Autistics who can read body language well

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Thank you b

Nice to hear from you.

Wishing you well from windy Norfolk.

Q

I'm good at picking up vibes. I once played this game where I had to guess random things about people around the room. I got 100%. I relied on the vibes the people gave me.

My sixth sense also works for predicting the weather. I often find places sketchy without knowing why. I often find out that place was an indian burial ground. I used to be clueless about people.

When I was ten I got interested in ESP. I wanted to learn telekinesis to get revenge on bullies. I was that desperate. I didn't know if I believed in it, but I was willing to try anything.

Instead of learning telekinesis, I learned about how to read people. I was already naturally good at reading the weather. When I learned to read other people my ability to read body language improved dramatically. I discovered that other people do not care about my special interests or find my more crude jokes funny.

I know not everyone believes in this. I often don't feel safe discussing this. It's an essential part of how my mind works and I often have to not mention it because I'm scared of what people will think of me. I never mention this stuff to psychiatrists because I'm afraid I will be diagnosed with schizophrenia or something.

A vibe is not the same as reading people. The vibe is an ability we autistics have, which can tell us if a person is good or bad. It's very valuable and not to be ignored.

+1

Interpret other people? I sometimes feel I can interpret when I'm not actively involved with the person (ie outsider looking in) but even with that I have sometimes been told I was wrong in my interpretation. Even after I was once 'shown where I made my interpretation mistakes' I disagreed with the two people showing me the video. So I'm no longer certain about this ability in myself.

And I certainly (as ladyrain put it) don't come across to others correctly.

The only way I can describe my recognition of nonverbal cues is "hit or miss." Some things I see, some things I don't. I seem to do fine on the online facial expression recognition tests, but I might not notice that you're upset unless it's really obvious. For instance, my coworkers sometimes point out the body language of others in the office (e.g. "He looks stressed" or "She looks so relaxed") and I'll have no idea what they're seeing.

As I told the therapist who diagnosed me with ASD, I don't know if this is a true deficit in understanding body language or it it's just that I have a harder time seeing it as it happens/just don't notice it. In some ways, it seems more like a mental bandwidth issue than anything. Sort of like how if I try to make eye contact, all I'll think about is making eye contact and I'll miss what you're saying/doing.

I do have difficulty expressing myself appropriately in terms of facial expressions and body language. My sister says I am hard to read at times; my brother says I swing from showing too little emotion to showing too much. So there's definitely something "off" for me regarding nonverbal communication.

Last edited by FishStickNick on 04 Jan 2014, 3:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

im very 'body language blind'. cant read a single thing, emotions on the other hand are more obvious, i can read some facial expresisons, Tones of voices i have mastered because thats how i learned to speak and understand people.