Zola's Coping skills: Aspie traits

[Guest guest]

Zola, I like your approach. Demystifying is a good way to cope.

Letting people know that you ARE interested in them has got to b

a great method of coping with a behavior that is part of you. How

smart of you, to simply demystify what might be off-putting. You

remove the obstacle! Good for you, for making good use of your

friend's observation about how you DO focus as you look down

or away, averting your eyes to concentrate on what is being said.

Since I was diagnosed, I have been letting myself drop eyes to

remove data input as I listen hard to get info, to keep the words

from scrambling as I watch a speaker and lose content of text.

Yes, one of the things that distressed me of late was not getting

what people are saying. I listened and got panicky if they

stopped speaking before I had grasped the content of their

comment or enquiry. I'd ask for them to say again, as if I was

hard of hearing or had been distracted. Fact is, I heard sounds

and did not get sense. Heck, before my dx, I thought I was in the

grip of Old-timer's (Alzheimer's) or mad cow disease! You can

imagine how glad I was to discover that I'm Aspie, after all! -Zer

> It's kind of strange. About three weeks before I got

diagnosed, I met up with a friend who said the most unexpected

thing. We had been talking, and I didn't realize I wasn't making

eye contact, although now I realize that I generally don't.

> He said " the first few times you did that, you looked down and

frowned, and I thought it was because you didn't like what I was

saying. But... I know if you didn't like something I was saying or

disagreed, you wouldn't hesitate to say so. So I just watched for

a while. I realized that when you do that, you are about to say

something very profound about the topic and it means you are

giving me your full attention. "

> I had never realized that. So, when I had an opportunity to meet

a few friends from on line in person, I mentioned that if I looked

away/frowned, it meant I was thinking about what they said and

concentrating on it.

> There's been no problems whatsoever. Instead of being some

abnormal trait, it's just a " quirk " of mine, part of who I am. I'm

starting to realize there's plenty of NT's that really don't give a

crap how Aspie I am as long as I let them know what my

particular traits mean. Apparently, many of them hate trying to

guess just as much as we do.

> Z

> Visit me at <http://www.zolaweb.com>!

> ICQ#2048151