aspie bf change NT girlfriend's brain to think like aspie?

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i've been with my aspie boyfriend for eleven months and he as opened my eyes to a more literal way of thinking (not 100% of the time, of course).

it's been challenging, but while we have been utilizing the english dictionary, i've become more understanding of the way he thinks.

do you think that an NT person can think more liek an aspie by reading books and having "tutoring" sessions with an aspie?

Er... you need the ability to think from someone else's perspective intellectually. This is something only a few people seem good at.

one vote for 'yes'

The media already was mean to us. What happens if they suspect we’re contagious?

They can change you into zombie.

It's a neurological difference. A particularly impressionable NT may pick up some "aspie" behaviors from being around one, but you can't "convert" an NT into an aspie, much the same way that you can't convert an aspie into an NT.

.......and something most NTs aren't willing to do for Aspies. A good sign for the OP and her partner.

Why would you want to? It's a mental disfunction. Its like saying you want to be hit on the head with a sledge hammer so you can be like uncle Bob who is a little slow. I mean it's kind of touching that you would consider it to be more compatible with someone, but I think you really need to step back and take a very good look at what is going on. An Aspie and a NT can be compatible. Many of us here are in such 'mixed' relationships. But it either works 'as is' or with increased awareness/understanding (and compromise by both parties) or it doesn't, and probably will not.

There is no crossing over this gulf. Only meeting in the middle. You sound willing to make changes. Is he? If it is going to work he needs to be.

You can definitely learn to understand each other, and probably benefit from it.

We've learned from Hubby learning to "speak Aspie."

I'm interested in the possibility that he may have ADHD-- I think we could, again, learn a lot from teaching me to "speak Adder."

That's not the same thing as rewiring yourself to be more like one.

It's not cool to try to make Aspies NT. It can't be OK to try to make NTs Aspie, either.

The world needs both of us.

How exactly do aspies think? I kinda thought since we're all individuals we probably have many different ways of thinking.

If that were the case we would all think differently, therefore behave differently, therefore would not have autism. Have you never read the diagnostic criteria?

High Functioning Autism is described by the abnormal ways in which the autistic brain works, i.e., "how we think." It's the very fact that we think in ways that are identifiably different than the neurotypical that defines the disorder.

Our thoughts, desires and opinions may differ widely, but the internal methods by which we perceive, analyze and interpret the world are very much the same.

And no, a neurotypical brain cannot be modified to adopt those thought processes. MRI research is now indicating the sensory problems that cause AS/HFA are the result of a brain with too many sensory input connections, rather like people who are born with more teeth in their head than the normal 32, or an extra finger or toe. An NTs brain may learn to mimic or anticipate some Aspergian points of view, but they could never really think like we do, because they will never see the world through the autistic funhouse lens that we do. In order to truly understand, you have to live with our pain and our handicaps on a daily basis. No amount of empathy can imagine it.

Corkyviolet, you should be happy you don't experience the world the way an autistic does. It isn't pleasant.

Or neither. But it is great that you're a glass half-full type!

If there are two people with brains that function the same, it most certainly does not indicate they think the same. Otherwise all neurotypicals would think the same as each other. Though I wonder if its even possible for two people to have brains that function the exact same way.

But if you must know yes I have read the diagnostic criteria.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 19 Dec 2013, 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it is more a question of methodology and conceptual underpinnings that is at stake. Obviously our brains are more than a single label, and differ genetically in manifold ways other than autism, and they are all subject to different environments. What I think is different is that the thought process of the typical aspie will be essentially guided through a different set of conceptualisations - which are innate, dare I say in almost a priori - that are as it were threads that the thought gets processed through before it becomes a conscious object. Some of these include socialised conceptualisations, like certain social observations, which are part of human development - though sufficiently plastic to account for different environments in which human society may be planted - but are missing in Aspies, leading to what essentially amounts to a difference not so much in 'language', but in basic presuppositions and ways of relating people and objects in our mental stream of consciousness.

My dad was married to my mom for over 20 years. They got married when he was 17. Some of my mom's behaviors rubbed off on him. He seems a lot more AS than NT now.