycle.¹ Forget horseback riding anymore with all the maniacs on the road! Yesterday, a kid driving about 60 mph (on a 25-30 mph road) almost hit me while I was enjoying a leisurely bike ride. Getting killed isn’t what disturbs me. It’s getting hit and being critically injured that scares me.
¹Those who bicycle ride in spandex clothing wearing helmets never display any friendly greetings towards those who don’t. When I pass by another bicyclist in dressed in ordinary attire, that’s when I can expect he will look at me, smile, and say, “Hello.” On the weekends, the spandex crowd abounds. During the weekdays, the folks seen are much more ‘down-to-earth’.
You can probably guess I’m not a spandex/helmet kind of gal. I’d rather feel the wind blowing through my hair before my skull gets cracked open than to skip the thrill of wind for the sake of ’safety’. If I had to wear a helmet for any kind of riding, it would be constantly distracting my attention from whatever I’m focused on. And yes, I also hate to wear a seat belt (but I’ll do so anyhow because it’s ‘the law’)!
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Never Enough Green!
Never Enough Green!
~ Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008 at 12:55:19 pm. To God be the glory for supernaturally creating green in nature!
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Greenery Scenery
Greenery Scenery
~ Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 12:56:50 pm. Reflects my kind of green!
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Cats, Dogs, and Aspergers.
Spend the time browsing online what there is to read about the subject of cats, specifically using search terms like, “Cats are not pack animals.” Then, think upon what’s said about Asperger’s Syndrome.¹
It’s interesting to see how much cats are loved and are so popular, but yet Aspergers is not. The more you read about cats not being pack animals, the more difficult it seems to not notice the correlation between cats being like Aspies and dogs being like neurotypicals.
In the article Understanding Your Cat’s Social Nature and Behavior by Perfect Paws, the author sums up the real reason why NTs find Aspies confusing. Even though nothing about Aspergers exists in the writing, when every mention of cats is replaced with Aspergers instead, quite a different perspective is given than what psychologists give about Aspies! (I’ve bracketed the replacements and abridged some thoughts. For those who don’t know, NTs are neurotypicals.)
If you’re not up to reading the whole article by Perfect Paws, then here’s the key ingredient from it:
Social animals [NTs] have a difficult time understanding and accepting a different social structure. When we [NTs] automatically think something is wrong with the cat [the Aspie], we are superimposing on the cat [the Aspie] our [NTs] standards for “happiness.”
Even though the article The Social Nature of Cats from Best Friends Pet Care is another insightful source to use for explaining the social nature of Aspies, caution needs to be exercised when reading, “Cats [Aspies] are somewhat selfish creatures.” Just because a creature [a cat and/or Aspie] is not a ‘pack’ animal by nature, doesn’t like to be pressured to comply with or obey the will of others, and prefers to rule his own life, is no reason to label it as selfish. Equally as much as a person might perceive a cat as being selfish, the cat can think the same about that person. The next statement is accurate:
It may, then, seem somewhat difficult to train a cat [Aspie] and, in fact, most cats [Aspies] will only respond to training if what you are trying to get them to do is appealing to them.
It’s funny how the good quality about not being a pack animal is referred to as peculiar:
There is something peculiar about their behavior: they will go to great lengths to avoid confrontation with other cats [Aspies don't like to fight if they can avoid it]. There is no need among cats [Aspies] to establish dominance because, as already mentioned, they are not pack animals and therefore do not need to fight to set up a hierarchy. Most cats [Aspies] prefer to avoid each other [especially NTs!] in an effort to avoid any possible reason for confrontation. The only time they will fight will be to protect their territory, but not any further. And even when this happens, it is mostly only a spectacle of threats rather than an actual physical fight.
Enough said from Best Friends Pet Care. Here’s a piece from Marshall in Askville:
Unlike dogs [NTs], cats [Aspies] are not “pack” animals whose greatest desire is to befriend or please one another or humans. Cats [Aspies], by nature, are “independent”, and their interactions with each other or humans is simply based upon the nature of their individual personalities–just as human interactions are. Some cats [Aspies] are very friendly and welcoming to other cats and/or humans, and others are not (feeling that the attention may be taken away from THEM or some such)–just as some humans are people-oriented and others are loners by nature, or some are friendly and others are mean.
You just were very “lucky” with your first cats! MY current two cats are SISTERS, and tolerate each other (occasionally even cuddling together)–but I wouldn’t call them “bosom buddies”. They also are both bonded strictly to ME, and won’t let other humans near them.
Just LOVE your cats [Aspies] for whatever personalities they possess, just as you would [NTs or] your own children!
Since the last reference I’m about to use from Messy Beast comes from two long pages — Are Dogs More Faithful than Cats? — Are Cats Really Unsociable? — the interesting tidbits I’m plucking out will be harder to detect:
Cats [Aspies] do not have a sense of their rank in a pack and do not consider that it is your birthright to bully them into faithfulness. A mistreated cat [Aspie] will leave if it can. A mistreated dog [a NT] will often come back for more because it learns that its place in the human pack is the pariah position. Unlike dogs, cats have no vested interest in staying in a pack.
The biggest difference is that dogs [NTs] are obedient (faithful) to their pack-leader by nature, but a cat’s [Apie's] faithfulness must be earned and can’t be bullied into it. Once you have taken time to earn [an Aspie's or] your cat’s affection and devotion, you will find it just as faithful, or more so, than a dog [a NT].
Mostly it seems that the ‘experts’ are judging feline [Aspie] sociability by comparing them to dogs [NTs]. Cats [Aspies] are frequently labelled “standoffish”, “solitary”, “asocial” or “unsociable” suggesting that they just don’t like company. This supposed aloofness appeals to some people, but not to others. Feline [Aspie] “aloofness” can create or contribute to anti-cat [anti-Aspie] feeling.
With all this said, one last thought needs mentioning. Aspies are no where near as distinguishable in a crowd of people as cats are from dogs. Aspies who have developed a very good talent for masking their Aspieness can fool even most other Aspies. Just because Aspies and NTs are both human, each can still have a different brain structure and be equally free from disorder.
¹I know Kathy Hoopman wrote a book called All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome. I haven’t seen it yet, but I will eventually since my curiosity won’t allow otherwise.
Unbelievable, but not?
It’s amazing how some people will make claims, as if they know for sure what happened, when they read and/or hear about a news event. When it’s about someone in a political office, then they really insist others believe what they do! They will even do this without having been there as a witness, but yet they will talk as if that’s not necessary.
If that’s not bad enough, too many times news reporters don’t even get their story correct. The most critical news probably can’t even get reported because of the fear factor. Who can blame people when society has now made it easy for corrupt and/or malicious people to use the system to suit their agenda?
Murders make for sensational news, but suicide and homelessness is not usually broadcasted. More should be reported on how those who provide social services at the taxpayer’s expense ruin the lives of many people.¹ A monumental destruction only needs a small catalyst, like an investigation caused by a lie. Children are taken from their parents—leaving some parents so devasted that they end up killing themselves from feeling so helpless and without hope. [I'd have a fantastic eye-opening link to add if only I could remember the site's name.] Careers can end overnight—catapulting a ‘professional’ to end up living on the streets. Aged citizens have their homes stripped away. The evil keeps spreading when accountability is avoided by bribery or threats.
The more people lie, the less society can trust others. The less society can trust others, the more people will lie. With too many governmental dots to now connect, too many desperately think help will come by creating more dots (usually in the form of added legislation).
Has anyone ever stopped to think how corporations and government agencies act in a similar way as identity thieves? Identity thieves take advantage of using an identity other than their own for the purpose of making financial gains without taking any risk of losing their personal property. How is this so? Here are some examples:
The government decides (without the taxpayers knowledge) to spend x-million dollars on a project they label as ’secret’. That project turns into a failure for some reason. Does any agent of a branch end up having his private property taken away to make up for the financial loss? No, but some taxpayers do after the taxes get raised higher thanks to the irresponsible decisions of somebody else.
A couple decides to form a corporation instead of a partnership business. A bad turn of events happen which causes their business to go bankrupt. Would they have to sell their house to pay their creditors like someone who works for them would? No.
A man decides to steal someone else’s identity and use the other guy’s good credit to go on a purchasing spree. The thief can’t get caught because he doesn’t even have his own identity. Who pays? It isn’t just the innocent victim who had his identity stolen. It’s also those who are now so afraid of the same thing happening to them that they end up getting suckered into buying identity theft insurance. Then this insurance company learns it’s cheaper to pay their lawyers in court instead of paying their victims who submitted claims. After all, how well can someone handle legal battles when his status in society has already been stripped away?
Such are the consequences of reactive thinking. Proactive thinkers get laughed at and are called crazy because they dare to imagine events before they happen. I’m not talking about things like eating right and exercising for good health. Because we all know our bodies function the same way, we’re united for the most part there. It’s all the other issues which divide us that provide the loop holes allowing seeds of chaos to grow.
¹This does actually get publicized, but not in a neat package like most news delivered conveniently at prime time. You’d be amazed to discover how many people are trying to tell the world their story by using the internet. Unfortunately, their blogs and websites are scattered among millions (or billions?) of other pages. Even if they had a central hub (like Legally Kidnapped) to connect their site with others, it’s highly unlikely they would have a way of knowing what it would be without having a television program or newspaper article to let them know.
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Meekness Seen as Weakness
I paid a price for falling into a foolish trap when trying to defend Aspies in my post Adult Aspie Compromise.
I didn’t realize back on the 7th day of April that what I did was only a compromise in my own mind. It was not a compromise as most people would view one. That revelation didn’t hit me until just a few days ago. I began to wonder why one particular man (who is the ’some people’ I was referring to being upset) is not only unable to see how nice I am—but also on top of that—pays attention to everything I write in order to look for ways to attack my character.
Now I finally understand the reason for my not receiving any kindness in return for caring about his feelings. It boils down to two basic reasons: one belongs to me and the other belongs to him.
I value meekness as being an admirable virtue. I’m not accustomed to the world’s view of seeing it as being a weakness.¹ When you combine two opposite types of characters (in this case, we’re both neuro-a-typical, but he’s an atheist and I’m a Christian), there will be two different outcomes. If someone acts towards me the same way I act towards him, I would respect him, appreciate his thoughtfulness, and view him as being a nice person. However, it’s not in my nature to act unjustifiably aggressive.
On the flip side, he lost whatever little respect he might have had towards me when I exhibited meek behavior. He perceived my actions as me being like a doormat for him to keep under his feet. I can only guess (but I’m probably correct) most people would not perceive what I did as being a compromise. After all, a compromise is an accommodation in which both sides make concessions.
Since I figured I might find some clues at his blog to help me understand what would make someone (like him) be so different from me, I read a few of his posts. It didn’t take long to find the answer. I don’t want to get too close to using his words. I don’t want to embarrass him by combining what he says with what I’m saying here. He shouldn’t feel embarrassed anyhow, especially since the way he wrote about his insight on why he has related with people the way he does is a very touching and wonderful story. I don’t know whether he realizes it or not, but he still hasn’t changed in spite of his awareness. It’s something that will always continue as long as that’s the way insecurity is dealt with.
Everyone battles insecurity in different ways. We all have different levels of it at different times. For some, it remains at a more stable level than for others. Insecurity itself isn’t necessarily bad, but it can cause bad behavior. It’s not restricted to bad physical actions like stalking and/or spousal abuse.
There is also a variety of bad psychological behavior. On the ‘victim’ end, there are such things as being attracted to abusive people and/or hoping for acceptance by being a doormat. On the ‘bully’ end, there’s the need to psychologically control those who don’t agree with you, especially so towards those who you desperately want to like you. Insecure people care a lot less about what others think and/or believe if they [the potential prey] are of no personal importance to them [the predators].
When an individual has a need to control the way another individual thinks, that’s a sign that he’s looking for reassurance of his own worth by having his ‘victim’ fully comply by succumbing to his thoughts. As long as he sees resistance coming from his target, he will remain obsessed over whatever conflicts with his views.
Now I see that my dilemma is in figuring out how to stop an insecure guy from continuing to be attracted to me. I’m not sure I can. If posting this doesn’t get him to quit paying so much attention to me, I’m going to have to either create a new blog using a pseudonym in order to resume posting or I’m just going to quit blogging altogether.² I’d prefer to not risk having this situation fester into something worse. Whatever happens, I’ll try to avoid deleting what I’ve already published.
¹There’s even a definition of meek which now describes it as, “Evidencing little spirit or courage; overly submissive or compliant.”
²The obvious solution to ending an interest is to make what’s interesting become boring. So, if a person is interesting and doesn’t know how to be boring, then logic dictates the only answer is for that person to disappear. Even Jesus had to vanish on occasion. It’s not much different from a stray cat→ If you don’t want it living with you, stop feeding it. Eventually it will get hungry and go look somewhere else for food.
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Funny Thing About Phonetics
Infants can discriminate between phonetic differences in foreign languages, but by ten to twelve months this ability typically becomes restricted to their native tongue only. Neuro-A-typicals, however, can retain this ability.
It’s just another one of those things that can be a blessing or a curse for Aspies.
I experienced it as a curse, when I went to visit my ancestral country→ Finland. As a child, my parents spoke in Finnish to me and I grew up answering them in English (even though I did begin to learn how to talk using both languages). When I arrived in Finland (traveling there this time without anyone along who knew me), I wasn’t too concerned over being able to understand what Finns were saying. Hardly any of them were speaking English back then. The younger generation knew English, but most were too shy to use the language. Anyhow, there I was — shocked to discover how unable I was to comprehend what anyone was saying! It didn’t make any sense to me how that was happening. Now, knowing what I know about neurological differences, it makes perfect sense!
Because aspies are more aware of novelty, I was more aware of the phonetic differences existing within the Finnish language than the neurotypical Finns. Most Finns do not have as difficult of a time understanding Finnish people from other parts of Finland. To me, even though everyone was speaking the same language there, it was as if a different language was being spoken as I traveled through the different parts of that country.
When I stepped off the train, at the station in my father’s hometown, it was as if that was when I arrived in Finland (to me, the Helsinki airport area wasn’t ‘Finnish’ enough). It was a relief to finally be able to know what people were saying, but it was a frustration at the same time because I felt too awkward to respond in English. My memory would not translate English words into Finnish (thanks to communicating one-way for so long), but that was no fault of Asperger’s Syndrome.
I did get to experience the blessing side of a powerful phonetic discerning ability when I was in Panama (Central America). I didn’t expect to understand anyone there, especially being up in the jungle far away from the more populated areas. I also didn’t expect anyone to understand me. Those natives only knew Spanish. I was only familiar with English and Finnish. They had never seen a blonde, blue-eyed gringo¹ before. This time, the shock came to them (rather than to me, as it did when I was in Finland). It happened when they were teaching me to speak Spanish. I had no idea why everyone burst into a roar of laughter the first time I uttered a sentence in Spanish. I thought I must have said something incorrectly. Everyone’s hysteria was actually from the opposite reason. They were stunned to hear me speaking as if I was born and raised there. The humor came from my looking so unlike them, but yet, at the same time, I sounded exactly like them when I spoke Spanish. I guess that kind of shock would be like hearing a strange parrot suddenly talking to you and sounding just like you—totally unexpected.
The ability to create unusual solutions to problems stems from the same neurological package that this permanent phonetic discernment comes from. This is important to remember whenever you hear Aspergers being referred to negatively as a developmental disorder. Not everything about neurotypicals is a blessing. Just like Aspies, NTs are cursed in their own ways. It all depends on the situation and, given that the majority of people are NT, those curses don’t receive the same kind of attention.
¹ I was told that I would ‘fit in’ and be far more accepted in this remote area of Panama than I could be in the US. I didn’t believe it until I experienced being treated like a queen! It’s actually true that American Aspies are more welcome in some other cultures than their own.
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