Black-and-White Thinking In Asperger's

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Hi,

Can you give examples how you experience/show black-and-white thinking and how you cope up with it?

I was thinking that Black-and-White thinking might also be manifested those with Boarderline Personality Disorder, but with such, hypersensitivity to the reactions of other people cause them to be upset while in Asperger's they lack the Theory of Mind which makes them oblivious to some facial cues. How true is it?
I knew a lot of aspies who knows how to tell a facial reaction/nonverbal cues (which is probably learned in her upbringing)

non verbal facial cues can be replaced by open eye visuals for picture thinking autistic people and so called black and white thinking and expecting the autistic person to put him or herself in the shoes of an allistic person but the auditory learning allistic cannot put him or herself into the shoes into people on the autistic spectrum. Lack of theory of mind but allistic people have a lack of the theory of the autistic mind and it cuts both ways too and a lot of people tend to forget this.

to me, black and white thinking can be thinking in extremes. i have felt this way most of my life. in borderline it is usually manifested in thinking a person is "all bad" or "all good" i dont know if this can overlap into other aspects of life because i don't have borderline. i think black and white thinking in aspergers syndrome happens because of trying to make sense of the world. once a realization is ingrained in an autistic person's mind, anything that challenges that can upset their perspective. for some reason, and this has been my experience. it is very hard for me to realize that two ideas of the world can actually co-exist, and that they can be subjective. i am 30 years old and am now just realizing that my collection of experiences and my views of the world, well, it doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be all of them. i think in NTs this sort of "melding" comes automatically. anyone with an ASD has to work extra hard to find the "grey area"

We do not like uncertainty.

Uhh. What do you mean with the term "Allistic"?

Does it entails that Autistic or with doublespeak, Those with autism tend to see black and white shades at times?

Uh Can you rephrase your statements please?

For me black and white thinking is: Yes it will happen no it wont happen, your either depressed or your happy, your going to do something or your not, There's no maybe's, there's no shades of grey. I tend to be more literal like if you say "I'm going to call you at 11:30 Friday morning" then I will be expecting a phone call AT 11:30 or if you were going to meet me at the movies at say 9pm then I would expect to see you AT 9pm.

I guess it could be good to think in black in white if your on the job and have deadlines to meet however, in a social setting it can hinder things as most NT's don't have such a rigged way of doing things, I knew a guy whom would say OK I'll meet you at the parking lot at 12pm and he would arrive later then the time he stated, Which drove me nuts because he stated that he'll meet me at such and such time and I am literal thinking OK he's going to be here at 12 so I arrive sometimes 5 mins early in order to meet that person on time.

I'm diagnosed with AS, but I certainly don't think in extreme(black/white) terms about everything. Personally I think it's a form of stupidity, since it causes the person's assumptions to be blown way out of proportion.

Allists/NTs are those without autism/any neurological disorder/"normal" people

I didn´t think, that I was black&white, but apparently I am. My psych pointed out, that I either engange in my own OR in others. There is no in between, where we both get part of my attention. Either I do frightfully well - or I´m a total disaster. I am beginning to see that I often miss grey areas. It either is or it isn´t! Fini!

Allistic is non-Autistic which is not necessarily the same as neurotypical.

Black and White thinking also means thinking something is completely right or completely wrong.

In an Autistic world the book and movie "50 Shades of Gray" and the song "Blurred Lines" would not be popular as a theme for both is ambiguity.

Yes, what you're touching on here agrees well with my own view, that for ASDers there's more to black and white thinking than the specific, interpersonal "demon or angel" thing. Perhaps BPD people and narcissists only have black and white thinking about people, because those are personality disorders, but ASD is not. We might well see people as demons or angels, but not for the same reasons as an NPD or BPD person. Our mistake is a purely cognitive one, which I guess is why we also make the same mistake in decidedly non-social thought. It would be good if we had a better term for ASD black and white thinking.

I struggled with the idea of "the grey area" when I first heard of it in an English lesson, not because losing B&W was wrecking my self-esteem defenses, but because it made the world more complicated. It took years, and it was only when I was diagnosed with ASD and read about the thing that the final push began to happen, but once I really got the concept and accepted that the world really was a "shades of grey" thing, I was able to make more sense of a lot of things. My brain still has a tendency to flip back to binary mode, but I've become very used to applying a simple question to my thinking - "am I oversimplifying this as a binary problem?" I also find it a good litmus test for flaws in the reasoning (or dogma) of other people, such as political and religious ideology, which often turns out to be full of extreme B&W statements, and I even suspect that it's a useful way of protecting oneself from going insane, as it shows so many delusions up for what they are. I'd strongly recommend anybody with ASD to do what they can to get used to the reality of grey.

I would post an example of how I experience B&W thinking myself these days, but try as I will, I can't think of one. I'll post again if I come up with anything.

i've found that as i've gotten older, i am starting to be able to see the grey areas in life. i don't think in extremes as much as i did when i was late teens early 20s

When I set out to do something in life, I either give it my all and go to the very extreme or I don't try at all.

I used to have difficulty with pefectionism but I altered my thought process from "either I do something perfect or not at all" to "either I give it all my effort or not at all". Changing the focus from the outcome to effort I put in instead, which I think is much healthier way to go through life.

I used to be fairly black-and-white on issues. First instinct now is still the same. Though now I also over-think everything, so eventually tries to see both sides of everything. Better that way, as things are rarely clear cut...

Of course, some issues remain absolutes. Kind of like moral standards, I guess...

Sometimes I wish I didn't think in such extremes as black and white. I do see its necessity for survival, for instance, when we were Neanderthals: Either that animal or person coming towards you is a friend or foe, no in between. Wrong judgment can result in death so it's probably better just to run away anyway.

I think black and white thinking comes with being literal and not understanding that other people have their own perspectives and ideas due to lack of TOM. For example, as a kid I was told that it was rude to be at someone's house and ask for food or a drink and the only drink you can ask for is water, nothing else but it's okay to have food there if they offer it, same as with drinks. But what my mother didn't tell me was if I am a guest at someone's house and I was invited to be there it is okay to ask for food or a drink. But because she didn't tell me this, I was at a friend's house and I got hungry and said nothing until I flipped out and they finally gave me food after I had an outburst. Then that is when my mother told me that rule.

Another example of black and white thinking I had was when I was in the third grade, these kids were mean to me and made fun of how I talked. Then after that year I never wanted to be around those kids so I always avoided them because I always thought they were going to make fun of me again so I never wanted to be around them or even near them. My black and white thinking made me think those kids were the same as when they were young and I never thought to give them another chance because they were older so I thought they were the same as they were when they were seven. My mother used to tell me that was when I was in third grade as if I was still holding a grudge.

Another example of black and white thinking I had was when I was a kid, I thought any behavior was okay so if someone got away with a behavior and didn't get into trouble, I thought it was okay behavior. It was hard to teach me the rules if they were inconsistent so when my mom had taught me that it was wrong to look through mail slots, I saw a boy do it at my group therapy and I got so confused by it because I thought it was wrong to do so boy did my mom have to deal with me asking a bunch of questions about it because of the contradiction. Also in school kids would break rules and it would confuse me because I was told they were against the rules and kids were doing it anyway followed by no consequence so it would confuse me so I would think it was okay to do.