Even doing something, that is out of the ordinary for me, takes me the entire next day to recooperate. The ammount of time I need depends on the task. Grocery shopping trip, going to appts. requires a few hours of a nap when I get home. Events like parties takes me a few days to recooperate. I am usually completely physically and emotionally exhausted afterwards. I usually sleep the entire next day, getting up late in the evening. the only reason I am awake after last night is because I HAVE to go grocery shopping. The more socializing requried, the longer it takes and the more difficult it is to deal with the overwhelming feeling of being a complete failure in the way of "being like everyone else" and "blending in". I always feel like the odd ball. We went to a casino last night, ate dinner, and listened to free music from two tribute bands(thank goodness for ear plugs). We didn't reserve seating, so we had to stand. I got tired of standing, so I sat up on a ledge. My husband said not to do it, but I told him if it was a problem for anyone, then they can GET ME A CHAIR!!!! I also got a drum stick(not the food kind. lol) that the drummer threw out into the crowd. I told my humband if any of the drunks got too close and in our space, just jab them with the drumstick. LOL. I got home and it took a few hours to calm down enough to go to sleep. Today, I would really like to sleep in all day, but hungry family is sending me off to the grocery store.

I just realized I didnt answer the question "personally" :O

Yes, I need at least as much time or MORE by myself chilling, hermiting, or otherwise having very little stimuli after any kind of socializing. The more stimuli I have to deal with, the more down time I need. My most stressful and un-proud (is that a word?) moments usually fall when down time has not been possible and numerous social events happen in a row. I am like a 2 year old that doesn't get his or her nap. Melt down!

I am an NT who is also an ENFP. So I don't need downtime. In fact, I crave social contact constantly. 

So I do believe it's definitely a personality thing. 

As for my experience with AS, my son is also extroverted. So he craves the social. BUT...he does need significant downtime from sensory overload. 

I do think that AS with the extroversion or even middle ground are often more affected by the sensory processing involved in a social situation. I'm guessing that might be why many are much more social in an electronic media format, such as these forums. 

 My husband is most likely AS, but completely undiagnosed. He chooses not to seek the diagnosis at this time. I say WHATever to him on the subject. But he, himself, does acknowledge he likely has Asperger's.  Anyway, he LOVES to go to the local shopping mall, but can only handle it for about an hour before he gets completely irritable. In a lot of ways, our son is WAY better at coping with his sensory issues, likely due to Sensory Integration therapy he's been getting for 5 years.

HTH!

Amy

@ Elle: could we start a thread on this in either the Health area or the relationships area? I'd like to talk abotu this but I feel kinda uncomfortable doing so in this section...

When I speak to NT friends about my feelings, they usually say they understand. I find many similarities, especially about the "acting" part that Liane mentions. Especially among creative people. Perhaps it is a matter of degree? Every writer can't have AS. I know that can't be.

I do seem to be among the most naturally anxious people I've ever met!

My Asian American friends and I have spoken about the concept of "face." I totally, totally get it -- or perhaps I imagine that I do. There is the public persona and the private persona. When I was younger, my fantasy at least is that I could put on the public uniform and no one had to know I was an alien. Now that I am older, I am less patient with all that. Not that it isn't important to function in society. I'm mainly finding that the two selves aren't as much apart or in conflict anymore. I find myself feeling a bit silly for ever thinking the two parts of me were all that different (in other words, was I really that good of an actor?) or that people didn't know me from the start.

Oh, parties, especially those for my husband's work. He has AS, like me, and he doesn't really know all that many people beyond the "Oh, hello, how are ya?" level. Eventually we find other people with AS and sit down and do okay. He's an engineer, seriously, so several of his colleagues have AS. It's the milling about that is misery for me.

Back when I was working outside the home, I was actually the party planner (among other things) and had staff to supervise, so I went into "actor" mode and kept busy doing my job, and I was able to pull it off. Think of me emceeing at the podium, introducing people, telling jokes ... I can do that, if I know what to do and plan it ahead of time.

But as the "wife," not so much.

Good NT friends with whom I get along well one to one often want me to meet their other NT friends at social gatherings. I'm learning to conveniently be busy on those days or nights! (Wow, I split an infinitive.)

At one of them, I learned a friend had backed out of going to a comedy club, so I was invited as the replacement. Had I known this, I wouldn't have gone, seriously. As much as I love the friend who invited me, I felt so badly for her when I failed to find the groove and insert myself into the gathering. They were all moms, and I wasn't a mom yet, their kids all around the same age. Just not a good match-up. 

There was one occasion when an NT friend called out of the blue, and said, "We're in your neighborhood! Drive over to the park and meet us. I've got GFCF snacks, and the kids can play!" Touched, I rounded up the kids and met her, only to learn that we'd been a "fall-back plan," when the friends she was supposed to meet didn't show.

And I wouldn't have known this, and she had no intention of telling me, until they all eventually showed up. My friend's expression told me all: She was mortified. Had no idea how to fix this. Flailed, gestured, couldn't get words out. Kept glancing at me with big "I'm so sorry" eyes.

They proceeded to have a La Leche League meeting on the blanket beside ours. I busied myself with my kids who were playing with their kids. I'm an adoptive mom and an atheist, and nothing they were discussing had anything to do with me. Deeply Christian, they kept interrupting the meeting to hold hands and pray together.

As a writer, I did have a certain voyeuristic curiosity, so I tried to comfort myself that perhaps I could "use this later as material." So now and then, I'd sit and listen in. At one point, my daughter, who was four or five and very Chinese, very obviously adopted, ran smack into my arms for a tickle, and one of the moms said to me, "Oh!" as if noticing me for the first time. "How much did you pay for her?"

All the blood drained from my face, and I replied, "You did not just ask me that."

I watched my friend's eyes widen and her mouth hand slack and then she gestured to me to drop it. You know, the old finger across the throat.

The woman said, "Yes, I did. How much does a Chinese adoption cost?"

I pulled a business card out of my wallet. It was for the adoption agency. I said, "Give them a call. They'll explain it to you." I have on several occasions had to use this card with strangers who asked similar questions. The card admonishes people not to interrogate adoptive parents and to call the agency for information instead.

She proceeded to ask me questions, and finally I sent my daughter off and said, "Please don't ask adoptive parents, especially in front of their kids, about buying their kids. I'm going to have a lot of fallout from this. Just so you know." I said this to her in a low voice only she could hear. She proceeded to speak loudly enough for the whole group to hear.

"Still ... there are fees, right? She's gone now, why won't you tell me? $10,000, $20,000?"

To the group, I enunciated, "Fees are for paperwork. Children aren't commodities. That's against the Hague Convention. I don't want my daughter thinking of herself as a souvenir of our Chinese vacation."

The offending woman snapped her mouth shut.

My friend was upset with me. Very upset. When her La Leche friends left, I said to her, "Look, I get it that you didn't expect them to show, but you should have forewarned me."

"You were so rude to her. Once your daughter had run off, you should have answered her question. It's much easier just to do that, whether you like it or not, whether or not she was being rude. Just do it for me, is that too much to ask? Now she'll think adoptive moms have sticks rammed up their rear-ends."

"I frankly don't care if she likes me. I didn't much like her either. Maybe now she will think twice before she does that to another adoptive family. But I am sorry if I made things awkward for you."

We talked a while and eventually hugged and made up. But I felt so sad. Because I just knew that this was one of the last times I'd see her. It was. (Not my choice.) Our kids adored one another. It was heartbreaking for them to be split up. I do occasionally speak to my former friend on the phone. She moved on to focus on friends at her church who home school. I think she must have decided I was a "free radical" who just didn't fit with her world.

Was she right? Should I have just answered the woman's question? Had the woman been softer about it and pulled me aside privately, I might have. In front of a group of several women, none of them really interested in adopting, her repeated questions felt assaultive.

My NT friends tell me they are drawn to me because I am smart and fun to talk to about politics and books and movies. "Most people don't intellectualize, but you do, and I like that," several of my NT friends have said. But fitting me into the larger context of their lives can be difficult for them. (A very social NT friend in college said, "You are a great one to one, hanging out late at night friend.") Perhaps this is just the way it has to be.

Karen, I'm curious about your thoughts on this.

Thanks, Karen! I feel that urge to be polite as well. Comes from all that conditioning to tiptoe around a very loud family patriarch with his own issues. Stuff those feelings, smile when you're hurting (not that I've ever been good at that), sacrifice your comfort for everyone else's sake.

I'd like to pick your brain a bit more about this "total honesty" thing. There are rules, right? Because I've known people who wave the mantle of total honesty around, but I've noticed that their free speech is protected while very often mine is not. Got to go both ways! You know the whole, "If you dish it out, you'd better be able to take it back."

I distanced myself from a friend recently who was nagging me too much. Sometimes she was right, sometimes I strongly disagreed, and no matter what, the endless barrage of advice flowed. I began to dread our conversations, even to feel physically ill. It seemed in the end that I had nothing to offer her that she valued or wanted, apart from the opportunity to instruct and criticize.

I thought she deserved to know the effect she was having on me. She was terribly hurt, but she refused to modify her behavior. In her view, I am weak and stupid, blind to common sense.

Hi Karen.

I'm sorry. I should be clearer. My question is this: If your friend is doing something that you are adamantly opposed to, what ethical obligation do you have to be crystal clear about your objection? What are the limits? When your friend says, "Look, I hear you, but you're driving me crazy repeating yourself ad nauseum. I disagree. Let's move on," under what conditions might that not be a good idea?

I'm taking this question from the point of view of my friend, the one who was nagging me.

Here is what concerns me. 

It's easy to answer my question when you're talking about child abuse. If a friend witnesses you engaging in what she considers abusive or neglectful behavior, then being silenced the way I silenced my friend might lead to a call to CPS or the police. She would have a moral imperative to persist in her objections, regardless of how I feel about them.

My friend feels very strongly that my behavior, behavior that many parents engage in legally and are encouraged by doctors to engage in, is neglectful and abusive of my son. She is as adamant in her opposition as if I had beaten him black and blue. Yet, because my actions are legal, neither the police nor CPS would intervene if she did call about her concerns, and she knows this very well. From her perspective, her only recourse is to confront me about her concerns.

My son was diagnosed with a severe mood disorder that seems to include the entire mood spectrum (bipolar disorder). Of course, he is 12, too soon to make this determination official quite yet. But his doctors and specialists are very concerned about him and urge that we medicate him to "keep him alive" and "guard everyone else's safety." My friend believes the suspicions about bipolar are without merit, based on her observations of a medicated child from time to time.

I hate having to do it. No parent, or very few, who medicates one's child, rejoices about having to do this.

My friend fancies herself very gifted at the science of all this and has read extensively the clinical trials and information about the medications my son is on, the side effects, the risk factors, how they are thought to work, etc. I have read the same material.

She has commanded me to do a med wash and remove the medications. She said she will hound me until I agree to do this. I have told her that I respect my son's wishes, that my son chooses to medicate at this time. That we will get him through puberty and then ask these tough questions when and if he settles down.

I've seen other teenagers go through this, so I know what happens with some of them when meds need to be pulled back. They show clear signs of over-medicating. Doctors ratchet back, then ratchet back some more, and when nothing adverse happens, the kids are weaned off the medication. I hope this will be my son's experience.

It's not that I plan to follow my friend's recommendations or even that I think they would be smart or safe right now. But I know she is opposed to my decisions because she loves and cares about my son and imagines his life would be better without Big Pharma. It's hard to dismiss someone who is that caring, even when the ensuing behavior is so, well, overbearing.

Her other objection involves the GFCF diet. My husband and I are on it. My son was once on it for about two years, during which time we attempted a med wash and he flipped out, began stalking people (the parents were ready to do what Melissa's son's classmates did to him, sign a petition to kick him out of his general ed classroom)  and attacking people at school. That was while he was supportive and willing to try. Now he will cheat every chance he gets. Unfortunately our CPS case empowered him. The social worker even told him he could call her and file a complaint if we require him to return to the diet.

My friend says essentially screw CPS and home school him and keep him home until he agrees to comply. Don't let him out of my sight until he complies. She says he will need meds and horrible school personnel in his life until we clean up what goes into him. She says I am a coward for not being willing to exert my parental "control." She says my writing is a "selfish ego desire" and that I need to sacrifice my ambitions for my son's sake, give myself completely over to "teaching and healing" him.

A lot of parents of autistic children feel this way, by the way. She is in good company. I call it the activistic "fix your kids whether they like it or not" and "no one can or will do this better than mom" mode. The weird thing is that this particular friend isn't part of the "autism is a disease to eradicate" crowd; she's really more about cleaning up the environment each child is exposed to.

She made these choices with her own child, who is similar in some ways to my son and very different in others. And her perceived success is fueling her intensity in my son's case.

I'm sorry, I just can't agree with this perspective. I have no desire to overpower, control, force, imprison. And it wouldn't work. Not with my son. I'm convinced these actions would traumatize him and weaken my bond with him. Listening to my friend (two years ago) and exerting more control than my son was comfortable with contributed to my son's ambivalence when CPS interviewed him. His message to them was, "I don't like GFCF, I don't like the interference."

Still, I know she is following her conscience. And that is why I can't rejoice in my increasing emotional distance from her. 

This is a case, sadly, where "total honesty" didn't work out. She was totally honest with me. But, in my view, her honesty was oppressive.

My father, who has AS, is also totally honest with me. Always was. He told me I was defective and that he wishes I was never born. I was five years old. Yeah, that was in the middle of a meltdown.

I definitely have PTSD about the phrase "total honesty." Seems to me when people are centered and reasonable, total honesty can work out, but in the hands of someone who is off balance, it might not be such a great thing. Perhaps I am answering my own question! What do you think?

Thanks, Karen. I appreciate your patience and your perspective. I don't have so many friends that losing one like this is comfortable. I was just speaking with my therapist (this afternoon, just returned), and she said the missionary zeal thing is what concerns her about toxic people, that honesty for them is partnered with a type of emotional imperialism that involves transference rather than true empathy.

For me, openness has its perils. I need to learn restraint, to hold my cards closer to my chest so that I am not so vulnerable to these people. 

We had a good session. Lots of epiphanies.  I am sorry to have been so longwinded about this.  Thanks again. What you shared makes perfect sense.

Awesome post, Elle- Dr Jung is the bomb and the MB is my personality test of choice, too.  I would toss in Howard Gardner for learning styles and say- even we fit in those criteria somewhere!  Yeh!  A home.  lol.

A comment on the Asian culture- I did a conference in Japan and never ever have I felt so at home and understood as there.  They don't put the same influence on all this hugging, eye contact, get into each others personal space mombojumbo that so many of us do.  Culturally, some areas seem more at ease with our ASD breed.  I find that extremely interesting!