ok, quoting myself here, because I just noticed something very Aspie in what I did... maybe this will be useful to those who are trying to understand their family's aspie behavior/thinking.
Quote:
and he says "how come you can't remember who it is?" and I said "I can't TELL who it is..." <pause> LIGHTBULB!
my response to my husband was based on his having used "rembember" and my objecting to that characterization of what was happening because it was INCORRECT. the function I was using wasn't memory, it was recognition. pointing out that fine detail was a major clue to what was wrong in my processing. however, the fact that I would CARE about that inaccuracy, and feel a need to FIX it, is straight up aspie.
we can slice things to the width of a gnat's butt and still not be happy that it's accurate enough. things are what they are and they are NOT something else. "aproximate" is a learned skill for us, and often generalizing is tough. and the apparent uber-litteral behavior can drive people nuts. thinking back, my mom said "you KNOW what I meant" in exasperation a LOT. actually, I can remember thinking "no, I know what you SAID. if you MEANT something else you should have SAID it."
one story she tells about me, calling it an example of my early intellegence, I think is actually an example of being aspergers. we were driving somewhere and I was perhaps 2 and she was trying to keep me occupied while she drove. she was pointing out things as we went along - look there are cows, there's a red truck, that truck's blue... there was a large moving van with a stylized lion emblem painted on the side and she said "look, there's a lion" and I, at 2 years old, said, "no, it's a
picture of a lion."
welcome to the world of aspergers.
Things ARE what they ARE. that was definitely NOT a lion. it was a PICTURE.
the fact that it was a picture OF a lion is NOT AT ALL the same as it BEING a lion.
followed by a thought... "what is wrong with you, can't you tell the difference between a LION and a PICTURE?"
and probably accompanied by a facial expression that clearly communicated that she had done something wholely unfathomable.
THIS is what goes on in our brains.
me, Age 2, take two:
my mom calls this an example of my stubbornness, or maybe my creativity. I think it's classically aspie.
it's my birthday and my mom's made a cake for the party. I, being two, was not patiently waiting for it to be served. I was putting my finger in the icing and licking it off... because she had said "don't touch the cake"... and I wasn't touching the cake, I was touching the ICING.
so she said "keep your hands off".
and I climbed up on the table, knealt down, put my hands carefully behind my back, bent over and took a bite out of it.
perfectly Ok, because my hands were NOT involved.
we don't generalize well.
had she said "leave the cake alone" it probably would have worked just fine.
but she didn't SAY that, she said "hands off". which I did.
having COMPLIED with what we were told, we are CONFUSED why you're still MAD.
makes it tough to figure out the rules, and frustrating. it's like we're missing some secret decoder ring that we could use to figure out what you REALLY MEANT in spite of what you ACTUALLY SAID.
fortunately, generalizing is a learnable skill, and understanding that one needs to look behind the directive to understand and respond to the PURPOSE of that directive is also learnable.
once I understood those things, and had some skills there, it got to be kind of entertaining to be in my brain... funny things go on there.
