Aspies For Freedom

The conformity factor just isn't working with me. I think that my aspie behaviors disrupt the ways that NTs live their lives.These days I often imagine what would happen if I were to invest my aspie reactions with the social meaning that such behaviors might deserve rather than trying to stifle them and "pretend to be normal".

Can behaviors such as gaze avoidance and stims have social meaning beyond just merely being the symptoms of a neurological condition? What would happen if we acted as if these behaviors had a wider social meaning beyond mere symptoms that must just be coped with or ignored in an effort to get on with life?  If we, as a culture, were to identify or invest social meaning in such behaviors as gaze avoidance or stims what might that change in terms of our social environment or the dominant culture?

From what I know, gaze avoidance and stimming might be misconstrued as the fidgetting and looking down sometimes involved with embarassment. Fidgetting, if I recall, can also be a sign of nervousness. This might make a person think an aspie might be constantly nervous or embarassed. Fidgetting is my most common stim, especially if I'm holding an object; not sure if fidgetting is a common stim for other aspies, though. So far, those are the only two emotions I can think of that people might get the impression that an aspie constantly has.

Do you mean in overall culture?  

Gaze avoidance can also be seen as rudeness, lack of interest or guilt.

Sorry I had meant to post earlier and then today turned out to be really hectic.

I meant to ask if meaning could be ascribed to aspie behaviors such as gaze avoidance and stims in the same way that meaning is ascribed to other human behaviors would this somehow change the social environment. That is, if we were acknowledged as a culture and everyone knew to understand our behavior as a cultural difference what sort of impact would that have on the world?

I ask this because I have noticed that I get more feelings of gaze avoidance when I am in a situation where I think I'm being imposed on or possibly my boundaries are being violated in someway. If I didn't go through life denying or stifling this discomfort at meeting the gaze of another and if instead of hiding it I acknowledged it and intergrated it into my life, I'd probably be a completely different more assertive person. I think if I, as well as others, respected my gaze avoidance as a cultural difference I would then consider it part of my entire emotional range and then make demands on my social world that I do not now even dare to imagine. But as it is, there's no place for me to deal with such things as my discomfort at meeting another person's gaze. It is just considered a symptom of a neurological disorder. So I extrapolate that to the wider social world and I wonder what incremental way society out there would be changed if aspie behavior was acknowledged as a cultural difference with cultural meaning, rather than just indicative of some pathology.

Interesting question.

But, one needs to also ask where do 'normal' behaviors come from?  Are they not also simply 'outputs' of neurotypical brain structures just as Aspie behaviors are 'outputs' of ours?

What, then, becomes of the cultural meanings ascribed to 'normal' behaviors?  Are they merely constructs?  Not really, I think.  Even though there is certainly a great deal of invented, cultural 'fluff' surrounding a lot of neurotypical behavior (mostly in the form of explanations for why people do what they do), human behavior is rooted in biology and is not simply a flight of people's fancy.

I think it would be very difficult to introduce effectively Aspie behaviors into the NT world in a way where they would become socially acceptable with 'ascribed cultural meanings.'  One of the main functions of culture is to define the 'other' -- exactly who is not a member of the group.  Thus, since Aspie behaviors are quite different, they will never be completely accepted.  They are sometimes tolerated, but not understood.

This whole "normal culture" subject just brings to mind a book I was reading about Victorian etiquette.  It was mostly an elaborate set of rules for the upper class to follow to exclude people.   The other classes did not know the rules, were not wealthy enough to follow them, or just dared not try to pretend.   Anyone who made the slightest mistake was ostrasized.  

When I think about good manners, I think that making other people feel comfortable should be important.  I always try to be polite.  Anytime that I am rude it is usually because I am unaware what I did or said was impolite.   But really, most the being polite is just following rules such as when to say "Good Morning",  "How are you?", "please", "thank you",  "good night".  But how is saying these phrases making people feel comfortable.  They are just acknowledging a person's presence or actions.  I do not understand why that is so important sometimes.

:?: What :?: And their NT behaviors don't disrupt our lives??? It isn't like they are surrounded and inundated by us they way we are with them.... (feels slightly claustrophobic at the thought).....

Look, here is the way I am looking at it, and it may or may not be healthy: I will interact with NT's as much as I have to in order to function and meet my needs, and not more than that, and use about as many social skills as absolutely necessary to acheiev those ends.

Gaze avoidance is extremely useful (as are many of our natural behaviors) when working with animals. I have a natural knack with animals, and I think at leats some of it is that I do not threaten and stare them down right off the bat (what a rude way to meet someone!!).

Our traits do have useful applications. Whether or not the NT's will ever actively recognize that is debatable and no longer important to me. It may sound awful, but I just don't care anymore.

Please and thank you I understand. Good night I use if it is someone I like and am saying good bye to, and both are useful in giving closure to an otherwise awkward termination of the social interaction for that time frame. But inititation, such as "Good Morning!" is still a problem for me. Nothing else gets said! Is not our joint presence in an area adequate to convey recognition of the other's space? I don't know how to say it....space feels charged with the energy of the other people. I *feel* that they are there. Why do I need to shout or holler out something that pierces the air and disrupts the quiet? The silence of working in the space with the other person holds more meaning....

I don't know it is healthy or not but i it is only logical possibility.  For entire my life, i assumed that everybody thinks (thinking process based on analysing all availble data and drawing logical conclusion - ofcourse where input data are wrong or incomplete , that leads to wrong solution, which is source of all troubles for us )  like me, but now, when i know what difference is between aspie and NT brain i can't play this illusion anymore. When i was school i feel that i was 'to smart' for others kids, but this feeling doesn't change.Before i self diagnosed AS, i have simply explanation that i am more adult that my friends in band or work, my family,girls i was atracted to.I see so many childish traits in NT behavior : they are stuborn and panic when confronted with logical arguments, they are not honest, have problem in focus on one topic in discussion (never met NT who has any strong interest,passion,hobby - in aspie meaning), their favourite topic is bubbling about nothing , it is so easy to predict their behavior (ofcourse when you don't assume that they think in aspie way),they so easy lost selfcontrol and let their emotions flow. Now i have feeling that i am living in big kindergarten, and i never let lower down myself to that level (although being borderline aspie i clearly hear some distant 'herd calling' in my soul)

Yeah, i am quite arrogant, but i cannot deny what i am but that doesn't mean that i don't care about NT. I love helping them, now i will try parenting them, becouse i know that 90% of them are full of love, compassion, good human beings. I feel bad when i manipulate them (that is so easy for aspie equipped with modern psychology knowledge).

I want some feedback about this issue ' perceiving NT as a child', i cannot find any flaws in my reasoning , but i am quite sure that another aspie can.

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It seems to me that inability to use these manners also indicates an unwillingness or inability to conform in other areas. A lack of manners is disruptive.  I used to be very ashamed that I couldn't "fit in" to groups. Now I realize this is my biological nature. Before I knew I was an Aspie I felt very ashamed of my inability to fit in. Now I realize it is my inherent nature to critique, to see detail over the big picture, to be disruptive of superficial social rituals, and that even my detached gaze and body language signals this difference. We don't conform. I think that is why we are bullied so often in schools and workplaces.  The meaning of the "male gaze" has been theorized by feminists to represent or enact dominance. I think it is possible to deconstruct aspie behavior to argue that it has meaning too. It seems to me that my Aspie behavior or the way that my brain processes information has a social function that works to ensure the environment is not too restrictive or superficial in terms of human social behavior.

I won't hesitate to disrupt something that I feel is unjust in some way, but for the most part, I love superficial social rituals, I have a thing about good manners, I like the rules, that framework governing behaviour, I feel comfortable because I know where I stand within it, and I really dislike it if other people transgress those 'norms', it makes me feel all 'antsy' and even personally affronted.

Not sure whether I agree with that.  I'm not sure whether the reason for the bullying is a lack of conformity or a lack of understanding.

Well one culture's bad manners are another culture's good manners. There are all sorts of ways that we're asked to accept cultural difference and to respect it as having meaning. If aspie behavior were accepted and given the same respect as any other cultural difference I think society would be improved. Instead I find that I get pathologized in all sorts of ways because aspie behavior is not recognized as meaningful or being part of a diverse culture from the norm.

I am sorry to give such a long example but it is relevant to what I'm trying to say in the above post about how aspie behavior has meaning beyond just a symptom of a disorder.  I have taught my children to value critical thinking and to resist unwarranted authority. In many ways I cannot help having taught them these values because I have Asperger's and they have seen my struggles to survive amongst the NTs. Unfortunately my eight year old daughter has a new teacher this year who seems to be into the "rote" learning method and is very controlling of everything her students do even down to what they eat for lunch. The woman is a conformist. For instance my daughter brought a colorful pencil to school and its lead was the same color as her HB pencils but because the outside of the pencil was a different color the teacher confiscated it. Yesterday this same teacher called me into a meeting with the school counsellor, the school principal, and herself. I was very surprised to be called to such a meeting because my daughter is very good in school. I was disoriented and feeling a bit anxious by all the authoritative bodies in the small office, all of them staring at me and trying to make as much eye contact as possible as we set about to discuss whatever issue my daughter has that had compelled them to call me to the meeting. It was aspie hell.

I was having trouble processing what was going on while stuck in this little room with my daughter's teacher, school counsellor and principal. As a result of my CAPD I was having trouble figuring out what the meeting was even about. But of course the meeting went at the NT pace with all the usual superficial social behaviors. The school counsellor started off by saying what a wonderful person I was and what a wonderful child my daughter was. All the while he kept his eyes fixed on mine which I have learned, of course, is the NT way of expressing assertiveness. The teacher sat stone faced, her eyes also boring into mine whenever she got the chance. The school principal lurked in the shadows of the one dim lamp in the counsellor's office. They all sort of chit chatted for awhile. And I couldn't figure out what the purpose of the meeting was or what they were trying to say to me. I started to go into a meltdown.

After many exchanges of platitudes and superficial comments these NTs finally got down to business. It came out that my daughter has been late twice for class and has also lost her $1.49 school planner. This planner is a little paper book that she is supposed to write her homework assignments in before she leaves class. This was the whole issue. It was their only complaint. The teacher never cracked a smile and looked very serious as her eyes bored into mine. She explained that my daughter had been late twice and had lost the planner. The school counsellor began writing out "steps' for my daughter to do when she got home so that she would never lose her planner again. The school principal nodded his agreement in the shadows. I honestly did not know what to say. I was practically mute. I couldn't believe that I had been called to a meeting with three school officials for such a trivial complaint. I went right into meltdown because it was all so oppressive and overbearing that it disoriented me.

I thought at the time that I must be missing the "gist' of the meeting. My throat tightened up to the point where I had to keep coughing and I couldn't speak very well. I felt myself shrinking into the chair. It was very hard for me to meet their eyes with all of them staring at me like that. Most of all I found that I could not express my indignation and resentment that they would make such a big deal out of nothing at all. They were so at ease chit chatting and I could think of nothing to say. I felt very uncomfortable and stupid. So I just sat there trying to pass for normal and make it through the meeting so I could get out of there. All the while of course feeling guilty in my role as a parent because my child had been late twice and lost her little paper planner.

At one point at the end of the meeting, after the teacher had left the room, the school counsellor asked me, "Are you alright?"
I put my best "NT" face on and said, "I'm just trying to process all of this."
He nodded down the hall, and then in a confidential tone, he said, "Some teachers are very anal."

It was the overcontrolling teacher who had called the meeting. I left that meeting unable to validate for myself in my own head that my meltdown had meaning. It wasn't just a symptom of some disorder. My mind and body were reacting to overbearing authority toward myself and my child. As a result of the overbearing authority or high level of control that was going on I was anxious. I couldn't validate my own experience enough to give meaning to my own inner experience I couldn't really be present in that room. All my focus was on "pretending to be normal" until I could get out of there. But my gaze resistance, my inability to "hear" what they were saying, and my struggle to understand the purpose of the meeting are not just symptoms of a disorder but in fact have cultural meaning. If I had been able, in that moment, to recognize my response as valid and meaningful I might have reacted in a whole other more assertive way and verbally expressed resentment at such an overbearing display of school authority over myself and my eight year old child. There were all sorts of things happening in that meeting and one of them was that I had to hide, stifle, try to pretend away, my aspie behavior because it would have disrupted the school official's concepts of normal. Those are the very rigid concepts of normal that those school officials are trying to instill in my child. But if I had felt validated enough as an aspie, I might have argued with them that my child might be a bit disorganized (because of my disabilities) but she is a wonderful critical thinker. Also, I might have told them that, although she has been late twice, we don't see that as cause for concern because we don't value that kind of conformity to the point where we experience fear and anxiety killing ourselves to get somewhere when the rare occasion it takes an extra few minutes to avoid the stress of rushing works much better for a family headed by an aspie. I did not express myself, at all. Instead, I "pretended to be normal". And in their eyes I am just the "mom" with "autism". But somehow I have to learn to validate myself to recognize in those kinds of situations that my "meltdown response" has meaing. I think the world would be a better place if the aspie difference was respected as part of culture rather than pathologized. My daughter is the only white child in her class and the school board makes enormous effort to accommodate other cultures. Why not mine?

My daughter said it best. After the meeting my eight year old daughter said to me, "Mom, why were they all squishing me in there?"
I said, "What do you mean squishing you?"
She said, "They were all squishing me with the eyes and their breath."


Anyway, my point is that if aspie behaviors were perceived as having meaning in the context of being of a diverse culture then possibly society would be changed in some very positive ways. It would be less conformist for one thing.

This is truly unbelievable! School people making such a fuss over tiny things. I would have felt very intimidated in the same situation and gone into shutdown mode.

One of my teachers at school was a bit like that. After I made a complaint to my parents after she viciously caned me one day, she met up with my dad. He told me that she said I'd "continually defied her". I said, "I have no idea what she was talking about".

It was only some time later that I realised she was annoyed because (a) I drew pictures in my composition book (she said that was "spoiling" my compositions which I could not see as true because I was quite good at drawing. Besides, childrens' story books generally have illustrations) and (b) I ruled my maths book pages into quarters instead of halves because my writing was small and I wanted the book to last for the whole year, and ©, I coloured in my graphs (again, it seemed logical to me because all graphs I'd seen prior to that had coloured bars).

So it was a kind of culture clash - what I had seen in books at home was in her view not meant to be done the same in our exercise books. She was having marriage problems at the time because her husband wanted her to stay home with the kids and she could not stand any challenge to her authority, even a quiet one such as mine.

Gaze avoidance is often practiced by people who have something to hide (looking into somebody's eyes makes lying harder it seems), that's why it appears "suspect" if you avoid eye contact deliberately. I don't think the more typical way of "spacing out" or "not switching your eyes on" is quite regarded in the same way as the "shifty" avoidance of eye contact that is guided by deliberate effort rather than instinct.

lol

No need to quote your whole, but I thought you should know that while you may not have been able to respond in the moment your commentary here speaks volumes.  I'd omit the guidance counselor's comments about the teacher so as not to cause friction between coworkers, but I think you ought to consider copying the bulk of it, possibly along with the original question and forwarding it on to both the guidance counselor and principal along with a separate request that they refrain from scheduling any further meetings absent "good" cause.

If it is any consolation they can have the same affect on NT's.  I still remember meetings with school in which we sat two on one side of the table to their 10 or 12 on the other with the teachers being extremely condescending, treating us as if we were their 10 year old students. I suppose it is part of human nature, or at least NT human nature,  to become condescending and dictatorial in response to being put in a controlling position. What is worse is the more inept they are the louder they seem to be. Even I've been bowled over .. and I'm NT and extremely assertive. Ultimately it led to Hrick's being Cyber schooled.

As to the posts question, NT tendency is to judge others for their differences based on what we as NT's believe them to mean.  Understanding negates judgment and ultimately should breed simple acceptance.  How you develop or spread understanding becomes the more practical problem.  One on one it is a lot to have to keep explaining to people. This site is great for that, but people only come if they have an initial interest. Where that leaves you I'm not sure.  
Mom of Hrick