10 Things Your Autistic Friend Wants You To Know
By: Gwendolyn Kansen
Hello, I’m Gwen Kansen and I have Asperger’s Syndrome.
I repeat myself a lot. If a room is crowded I try to get out immediately. It takes me longer than most people to do pretty much everything because I make slow transitions. But I’m fun at dive bars. I used to manage a vintage clothing store. You might not notice I’m weird right away.
Chances are you know a few people on the spectrum. We may not tell you because autism isn’t the sexiest mental problem out there, especially when compared to more easily romanticized mental illnesses like bipolar disorder. Here are few things you should know about us autistic folks:
1. You can look us in the eyes. Some autistic people don’t make eye contact. But many of us are perfectly comfortable with it. In fact, I did a study in college correlating a diagnostic autism scale with one of those read-the-feelings-in-the-eyes tests, and the person who got a perfect eye contact test score was the same one who scored highest on the autism scale. For the record, he was a good-looking 18-year-old boy and with plenty of friends.
2. We’re drawn to each other. I just started going to autism support groups because New York City is the most dismissive place on Earth. But, through the years, I’ve met a lot of other autistic people, including my college roommate and my ex. I can tell if someone has it right away and vice versa. It’s basically a self-preservation radar that tells us who we’re going to feel comfortable around.
I can spot that blank stare anywhere. Look at pictures of Andy Warhol and you’ll know what I mean. I also notice when someone keeps turning the conversation back to “Game of Thrones” after everyone else has already moved on to Belgian beer, doggy-style, people dancing on YouTube and Tetris.
Most of my friends don’t talk about it that much. People from the support group bring it up constantly, because it’s easy to see someone do something like talk loudly about gastrointestinal problems in a crowded restaurant and say, Oh yeah, she has Asperger’s. We also have our own jargon. We are “aspies” and you are “NTs.” But I never heard anyone use those terms until I went to meetings. The majority of us are trying not to be the sum of our faults, and that means avoiding dichotomies.
3. Everything’s a big deal to us. We sometimes seem childlike because everything is huge to us. I get along really well with bipolar people because both disorders involve seeing things in extreme ways. The difference is that bipolar people’s perceptions are based on their intense moods, whereas autistic people have a hard time making connections between actions and the concepts behind them. So, we grow up being constantly surprised. I’ve gotten better at predicting people’s behavior, but I’m still strongly affected by new information.
My ex was so amazed by a guy doing fire poi for 10 minutes outside a bar in St. Louis that he recognized him six months later at a McDonald’s in West Virginia. My roommate remembers secrets that an acquaintance told her in elementary school. Autistic people can be tremendously rewarding to talk to because we might make you feel like a star.
4. We DO understand what’s going on. We might not realize you’re annoyed with us right away. We might inadvertently blurt out something obnoxious. But often, we’re hyperaware of social cues because we’ve spent our lives compensating for not recognizing them as kids.
People try to talk over my head all the time. I don’t call them out on it because I’m not quite savvy enough to do so in a non-confrontational way. A 19-year-old kid who left his pot brownies in the dormitory microwave tried to convince me he was in a DC think tank. Maybe some people get off on people thinking that autism equates to naïvety, but to me it never stops being insulting.
5. We’re not always honest. Autistic people are capable of lying. I’m terrible at it, but others are pretty good. One of the best guys at a poker night I used to go to has Asperger’s. Some of us make up outrageous stories to make you think we’re more ambitious, like when a guy I know told people he was an Internet porn lord when he’s really just an obese, rich kid who sleeps until 4 p.m. and hangs out all night at Denny’s. Our motivations are no different than yours.
Read the full article at The Frisky
(http://www.thefrisky.com/2014-03-20/10-things-your-autistic-friend-wants-you-to-know/#more-3309187)
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