Social Skills Training for Adults

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Okay... whoo boy.

Tough, tough session. I have to preface this post with the fact that on Wed (the day before) I went to my "Little's" IEP session at a school across the way, had dinner with his Mom discussing my book and then went to hang out with some Aspie types at Project Grow... I stayed out late and was pumped full of caffeine and did not wind down from the day's events until 3:00 AM. Prior to this I had written 20 pages of memoires for a potential book deal. This process and all the events prior had me pretty raw and tired when I walked into session.

Still I went thinking I could pull it off. Yeah so.. Uh.... not.

On the very good side of things he had removed the ticking clock (finally) from the wall and I noticed a white board out and at the ready. I made a comment RE the clock. He replied with somthing. On the bad side, the cards (small talk game) were lying out. As soon as I saw those cards I snapped inside.

I sat down and immediately started to fight this wave of anger and upset tummy. His voice was different (he had a sore throat) so I struggled to understand his words, the clock was no longer there (change) and it bothered me to not see it, the noises from the street below and the office next door amplified 100 times and I rubbed my ears and head to stop from hitting myself or the wall behind me. I started to shake. He continued to talk I sat there closed down and covering my ears. He tried again to talk to me. I answered his questions at first politely but ended up yelling at him and being really unreasonable.

I want to stop here and give major "props" to this Doctor. I know that I would have thrown a person like me OUT of my office many weeks ago. He works relentlessly with me on the most inane stuff. He tried to keep on task and talk about small talk He was saying that a way for me to start a converstaion off might be to ask him how his week at work went or what did he do at work this week. I angrily yelled how it is not logical that I ask him questions about what he did this week. My argument was that I know what he does all day so why would I ask him what he does??? Uggghhh.... I was so frustrated. In fact I had just finished countering everything he suggested with logic statements very similar to that one when he and I had been over it 100 times already that this isn't about logic. Still I could not stop. I essentially dismissed each and every point he tried to make. It was pretty awful of me when I look back on it and it may even be time for another one of those apology things (thinking on that some now).

Finally he said, "I get the sense that you are done" (it was very early on) And that statement sort of unlocked me inside. I knew then that I would not have to actually "do" the game or small talk. NOW we could just talk. I sighed and relaxed a little.

He actually gave me a few good pointers in the heat of the earlier discussions and I will throw out the one big one. He suggested that I go into a conversation with an idea of how much time I need for the meat of the agenda. Then, I plan for 1-3 minutes of small talk. That way it isn't a suprrise or a worry for me that we never get to the meat of an agenda or that my time is wasted. I actually think this is a good plan and I used it on Friday a bit as I conducted interviews.

When I had taken a few moments to breathe I confessed that I was just feeling a bit stressed. I told him that I don't know why I cannot do this or why I am so against this. He told me that he not yet met any autistic person with the disdain for small talk that I had. I explained to him my philosophy about meetings and respecting time and how I had essentially trained everyone who knows me and/or works with me to have agendas and be efficient. I get praised for this at work because I keep people on task. Now I am out giving presentations to these psychologists, OTs, SLPs, etc.... All these people who are all about social skills and being good small talkers and I am pissing them off left and right. I was fretting because I was worried that nobody would listen to me or care if I just came off as an ass all the time.

He seemed to hear me and then he offered point number 2 for me to think about. He suggested that I am asking a heck of a lot of myself right now and putting too much pressure on myself given the bigger picture. I had only been diagnosed a year ago and now I am expecting myself to be 100% okay with that and be performing perfectly out in this new world. He told me that I am comparing my learning of these social skills to my learning in other areas of my life and that I cannot do that. Computer stuff may come after 1-2 lessons but this will not happen so quickly.

I told him that I have to just commit to it and that I feel like I am at a crossroads now. I told him that I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back to before the DX. I wanted to go back to when my Father was alive. I was happier not knowing. But then I told him that I cannot. I feel like I was given this information and this gift to do good things. What I need to do is to just commit to practicing these skills as much as possible and in 4 weeks the skills will become habit. I will have a "new" normal in the way I interact with people.

So we ended the session with me totally exhausted. I spent all day on Friday trying this new thing and being socially curious and adding some small talk. Today is Saturday and I have been most of the day in bed. I am freak'n tired.

Seriously folks? Can I just get over this s**t. It isn't all that hard in concept!! !! !! !

Geez, do you feel all of this social skill training is helping. I find it stressful just reading it. I disagree with the earlier comments about abnormal rigidity. Are you ultimately doing this because it will allow you to be promoted to executive management with your company or do you have more personal reasons?
I guess what I am asking is--are you changing yourself for the better?

I'm glad the doctor is being understanding. You are doing a huge amount of work, and maybe it's not hard in concept, but in practice - it's hard!
I'm wondering if how you were countering with logical arguments is an early sign of meltdown/shutdown for you? I've noticed for me that if I start saying something along the lines of "That doesn't make sense! You're being stupid!" to everything, my ability to process social information has shut down and I'm going into Spock mode.

i just signed up for social skills training its 110 per hour ahh!! !

I do find small talk pointless. I can do it but I don't enjoy it. They're all scripts. Only time I will ask how someone's day went is if something happened that day before work so I would be wondering if it ruined their day. So I would ask how did it go. If they said it went fine, I will ask if their day wasn't ruined because of the incident just in case they thought I was doing small talk.

This thread is helpful. My 14 year old son starts a social skills group soon. It is social skills embedded in a theatre arts program--taught by social worker and actor team in a wonderfully creative arts center in Venice, CA. It includes neurotypicals and parents in the program. I will share this thread with the therapists and group members.

Thank you.

You have already witnesses my frustration with the small talk and social lying issues at great length. I get your frustration. To be fair, you have been operating the way you operate for your entire life. There are plenty of people of all neurodiversities that do not handle broad, all inclusive changes to their concepts of the world very well at all. Like my grandmother. It took us 20 years to graduate her from a rotary dial telephone to a push button one. Which she still uses. And will, I suspect until the day she dies. Changing your concept of the world you thought you knew is very much akin to taking the red pill and seeing how far the rabbithole goes... (Matrix - pop culture movie reference ) You are turning your reality on its head and getting mad at yourself for not letting go of what you knew, faster.

Cut your self some slack! And I'm not talking about a week or two off, or doing some deep breathing and trying again. I'm talking about seriously forgiving yourself for struggling with this. You SHOULD be stuggling with this. This isn't a test of your intelligence. There is no grade for your acheivement and proficiency at the end. In fact, there is no end. Everyone is constantly learning and adapting socially even if most of the population has no conscious idea that they do this.

I sort of broached this subject with Verdandi in another thread - the concept of people (therapists) believing that if someone is able to clearly identify their issues then they are more than 'half way there' - recognising the problem is the goal and, supposedly, a big break through moment in therapy. Both she and I agree - we already can identify our issues - with crystal clarity. As can you. Somehow, that is supposed to be the almost magical turning point where things start to improve. For us, it's not. It is the frustratingly barest of a beginning of the process. There is no doubt we are all intelligent enough to identify our issues with a clarity most people do not possess and that intelligence imbues us with an expectation of 'handling it better' or 'I should be able to do this". Most people need help navigating their emotions to get to the rationale and logical. We need to wade through our intelligence and rationale to get to the emotions - and once there - we have NO idea what to do with them. Most people take their emotional intelligence for granted. They don't even have a clue how much they process on a daily basis. We are on the opposite side of that. Asking someone who cannot identify with your struggle for help is sort of destined to be difficult at best - a disaster at worst.

Your therapist HAS a clue. He can see your struggle for what it is. This is not going to be an easy process. The fact that you are getting so angry and frustrated with it - could it possibly be an indictation that this process is bringing up alien emotions you've never felt before? The stubbornness very much seems like your brain simply doesn't want to let go of what it already knows. Letting it go and learning a new way is quite like admitting you have been 'wrong' all these years. You haven't been but that superego isn't always as rational as the conscious brain. When you can figure out why you are so resistant - then you'll probably start making the progress you want.

Small talk - the necessary evil. The fact that it is called 'small' clearly points out that it is of little value. BUT as you have already learned, the purpose it serves, for everyone else, is to reward them with a little endorphin doggybone and thus create a 'shared' bond. Same mechansims that create the 'mother/baby' bond but to a lesser degree. We know that we do not always 'share' this bonding mechanism or only do so to varying, lesser degrees. BUT, there is no way for other people to know that - or even acknowledge the biological process driving this behavior. So you know they are looking to 'bond' with you yet you couldn't be less interested in what they are talking about. If every 'small talk' conversation is an attempt to bond on some level, you just need acknowledge it. One of the easiest ways to acknowledge someone and what they are saying is to add 'WHY/What/When/How'. You meet a doctor you see frequently. You know what he has been doing all week, why would you ask him what he did all week? You wouldn't. But, you might ask him if anything new or exciting happened. You don't care about the mundane aspects of his life but a funny/weird story is always a bonus. You have no personal desire to connect and 'bond' with these people - and that's not selfish or some sort of personal slight to them even if they can't see it that way. It is evidence of your different biology. But you logically know that they do need that connection and bond to function - they need it just like breathing. Find what would make this collection of strangers possibly interesting to you and ask. You have enough experience to already know to avoid personal subjects.

Cashier at the local market - do you want to have a connection to him? Probably not. But, you know he's operating on the software he was born with - he can't help his need to make small talk any more than you can muster the desire to make small talk. So, he comments - safely - about the weather. Hmmmm... has anything about weather - anywhere - interested you lately? Hurricane season on the East coast this year is vaguley interesting. "I'm just glad I don't live on the East Coast." He'll likely agree - and smile - because he got the size doggybone he was looking for - and send you on your way. You only need to connect enough to give the other person the doggybone they are looking for. Then apply it your meetings at work. Those people you may get annoyed with who always take longer to settle down and step away from the pointless discussions... they just may have a much higher threshold - they need a bigger doggybone than the others.

And I know how condescending this sounds and its not intended to be. This is just how I rationalize it all and keep it clear in my head. All your discussion and many other discussions are helping clarify things for me I didn't even realize were issues for me. The therapy by proxy has been quite enlightening. I still can't silence the scream in my head everytime someone asks 'How are you?" but I now have a better understanding and perhaps alot more patience about it because of these converations.

So like everything else - no - the concept is not 'hard'. Understanding concepts seems ridiculously easy for you. You are trying to apply reason to something diametrically opposed to reason. Rationalization is the wrong method. You may need to create a new method all your own. And I know you'll keep at - like a dog with a bone - because you do not strike me as a quitter. If you want it, you'll find your way to get it. So, maybe you and your doc can find that new approach together. If you succeed, I feel it would probably be one of the most important and widely useful chapters in your book.

Wow. Same place? He does these group ones too.

I am on my tablet so cannot respond to everyone now. Will be back.

You should log yours too

Actually $110/hr sounds about right. Regular, plain vanilla therapy runs $75-$100 hr, much more in some metro areas. He's doing some specialized (and apparently effective) work.

It's weird. It seemed to be helpful in the beginning and then I just shut it all down. I cannot articulate it. All I know is that this IS indeed stressful. I had to rest this weekend to makeup for the melting down thing.

Most certainly was on my way to meltdown while I was being unreasonable and logical. I have had to sleep for one full day this weekend to get back on my feet from the events of this week and this meltdown. And YES, this Doctor does get it and is understanding. He deals with Autistic people for a living so It is probably good that he does.

Heh. Yeah, I had exactly the same problem.

@ Karla:

"Small talk" is an extremely convoluted, inefficient way NTs use to exchange tidbits of information wrapped in social ritual. Mostly, it's just a bunch of barely related, random bullsh!t. You could always just do what I did and just practice saying random nonsense back.

Store clerk: "Wow, sure is some weird weather we're having!"

XFilesGeek: "You bet. The only thing that could be weirder would be if my gallon of milk, bananas, and half a pound of bacon suddenly floated into the sky and exploded in a fabulous food rainbow. You have a nice day!"

Store clerk: "...."

Once you practice, it becomes easier and easier to come up with random things to say.

THIS is the reason I keep at it. I feel like if I can learn this and learn the steps to retrain my brain that it would be of significant value to all of us. You are correct. The identification of the problem is only the beginning for me. My friends joke with me and tell me that it take 101 times for me to learn anything. I am going through this 101 times process with this thing and with this doctor. The difference is that this one actually pisses me off. There are so few things in this world that ever make me angry yet this does. For whatever the reason.

I think you and I are hitting on the same thing RE the change (like your gradma). I don't want to change something that I have been doing. This is especially hard since I am so succesful in life with the techniques and strategies that I have created.

I have a plan to attack my next session. My plan is based off the 4 week to habit concept. I am going to go into my next session with Who, what, where, when and How questions on a couple of cards. I am going to start our session with this. I will initiate this small talk via these cards and I will try to be prepared to answer his questions. That will break the ice for me, put me in control of the conversation and hopefully allow me to begin to make gains again.

That will break the ice for me, put me in control of the conversation and hopefully allow me to begin to make gains again.[/quote]




I'm seeking ways to help my son, Mars, with social conversation. I am neurotypical mom to an adopted teen. I don't find effective socialization comes to me naturally either--for other reasons, I guess. I learn a lot from this board about dialogue among Aspies who have better communication skills than my own.

In Mars' case, I see his overbearing need to control standing in his way. We've been working on changing his tendency to provoke familiar answers (to him) to familiar questions regardless of interest of the other person. I encourage him to be kind and patient with himself and wait a bit to let the other person speak his own mind--then see how he wants to respond in the moment.

Isn't the point of aimless chit chat that it has no point and nobody is in control? There seems to be an unspoken agreement that the talkers drift a while before setting sail in any direction.

I am more of a drifter--seeking a balance between drift and control for both me and Mars.

My therapist said that we are to support one another as they do in improv with no one person controlling per say. That said, I NEED (like Mars) to feel like I have more control so I am going to start with this strategy.

where is your doc located again? im in CT