Autism and Taking on Others' Perspective as Truth

[AutistAcolyte]

i'm moving soon and had my final meeting with my psychologist this week, and we were curious if this is a me thing or am autism thing, so i'm interested in you all's experience.

i found that in the interpersonal conflicts that i went through over the past few years, i consistently took the perspective the person who felt wronged by me as the objective reality of the situation.

for example: i would hear my housemate say that something that i did really bothered him (and he would often use very extreme language, that he felt i was dehumanizing him or that he felt threatened or was worried about his mental health because of my behavior) and i took that at face value and believed that i was doing something wrong and needed to change my behavior drastically, but kept failing to meet his expectations. every "failure" of mine was actually easily attributable to adhd (e.g. he would take issue with my hyperfocusing on an interest and not noticing something he was doing, or forgetting information that was told to me in passing) or to autism (e.g. not recognizing social cues, flat affect that he would perceive as antagonistic), though he would say that i was just trying to avoid taking responsibility for choosing to behave a certain way.

it was only until i brought these things to my psychologist and began discussing them with other friends that i realized that his perspective and conclusions about me (that i'm intentionally insensitive, that i'm racist, and that i refuse to take responsibility for what he perceived as harms i was perpetuating) were not only not necessarily accurate, but that they felt bad that he was treating me this way and they were surprised that we were living together at all.

all of this to say: have you found that you have trouble not talking on others' perception of you as definitive reality? is this just a me thing, or could this be related to autism? both me and my psychologist were curious to look into it, so i thought i'd post here and ask. thanks!

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I learned critical thinking at an early age and never took other perspectives as truth unless I could verify them.

 

[Hypnalis]

I recognize this, though I wouldn't describe it the same way.

A full description wouldn't be simple, but the way I make sense out of the high level of literal inaccuracy in normal NT speech makes this a potential risk.

Somewhere along the line I learned how to avoid the downside risk.

FWIW I think if there's an underlying common HFA cause, it's related to our using "mirroring" a lot.

 

[ra49]

i'm moving soon and had my final meeting with my psychologist this week, and we were curious if this is a me thing or am autism thing, so i'm interested in you all's experience.

i found that in the interpersonal conflicts that i went through over the past few years, i consistently took the perspective the person who felt wronged by me as the objective reality of the situation.

for example: i would hear my housemate say that something that i did really bothered him (and he would often use very extreme language, that he felt i was dehumanizing him or that he felt threatened or was worried about his mental health because of my behavior) and i took that at face value and believed that i was doing something wrong and needed to change my behavior drastically, but kept failing to meet his expectations. every "failure" of mine was actually easily attributable to adhd (e.g. he would take issue with my hyperfocusing on an interest and not noticing something he was doing, or forgetting information that was told to me in passing) or to autism (e.g. not recognizing social cues, flat affect that he would perceive as antagonistic), though he would say that i was just trying to avoid taking responsibility for choosing to behave a certain way.

it was only until i brought these things to my psychologist and began discussing them with other friends that i realized that his perspective and conclusions about me (that i'm intentionally insensitive, that i'm racist, and that i refuse to take responsibility for what he perceived as harms i was perpetuating) were not only not necessarily accurate, but that they felt bad that he was treating me this way and they were surprised that we were living together at all.

all of this to say: have you found that you have trouble not talking on others' perception of you as definitive reality? is this just a me thing, or could this be related to autism? both me and my psychologist were curious to look into it, so i thought i'd post here and ask. thanks!

From my own life experience: being [both ADD and on the spectrum but not recognized because it was 60 years ago] raised in an abusive authoritarian family and not allowed to have boundaries, I still to this day believe what is told to me is True, even when my mind and heart say False.

Every day is a struggle to untangle what my eyes and ears see and hear from what my heart and mind know.

 

[Tom]

No ones perspective is automatically 100% accurate. In evaluating a situation I don't automatically side with anyone in regards to their diagnosis or lack of one. Well, maybe I will have more doubts with a pathelogical liar.

The details of analysis are complicated. Suffice here to say I take everything on a case by case basis.

 

[elgat0verde]

Yes I recognize this

I always took my parent's perspective as truths when they were all lies

It also happened with my ex-wife and some former people I can't call friends anymore.

In my personal case it was because I completely dislike conflict and also was abused into being extremely submissive so, what everyone else said became absolute truths.

This has affected my self esteem and self worth a lot, plus, this has made me extremely insecure. I have a hard time accepting the bad things that happen to me because I have no fight.

My adoptive father told me I was worthless and stupid (with stronger language) frequently insulted me with belittling words and bad words and made me feel like everything I did was wrong and I took everything as an absolute truth.

Again, I suspect is because I don't like conflict and really cower when someone yells at me

 

[SusanLR]

I was made fun of a lot by other kids.
At a very young age I learned to think for myself and look at the facts.
If what those who tried to make me feel bad were not stating the truth, then it only made me stronger to not let what others said bother me.

If I do something that is annoying or incorrect, I own up to it.
But if it is not true, I either shut up and leave the situation or explain the truth of the matter. They don't like to hear that, but I am the type to stand my ground.
So definitely not.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Yes I recognize this

I always took my parent's perspective as truths when they were all lies

It also happened with my ex-wife and some former people I can't call friends anymore.

In my personal case it was because I completely dislike conflict and also was abused into being extremely submissive so, what everyone else said became absolute truths.

This has affected my self esteem and self worth a lot, plus, this has made me extremely insecure. I have a hard time accepting the bad things that happen to me because I have no fight.

My adoptive father told me I was worthless and stupid (with stronger language) frequently insulted me with belittling words and bad words and made me feel like everything I did was wrong and I took everything as an absolute truth.

Again, I suspect is because I don't like conflict and really cower when someone yells at me

@elgat0verde , you make me sad. Nobody growing up deserves to have their self concept injured as happened to you. My parents were neutral, but it was my peers who made me feel damaged and worthless.

 

[tazz]

Do you know about Compassion Focused Therapy? I think it addresses this sort of thing. Because, for example, social situations in life happen pretty much every day, and autistic people tend to find them distressing, we're basically anxious and in flight or fight mode multiple times every day. So there's a lot of "threat" in our lives. Over time this means our brains get very used to noticing and reacting to external threat - that part of our brain becomes bigger and stronger and more active. This can lead to it dominating the part of our brain that deals with self, the internal stuff. And this can lead to internalizing the threats. We come to think that somehow the negative things we experience are our fault - which is referred to as shame in psychological models.

I'm no expert in this. It's just something that came up recently in my treatment. CFT was mentioned by a specialist psychiatrist as a potentially useful model for autistic people - sometimes more effective than Cognitive Behavior Therapy for example.

 

[Hypnalis]

@AutistAcolyte

What you described is low-level "psycho" behavior.
You're right to be concerned when you find yourself believing another person's mildly unhinged perspectives.

I agree it's an easy error for us, but there are other ways of looking it it than NT/ND. For example the standard personality traits agreeable/disagreeable (note that these are descriptive in nature - the how/why is something else again).
Agreeable people can be "people pleasers", who are inclined to do what you described - but agreeability has positive effects too.
This is worth reading as a start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgreeablenessNote that being disagreeable is useful, but too much takes you past "taking care of yourself in a complex world", and into narcissistic traits.

So if we set aside not only good/bad, but also ND/NT, and look at what might be done, but with an Aspie spin to the techniques, you might be able to address this, at least in part, yourself.

The first step of the Aspie part: know how you figure out what NT's are actually saying?
I mentioned an aspect of masking, because I think Aspies pick up a form of "people pleasing" behavior quite early, as a side effect of the thing that makes us mask.

(An aside: I've realized I'll never figure out why nobody is interested in that process, since it's one of the very few things all Aspies seem to have in common, but I've given up /lol).

Anyway - you need to understand your personal process, because you need to modify it to check for your taking on other people's views. I don't think an NT therapist could do this for you, but I know (100%) that it's possible to do it for yourself (from a sample size of 1 though

Techniques:
One is understanding your own opinions about something. NT's aren't good at this. Nor are Aspies. There's an interesting M/F split too, but IMO it's consistent with Evolutionary Psychology, so not worth discussing here.
The point: if you think you've been presented with a new perspective, you have to know if you have a current opinion, and if so, what it is. If not, you need to "stack" an analysis of the new idea (or do it on the fly if you're fast).

Second: pushback when faced with e.g. a narcissist who's learned a few of their manipulative techniques.
Note that it's not just narcs, but they combine being easy to spot, and the traits being quite common.
Sadly, "learned narcissism" is definitely a thing, and on the rise, because it's (more-or-less) taught in schools, and propagated by the ever-expanding population of narcs who have kids. Narcs are way too common.

So: you need to learn how to push back when some lunatic attacks you using the narc techniques they learned in school or on the web. And you can - it's nowhere near as hard to learn as e.g. learning how to "smile with your eyes", which lots of Aspies can do.

The basics: immediate, but polite, resistance.
Remember: Narcs, at least while they do their thing, are NPCs. Treat them as just being part of the game.
It takes a lot less time to recategorize them as people when they start behaving properly than it does to get rid of the adrenaline taking them seriously will induce.

A Scenario:
Narc: "I mentioned X in passing and you didn't do it, so you're a bad guy":
Response: This is on you, not me. I can't treat everything you throw at me in passing as an order.
If you want me to do something, ask, and wait for me to agree or refuse.

You can be nicer the first time;
Tune it the second (e.g. can't to don't, "random comments", "If you have a request")
Shorten it the third time (the core is just the last sentence)
Subsequently (if it goes on - but it probably wont raise the temperature step by step.

Disagreeable? Yep - by design. Because so is the BS complaint.
They were trying to condition your behavior. You're reversing/reflecting.

FWIW, rules I try to use:
Consider it as a stupid "tit-for-tat" process (mathematically proven to be optimal /lol) but build in de-escalation scaling.
The rules:
* Mask your assertiveness with politeness (important - it gets easier with practice)
* Try to be 80% as disagreeable as what you're reacting to".
Weirdly, the 80% thing works quite well.

 

[Sasha22]

I've often found myself "immersed" in the other person's perspective, to the point that it temporarily seems to become reality at a given moment. As if I saw things through their eyes for a while - and that can make me temporarily forget that my own perspective also exists. It takes training for me to make my own perspective stronger - a contender in the middle of a conversation, not just something that lives in the shadows at the back of my mind.

i took that at face value and believed that i was doing something wrong and needed to change my behavior drastically, but kept failing to meet his expectations.

Obviously if your housemate felt "dehumanized", that doesn't mean you have to meet their expectations and doesn't necessarily mean that you're a "dehumanizing"person. I can think of quite a few people who, if you ever told them something as brutal as "You're dehumanizing!", would respond with equivalent brutality: "Not at all! It's you who's too fragile, too weak" - or worse, lol. In this particular case, maybe the aggressive wording contributed to the confusion - and if their criticism had been constructively worded, perhaps it would have been easier for you to work with?

 

[AprilR]

Yes i relate to this. Esp. İf the other person is close to me, like my parents or a friend, i automatically think their subjective emotions and experience as the truth. If someone tells me "you are x" than i automatically believe them. I feel like i have no point of view or sense of self sometimes

 

[TomGabel23]

i'm moving soon and had my final meeting with my psychologist this week, and we were curious if this is a me thing or am autism thing, so i'm interested in you all's experience.

i found that in the interpersonal conflicts that i went through over the past few years, i consistently took the perspective the person who felt wronged by me as the objective reality of the situation.

for example: i would hear my housemate say that something that i did really bothered him (and he would often use very extreme language, that he felt i was dehumanizing him or that he felt threatened or was worried about his mental health because of my behavior) and i took that at face value and believed that i was doing something wrong and needed to change my behavior drastically, but kept failing to meet his expectations. every "failure" of mine was actually easily attributable to adhd (e.g. he would take issue with my hyperfocusing on an interest and not noticing something he was doing, or forgetting information that was told to me in passing) or to autism (e.g. not recognizing social cues, flat affect that he would perceive as antagonistic), though he would say that i was just trying to avoid taking responsibility for choosing to behave a certain way.

it was only until i brought these things to my psychologist and began discussing them with other friends that i realized that his perspective and conclusions about me (that i'm intentionally insensitive, that i'm racist, and that i refuse to take responsibility for what he perceived as harms i was perpetuating) were not only not necessarily accurate, but that they felt bad that he was treating me this way and they were surprised that we were living together at all.

all of this to say: have you found that you have trouble not talking on others' perception of you as definitive reality? is this just a me thing, or could this be related to autism? both me and my psychologist were curious to look into it, so i thought i'd post here and ask. thanks!

I was cheated on and my ex wife is constantly saying how she’s not bitter like she could be and that she forgives me for being uptight. I took me deciding I may be autistic to stand up for myself and push back against her. I don’t know if she’s straight up lying to manipulate me or just ignorant that I am not acting a certain way to make her feel bad. Either way I don’t have to engage with her and that’s been my huge realization.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Hissingfauna22

Your ex-wife is deliberately lying.
She will be "excusing herself" for it of course, so she'll have an internal defensive "denial monolog" running. "Double-think" is definitely a thing.

You can't change her mind, but I can suggest simple ways to stop her "sharing".

 

[TomGabel23]

@Hissingfauna22

Your ex-wife is deliberately lying.
She will be "excusing herself" for it of course, so she'll have an internal defensive "denial monolog" running. "Double-think" is definitely a thing.

You can't change her mind, but I can suggest simple ways to stop her "sharing".

Yeah I’m definitely open to anything now that I’ve realized what’s going on.

 

[Hypnalis]

What she's doing is a variation of DARVO: "Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender".
DARVO isn't a complete analysis in itself of course - it's actually just an aggressive opening. But it's well-known and easy to remember.

The "I forgive you" part is an attack packaged as a weak "thought-stopper".
That kind of thing induces a defensive response, which passes the initiative to the attacker.
The defender (you) should act to take the initiative and keep it.

I have to ask first:
1. Do you have children together (this is an unconditional "no conversational nukes" situation)?
2. Are there any resources "in play" at the moment (property, money, things with sentimental value, etc)?
3. Anything else that would motivate you to avoid things heating up?

 

[TomGabel23]

What she's doing is a variation of DARVO: "Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender".
DARVO isn't a complete analysis in itself of course - it's actually just an aggressive opening. But it's well-known and easy to remember.

The "I forgive you" part is an attack packaged as a weak "thought-stopper".
That kind of thing induces a defensive response, which passes the initiative to the attacker.
The defender (you) should act to take the initiative and keep it.

I have to ask first:
1. Do you have children together (this is an unconditional "no conversational nukes" situation)?
2. Are there any resources "in play" at the moment (property, money, things with sentimental value, etc)?
3. Anything else that would motivate you to avoid things heating up?

1. 2 kids
2. She is currently using my car. (I have a company car I’m allowed to use for my own purposes, so I’m not carless.) I’ve allowed her this because I want it to be easier on my kids.
3. That all about covers it.

I feel like I can’t find the line between being being supportive to my children and being walked on by their mother.

 

[TomGabel23]

1. 2 kids
2. She is currently using my car. (I have a company car I’m allowed to use for my own purposes, so I’m not carless.) I’ve allowed her this because I want it to be easier on my kids.
3. That all about covers it.

I feel like I can’t find the line between being being supportive to my children and being walked on by their mother.

To add on to it she is paying the insurance for the car as well as oil changes. So I legitimately feel she’s not taking complete advantage of me.

 

[Judge]

I tend to acknowledge that nebulous "perspectives" tend to be anecdotal.

The sort of thing that at best is to be taken "with a grain of salt" as they say.

 

[Hypnalis]

I think you should move this to a forum "Conversation" (i.e. private).

Not so I can give you private divorce advice though.
The simpler techniques to resist being mildly gaslighted assume you don't care if you annoy the aggressor.
You'll have to be much softer because of the kids.

We may be able to move forward anyway, but it might be a crooked path.

BTW - if the first post I reacted to is reasonably accurate you are being gaslighted.