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Sora
Illogical, Irrational
Joined: Sep 16, 2006
Age: 20
Posts: 2425
Location: Europe
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 Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject: Do you think you're 'normal'? |
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The topic about whether AS fascinates others too, inspired me. The word 'fascinating' and its several meanings had me thinking.
Beware, this is a going into a totally different direction:
Do you think, despite knowing better intellectually, and spontaneously react as if you are normal and put the standard? That everybody else is strange and fascinating?
Non-autistic people tend to find autistic people fascinating. In the sense of: Otherworldly and hard to understand, sometimes awe-inspiring, sometimes as unworthy and beneath them. I'm awed that I should be fascinated by me.
In essence, I have trouble to be fascinated by myself because I always thought I was normal. Others were atypical to me. Strange. Fascinating, because they awed me as I could not understand why they were doing what they did.
I still haven't overcome this. I know that I am not typical. But I still do not know what all I do that is strange. I still see myself as normal, usually. It is my spontaneous response. I think everybody must be like I perceived them, learn things like me, must see/hear/feel/taste/smell like me.
I probably should be fascinated by my ability to find everything but me fascinating. Kids are like that, but all seem to lose it with age. (I missed out some crucial developmental step, haha.) I wonder what I'd think if I grew up realising that the world dictates what is 'normal'? I cannot imagine it, I don't know how others do it?
Everything else is fascinating to me, beautiful even if cruel, because I just cannot believe it is real!
Something so different from me - this concept makes me shudder and wonder! It frightens and amazes me very much. I can't get used to so many things, as they just remain unfamiliar to me.
This one I have a hard time with still: I tell myself every time I cross a window that a family lives in there. And the idea feels unreal. The idea that other people live in houses, like me, have a family, like me, live lives, like me, eat and sleep and wash and dress and clean and cook, all like me... it's unbelievable, somehow. When I imagine it, it frightens me deeply and fascinates me so much that I want to learn more about it.
When I was only 3-4 years old, the idea that people sat in these others cars on the roads... I couldn't believe it! I saw them, I knew that I could trust me eyes. But the idea, it seemed so alien to me, so unlike what I knew. I thought it was entirely abnormal. I still think so and I try not to think about it too much to not get awed and frightened on the streets. (Too dangerous.)
This world is so strange, fascinating to the very core. Other people never seemed to agree with me on that.
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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett |
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makuranososhi
Purple Monkey Dishwasher
Joined: May 13, 2008
Posts: 1457
Location: Arizona
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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What you describe does not seem foreign to me... I believe we all tend to associate our own experiences with a sense of 'normal'; this likely intensifies the gulf between those on the spectrum and the more NT individuals, as it further accentuates the distance in modes of thought. I've always found others fascinating and strange... unpredictable. It is probably why I am able to acclimate and socialize as well as I do at this point; I had a large data set to draw from even if I didn't know what all of it meant at first... it is like a massive jig-saw puzzle that shifts and morphs over time, with pieces needing new homes as perceptions change.
I like thinking about your description of walking past windows... it's an interesting thought. While it doesn't affect me the same way, it's a good thought to roll around in one's mind awhile.
M.
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He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
From my heart and from my hand, why don't people understand my intentions...?
Why choose a lesser evil? Vote Cthulhu 2008! |
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KingdomOfRats
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 01, 2005
Age: 24
Posts: 2448
Location: Manchester
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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normal,no.
but dont see the word existing as a description for anything either,as everything is unique in some way.
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[LFAutie]
["Even through the darkest days, this fire burns...always"-Killswitch Engage]
.:The residential autist:.
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sim
Phoenix
Joined: Apr 20, 2008
Age: 18
Posts: 637
Location: an uneven circle
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Being fascinated by myself is hard. What I create and how I act is only a minuscule portion of what happens in my mind at any given instance. |
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DukeGallison
Snowy Owl
Joined: Feb 24, 2008
Age: 24
Posts: 170
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Spokane_Girl
I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more
Joined: Jul 17, 2007
Age: 23
Posts: 2912
Location: Benny & Joon town (I wish)
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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Yes I'm normal. What is normal anyway? Everyone's different.
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Aspergers, PDD-NOS, autistic, who cares what diagnoses I have, it's just a label. All on the spectrum. |
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Droopy
Deinonychus
Joined: Dec 29, 2006
Posts: 329
Location: Ohio
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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| I think I'm strange but I'm not sure what normal is. It kind of surprises me when I ask people I know if I come across as strange and they say no. One girl though I think was just saying that because "normally" it's a offending to tell someone they think they're strange. When I need to though I do whatever I can to come across as normal but since my DX I'm starting to care less and less. I can remember when I was little thinking I was the only whose chest or stomach moved up and down when I breathed. I would stare at other people looking for some kind of sign of breath. |
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Danielismyname
In his image
Joined: Apr 03, 2007
Posts: 5326
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:39 am Post subject: |
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| Normal enough, but so is everyone else to me. |
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Inventor
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 16, 2007
Posts: 2678
Location: New Orleans
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:47 am Post subject: |
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I am normal, just another robot, but I am aware of it.
I am very much soup made of mud and sea water that walks, and looks at stars.
Threre are many who look like me, but as I watch them, they live in a narrow version of being mobile mud.
I wonder how they live without self awareness, they wonder how I live with it.
As far as I can tell they want food, shelter, wear the common clothes, and be like everyone.
I want books, art, and to be alone high in the mountains in the desert and watch the stars.
I see them as the miller's horse, that every day walks the same circle to power the mill, eats the same food, and will someday die.
I walk many paths, have lived many lives, and keep looking for the outer bounds of the world, and of life, thought, and find no limits.
It is normal for them to keep being the same, and normal for me to change.
I too missed some crucial development step, growing up they call it, it is some stopping of learning, seeing the wonder of it all, and taking a place to walk out your days in circles.
I am the only person I know still in full time education, always have been.
I do everything they do, eat, sleep, live, but do many things they never do, travel, write, learn.
Passing this way but once, beneath stars such wonder, to sit atop a mountain at night, to read words written on clay or hide thousands of years ago, always more, rich, full, new strangeness waiting for my eyes.
Facinating to the very core sums up my feeling.
Then there is the world shown by the microscope, the telescope, endless wonder.
I watch as joyful and happy children become zombies,, some sooner than others, one by one they fall away, till very few are left with all the books, all the wonder, to watch the universe in awe.
I am what I think humans should be. Normal. |
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Brandon-J
Deinonychus
Joined: Mar 12, 2008
Age: 19
Posts: 352
Location: North Carolina
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:23 am Post subject: |
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No I don't feel normal compared to everybody else
I don't even feel im up to level with everybody intellectually. I mean i have normal intelligence but when it comes to talking and having a conversation I come off as a retard. Because I always give directly short answers and don't really explain myself with detail. And im really quiet. |
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tweety_fan
Phoenix
Joined: Oct 03, 2007
Posts: 1153
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:09 am Post subject: |
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i don't feel the same compared to everyone else.
i don't feel i am on their level. i can't help but feel i am below them sometimes. |
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lucy1
Toucan
Joined: Aug 17, 2007
Posts: 280
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| no -too much anxiety to be normal. |
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catspurr
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 16, 2008
Posts: 781
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:19 am Post subject: |
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I am not normal. In order to be normal you must conform to current trends and standards.
Hmmm...wait a second. Are conformists who browse online and play MMO's and computer games becoming more in tune with geeky standards?
I bet if you started up an internet related topic or talked about MMO's to a conformist there could be an actual conversation. Everyone does it now.
The cool thing about trends and those who abide by them is that trend followers have their own code of ethics they feel compelled to abide by. When you are an individual, you do what you like because you like to do it and you know that you do. When you are a follower of trends, you do it to fit in and it's subject to change according to what is trendy later on.
Last edited by catspurr on Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Michael_Stuart
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Jul 05, 2008
Age: 13
Posts: 44
Location: Europe
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:35 am Post subject: |
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Well, I don't really believe in there being any sort of ''normal''.
Let us grab two random people from the NT jar, say, George Bush senior and Tom Cruise.
They're different from me. They're also different from each other. I'm different from you, and they're different from you.
I don't find everyone fascinating, but there some people I consider to be fascinating, that are, well, more different. Everyone is a different person, and they can be fascinating or rather boring, but they're not the same.
(The subject reminds me of Animal Farm. ''We are all equal, but some of us are more equal than others.'')
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''Veni, Vidi, Librum Scripsi'' - KoT |
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craola
Deinonychus
Joined: Mar 21, 2008
Age: 20
Posts: 332
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:06 am Post subject: |
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I really identify with your thoughts about people being real and there being actual people in houses and cars. I find everything fascinating to, I find it hard to get my head around that everyone outside my house is actually existing and that when I go away everyone where I live doesn't just stop.
I know I'm not 'normal' but I find everyone else much more facinating, I am always asking questions about why people do things and what they mean.
And everything in the world looks different through my camera lens.
To me I'm normal and everything else is weird. |
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