Monthly Archives: October 2010

Living in the Moment…

I remember a forum discussion where an Aspie was talking about his problems when living in the moment. Someone else commented that living in the moment sounded like a great idea and they wished they could do the same.

Yeah, haven’t we seen the movie/read the book and envied that wonderfully crazy guy that was living in the moment, improvising his whole life and just having a laugh all day, not a worry in sight?

I used to live in the moment, sometimes I still do, and I’m working hard not to.

You might ask why on earth I would go and do such a thing, aren’t living in the now supposed to be fun?

Sure, when you get into the zone, has flow, create faster, better, cooler than ever before, get everything right and the only thing existing is that wonderful thing called the “Now and Here”, then living in the moment rocks.

But when you drop out of “the zone” hungry, just to realize you forgot to do the grocery shopping, and whatever, there’s no clean plates anyway, but then again – oops isn’t it about time to head for work, and what happened with sleeping, and why the hell didn’t I do the laundry in the weekend as I had planned to… then living in the moment suddenly isn’t so hot anymore.

Living in the moment actually means living in the moment, not just paying it a visit whenever it’s fun to do so… However, I am pretty certain I have a huge advantage here, and all I need to do is learning to control it (or well, at least learn to leash/unleash it…)

I believe both the controlling and unleashing of the moment is important. You could just ride the wave, forget about food, sleep, clean clothes, work, family, economical independence, etcetera… or you could tie it down with ropes and chains, controlling it so hard it won’t even be able to wriggle an ear, and you will probably lose something potentially creative, productive and really powerful in both cases.

I believe, the key is being able to decide when to be in the moment and when to be in the “future”.

I think one way of doing that might be by using mindfulness. At least then I can decide when to start, or not, by creating distance to the impulse to enter “the zone” long enough to allow myself to make a conscious decision about to enter or not. It would then be interesting to see if I might be able to use the same tools to leave “the zone”, or keep in touch with time while “in there.”

I hear what you’re saying!

This Tuesday I participated in an education for health professionals. I was actually being a “test subject” for a diagnostic test for Asperger Syndrome, the professionals were learning to use. They were watching over a CCTV when I took the test. And, even though I went on with my life after the test was done (yay, work) I am sure they discussed it as well.

The test was pretty different from the Asperger test I took when I got my diagnosis. More of an interview than a test, actually.

Anyway, the curious thing about this test was a question about halfway through. Where the tester says, “imagine I’m from another planet and know nothing about anything earthly… now I’d like you to tell me how you brush your teeth.”

So, the first question I had (and I am sure any Aspie has a similar thought) was, “so, how much theory on chewing, teeth, food, and hygiene do you need… and … Oh I have an electric tooth brush… how about electricity….?”

Of course, it turned out that, nope, this alien that knew “nothing” only needed to know about the tooth brushing per se. (I bet the impreciseness was the real test!)

I’ve heard people working with Aspies say they had no clue how imprecisely they were communicating until they started talking to Aspies. Trust me, I cannot agree more! 🙂

I don’t let people get away with fuzzy or imprecise language. Sure, if it’s lunch time and we’re discussing a movie, I’m fine with having an idea about what they are trying to say, but when it’s talk about how to perform some task at work or in any other project, precise and clear language is a requirement. In most of the cases, colleagues actually appreciate when I make a salesperson, project manager, or other person explain what they mean.

Here’s an example, not from work, but from a course in every day communication. The teacher talks about how a person with AS gave the advice to “scan for their interests when they meet people.” Guess if that one got me started? The very first image I had was of a bar code scanner… like people would have their interests bar coded in their forehead or something just as stupid… Okay, I quickly discarded that one, but still felt the need to clarify this “scanning” business. Do the person ask people if they too have the interest, or do the person listen to what people say to see if they are talking about something “interesting” or, what?

Of course, in this case the word “scan” is supposed to vaguely include everything from listening to asking questions to test what happens if you steer the conversation to topics about the interest to checking for word usage, heck even mannerisms, etc etc.

This, of course, doesn’t always work, like when I used the phrase “going from clarity to clarity” in a mail to a customer and got back “so, are you going to watch the race on Saturday?” It turns out the phrase I used is also used by a Swedish commenter in formula 1 racing…

I’ve noticed that people are very content with not understanding everything they are told. Which of course is very frustrating if you are trying to give someone instructions, get an “ok, I get it”, just to see them walk off in the wrong direction (and not just because there was a mixup in respect to left and right :)).

I also think people with AS are sometimes afraid to ask because they assume they are to blame for not understanding… Which in my experience is an incorrect assumption. By all means, communication is a team work between two or more people. It takes work doing both the “sending” and “receiving”, but that just means that if the sending is sloppy and the reception is poor… both sides have to improve.

So, communicating with an Aspie (well, at least this Aspie) requires precise language, or – hopefully – you’ll get an earful of clarifying questions.

Another thing I’ve observed, in myself, with respect to language and the meaning of words, is that I interpret things literally. This isn’t really something I strain to do, rather the opposite. Hearing language like “cutting to the chase” or “that something boils down to something else” gives me images of knives, running, boiling kettles, and melting “somethings”, and although I get what’s trying to be said, I sometimes get stuck trying to untangle the imagery, losing whatever comes after.

Sometimes I simply don’t get what the image is supposed to represent, or it takes that extra moment to interpret and I lose focus, or I’m tired or bored and I get these “humorous” thoughts like, “sure, let’s cut everyone between us and Chase, and we’ll meet virtually no opposition getting to them!” or “cutting to the chase? you mean chasing to the cut… because most sane people will run as soon as the intended cutting becomes obvious…” or “I’m guessing that ”something else” is a pretty hot topic, from all the boiling?”

Or how about the other day, when we had Kangaroo stew at the lunch restaurant… we were “jumping” at the opportunity, but unfortunately the meat was a bit “bouncy” and the seasoning lacked that extra “kick” you’d expect from Kangaroo stew… (And there goes the vegan audience… ah well 😐 hehehe)…

Sometimes, just listening to people is a chore in itself!

Right is Left, and Left is Lost…

Or, don’t talk about left and right with me!

The other day I had this incredibly stupid encounter.

In a hurry to the train station, I’m stopped by a couple in a car (about 50 meters from the station) asking me how to get to the station by car – I’m on the sidewalk. (In their defense, Solna station, where this were, is pretty complex.)

I point (to my right, with my whole right arm) and ask them if they see the (large, clearly) red buses. The guy goes, “uhuh, so it’s to the left then?”

Instead of verifying which hand I am pointing with, I take him on his words saying, “uh yeah right…”

He sounded so sure, I assumed he knew what he was talking about. And I had this really clear picture, in my head, of where they should go… (Guess they didn’t see it… Hehehe…)

My feel for left and right is slightly above the level where my drivers ed teacher had to write a large “L” on my left hand when I took my license, but it was close!

Even though this was a harmless situation, my tendency to not verify the left-right thing, but just go on the tone of the guys voice, is a bit dangerous, and it wouldn’t be the first time I put too much trust in what another person thinks about something… (And if I had to identify the cause I’d say it’s probably impulsiveness from ADHD, combined with some poor mentalization from AS…)

Of course the couple in the car head off in the totally wrong direction and I go, duh! (I actually suspected he had the same left-right issues I have, once I’ve realized my mistake – 2 seconds after the encounter.) In my defense though, there were no damn buses where they were heading, and I were pointing with my whole arm!

After a while it hits me; one of them were most likely getting off at the station, the same station I were heading for! I should have told them to get out of the car and follow my lead (through an underpass and another 25 meters to the station)…

I can always congratulate myself to having had this revelation only a half hour or so after it happened. In extreme cases it takes years, and if I had seen the situation clearly just as it happened, it would have made a large impact.

It’s actually almost funny how the time to figure things out seems to be positively correlated to the importance of the decision… Ah well…

On the other hand, we don’t say “hindsight is 20-20” for nothing, do we?

Mentalization

Some persons with Asperger Syndrome has problems mentalizing (although it not being part of any diagnose criteria as more than “impaired” skills in social interaction and communication – I’ll add a source if I find one!)

I’m one of them, but before I get into my personal experience of it lets define mentalization:

“Thinking is thinking. Mentalising is thinking about thinking and feeling, our own and other people’s.” – http://www.organiclemon.org/id7.html

“To understand the behavior of others as a product of their mental state” – http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mentalize

“Mentalizing – the ability to understand oneself and others by inferring the mental states that lie behind overt behavior” – http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychoanalysis/unit-staff/mentalization_bpd.htm

You may also find this article on Wikipedia helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalization

Sometimes I’ve heard Aspies are supposed to have problems with empathy (which is totally wrong in my case – I empathize). I think Aspies probably have trouble with the mentalization (among other things – some people are actually too shy to talk much even when it is obvious the other person needs it – that, however, is not me! :))

If you are unable to, or having a hard time to imagine the other person’s feelings and thoughts correctly, you’ll also have a hard time figuring out the correct emotional response. And when you laugh or look serious in the wrong situation people will start wondering about your empathic abilities.

I have a bunch of examples from my past, like the girlfriend I was feeling was sliding away – and when she had her birthday without inviting me I call her to ask why, and finally breaks up with her… just to realize I did this on her birthday… but by then it was too late. Foot firmly inserted in mouth. What I’m saying here is, breaking up might have been the right thing to do, but not on her birthday… or over the phone for that matter. Sure I had an idea about what was going on, and what I should do, but I never stopped to think about how she would feel about my behavior.

Having problems mentalizing also makes you an easy target for anyone wanting to con or take advantage of you (I stopped counting the amount of money and time I’ve thrown out the window on idiots I didn’t figure for idiots until too late). If you don’t get a feel for the other person’s thoughts, needs etc, you use yourself as a reference instead, and I happen to be a pretty nice and honest person (too damn honest – but that’s another post). So when the signal doesn’t get through you start by saying – hey they have honest intentions, right? And then when you get burned and the signal still doesn’t get through, you start saying – hey this (completely different person) is probably going to do just the same thing (as the other, completely psychopathic person did)… right?

Another consequence is that you might seem selfish or self absorbed. You’re having a hard time getting the feel for what’s going on in the head of other people so you start using yourself as the yardstick. And this in turn makes talking about everything from your perspective an important part in understanding everyone else.

Lacking in mentalization also means an Aspie might say, “hey I don’t want to talk about that, it’s boring…” Which isn’t the best of conversation starters, but because you’re not so much in tune with what’s going on in the head of the other person you miss the fact that talking about what you want all day might actually be boring to them.

However, there’s some hope. First of all, like anyone else, I’ve also grown up. And as you get older things starts falling into place. I might feel a conversation is boring, but try to steer it into something else, something both parties might actually find interesting. Not just say: “boooring” right out. And since I have rather narrow interests (another Aspie thing) I’ve become an expert on not just seeming interested, but finding interesting things in what people tell me (like when they go on about painting the boat or orchids – the orchids conversation actually got me thinking about getting more flowers to my apartment… see?)

Another thing is, most people actually aren’t as complicated as you might think. They have a few things going through their heads, different fears (of not fitting in, or lacking in some way, or that someone near or dear will get hurt, or won’t like us – fear is a huge part of what goes through people’s heads on a daily basis) and needs (love, safety, self worth… well basically Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), and so on. It takes years to figure it out, but even after a short while you start understanding – on a logical level – what’s most likely going on in the head of the people around you.

I’ve found books on body language and facial expressions helps a lot (think “Lie to Me” but less fantastic and more scientific). My favorite book (which unfortunately doesn’t exist in English) is called “The art of Reading Minds” (translation of “Konsten att läsa tankar” by Henrik Fexeus, there’s also a German translation, but I have a hard time thinking there wouldn’t be equivalent texts in English or other languages.)

What I like about this book is that it’s scientific (in spite of the title), it does not claim to contain any truth or only way to do things, and it’s pragmatic. Instead of tons of theories on rapport (to mention one of it’s subjects) you get; try to speak and breathe in the same pace as the other person, and you’ll start creating rapport, and when your body is on the same level of alertness as the other person, it might be pretty easy to figure out what they feel and think – simply by looking at your own thoughts and feelings, which is more often than we’d like influenced by our breathing, alertness level and other purely corporeal factors.

So, by analyzing behavior, it is possible to do what most people does by instinct, even though it takes longer to get there, and you may sometimes come off as a bit self-centered or too analytical. The core of the problem, however, was nicely described to me by a friend from many years ago. We were having a rather philosophical conversation and she said, “you know, I can ask if you understand, and you might say, sure I do, but I’ll never be able to know for sure that you really do.”

And that’s the human condition for you 😉