Annael
Elvenhome
Jul 16 2011, 2:27pm
Views: 51623
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My nephew has Asperger's. He's done just fine for himself (attorney & Marine captain and now a terrific father) but we have found we have to be very direct with him, since he doesn't pick up on the nonverbal cues that the rest of us take for granted. I just saw a film with Hugh Dancy playing a guy with Asperger's, and it brought home to me that the oblique way many neurotypicals interact can come across as "lying" to someone who can't read those cues. I had to explain to my sister-in-law, who I suspect also has Asperger's (they didn't know about it when she was young) that when our mother-in-law said "yes" in a certain tone she meant "no" but didn't want to say so. Sis-in-law could not understand that at all.
But I must say as I get older, the less tolerance I have for such obliqueness, and just wish people would say what they want instead of trying to get it in such a passive-aggressive way. Unfortunately, most people grow up in families where that is the model, and learning to be direct is very hard for them. Perhaps the autism we're seeing these days will teach us all honesty . . .
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
(This post was edited by Annael on Jul 16 2011, 2:29pm)
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