12 ms·

Secret Life of an Autistic Stripper

270 points by mercutio2 8y ago

kryogen1c 8y ago
"I've always had trouble reading social cues, but in the strip club, where rules and roles are crystal clear, I finally learned to connect." I work in IT and I find this to be very true, personally. I'm not a socialite and wouldn't talk to strangers at a party, but customer phone calls are not that. We're both there for a purpose and working to meet our goals together through banter and small talk is a non-issue.
wasx 8y ago
I don't know if I'm on the spectrum or not but I empathize a lot with the experiences of autistic people, most stories I read could almost verbatim be applied to myself. Including this womans experience (minus the stripping, but finding a comfortable environment where all but the rules are stripped away). This entailed years and years of awkward social experiences, and terrible self-loathing and embarrassing gaffs. The single biggest benefit I ever gained was learning that people actually have emotional basis to almost everything they say, as the author herself identifies in her post. For me I never had really any emotional content underneath my words unless I was being overwhelmed by emotion, and because of that I never saw that in other people. Learning that people are emotional first and rational second has led me to rapid improvements in my social life, including developing a group of friends and even a romantic relationship. I stopped trying to mask myself and instead approached every interaction knowing that the other person was experiencing some emotional reaction to it, and just behaved as myself with that knowledge. I'm still off-beat and I still get called weird but I have friends and a romance and it all seems to be going well, people will adjust to who you are. People I've found normally seek a positive interaction, and acting friendly and seeking more details for what they've said, as well as talking about your own similar events or experiences is the way to pull that off. I've found a good ratatat is to ask about something (normally people will lead off with some experience they've had or story they want to tell, but you can ask to kickstart it) inquire about a detail you would like them to elaborate and then chip in with your own similar experience or somehow pulling the focus off them and back onto yourself before the conversation inevitably bounces back and returns. Before long it's flowing naturally and biology sort of takes over and you're engaged in conversation. Too many questions or too much on yourself and it will all get uncomfortable or rude, so balance is key but if you keep bouncing around like this you will learn the balance for that individual and yourself. I still struggle with identifying what emotion people are trying to convey if it's not a simple and easily visible one like happiness, sadness or anger. But people I've found will normally pick up on the fact you've missed it and be more direct. It's very exhausting if you don't have a natural instinct for emotions, but it is rewarding because we are still emotional creatures. This is the basis of conversation. Understanding this has also allowed me to attach emotion to my words and people are very receptive to this, and very importantly it has made me feel a lot better and manage stress. More importantly conversation has become much easier as time has gone on and I've begun learning the hints that forever eluded me because I was not interacting on the same foundational base as most other people. There's more I've learnt about engaging with people than I can write here but they're subtle details that I learnt in the moment. I still over anaylze and I still struggle with my emotions and filtering information but I think I'm on a good path and I think that many neurodiverse people would benefit from similar realizations to what I have had.
teddyc 8y ago
I am autistic and this is a fascinating read. Haven't finished it yet, but needed to comment to encourage others. One thing I learned early on in IT is: It is now how you fix the problem, it is how people feel when you fixed it. This is tough to deal with b/c you can fix the "problem" but still have fallout from the situation b/c the way people felt from interacting with you.
- kryogen1c 8y ago
  > One thing I learned early on in IT is: It is now how you fix the problem, it is how people feel when you fixed it. Like we say at our company, don't manage problems - manage clients.
  - booleandilemma 8y ago
    So much of tech support is hand-holding and telling the user everything is going to be ok.
    - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
      Yup, and reassuring them that they didn't do anything wrong.
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
My mother teaches autistic children and I think this woman must have an incredibly mild version. My mother’s students can barely take care of themselves and touching someone is largely out of the question. I’d love to see her face when I mentioned I read an article about a woman with autism being a stripper. And yes I know there is a spectrum of autism from severe to not as severe, but when someone is as high functioning as this does the word have any meaning anymore?
- 46Bit 8y ago
  > incredibly mild version There are large variations in what different autistic people are capable of, and (e.g.) whether they have intellectual disabilities. The writer might be considered high-functioning by a professional, but it has clearly impacted their life. To call their autism "incredibly mild" sounds dismissive of their experiences. Full disclosure: I'm "high-functioning" autistic too and can associate so much with their account. > And yes I know there is a spectrum of autism from severe to not as severe, but when someone is as high functioning as this does the word have any meaning anymore? I wanted to reply to this edit. In this post is someone who struggled to function at a dinner with potential friends, and reverted to clients at a strip club because at least that can be rehearsed. I refuse to judge the author; I think they've done amazingly. But having this label may empower them and help them be more in control of their life. The word has meaning.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    > But having this label may empower them and help them be more in control of their life. The word has meaning. It certainly does, and although the wait lists are long here in NL, I can still recommend people who suspect they have autism to investigate it (via professionals). Its been roughly a 10 months ago since I had my diagnosis, and I learned so much ever since: * My partner (then undiagnosed) went to a group of partners of ASDers to learn more about how I experienced the world. This led her to believe she also has ASD (recently confirmed). * I learned all the things related to what makes ASD different from NTs such as Theory of Mind. * I met fellow ASDers, learned their background, their strong and weak traits, and was able to observe them as well. * I did a mindfulness course specifically for people with autism. * We, a couple both diagnosed with autism, get help to deal with our baby so she can grow up healthy in this NT world with two autistic parents (I'm terrible at reading her body language...) * There's more in development but I'll keep my mouth shut until it's been done & succeeded. All of the above thanks to the fantastic healthcare system in The Netherlands. God, I love my country, I'm so blessed being born here. EDIT: A lot of women (like my partner) end up being undiagnosed. Women are trained into a certain role in society which isn't typically masculine-autistic. They're forced to learn to mimic, act, etc to fit the feminine role.
vinceguidry 8y ago
Since she didn't seek out a diagnosis, her actual pathology is still up in the air and I personally don't think autism is a good fit. The fact of the matter is, empathy can be a hard thing to develop, and I think many people's upbringings can cause it to not fully develop even into adulthood. I remember at one point sometime around the age of 20 I felt like there was something I was missing. I've always had a pretty good intuition and my intuition led me to explore a lot of really really sad anime. The exposure to so much tragedy seemed to kick-start my emotional processing system and I was able to interact with people a lot more authentically after that. 15 years later, I can now recognize the signs of an immature emotional processing center in others and I absolutely see them in her. It's a hard cross to bear, instead of just feeling things, you have to think your way into feeling them. Your 'range' is limited to a small spectrum. It doesn't affect the ability to function, there's nothing 'really' wrong with you, your emotional system does work. It's just that everything's, well, blunted. Once I got my emotional center processing again, I started to recognize feelings that I had had in the past, but didn't recognize. It's a strange thing thinking back to your childhood and realizing you were feeling things that you didn't understand that you were feeling. Not entirely sure how common it is, but I do run across immature emotional processing very often. Now that I've had this opportunity to think about it more, it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part. So much of your emotions never really reach conscious awareness. If you see a lot of really ugly, senseless, or violent crap as a kid, I think you're prone to this kind of disconnection. Then by the time you're an adult, it almost ossifies. You can work on it, but you have to be motivated to somehow.
- mockingbirdy 8y ago
  > it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part I have this problem. Most of the time I call it autism for convenience although I know it isn't accurate. Deficient/Immature emotional processing is a better phrase that is more accurate. I think that development issues in the psyche can lead to delays in areas like emotional processing and theory of mind. Oftentimes I have to simulate emotions because I don't feel them in myself and others. The good thing is that I've become very good at analyzing people and their motivations using knowledge of psychology - it's all conscious. I can understand people better on a rational level because my explanations incorporate negative thoughts people may have about themselves without realizing them (negative unconscious thoughts - mostly fear and anxiety). But I have to allow myself explicitly to feel something because my emotional regulation is very high - I think this stems from fear. There's a wish to control social situations to feel safe. Maybe individuals who have this problem had negative social experiences because their perceptions were off in such situations and they realized that their assessments were wrong which lead to a deficit in self-esteem. To an untrained eye, this may look like autistic behavior, but it's mostly based on anxiety and a deficit in emotional processing. It's possible to overcome that, but I have to admit that it has positive effects: I don't get emotional easily, I can control social situations and I don't feel fear or embarrassment. Feeling is a choice and having empathy feels like a tool. Sounds sociopathic to me (autistic people also have sociopathic symptoms), so I don't really wish this to anybody.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
But in the private rooms at the club, there were no outside stimuli. The rules were clear, the distractions minimal, so I could focus and interact. My ex likely qualifies as ASD, though he was never diagnosed. He is terrible with faces. Faceblindness is common among ASD individuals. He had a lot of other issues. He was career military. A common recommendation for ASD individuals is to let them wear the same stuff over and over, to get them multiple copies of their favorite items to wear. Wearing the same thing helps accommodate their sensory issues. In the military, he was required to wear a uniform. He had multiple copies of it. A lot of people who have to wear a uniform get tired of it. It's boring. It's stultifying. But ASD individuals find it a comfort. He didn't have to remember faces. Everyone's last name was displayed on their uniform. He had handwriting issues, probably dysgraphia. He had his favorite pen. As an adult, he didn't need a file giving him permission to use a particular writing instrument to accommodate his issues. He had choice and it was chalked up to personal preference. If we happen to find a situation that's a good fit for how we are, we look competent and brilliant. If we are expected to do things that don't work well for us, performance suffers. There's really nothing magical or mysterious about that. It's just a shame we so often require people to have justification for their preferences.
- jl2718 8y ago
  Probably ASD, and military was great, but only in training and deployment to an actual war zone. Garrison was hell, all politics. Tried stripping too. War and stripping are similar: de-personalizing, over-stimulating, immediate flow state rush. Normal social anxieties go away, the rules no longer apply.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    I have seen studies that suggest the best war time soldiers are probably ASD or ADHD. Unsurprisingly, great war time soldiers often suck during peace time. If you read a little history, this has long been true. I read a history piece that suggested that we only had one Civil War in the US because the General that accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox was a chronic alcoholic and ne'er-do-well who learned compassion because of it. He was an excellent wartime soldier. He was chronically in trouble the rest of the time. He also was a callous bastard that was sending so many bodies back from the front that Lincoln was being harangued to remove him from command. He was considered to be a monster.
sperg1 8y ago
I struggled for years after being diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school. My parents didn’t believe in medication so I was never out on anything, which I am thankful for. After struggling tremendously with math and social interactions as well as school in general, I spiraled into deep depression. I was bullied, something which I now blame on my lack of normal social defenses. People would say things to me and I would become overwhelmed and shocked and unable to respond. Normal teenagers seem to be quick with comebacks, it literally takes me days to figure out what I should say or how I should react to common scenarios like off comments. It took me over a decade to get out of it. I recently began reading about the symptoms of aspergers and nearly everything fit. Extremely high and inappropriate language skills e.g. using words that I really shouldn’t, check. Inability to detect and respond appropriately to emotions. Dyscalculia (inability to do math), something that can be associated with aspergers. I watched some videos of some people who had been through similar situations and likewise fallen into depression upon hitting the social conditions that occur in teenage years. It now makes sense why I have to plan my facial expressions before I get Starbucks. If I don’t, I have this horrible death stare and scare the shit out of people. What really depresses me still to this day is just how sensitive most people in society are to aspergers. Once people detect there is something off about you, you are done. It happens within minutes. There is nothing I can really do, I can only imagine how many relationships and life experiences Inhave missed due to being rapidly discarded by my peer group due to these kinds of eccentricities.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  What do you mean using words you shouldn't?
  - dayofthedaleks 8y ago
    Grandiloquence, or using words like 'grandiloquence.'
- freeflight 8y ago
  > I was bullied, something which I now blame on my lack of normal social defenses. Don't do that, it's not healthy, I'm speaking from personal experience. Being bullied often boils down to just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing particular about you was "bully worthy", you were just the supposedly "weakest link" in a social hierarchy constructed by pretty much all young humans: Everybody has people above and under them. This is the result of people being shitty parents and teaching their children "I can do whatever I want to you because you are a child and I'm an, physically much bigger, adult. I don't need to argue with you, I will just make you do it!" When kids take this same logic back to social interactions with other kids (I'm bigger than you, that's why I can force you to do things!) it's bound to result in bullying and the "weakest" ending up under the wheels. This behavior then extends into adulthood where the hierarchy isn't strictly based on physical size/age anymore. So there's no reason to blame yourself, or bullies, for the person you are today. That's just making excuses for self-pity, a lot of time has passed since then, don't mourn what you might have missed out on, rather realize what you learned instead and make that a new positive feature.
Tycho 8y ago
Has there been any studies linking ASD/Aspergers to exogenous circumstances of childhood? (eg. older than average parents, lack of playmates, frequent re-locations...)
- taneq 8y ago
  Autism is associated with advanced maternal age: https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20100208/autism-risk-rises-with-mothers-age#1 https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20100208/autism-risk... I believe there's more recent evidence suggesting that paternal age may also play a role but there's a confounding factor there that paternal age is strongly linked to maternal age.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    Is that because parents with autism have children later in life than those without? I mean, what exactly is the link? FTA: "So what's going on? That isn't clear. Older parents' genes can undergo changes caused by aging and by the environment"
newnewpdro 8y ago
This person hasn't even been diagnosed with autism by a professional, yet the title strongly suggests so. I guess the article wouldn't be particularly appealing with "Autistic" missing from the title. I've met a few people who have self-diagnosed themselves as autistic. It's kind of become a catch-all for people with eccentricities and/or offensive tendencies. In the cases I've seen, the people are either just unsocialized having spent most of their lives alone at a computer, or simply very selfish and can't be bothered to make an effort towards not saying things which might offend sensitive people. It also seems like there's such a strong pressure now for people to fit in with the masses that anyone who has gone a very individualistic route in their life needs to be explained by having some kind of disorder, then labeled and treated as such. I find it paradoxical; we tell people to be themselves, think for themselves, disregard what others think, and just live their lives, but then when they actually do that and the results turn out to conflict with the majority's expectations, it's a disorder and we assign professionals to treat it. shrug
- 0xdragon 8y ago
  This sounds like you doubt their legitimacy, it's not constructive. You don't get to decide whether they are selfish.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    It seems reasonable to doubt a person's self-diagnosis of a condition that is difficult for a trained doctor to diagnose. Moreover, surely it's not "whether they are selfish" that's at issue but why?! Still further, if someone has a diagnosis of having different brain states that affect social interactions that doesn't mean one must accept deleterious interactions -- generally people don't accept violence because it's caused by psychopathy, for example. One cant decide for oneself that one is a well functioning member of society, the other members of society decide that. So, yes, the commenter is free to determine their actions as selfish (diagnosis or no); just as you are free to determine me to have been uncaring, or whatever, based on this comment. What is hoped is that others will make accommodations for us because of our difficulty in being less-selfish in our actions, or less-abrupt, or whatever.
gammateam 8y ago
> I smiled and looked at his nose instead of his eyes while chewing over my words and length of speech, trying to offer the version of my trip they wanted to hear. This is what I do when Canadians and Europeans ask me about Trump
theshadowknows 8y ago
I’ve often wondered if I’m ASD or if I’m just an asshole. I’m horrible with faces/names. I’ve seen people daily for two years, and every day it’s like they’re someone new. But at the end of the day...I just don’t care. Then there’s the stimulus thing. I’d rather go hungry than go to a crowded grocery store. I can’t stand it. It makes me want to scream. So I usually just order a pizza. Which itself is awkward and I hate it but at least it’s over quickly. But with technical things I typically pick them up quickly. And I enjoy them so long as their sufficiently challenging. I get bored easily though and prefer to just abandon problems once I’ve solved them or pass the solution on to someone else to implement. So maybe I am just an asshole.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  Why not both? If you can identify a "ideal/expected" choice in most situations but purposefully decide to do something that is more "convenient" it certainly merits some internal reflectio. I know for a lot of folks the decision isn't really a decision, so I used quotes. But, like the author, many ASD sufferers build scripts of what the world around them expects and executed those when their real time processing would fail them. As someone with ADHD, though, the solving something and then dropping it thing is a real problem. Inability to complete a project or task can be hard. I can work a problem until I am satisfied I got to the core of it, got my dopamine hit from that satisfaction. Then I will leave the problem rough around the edges sometimes. Or just abandon it. I don't know how ADHD and ASD intersect though I imagine having both is quite possible?
stared 8y ago
One of my friends is a sex worker with Asperger's. She is very prone to overstimulation. Though, when I asked her about her work - apparetenly Asperger's does not affect her much (meetings have concrete goal and structure, so implicit communication is not as important as is managing more open-ended social interactions) plus in 1-1 there aren't too many people (or too loud sound/noise). As a side note, in this topic, one of the most illuminating things I found: Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context (a chapter from A Mind-Body Look at the Concept of Asperger's Syndrome (pdf) by Michael Samsel, LMHC): https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c19d https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c...
- enb 8y ago
  Thank you for this link. I'm startled at how clearly it describes these traits. I will read the entire document. Thank you again
JackMorgan 8y ago
This whole thread is fascinating to me because I seem to respond the opposite: every word, facial change, and body adjustment is densely packed with emotional weight. Sometimes simple conversations feel like a dramatic opera. Sometimes I'll pull out a massively wrong signal from a simple one sentence exchange. Obviously, this can be exhausting, so tech is great for me! Many coworkers appear to have the opposite: an emotional intensity as muted as mine is strong. We get along great, like zebras and giraffes. They often apply logic to social interactions, and I often apply emotional intuition. As long as we both learn to respect and trust the other's reality, together we can be better than separate.
jscholes 8y ago
> Facial expressions, body language, and eye contact are the bones of communication and it’s quite difficult to build and maintain relationships without the ability to read them. As a blind person this was quite difficult to read (emotionally). I don't have any additional mental needs, but for obvious reasons I'm unable to read other peoples' visual body language, maintain eye contact or gauge their facial expressions. And because I can't do those things, and have never been able to do those things, they don't always come naturally to me either. I have a habbit of appearing to have a very serious expression on my face when actually I feel quite light and carefree, for instance. Maybe great in a poker game, I don't know. As an example of this, I never learned to nod or shake my head in response to questions until a recent trip to visit my partner in Mexico. Her sister is hearing-impaired, and so gestures like those were often the simplest way to communicate meaning. My partner, who is also blind, has grown up using those gestures because of her sister, but for me it was like learning something new.
- FroshKiller 8y ago
  Do you have any interest in learning other cues you could send?
  - jscholes 8y ago
    > Do you have any interest in learning other cues you could send? Of course, I'm always interested in communicating as best I can. Not sure what you had in mind though.
- freeflight 8y ago
  Makes me wonder if you would outperform seeing people in recognizing audio cues, like the tone of the voice to interpret emotion?
  - jscholes 8y ago
    > Makes me wonder if you would outperform seeing people in recognizing audio cues, like the tone of the voice to interpret emotion? By necessity I have to be tuned in to the sounds in my physical environment, to pick up any clues which give me an edge when navigating that space. I'd say it was fairly likely that I do the same when communicating with other people - one of the things that attracts me to people is the sound and tone of their voice. I find it difficult to enjoy acting performances, conference talks, etc when something is off about a person's vocal delivery, however small. Although that probably also has to do with the fact that for much of the day I'm listening to a rapidly-speaking text-to-speech engine.
yenwel 8y ago
I think high functioning autism is just a DSM-isation (label as disease) of people with high introversion, neurotism and/or disagreeableness. Read "The silent power of introverts" by Susan Cain. People are people. We all evolved traits to fill our biological niche. Highly vocal people with little fears (extraverted and neurotypical) are just that: more "confident" and vocal about how great they are. Corporate sociopaths will say you have a too high feeling for justice to silence you. Realize that this is your strength to realize what is ethical and a blind spot for them and their greatest weakness. Dark triad people will black/white label to control you since you are more prone to be sensitive and isolated. You have to realize that your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. That counts for every person where ever on the spectrum. As highly sensitive individual you are just more focused on the negative of your (in)ability to function in a certain biological niche. You are also more realistic of your and other people's abilities and talents (Dunning–Kruger effect). You are a animal on the savanna that is sensitive to the sounds of the predator approaching. And you survive. And the cycle continues.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- blanche_ 8y ago
  Autistic are not necessarily introverts. Autism is more like social blindness than introversion. Considering the fact that human is highly social animal it makes life harder. Calling people with ASD introverts is like calling people with depression just sad.
  - yenwel 8y ago
    Autism is a problem with cognitive empathy (understanding and recognizing emotions in one self and others). Versus sociopathy and other dark triads which have a problem with affective empathy (experiencing an mirror emotion to the emotion of others). The latter makes sociopaths able to exploit people around them (recognizing emotions and no bad feeling exploiting it). You can also miss both but these will be severely ineffective interacting and being accepted by society (in extreme low functioning sociopaths like serial killers and mass murderers). Highly intelligent and/or sensitive people have the ability to process large amounts of information ("detailism" in a negative tone). They have complex emotions, mixed with their environment whereas less sensitive people have more control of how to filter the input of their environment. So highly sensitive and intelligent have a lot of input from technical information but also complex social situations (over thinking it). This makes it highly tiring to work in large social groups (vs extraverted people) and leads to isolating to small social groups (introversion) and diving deep in a limited subject of interest to limit this input. I posit that so called high functioning autists are not socially blind but actually very receptive for all kinds of information including social cues and emotions of their environment, overwhelming them. See the work by Simon Baron-Cohen.
throwaway_65534 8y ago
Damn, the description of problems in social situations feel like it's written about my wife. She's mostly OK (if a little over-bearing and too trusting) in 1 on 1 conversation, but has huge problems behaving "normally" when there's many people, often answers in detail to throwaway questions and monopolizes the time and focus in a discussion. She comes out as egocentric and a very weird person. She also does this detailed analysis of really obvious (to me) situations, to the point that it's sometimes frustrating to see her struggle on whether particular thing she did or said was OK or not (when for me it's obvious it doesn't matter and certainly doesn't warrant 40 minutes of analysis). She worked in like 10 different schools teaching math, each time for 1 year or less. Mostly the problem was - she was unable to play the politics game, especially when it comes to grading kids unfairly well to please the parents so they don't go to the director and demand her gone. At the moment she's looking for a new job, economically we're ok but it's not very good to be unemployed for years. Maybe someone have any recommendations for a trade that's a good fit? Doesn't have to be very profitable. She's pretty good with math and computers, graduated math and economy, speaks Polish and English pretty well. She was writing books as a hobby at one point but stopped decades ago, I was suggesting trying that, but she doesn't believe there will ever be money in it. I've also tried to teach her programming (she already knew some basic stuff) but she just doesn't like it, or maybe I'm a bad teacher.
- Dayshine 8y ago
  Accountancy? My cousin is a year or two into that career (still training at this point) but it seems to be a good fit for him. Seems to fit the Maths/Economics background too.
- blanche_ 8y ago
  IT is a good fit, just show her project euler or more math heavy branches of IT like machine learning. Oddballs like people on the spectrum are fine here.
jawns 8y ago
It's worth mentioning that autistic women tend to be at risk of sexual exploitation. Here's a little video by Kati Morton that explains how autism is different in girls/women than in boys/men. At 6:07, she talks about vulnerability to exploitation: https://youtu.be/gpJ6bJHEc-k?t=6m7s https://youtu.be/gpJ6bJHEc-k?t=6m7s "Research also finds that females with ASD, since they tend to take things literally and are direct, that they can more easily fall victim to sexual exploitation, such as assault or getting stuck in an abusive relationship."
timwaagh 8y ago
i find it disheartening to know that so many autistic women end up in the sex industry or related fields. the problem is that girls are given too much room to do whatever they please because the expectation still is that they will become hired just to talk to people. but since autistics are bad at this, this is not going to happen. because autistics being undisciplined by nature on top of this their chances of learning a trade by themselves are low. so this is how they end up. maybe they also like this better than normal women, however the fact is that it remains shitty work.
chaoticmass 8y ago
I've never been given an ASD diagnosis, but have wondered if I was on the spectrum. Regardless, I've struggled with reading faces, and generally just being weird/awkward in social situations. One thing that really helped me though was my first job where I worked retail selling computers. Initially the hardest part was approaching people. Once I approached someone and they seemed interested in a PC or Laptop it was easy, I just had to talk to them about one of my favorite topics (computers). I ended up being one of the top sales associates, and this gave me confidence to be more outgoing and social outside of work.
Madmallard 8y ago
autism is a spectrum. shes probably in it. quit trying to explain away her issues other posters.

270 points by mercutio2 8y ago

"I've always had trouble reading social cues, but in the strip club, where rules and roles are crystal clear, I finally learned to connect." I work in IT and I find this to be very true, personally. I'm not a socialite and wouldn't talk to strangers at a party, but customer phone calls are not that. We're both there for a purpose and working to meet our goals together through banter and small talk is a non-issue.

wasx 8y ago

I don't know if I'm on the spectrum or not but I empathize a lot with the experiences of autistic people, most stories I read could almost verbatim be applied to myself. Including this womans experience (minus the stripping, but finding a comfortable environment where all but the rules are stripped away). This entailed years and years of awkward social experiences, and terrible self-loathing and embarrassing gaffs. The single biggest benefit I ever gained was learning that people actually have emotional basis to almost everything they say, as the author herself identifies in her post. For me I never had really any emotional content underneath my words unless I was being overwhelmed by emotion, and because of that I never saw that in other people. Learning that people are emotional first and rational second has led me to rapid improvements in my social life, including developing a group of friends and even a romantic relationship. I stopped trying to mask myself and instead approached every interaction knowing that the other person was experiencing some emotional reaction to it, and just behaved as myself with that knowledge. I'm still off-beat and I still get called weird but I have friends and a romance and it all seems to be going well, people will adjust to who you are. People I've found normally seek a positive interaction, and acting friendly and seeking more details for what they've said, as well as talking about your own similar events or experiences is the way to pull that off. I've found a good ratatat is to ask about something (normally people will lead off with some experience they've had or story they want to tell, but you can ask to kickstart it) inquire about a detail you would like them to elaborate and then chip in with your own similar experience or somehow pulling the focus off them and back onto yourself before the conversation inevitably bounces back and returns. Before long it's flowing naturally and biology sort of takes over and you're engaged in conversation. Too many questions or too much on yourself and it will all get uncomfortable or rude, so balance is key but if you keep bouncing around like this you will learn the balance for that individual and yourself. I still struggle with identifying what emotion people are trying to convey if it's not a simple and easily visible one like happiness, sadness or anger. But people I've found will normally pick up on the fact you've missed it and be more direct. It's very exhausting if you don't have a natural instinct for emotions, but it is rewarding because we are still emotional creatures. This is the basis of conversation. Understanding this has also allowed me to attach emotion to my words and people are very receptive to this, and very importantly it has made me feel a lot better and manage stress. More importantly conversation has become much easier as time has gone on and I've begun learning the hints that forever eluded me because I was not interacting on the same foundational base as most other people. There's more I've learnt about engaging with people than I can write here but they're subtle details that I learnt in the moment. I still over anaylze and I still struggle with my emotions and filtering information but I think I'm on a good path and I think that many neurodiverse people would benefit from similar realizations to what I have had.

teddyc 8y ago

I am autistic and this is a fascinating read. Haven't finished it yet, but needed to comment to encourage others. One thing I learned early on in IT is: It is now how you fix the problem, it is how people feel when you fixed it. This is tough to deal with b/c you can fix the "problem" but still have fallout from the situation b/c the way people felt from interacting with you.

kryogen1c 8y ago
> One thing I learned early on in IT is: It is now how you fix the problem, it is how people feel when you fixed it. Like we say at our company, don't manage problems - manage clients.
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  So much of tech support is hand-holding and telling the user everything is going to be ok.
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    Yup, and reassuring them that they didn't do anything wrong.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

My mother teaches autistic children and I think this woman must have an incredibly mild version. My mother’s students can barely take care of themselves and touching someone is largely out of the question. I’d love to see her face when I mentioned I read an article about a woman with autism being a stripper. And yes I know there is a spectrum of autism from severe to not as severe, but when someone is as high functioning as this does the word have any meaning anymore?

46Bit 8y ago
> incredibly mild version There are large variations in what different autistic people are capable of, and (e.g.) whether they have intellectual disabilities. The writer might be considered high-functioning by a professional, but it has clearly impacted their life. To call their autism "incredibly mild" sounds dismissive of their experiences. Full disclosure: I'm "high-functioning" autistic too and can associate so much with their account. > And yes I know there is a spectrum of autism from severe to not as severe, but when someone is as high functioning as this does the word have any meaning anymore? I wanted to reply to this edit. In this post is someone who struggled to function at a dinner with potential friends, and reverted to clients at a strip club because at least that can be rehearsed. I refuse to judge the author; I think they've done amazingly. But having this label may empower them and help them be more in control of their life. The word has meaning.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  > But having this label may empower them and help them be more in control of their life. The word has meaning. It certainly does, and although the wait lists are long here in NL, I can still recommend people who suspect they have autism to investigate it (via professionals). Its been roughly a 10 months ago since I had my diagnosis, and I learned so much ever since: * My partner (then undiagnosed) went to a group of partners of ASDers to learn more about how I experienced the world. This led her to believe she also has ASD (recently confirmed). * I learned all the things related to what makes ASD different from NTs such as Theory of Mind. * I met fellow ASDers, learned their background, their strong and weak traits, and was able to observe them as well. * I did a mindfulness course specifically for people with autism. * We, a couple both diagnosed with autism, get help to deal with our baby so she can grow up healthy in this NT world with two autistic parents (I'm terrible at reading her body language...) * There's more in development but I'll keep my mouth shut until it's been done & succeeded. All of the above thanks to the fantastic healthcare system in The Netherlands. God, I love my country, I'm so blessed being born here. EDIT: A lot of women (like my partner) end up being undiagnosed. Women are trained into a certain role in society which isn't typically masculine-autistic. They're forced to learn to mimic, act, etc to fit the feminine role.

vinceguidry 8y ago

Since she didn't seek out a diagnosis, her actual pathology is still up in the air and I personally don't think autism is a good fit. The fact of the matter is, empathy can be a hard thing to develop, and I think many people's upbringings can cause it to not fully develop even into adulthood. I remember at one point sometime around the age of 20 I felt like there was something I was missing. I've always had a pretty good intuition and my intuition led me to explore a lot of really really sad anime. The exposure to so much tragedy seemed to kick-start my emotional processing system and I was able to interact with people a lot more authentically after that. 15 years later, I can now recognize the signs of an immature emotional processing center in others and I absolutely see them in her. It's a hard cross to bear, instead of just feeling things, you have to think your way into feeling them. Your 'range' is limited to a small spectrum. It doesn't affect the ability to function, there's nothing 'really' wrong with you, your emotional system does work. It's just that everything's, well, blunted. Once I got my emotional center processing again, I started to recognize feelings that I had had in the past, but didn't recognize. It's a strange thing thinking back to your childhood and realizing you were feeling things that you didn't understand that you were feeling. Not entirely sure how common it is, but I do run across immature emotional processing very often. Now that I've had this opportunity to think about it more, it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part. So much of your emotions never really reach conscious awareness. If you see a lot of really ugly, senseless, or violent crap as a kid, I think you're prone to this kind of disconnection. Then by the time you're an adult, it almost ossifies. You can work on it, but you have to be motivated to somehow.

mockingbirdy 8y ago
> it's like the cognitive part of your brain just isn't connected to the emotional part I have this problem. Most of the time I call it autism for convenience although I know it isn't accurate. Deficient/Immature emotional processing is a better phrase that is more accurate. I think that development issues in the psyche can lead to delays in areas like emotional processing and theory of mind. Oftentimes I have to simulate emotions because I don't feel them in myself and others. The good thing is that I've become very good at analyzing people and their motivations using knowledge of psychology - it's all conscious. I can understand people better on a rational level because my explanations incorporate negative thoughts people may have about themselves without realizing them (negative unconscious thoughts - mostly fear and anxiety). But I have to allow myself explicitly to feel something because my emotional regulation is very high - I think this stems from fear. There's a wish to control social situations to feel safe. Maybe individuals who have this problem had negative social experiences because their perceptions were off in such situations and they realized that their assessments were wrong which lead to a deficit in self-esteem. To an untrained eye, this may look like autistic behavior, but it's mostly based on anxiety and a deficit in emotional processing. It's possible to overcome that, but I have to admit that it has positive effects: I don't get emotional easily, I can control social situations and I don't feel fear or embarrassment. Feeling is a choice and having empathy feels like a tool. Sounds sociopathic to me (autistic people also have sociopathic symptoms), so I don't really wish this to anybody.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

But in the private rooms at the club, there were no outside stimuli. The rules were clear, the distractions minimal, so I could focus and interact. My ex likely qualifies as ASD, though he was never diagnosed. He is terrible with faces. Faceblindness is common among ASD individuals. He had a lot of other issues. He was career military. A common recommendation for ASD individuals is to let them wear the same stuff over and over, to get them multiple copies of their favorite items to wear. Wearing the same thing helps accommodate their sensory issues. In the military, he was required to wear a uniform. He had multiple copies of it. A lot of people who have to wear a uniform get tired of it. It's boring. It's stultifying. But ASD individuals find it a comfort. He didn't have to remember faces. Everyone's last name was displayed on their uniform. He had handwriting issues, probably dysgraphia. He had his favorite pen. As an adult, he didn't need a file giving him permission to use a particular writing instrument to accommodate his issues. He had choice and it was chalked up to personal preference. If we happen to find a situation that's a good fit for how we are, we look competent and brilliant. If we are expected to do things that don't work well for us, performance suffers. There's really nothing magical or mysterious about that. It's just a shame we so often require people to have justification for their preferences.

jl2718 8y ago
Probably ASD, and military was great, but only in training and deployment to an actual war zone. Garrison was hell, all politics. Tried stripping too. War and stripping are similar: de-personalizing, over-stimulating, immediate flow state rush. Normal social anxieties go away, the rules no longer apply.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  I have seen studies that suggest the best war time soldiers are probably ASD or ADHD. Unsurprisingly, great war time soldiers often suck during peace time. If you read a little history, this has long been true. I read a history piece that suggested that we only had one Civil War in the US because the General that accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox was a chronic alcoholic and ne'er-do-well who learned compassion because of it. He was an excellent wartime soldier. He was chronically in trouble the rest of the time. He also was a callous bastard that was sending so many bodies back from the front that Lincoln was being harangued to remove him from command. He was considered to be a monster.

sperg1 8y ago

I struggled for years after being diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school. My parents didn’t believe in medication so I was never out on anything, which I am thankful for. After struggling tremendously with math and social interactions as well as school in general, I spiraled into deep depression. I was bullied, something which I now blame on my lack of normal social defenses. People would say things to me and I would become overwhelmed and shocked and unable to respond. Normal teenagers seem to be quick with comebacks, it literally takes me days to figure out what I should say or how I should react to common scenarios like off comments. It took me over a decade to get out of it. I recently began reading about the symptoms of aspergers and nearly everything fit. Extremely high and inappropriate language skills e.g. using words that I really shouldn’t, check. Inability to detect and respond appropriately to emotions. Dyscalculia (inability to do math), something that can be associated with aspergers. I watched some videos of some people who had been through similar situations and likewise fallen into depression upon hitting the social conditions that occur in teenage years. It now makes sense why I have to plan my facial expressions before I get Starbucks. If I don’t, I have this horrible death stare and scare the shit out of people. What really depresses me still to this day is just how sensitive most people in society are to aspergers. Once people detect there is something off about you, you are done. It happens within minutes. There is nothing I can really do, I can only imagine how many relationships and life experiences Inhave missed due to being rapidly discarded by my peer group due to these kinds of eccentricities.

voltagex_ 8y ago
What do you mean using words you shouldn't?
- dayofthedaleks 8y ago
  Grandiloquence, or using words like 'grandiloquence.'
freeflight 8y ago
> I was bullied, something which I now blame on my lack of normal social defenses. Don't do that, it's not healthy, I'm speaking from personal experience. Being bullied often boils down to just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing particular about you was "bully worthy", you were just the supposedly "weakest link" in a social hierarchy constructed by pretty much all young humans: Everybody has people above and under them. This is the result of people being shitty parents and teaching their children "I can do whatever I want to you because you are a child and I'm an, physically much bigger, adult. I don't need to argue with you, I will just make you do it!" When kids take this same logic back to social interactions with other kids (I'm bigger than you, that's why I can force you to do things!) it's bound to result in bullying and the "weakest" ending up under the wheels. This behavior then extends into adulthood where the hierarchy isn't strictly based on physical size/age anymore. So there's no reason to blame yourself, or bullies, for the person you are today. That's just making excuses for self-pity, a lot of time has passed since then, don't mourn what you might have missed out on, rather realize what you learned instead and make that a new positive feature.

Tycho 8y ago

Has there been any studies linking ASD/Aspergers to exogenous circumstances of childhood? (eg. older than average parents, lack of playmates, frequent re-locations...)

taneq 8y ago
Autism is associated with advanced maternal age: https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20100208/autism-risk-rises-with-mothers-age#1 https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20100208/autism-risk... I believe there's more recent evidence suggesting that paternal age may also play a role but there's a confounding factor there that paternal age is strongly linked to maternal age.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Is that because parents with autism have children later in life than those without? I mean, what exactly is the link? FTA: "So what's going on? That isn't clear. Older parents' genes can undergo changes caused by aging and by the environment"

newnewpdro 8y ago

This person hasn't even been diagnosed with autism by a professional, yet the title strongly suggests so. I guess the article wouldn't be particularly appealing with "Autistic" missing from the title. I've met a few people who have self-diagnosed themselves as autistic. It's kind of become a catch-all for people with eccentricities and/or offensive tendencies. In the cases I've seen, the people are either just unsocialized having spent most of their lives alone at a computer, or simply very selfish and can't be bothered to make an effort towards not saying things which might offend sensitive people. It also seems like there's such a strong pressure now for people to fit in with the masses that anyone who has gone a very individualistic route in their life needs to be explained by having some kind of disorder, then labeled and treated as such. I find it paradoxical; we tell people to be themselves, think for themselves, disregard what others think, and just live their lives, but then when they actually do that and the results turn out to conflict with the majority's expectations, it's a disorder and we assign professionals to treat it. shrug

0xdragon 8y ago
This sounds like you doubt their legitimacy, it's not constructive. You don't get to decide whether they are selfish.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  It seems reasonable to doubt a person's self-diagnosis of a condition that is difficult for a trained doctor to diagnose. Moreover, surely it's not "whether they are selfish" that's at issue but why?! Still further, if someone has a diagnosis of having different brain states that affect social interactions that doesn't mean one must accept deleterious interactions -- generally people don't accept violence because it's caused by psychopathy, for example. One cant decide for oneself that one is a well functioning member of society, the other members of society decide that. So, yes, the commenter is free to determine their actions as selfish (diagnosis or no); just as you are free to determine me to have been uncaring, or whatever, based on this comment. What is hoped is that others will make accommodations for us because of our difficulty in being less-selfish in our actions, or less-abrupt, or whatever.

gammateam 8y ago

> I smiled and looked at his nose instead of his eyes while chewing over my words and length of speech, trying to offer the version of my trip they wanted to hear. This is what I do when Canadians and Europeans ask me about Trump

theshadowknows 8y ago

I’ve often wondered if I’m ASD or if I’m just an asshole. I’m horrible with faces/names. I’ve seen people daily for two years, and every day it’s like they’re someone new. But at the end of the day...I just don’t care. Then there’s the stimulus thing. I’d rather go hungry than go to a crowded grocery store. I can’t stand it. It makes me want to scream. So I usually just order a pizza. Which itself is awkward and I hate it but at least it’s over quickly. But with technical things I typically pick them up quickly. And I enjoy them so long as their sufficiently challenging. I get bored easily though and prefer to just abandon problems once I’ve solved them or pass the solution on to someone else to implement. So maybe I am just an asshole.

bitexploder 8y ago
Why not both? If you can identify a "ideal/expected" choice in most situations but purposefully decide to do something that is more "convenient" it certainly merits some internal reflectio. I know for a lot of folks the decision isn't really a decision, so I used quotes. But, like the author, many ASD sufferers build scripts of what the world around them expects and executed those when their real time processing would fail them. As someone with ADHD, though, the solving something and then dropping it thing is a real problem. Inability to complete a project or task can be hard. I can work a problem until I am satisfied I got to the core of it, got my dopamine hit from that satisfaction. Then I will leave the problem rough around the edges sometimes. Or just abandon it. I don't know how ADHD and ASD intersect though I imagine having both is quite possible?

stared 8y ago

One of my friends is a sex worker with Asperger's. She is very prone to overstimulation. Though, when I asked her about her work - apparetenly Asperger's does not affect her much (meetings have concrete goal and structure, so implicit communication is not as important as is managing more open-ended social interactions) plus in 1-1 there aren't too many people (or too loud sound/noise). As a side note, in this topic, one of the most illuminating things I found: Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context (a chapter from A Mind-Body Look at the Concept of Asperger's Syndrome (pdf) by Michael Samsel, LMHC): https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c19d https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c...

enb 8y ago
Thank you for this link. I'm startled at how clearly it describes these traits. I will read the entire document. Thank you again

JackMorgan 8y ago

This whole thread is fascinating to me because I seem to respond the opposite: every word, facial change, and body adjustment is densely packed with emotional weight. Sometimes simple conversations feel like a dramatic opera. Sometimes I'll pull out a massively wrong signal from a simple one sentence exchange. Obviously, this can be exhausting, so tech is great for me! Many coworkers appear to have the opposite: an emotional intensity as muted as mine is strong. We get along great, like zebras and giraffes. They often apply logic to social interactions, and I often apply emotional intuition. As long as we both learn to respect and trust the other's reality, together we can be better than separate.

jscholes 8y ago

> Facial expressions, body language, and eye contact are the bones of communication and it’s quite difficult to build and maintain relationships without the ability to read them. As a blind person this was quite difficult to read (emotionally). I don't have any additional mental needs, but for obvious reasons I'm unable to read other peoples' visual body language, maintain eye contact or gauge their facial expressions. And because I can't do those things, and have never been able to do those things, they don't always come naturally to me either. I have a habbit of appearing to have a very serious expression on my face when actually I feel quite light and carefree, for instance. Maybe great in a poker game, I don't know. As an example of this, I never learned to nod or shake my head in response to questions until a recent trip to visit my partner in Mexico. Her sister is hearing-impaired, and so gestures like those were often the simplest way to communicate meaning. My partner, who is also blind, has grown up using those gestures because of her sister, but for me it was like learning something new.

FroshKiller 8y ago
Do you have any interest in learning other cues you could send?
- jscholes 8y ago
  > Do you have any interest in learning other cues you could send? Of course, I'm always interested in communicating as best I can. Not sure what you had in mind though.
freeflight 8y ago
Makes me wonder if you would outperform seeing people in recognizing audio cues, like the tone of the voice to interpret emotion?
- jscholes 8y ago
  > Makes me wonder if you would outperform seeing people in recognizing audio cues, like the tone of the voice to interpret emotion? By necessity I have to be tuned in to the sounds in my physical environment, to pick up any clues which give me an edge when navigating that space. I'd say it was fairly likely that I do the same when communicating with other people - one of the things that attracts me to people is the sound and tone of their voice. I find it difficult to enjoy acting performances, conference talks, etc when something is off about a person's vocal delivery, however small. Although that probably also has to do with the fact that for much of the day I'm listening to a rapidly-speaking text-to-speech engine.

yenwel 8y ago

I think high functioning autism is just a DSM-isation (label as disease) of people with high introversion, neurotism and/or disagreeableness. Read "The silent power of introverts" by Susan Cain. People are people. We all evolved traits to fill our biological niche. Highly vocal people with little fears (extraverted and neurotypical) are just that: more "confident" and vocal about how great they are. Corporate sociopaths will say you have a too high feeling for justice to silence you. Realize that this is your strength to realize what is ethical and a blind spot for them and their greatest weakness. Dark triad people will black/white label to control you since you are more prone to be sensitive and isolated. You have to realize that your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. That counts for every person where ever on the spectrum. As highly sensitive individual you are just more focused on the negative of your (in)ability to function in a certain biological niche. You are also more realistic of your and other people's abilities and talents (Dunning–Kruger effect). You are a animal on the savanna that is sensitive to the sounds of the predator approaching. And you survive. And the cycle continues.

deleted 8y ago
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blanche_ 8y ago
Autistic are not necessarily introverts. Autism is more like social blindness than introversion. Considering the fact that human is highly social animal it makes life harder. Calling people with ASD introverts is like calling people with depression just sad.
- yenwel 8y ago
  Autism is a problem with cognitive empathy (understanding and recognizing emotions in one self and others). Versus sociopathy and other dark triads which have a problem with affective empathy (experiencing an mirror emotion to the emotion of others). The latter makes sociopaths able to exploit people around them (recognizing emotions and no bad feeling exploiting it). You can also miss both but these will be severely ineffective interacting and being accepted by society (in extreme low functioning sociopaths like serial killers and mass murderers). Highly intelligent and/or sensitive people have the ability to process large amounts of information ("detailism" in a negative tone). They have complex emotions, mixed with their environment whereas less sensitive people have more control of how to filter the input of their environment. So highly sensitive and intelligent have a lot of input from technical information but also complex social situations (over thinking it). This makes it highly tiring to work in large social groups (vs extraverted people) and leads to isolating to small social groups (introversion) and diving deep in a limited subject of interest to limit this input. I posit that so called high functioning autists are not socially blind but actually very receptive for all kinds of information including social cues and emotions of their environment, overwhelming them. See the work by Simon Baron-Cohen.

throwaway_65534 8y ago

Damn, the description of problems in social situations feel like it's written about my wife. She's mostly OK (if a little over-bearing and too trusting) in 1 on 1 conversation, but has huge problems behaving "normally" when there's many people, often answers in detail to throwaway questions and monopolizes the time and focus in a discussion. She comes out as egocentric and a very weird person. She also does this detailed analysis of really obvious (to me) situations, to the point that it's sometimes frustrating to see her struggle on whether particular thing she did or said was OK or not (when for me it's obvious it doesn't matter and certainly doesn't warrant 40 minutes of analysis). She worked in like 10 different schools teaching math, each time for 1 year or less. Mostly the problem was - she was unable to play the politics game, especially when it comes to grading kids unfairly well to please the parents so they don't go to the director and demand her gone. At the moment she's looking for a new job, economically we're ok but it's not very good to be unemployed for years. Maybe someone have any recommendations for a trade that's a good fit? Doesn't have to be very profitable. She's pretty good with math and computers, graduated math and economy, speaks Polish and English pretty well. She was writing books as a hobby at one point but stopped decades ago, I was suggesting trying that, but she doesn't believe there will ever be money in it. I've also tried to teach her programming (she already knew some basic stuff) but she just doesn't like it, or maybe I'm a bad teacher.

Dayshine 8y ago
Accountancy? My cousin is a year or two into that career (still training at this point) but it seems to be a good fit for him. Seems to fit the Maths/Economics background too.
blanche_ 8y ago
IT is a good fit, just show her project euler or more math heavy branches of IT like machine learning. Oddballs like people on the spectrum are fine here.

jawns 8y ago

It's worth mentioning that autistic women tend to be at risk of sexual exploitation. Here's a little video by Kati Morton that explains how autism is different in girls/women than in boys/men. At 6:07, she talks about vulnerability to exploitation: https://youtu.be/gpJ6bJHEc-k?t=6m7s https://youtu.be/gpJ6bJHEc-k?t=6m7s "Research also finds that females with ASD, since they tend to take things literally and are direct, that they can more easily fall victim to sexual exploitation, such as assault or getting stuck in an abusive relationship."

timwaagh 8y ago

i find it disheartening to know that so many autistic women end up in the sex industry or related fields. the problem is that girls are given too much room to do whatever they please because the expectation still is that they will become hired just to talk to people. but since autistics are bad at this, this is not going to happen. because autistics being undisciplined by nature on top of this their chances of learning a trade by themselves are low. so this is how they end up. maybe they also like this better than normal women, however the fact is that it remains shitty work.

chaoticmass 8y ago

I've never been given an ASD diagnosis, but have wondered if I was on the spectrum. Regardless, I've struggled with reading faces, and generally just being weird/awkward in social situations. One thing that really helped me though was my first job where I worked retail selling computers. Initially the hardest part was approaching people. Once I approached someone and they seemed interested in a PC or Laptop it was easy, I just had to talk to them about one of my favorite topics (computers). I ended up being one of the top sales associates, and this gave me confidence to be more outgoing and social outside of work.

Madmallard 8y ago

autism is a spectrum. shes probably in it. quit trying to explain away her issues other posters.