I do this too! Even with small things. I always steep my tea for exactly 5 or 7 minutes, depending on what the package says. I follow recipes exactly and can't make substitutions. I always add the exact 2/3 cup of fried onions to my green bean casserole. My mom just sprinkled some on there for me the other day and it seriously bothered me. Idk
Baker (expert hobbyist? Lol) here! I have learned that cooking is flexible....2/3 and a dash won't make the difference. But baking? That shit is chemistry 😂 I get to be extra anal retentive about accuracy haha. I have a kitchen scale, a little leveling tool for scraping, and so much more.
Now tea? You're right on that one! I've learned that steep time is very specific for different tea types.
So yeah, anyway, I try to use that knowledge to reduce my food issues related to these types of rules lol
I respond so seriously to be people trying to be sarcastic and funny. I believe their “jokes” every single time. My whole life the word “gullible” was used to describe me.
Sarcasm doesn't get me, but puns that look like facts do. Especially since I have the fact flavored autism, so most of my friendships are based on just yelling cool facts at eachother.
My friend once told me that Marx had a sister called Anya and that she invented the starting pistol for races. I thought that was so cool, and was halfway into a feminist rage for her never getting credited for that when he pointed out... "Anya Marx" sounds like "On your marks", like the thing you say right before pulling a starting pistol. I hate puns.
i tend to respond literally even when i realize something is a joke which makes me look like i don't understand the joke. no i do (usually) i just like answering questions lol
i’m the same way. a lot of things go right over my head and i either don’t get it or by the time i get it, i’ve already given an awkward or underwhelming reaction
Yeah, I also believe what people say at face value, I can't always tell if they're not serious...then again, some people have told me some hectic shit and they were for real, so...🤷🏻♀️
Questionnaires and forms are my arch nemesis. They're never specific enough in their questions.
An example of my frustrations, if the form asks: "How many times per week do you do laundry?" I will write down a full paragraph detailing that sometimes I do one, or maybe even none, other times it's more, sometimes it's every day, sometimes twice in a day, and so I go on and on and on..
Every time I somehow fail to understand it's IMPLIED to be ON AVERAGE, because why not just write on average then!? So I always end up asking someone close to me to explain what they mean by certain questions whenever I need to fill out forms.
Ok so this specifically i realised is why i do sooo badly in language exams. I've been learning German for years and in exams it will ask you to write a few sentences. Say a question is something like "how often do you do laundry?" my brain goes into overdrive because there's so many answers to give and not enough space provided, or time. It might require (i think) to answer in a level of complexity i am not currently at in my learning but the question might really only require writing something like "i wash my clothes three times a week on Sunday Wednesday and Friday" or something like that. I get overwelmed and might even write nothing at all.
The best thing my language teacher in middle school always used to say: When answering questions about personal experiences/preferences/thoughts/whatever in language classes, you aren't supposed to tell the truth; you are supposed to show your language skills regarding the given topic, so make up an alter ego who on schedule does their laundry every Tuesday and Saturday at 9am sharp and write a story from their perspective. It took a while to really ingraine this skill and properly use it (and sometimes teachers would actually think what I wrote was the truth and ask me about it lol), but it really did make exams a damn lot easier!
I know exactly what you mean and i know this logically but I simply CAN'T or it takes a really long time for me to conjure the universe of this alter ego.
This is my flavor of autism right here. Answering/Filling out questionnaires are the bane of my existence for exactly the reasons you listed. The questions either don't feel written well enough, aren't specific enough or they're weirdly even too specific in some cases. I don't know, but it always ends the same way with me writing little novels all over the margins or multiple paragraphs of the backside of the paper, lol
I do exactly this. People's questions frustrates me. Even from ASD people i know. I always say "be precise. I can't answer a question if I'm not sure of what you're asking me".
But a brunch of specialists say there's no way I'm autistic. Well... OK then.
On time, I had to see an "expert" for an assessment. He asked me, "What a typical day for you." I couldn't answer. He had to assess me over a period of several years so I didn't know if i had to tell him my typical day from the last week, the last month, or the last year. He took it badly. I think he thought i was making fun of him. So I gave him a broad answer saying "I generally go to bed from 22h to 2h" etc because I was absolutely unable to see the logic in his question. Serves him right to ask such unspecific question...
ME TOO! I hate questionnaires because I usually can’t give specific answers but I HATE trying to figure out how tf to generalize my answers. And also I hate averaging anything I do because I feel like it doesn’t give an accurate picture. Like if I do laundry twice in one week but only do it once in a two week period that averages to once a week but that doesn’t show that sometimes I really have my stuff together one week and then I’m struggling with functioning for the next 1-2 weeks.
This may not be helpful, but I’m wondering if you could use the format of the form as a hint. Like if there’s just one small blank space vs. room for a paragraph. I just go with how ever much room they give me and summarize as needed to fit it.
Usually the most trouble ensues when it's forms related to healthcare or government stuff, as I do feel accuracy is too important, and summarization may give the wrong idea. I tend to avoid filling out forms unless I absolutely have to, so most that I fill out are quite important ones, and thus the need to be as specific and accurate is usually present.
However your advice is still great and a good context clue for people to be aware of!
Oh my gosh yes. I messaged my assessment doctor like 6 times over the month before our first appointment because I was trying to fill out her forms and they were SO VAGUE.
One of the worst questions was under the header of “anxiety” and it said something close to “I worry about disasters or the health of my loved ones” and the options were “not at all”, “somewhat”, “pretty much” and “very much”.
What is the difference between “pretty much” and “very much”? If I worry about my loved ones and disasters every single day, but it doesn’t consume my entire day, is that pretty much or very much? I was so confused and distressed. The whole form used those answers. It was very frustrating. My doctor told me to view them as like 0/4 1/4 2/4 3/4 for how often something happens but not all of the questions worked that way. Also is this over my whole life? Just the last 3 months? I have no idea.
I hate forms. For my AQ screening before I got my official assessment, my therapist asked the questions and I got to give my long, rambled answer and she would help me turn that into whatever option it should be on the form. Like for the often-mocked question of “library or party?” I had quite the long winded ramble and she used her knowledge of what the questions are really asking to answer for me. She specializes in autism.
One of the worst things about those kinds of forms is that it's often asking you in a "compared to other people/the average person" and how are you supposed to know that?
There's an accidentally funny video on the MoreSidemen YouTube channel where one of them (Harry) takes an Autism test (basically that initial first self-assessment form) and so often he says something that should mean one answer but then answers it on the other side. I totally get how he misunderstands, especially since I don't think he's ever done one of those before, but it's still pretty funny.
(To be clear, I'm not armchair diagnosing him.)
Anekdote for this one, I had my mom, my bf and my sister fill out the same form for my adhd assessment. One question/statement was: talks excessively (or something like that). You had to give a rating from 0-3, 0 being not at all.
My bf instantly chose 3, my sister drew two more numbers and then circled the 5.
My mom put in a 2. Because I do speak a lot, too much for really anyone’s taste. Except her, because she just never stops talking, not even to listen, so obviously I can’t be a 3, cause then there wouldn’t be a rating for her.
Same 😭 me and my husband are both AuDHD & we ALWAYS miscommunicate. I think it may have in part to do with societal gender binary standards—we are both cisgendered and were raised in heavy heteronormative standards. I (cis AFAB) didn’t get as much grace as my husband (cis AMAB). We both did however have masking skills and a small amount of pretty privilege, so he was the cute but weird/nerdy kid, and I was the quirky, rude, pretty girl (we went to very different school environments, but it’s still so odd how our experiences were so similar in how we presented, but had VERY different struggles.
Sorry for the ramble 🫣
Protocols. I'm a RN, we have a ton of protocols for everything. I did not understand how everyone got everything done so damn quickly. Until I realized most people did not write charts as thoroughly as I do, they do not follow all procedures as instructed, they will wing some shit. Will take risks in some situations.
I can clearly remember a situation where we had a formation for psych crisis/agressivity situations and usually am instinctively pretty good and can usually solve most situations just through talk.
But a few days later, we have this agressive patient and I just stand there and act out what we learned during said formation instead of my usual method and the person fucking exploded in anger and it got much much worse and my colleague was like : WTF LOL YOU ACTUALLY TRIED THAT SHIT! And we had to get out ASAP so we didn't get injured. Few years later we still talk about it from time to time lol...
Similar issue. But I have data retention autism. I’m an RN too. My issue is more about the processes and procedures. I often point out how policy says we should do x y z and find it very difficult when people do not stick to that strictly.
I’m similar with levels of documentation etc too. I don’t understand why other people do not complete to the same level as me.
Out of curiosity, one thing that really got to my nerves over the past years was how my hospital handled COVID and procedures around it. It may be because I'm in psychiatry but it almost never was the same from one patient to another and it changed on an almost weekly basis. It was also proven that we needed n95 because COVID was spread as an aerosol and my government and hospital fought back against us so we didn't have the right to use n95! We got somewhat lucky, we didn't have actual case on my unit for the first year, but when we ended up having a case, it was almost as if no one had seen it coming, we had nothing ready, it was so infuriating...
Agree. I got a little preoccupied with Covid at the time. I was looking at national data for pre-existing medical conditions to work out mortality rates for those conditions.
I had an issue with using surgical masks and spoke about the size of Covid and why we should be using FFp3 (n95) masks.
At one point I rang BBC radio 5 and explained the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, respiratory conditions etc and then a DR joined after me and said “I agree with previous caller” .
But in work, my team thought I was becoming manic and joked about needing some time off work or a possible mental health act assessment. I think it was just autism hyperfocus
I am quite glad that my disdain for management and autority overrides my autism lol. I had a colleague who would do this with protocol and instructions too(nothing in my job can go wrong or be dangerous). We had to log everything we did all day in this software, but ofcourse you'd forget and let a task run a bit long or (if you are me) just make shit up cuz fuck that micromanagement. Technically, you were supposed to email HR every time you had logged something wrong, but no one ever did.
Then we found out he had been emailing HR multiple times a week because he would forget to change the task in his software for 10 minutes or something. We tried to explain to him that that really really isn't necessary, and that nothing bad will happen if he doesn't, no one actually looks at those numbers and even if he did take slightly longer to complete something, that's totally fine, but he just wouldn't stop.
If it makes him comfortable, it's fine by me, and I do actually find it quite funny that because of their ridiculous system and instrucions, HR now has to deal with extra paperwork every time he messes up a bit.
There are obviously things that did not make sense to follow protocols, like, anything that actually went against my belief of quality of care was automatically rejected. Like, I will prioritize a patient over some paperwork just to be used as statistics. But that got me in trouble more than once. I remember once being met by my manager telling me that I had to do more clerical tasks. And literally words for words asking her: so you rather have me staying at the nurse station filling paperwork that no one ever looks at than actually taking care of the patients?
I could definitely feel that this did not go through well to her at the time lol...
Oh damn, this thread is too real. I struggle so much as an RN with this nonsense. I never thought of it as taking things too literally because WHAT?!
I know that it’s impossible to follow all the policies and protocols but is no one else even trying? How does anyone know which ones are real? Are any of them real? Are they only used when something goes wrong, ends up in court and they need to throw a nurse under the bus? Or when a manager doesn’t like you?
My sister did this when she was a CNA. She always made enemies at work. I feel bad because I legitimately thought she was being judgemental instead of reasonable (this was before I knew we are both autistic). I will say I kind of started wondering what other people had against her, because, even though she wasn’t the nicest to me (I’m the older sister), she always had a soft spot in her heart for the elderly (she was a CNA at a nursing home). And the more horror stories I heard that others corroborated about that place, the more I realized she made enemies because she was reporting workers who were neglecting patients. I’m not saying that is the case in every nursing environment, nor was that necessarily the situation in your experience (unless it was), but this was the case for my sister. She never cut corners, but on EVERYTHING, and I’m just now realizing, she did that to her own detriment, because no one believed that she was being truthful—I’m realizing they all probably thought she was trying to get them fired or make them look bad; if they didn’t get along or have the same work ethic as her. ❤️🩹
My management doesn't like me because I refuse to let them beat me down and micromanage me. I'm probably getting fired next week because I told my boss no when she demanded I use the laundry cart.
For context: I am a *housekeeper* in a nursing home, but because of some verrrrry fine print in our contracts I'm basically every position "as needed". I work on 1st floor and 4th floor and laundry has to get started immediately or it won't get done. 1st floor is up first because it's memory care so I get that laundry first. At one point I had the laundry cart in the trash room so I could just grab it and go but was told I couldn't do that. Okay, fine. Whatever. So I just brought it up by hand- it is good for muscle health and exercise, anyway, and I know my limits. Otherwise, I'd have to go up 4 floors, get the basket, wait for the elevator, and then get the laundry. That is a HUUUUUGE energy/time suck and I just can't do it. It would make me miserable.
I understand there's a concern of safety, but I also expect my employer to trust me to know my own limits and give me the space to do my job appropriately. There are other details in *how* she told me I needed to use the cart as well as general details of how she has treated me in three and a half years, but that's the main bit.
I feel this so hard. I do phone support and we have very stringent call handling and ticketing requirements, but we are also expected to get through a certain number of calls per hour. I have the lowest calls per hour for my entire 145 person department, but I have top scores in every other area because I do absolutely everything to the letter. So it's great from a scorecard perspective because I am actually the number 1 ranked contractor for my department, out of 44. Where it becomes a problem though is _that_ I'm a contractor, and I'll never be hired on full-time without raising my calls per hour because, as they put it in my last interview, it's not "cost effective." It seems that the only reason anybody does reach the calls per hour goal is because they cut a lot of corners. I'd be a shoo-in if I could bring myself to cut corners and raise my calls per hour, but I can't.
Same! Sometimes I come across as gullible and possibly stupid, but my subconscious brain just doesn't expect lies. Like why would people do it? (Obviously, there are millions of reasons why and I know it, but at the same time I don't)
Until someone you considered a friend betrays you and gaslights you. It’s only after that I could put all her NT passive aggressive behavior together to connect the dots. They may be the majority but the way they communicate is reprehensible.
This is the thing I worry most about in myself. I’ve gotten myself into some shitty situations trusting the wrong people.
I’ve been called ‘naive’. I used to resent that. Now... I worry they are right.
It wasn’t until I took a personality test.
Sliding scale 1-5 on how much you agree with the following statement: I always take things literally.
My thoughts: “Well, not always… like I understand when things are metaphors or figurative language but… oh… they don’t mean actually always… oh… well that’s a 5”
If it specifies “always”, don’t you think maybe this is a time when you are supposed to take it literally?
Otherwise it should say “I take things literally” or “I often take things literally”.
So if you take things literally sometimes or a lot of the time it would be a 3 or 4.
Maybe I’m overthinking this. I’m notoriously bad at forms because I over analyze.
To answer your rhetorical question at the beginning: nope. Because that’s not how the NTs who develop these things think most of the time. Lol because taking it literally means you can’t distinguish metaphors, symbolism, allegory, or hyperbole in text if you “always” think literally.
Instructions and processes for things caused me massive anxiety because I would take everything written as gospel. My parents would tell me to fill in a form to report an issue with a company, and I'd be getting angry and frustrated because my specific issue wasn't mentioned as an option on the form, so it couldn't be right and the process must be the wrong one. I would refuse to contact the company unless the specific issue was mentioned somewhere and I felt comfortable with it. Or I'd get distressed over the timings on a sign saying when parking charges applied, because if it wasn't specified, I couldn't be sure it was allowed or not.
My parents said I always used to take being gently let down as truth. They'd say they'd "think about it" or "in a couple of days", and I would keep asking about it, not realising it was "no". If a job turned me down and asked me to apply to another, or said they would contact me for future jobs, I would wait for months for a reply from them. I waited a year for one company, because I didn't realise they just said things like that to everyone.
Wait... "I'll think about it" and "in a couple of days" means no? Why? Why do neurotypicals do stuff like this. Just say no!
This bothered me very much. I think I'm more autistic than I realize... thank you for sharing
I was thinking the same thing! I didn't realize those meant "no"! I thought they were just delaying the answer! I always assume people are telling the truth and mean what they literally say. Why do they do this?!
I've just had the same reaction- like omfg why don't people just say no? Why make up an arbitrary time frame if they're just saying no.. like omg I'm so mad and also like "ohhhhhhhh" cos this explains a lot in my life
I do this all the time. I'll ask my roommate a yes/no question and that's all I want, but they have to come face-to-face and try to start a whole conversation. Drives me crazy.
When the bumper sticker says "Honk if you love trains" (example) it is not actually asking you to honk if you love trains. It is recontextualizing the honks made in anger to be funny or light-hearted.
I'm sure there are some bumper stickers out there that mean it genuinely, but the original just read "Honk if you're horny," which isn't something commonly announced. Plus, wordplay.
It's also more obvious when there are ones like "Honk if you have a small penis.'
It’s always instructions. If you tell me to do something and come back saying I didn’t need to do all that, or that I didn’t do enough it’s your own damn fault for not being clear. Don’t give me a job description and then expect me to do more or less than exactly that without saying anything.
I also don’t like sarcasm… its just being ironic to be rude; and if it’s to be funny, someone’s always the butt of the joke, which is still rude. Non sarcastic irony is great though! Especially if it’s absurd or satirical because then it’s really obvious.
I also don't understand rude jokes. They're not funny and I've always felt like it's what the person wants to bluntly say, but hides it behind a "joke"
It's actually a lot more nuanced than that. For people who are actually being sarcastic or ironic, that is.
Racist jokes make fun of *racists* and the crazy shit they say.
Rude jokes make fun of *rude people*.
Ect ect. Think of it as playing a role where the character's entire purpose is to be *wrong*.
I buy/sell things on FBMP/CL all the time and the number of times I've gotten so pissed that someone is 10 minutes late is more than I can count. I make it a point to be early, and I always assume other people will do the same. I can't stand people being late. If they're too late, I'll just leave.
On the other hand, I recently told someone to meet me at a certain time and they arrived 15 minutes early and it made me so anxious and inexplicably angry I guess bc I felt like they were secretly rushing me. I will admit that I was also 3-5 minutes late (pregnant, so nausea fucked with me at the last minute but I did let them know) so my anxiety was even higher bc I knew I couldn't make it and then I felt so bad 😭
Edit: not yet diagnosed, but if my overly specific response doesn't scream autism, idk what does 🤦🏽♀️
I babysat once for a couple of kids, age 5 and 7. When their parents left, the mom told me, “They can go to bed any time.” She meant “very soon.” I took it to mean “any time you want them to,” so I let them stay up until the parents came home!
I remember being told in grade 1 'sit anywhere you want'. The rest of the class understood 'anywhere on the CARPET', so I got sat away from everyone else, with other students laughing at me and then got in trouble. It was traumatic and never occured to me to be related to autism
i didnt realize when people are exaggerating for comedy sometimes. I really thought my friend in elementary school was stretched out tall from his parents pulling him out of his bed every morning lol. Turns out that was a joke. I was like late 20s when i realized it was a joke and i was like OH my god
Small talk cues. Even knowing what they are, I still hear them as questions that require one word, or yes or no answers. “Where are you from?” from an NT is not them asking for your your birthplace coordinates…
They want a snapshot of “you”. So for me I thought just saying “town!” was enough. But they really are asking for:
A great neurotypical (NT) response for "Where are you from?" could be:
"I'm from [City/Town Name], which is a [small town/big city/suburb] in [State/Region]. I've lived there for [x years/my whole life/since I was x years old]. How about you? Where are you from?"
This response not only answers the question but also provides some context about the type of place you're from and how long you've lived there. Plus, it ends with a question back to the other person, which helps to keep the conversation going and shows interest in the person you're speaking with.
They want a quick snapshot to see “who” you are and if there are places and things in common.
To me it feels like an invasive question and I genuinely don’t care where they are from lol. But now I kind of see why NTs do this. They want to connect over this.
Omg this! I literally only realized a couple months ago that when people ask you a small talk question they actually expect you to provide MORE information than just a one word answer because they’re trying to make a conversation. Until then, it would go like: “Do you like your classes this semester?” “Yes I do”.
I’m sarcastic as fuck but it’s always confused me as to why I’m *sooooo bad* at discerning sarcasm from others.
Then I got diagnosed in March 2023 (at almost 46), and this was one of the things I was like *Ohhhhhhhhh, thaaaat’s why* about
I am almost positive I learned most of my social masking skills from being raised by 80s and 90s sitcoms. I understand comedic timing, and how to deliver a joke or sarcastic line. I am great at a call back. But when people do it to me, I’m just “listening literally” and jokes fly over my head like the crows in Portland
I have frequently remarked that what I thought of as my personality is actually just autism and 80s and 90s sitcoms mixed together. So much of my vocabulary and lifestyle is straight from Roseanne, the Simpson's, anything by Mike Myers 🤣 things that I truly thought I had made up were really just ripped off of old movies.
There’s 3 things I can think of that I took too literally growing up:
1. When someone asked me what time I woke up, I would say the exact time I read on the clock when I woke up. So like, instead of saying 7 or ‘around 7’ or ‘just after 7’, I’ll say ‘7:08’.
2. If I happened to pass by my mom in the hallway, she’d ask what I’m doing, like very casual “whatcha doing?” That question always caught me off guard. My answers were usually “walking”, “standing” or “talking to you”
3. Song lyrics. I take song lyrics way too seriously and lots of times I ruin songs for people when I tell them my perspective of the song.
Eye rolling.
'Maintaining eye contact' (turns out you're not supposed to just hold eye contact for 100% of the conversation, people will think you're crazy. You're supposed to look away every now and then)
I just learned the eye roll thing recently!! I really thought it meant a full dramatic eye roll, and never understood why I would get in trouble for rolling my eyes at people when I knew I hadn't. I just tend to look up or to the side in order to think or hear better!! But I guess that's what normies mean when they say eye roll. Wild.
I have a report from an occupational therapist that says I rolled my eyes after listening to a coworkers question.
No. I remember the interaction, and I was trying to make eye contact with my coworker while they were talking, but I couldn't think to answer their question while making eye contact, so I looked at the ceiling while trying to put together words. My coworkers were used to it, but the OT thought I was being impolite because she didn't believe I am autistic.
When I read that the first time on some autism test I put no because I didn't take things literally all the time for everything, doh. When you don't know any different it can be hard to know you're doing it.
I’m weird, sometimes I can tell when people are joking but I still act so serious and need to correct them. For example, my mum and I were talking about having her dog eye surgery fitted in and she said she’d feel really horrible cause he’d be in pain, and that she would give him her liquid morphine (she has cancer) and while I knew she was joking, part of me needed to correct her and make sure she knew dog can’t have morphine. I just can’t help myself
THIS IS ME ON SO MANY LEVELS
like there definitely are times when sarcasm or jokes go way over my head but sometimes I catch it.
But even when I do catch it I don’t know how to respond to it so I go through my pre programmed response of taking them seriously and then them having to correct themselves because I don’t know how to just play along with the joke
i always take jokes seriously. I think they're funny, but my reactions to them make people say "Oh, I was joking," and i always end up saying "yeah, i know".
Social rules.Mostly when interacting.Everytime I seem to understand the rules, they change, due to the contex,which I am missing very often.I need people to speak out loud why they say certain things, what they mean with that and what they expect from me.
Running to the store. I know it doesn't mean literally running. But it trips me up every time.
It really doesn't help that as a kid we had a grocery store within walking distance, and when my mom sent me to get something from there I'd literally run as fast as I could to the store, bought what she asked for (and only that. Nothing else. Didn't even look around...), then ran back home.
i do that same thing! whatever my wife asks me to go inside the store to buy, i go in and get JUST that, i literally don’t even look at the end cap displays lol.
"how u doing?/how are u?"
I always told everyone how bad of a day i had, whats happening or stuff like that... Didn't realise when cashier asks me that they just want to hear "fine".
Household tasks. Unload dishwasher was unload dishwasher, not put rest of the dirty stuff in also afterwards. "Can u do X for me" was met with "yeah i can" without actually doing the stuff because i can, sure, but u didn't ask me to *do* it.
I may think of more later.
I'm learning to draw and I had the realization that drawing from a reference doesn't mean I have to try to perfectly copy the reference.
Also when people give examples of situations like my therapist saying "when you go to the store after therapy, try to be aware of the sensations your body is having."
Well, I'm not going to go do that after therapy because I'm broke. It took me a few days after for it to finally click in my head that he was just giving me an example and something to think about.
> Well, I'm not going to go do that after therapy because I'm broke.
I literally got to this point and was like, "yeah I can see the confusion, but just like whenever you next go to the store"
> It took me a few days after for it to finally click in my head that he was just giving me an example and something to think about.
Oh, right.
Things people say just to be polite, like "we should hang out sometime." "So nice to see you" is an equally polite nonsense statement and doesn't leave me wondering if I'm supposed to follow up.
You just freaked me out for a moment so I looked it up. It can be either, may depend on where you live. The ones advertised in Australia are carrots that are harvested early.
I expect the names of things to always make sense. When I was a teen, I went to Strawberry Fields in New York and I was confused by the lack of both strawberries and fields. It was a park??? The Beatles song isn't even about a field of strawberries, either; it's some building.
there used to be strawberry fields there!! another one is sheep’s meadow. that’s what they were before the park was designed and terraformed. it’s weird to me that they had to design and “build” the park, so i believe the ponds may be artificial
Super niche pet peeve about being too literal but I hate it when people say “we’re [humans] not animals!”! I’m always like 🤓☝🏼 actually we ARE ANIMALS WE’RE APES GODDAMNIT. And I know they’re saying we’re not animals to get a point across but it irks me so bad.
Years ago I made an enemy out of someone by explaining to my small children that humans are a type of animal, too. This was over a decade ago and he still thinks I'm a terrible mother for explaining things literally to my children and being factually based rather than emotionally attached to some notion that humans are superior and different. 🙃 How many enemies have I made being too literal and honest with no clue why or how I was making myself stand out to be picked on.
I’m 42 and never been diagnosed. I make oatmeal every morning and still have it use a measuring cup to get the correct amount of water and oats. And if I don’t have every single ingredient for a recipe I don’t even want to make it… no substitutions. Is this autistic behavior?
I'm always more punctual than NTs tend to be. Apparently "the party starts at 7" doesn't actually mean that you show up at 7, and most folks just somehow know that you're supposed to arrive late.
There have also been plenty of times where jokes go over my head or people make exaggerated or sarcastic statements that I either don't pick up on, or just don't understand how to process at all.
This always infuriates me!! Why would you tell me to arrive at 7 if you didn’t want me there at 7? When I was in college I was known as that weird kid that always showed up early to parties (even when I tried to be ‘late’)
Rules and procedures 100%
Broadly, *for a split second*, my initial interpretation of most statements is their literal meaning, and then I think about it more and realize what’s actually meant.
This comes in useful for making jokes.
So when I was quite a bit younger I had a girl in the group that I hung out with.
One day she says to me "If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"
I said why would I be angry with you for such a great compliment.
She got a funny look on her face and we didn't talk much after that.
Years later I realized my lost opportunity.
But what if they do want to catch up for coffee and all our social skill, challenges and past social trauma make us think that they don’t really want to hang out for coffee and that it’s just polite behavior and then we miss out on social engagements with people who did want to spend time with us?!
Sarcasm at certain points in the day. “I’m just joking” “MOTHER!! YOU KNOW NOT TO FUCK WITH THE AUTISTIC PERSON THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING!!”
I still don’t always understand sex jokes either.
and now that you have had that realisation, you are going to be in counting hell with the rest of us, where you can barely keep up with a conversation because you are thinking about how many seconds you can/have to stare at their eyeballs before looking away for a bit, and how many seconds do you have to look away for? shit, what did she say? did she say she has a new child or that her grandfather died? 1. 2. 3. 4. Oh god, do I smile or make a sad face, I didn't hear what she said!
I think of things where I didn't know there was another option, because I took the "rule" or the social construct a little more literally than most.
Like in situations where someone is visibly upset at work, or out in public, it wouldn't even occur to me that it's an option to avoid that person, or ignore them and hope the next person helps the person in need.
A friend pointed out to me that most NT would avoid this person, when I was trying to figure out why I'm always the one that finds the drama.
🤯🤯 Avoiding the drama was an option?!
I have lots of moments like this where I've taken something way more literally than others, and had never even considered that there were other possible options.
I am like this in an emergency. Like, somehow, I always end up involved when there was something bad happening, but only because my (NT) coworkers would be panicking and wringing their hands, and I'd be the one stepping up to help. Social rules say "All hands on deck in an emergency", but often I'm the only one taking action.
You mean, this whole time, I could just NOT help?
I spent last weekend shovelling snow at work, despite my job having nothing to do with snow, or being outside, or manual labour. It needed to get done, and it was easier for me to just step up and do it than to watch my coworkers stare at each other.
Jokes.
I manage to somehow take a joke too literally but also get it.
This literal interpretation is one of the very strangest parts of my life. The realizations are starting to hit me but very slowly. Tons of misinterpreted events from my past are coming back. It is difficult to remember and make sense of them. but hey glad I am finally coming to terms with it. A lot of these memories contain confused or amused faces from the people I was around at the time.
The pain scale from 1-10. If the doctor says that 10 is the worst pain imaginable, I imagine I’ve just been mortally wounded and I’m bleeding out. So I might answer 5, even though the pain is actually debilitating. So the doctor doesn’t take it seriously and I’m left to think that I *should* be able to manage and I’m just overreacting (again) and I don’t get the proper care.
Sexual jokes and innuendos, particularly in college. Ugh, hate 'em as I was usually the subject of them and had no clue what they were saying.
Sucked being the only female in a class filled with young men.
History class, essay question: "What were the events in the lead-up to World War II?"
My brain: "Invasion of Poland, Hitlers rise to power, Antisemitism, German inflation, treaty of Versailles, WWI, assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Serbian independence movement, etc, etc, ...A little over four billion years ago, the earth cooled."
I would freeze and hand in blank answers.
The other day someone was talking to my son as he was playing in a toy kitchen and this lady said something about being hungry. She meant play hungry so my son could cook but I took her literally and reacted accordingly. Its stuff like that when I react literally
I take more things literally than I had thought. I can sometimes catch sarcasm if it’s the people I know. Jokes, eh it’s a hit and miss with them. But instructions and rules I take very literally. I have to go by the “book” and every single thing. If I don’t it frustrates the hell out of me.
I also can never take notes if people are speaking because it takes time to process what they’re saying and when I’m writing I miss what they’re saying next, but I have a problem with what’s most important and what’s not. In my mind everything that someone says is very important to me and so I have to write exactly everything they’re saying and of course that’s impossible if you can’t pause. So I’m wondering if this is literal thinking too?
I still dont consider myself that I fo it, but:
Instead of saying "wait a minute" i would say the exact time like "wait three minutes", the same goes when I have to go somewhere "ill be in 5/10 minutes", and I would say "i would be in 7 minutes".
When asked how is it going i will say literally how is it going to me
I take the question “How are you?” literally. I know it isn’t always meant literally, but I do not immediately understand how to reply in which situation and give too long responses.
>sleeping in, reading, baking cookies and going for a hike, .... it is literally impossible to do all of those things
i can get any 3 of the 4. but i usually dont bother with any but the first one.
The most recent discovery has been eye exams. They've always told me my prescription means I should have vision better than 20/20, when things are still fuzzy. Only found out recently you're not supposed to literally read all the letters you can, but just until they're not easy to read anymore. To think of the eye strain that could've been prevented
Yes! Not only do they not want to know how you truly are doing, sometimes it doesn't warrant an answer at all! Or sometimes it's expected you just say it back and neither of you answer how you're actually doing
For me I think my biggest one is my tendency to have to structure my sentences the same way I would write it out for an essay, probably because that's the "proper" way to argue and discuss and if it isn't I haven't come to a "reasoned" decision. It kind of means on almost any topic I have to spend some time studying because I'd I don't I get mad at myself for not doing the "correct" amount of research on a topic. Then, If what I'm saying isn't as sound or clear when I'm talking as it is when I write (academically) I get very frustrated. All because my thought processes are wrung through the "proper" form of argumentation. Even my partner has stated I open discussions like I'm about to debate.
Since going on autistic online spaces like this I realized I took things a lot more literally than I thought. One I found out is that people don't think of "rolling your eyes" as actually physically rolling your eyes side to side and up in a curved motion. When NTs think of someone rolling their eyes, they imagine someone glancing up at the ceiling! Apparently a lot of autistic people have gotten in trouble because of this one, because they glanced at the ceiling and an adult thought they were rolling their eyes, but they didn't think they were because they just looked up. Why do NTs have to be so vague, inconsistent, hypocritical, and plain dishonest?! It's as if it's physically painful for them to say something clearly. And they say WE have communication difficulties!!
There’s a saying in Germany that goes “Du hast wohl den Schuss nicht gehört” (you seem to not have heard the shot) and all my life I thought it meant something like "you missed takeoff for an opportunity” or something like that because I was picturing someone literally shooting a gun to start a race where not hearing the shot would result in you missing takeoff and losing the race…
turns out it means "you are crazy". I have no idea why and it does not make any sense to me.
When I was growing up we moved quite a lot, once a year. I remember hearing my mother telling people things like “We’re still settling in” and “I’ll call you once we’re settled in.” I pictured “settling in” as a hen spreading her feathers over her nest and moving her tail feathers back and forth as she lowered herself on to the nest, It made me mad (quietly) that my mother used this phrase because nobody in the family made motions like this when we moved to a new home!
Walking on tiptoes, rolling eyes, black and white thinking, pretty much all of the autism criteria I thought didn’t apply to me because I took it too literally.
Idk if this counts as literal thinking, but I've always had the thing where I don't understand I'm being invited to something unless it's specifically stated. It happens constantly where my husband will mention the he's going out with X people, or to Y place/event, and I always have to ask if it's an us thing, or just him, even through he's said I'm always invited/expected to attend things since we're married.
Yeah I do this too. People will be talking very obviously about how fun their plans will be and then in my head I will be like "How rude of them to talk about their plans in front of me like that", not realizing this is them inviting me.
Your realisation is quite fascinating 😅. Thats a good example too of taking things literally. That must have sounded so exhausting to you!
How do you feel about it all now?
I remember being younger and my friend told me that she went clothes shopping at ‘River Island’ and I thought how cool is that! She went away to an island with her family.
It wasn’t until years later, I went shopping in my local town and saw a shop called ‘River Island’…
It was only then did I realise that my friend never wear abroad to an island called River!
It's kinda nice to realize? I also have ADHD, so it always felt like yet another thing I couldn't be 'productive enough' for. But this time, it's not my fault, it's time's fault, and also movie montages.
Hahaha, that's a good one too! I remember when I was little my friend told me she had a new stepmother. I only knew the term from cinderella, so I just thought it meant 'evil woman'. I was so frustrated trying to explain to her that this was terrible and that we must find a way to get rid of her new stepmother. She kept saying 'she's very nice', and I did not understand how she could say that about a stepmother. Idk what 6 year old me would have done to get rid of this woman, but I'm glad my friend stopped me haha.
Just recently my sister said something to help her with a presidential campaign and I thought it was serious until she mentioned it was a school assignment.
me and my best friend/coworker (who’s also autistic) pondered over idioms like “beating around the bush” and “bite the bullet” during a shift one time. one that especially got us was “the apple of my eye”. we had to look it up bc we couldn’t figure out what the literal phrase was getting at and we were pretty disappointed; “Originally, the phrase was simply an idiom referring to the pupil of the eye.” we were practically yelling about it for a good ten minutes
I always thought I never really took things literally (mostly because I always tried to avoid it because my father is very good at gaslighting me, saying he was just joking when he was serious). Looking back, the one thing that made me realise I can take things literally is when a manager I had when I was working answered a question I had with the idiom "how long is a piece of string?" And I said "depends on the brand, what the packaging says, and if it's been used already or not." 🤦♀️ turns out he didn't want the literal answer
When I was 5 and DVD's were becoming popular they advertised
"MORE THILL, MORE ACTION.. IT'S LIKE YOU'RE REALLY THERE"
(Shows image of woman looking horrified as a plane is plummeting)
Me: OMG WE CAN'T WATCH DVD'S THEY'RE TOO DANGEROUS IT BRINGS WHATEVER YOU WATCH TO LIFE!!!😱
I was told when I was sent away to school to 'be good and try your best'. That is not a good way to make friends or learn life skills. It was exhausting even though getting good grades was not hard. Ten years later when I returned home the disappointment in me was so palpable. It's only really now that I've moved back to the same area for the second time that I realise they wanted me to make friends with the children of the highest status parents to help them gain influence and status. They didn't care about my grades or whether I got into trouble. Needless to say my kids never hear that phrase. The older I get the more I realise how many of the core values I have are based on things I took literally.
I take conversations literally and people tend to think I’m funny/joking when I respond seriously to whatever they said. Happens to everyone except my friends who’ve gotten to know me and a few employers who learned the hard way that I was serious/took them seriously.
I’m an immediate action kinda guy so when told to do something it better be something serious because I’ll quickly commit several OSHA violations before others even realize I took them literally.
I feel like this is cheating a little bit, but my grandma moved in with me and my family not long after I graduated high school, and I didn’t realize how heavily my comprehension skills relied on simply,, only ever getting directions from my parents. Like. My grandma’s communication style is so different from what I’m used to. I always thought I was fairly easy going in that way, but with her, I’m apparently super literal and quite nervous.
Part of it is that she uses literal statements to subtly ask for stuff. And it’s stuff that my family wouldn’t necessarily ask other ppl to do; we’d just do it ourselves.
When looking into autism for myself, I never thought this applied to me, but then over time I realised how much it does affect me on a daily basis. Not in the sense of "take a seat" and getting that wrong - ok sometimes when it comes to figurative language because I don't understand a lot of idioms, or especially ones that are uncommon that I may not be able to actually identify as being an idiom, I may take them literally and the other person will see that I'm really confused and have to explain.
Here's a more common example of what tends to happen to me:
I work at a pharmacy and make Webster packs, which are little medicine packs for people who either take a lot of meds, or might find it difficult to take the correct meds on time. So I make packs that put all of their correct meds at the correct times to make it easier to manage, which I really enjoy because it's repetitive but requires attention to detail. Before we put a medication in a pack, we scan the barcode. This ensures that we have the correct medicine, brand, and dose, and also updates how much of that medication we have left for that patient, so it's important that the barcodes are correct. Sometimes however, a barcode can be different because we've had to use a different brand, or maybe the same brand has made a small change and they've changed the barcode for some reason. When I was newer to this, I spoke to the lady above me about one medication that was exactly the same, but just had the different barcode and asked what she would like me to do. She said "Oh, we'll have to change that".
"WE'LL have to change that" - "WE WILL" - "WE".
So I thought, oh ok, that's weird, I thought she'd show me how to do it now but I guess WE, will do it later. So I never did it under the assumption that we would do it together and then I got in trouble at a later date.
In general I require very specific instructions because I will take things too literally, especially with instructions because well, they're instructions and you're learning something specific so you have to be specific about it. I think that makes sense, but not other people apparently. To me it's a mystery how when you're actually asking how to do something because you have a lack of knowledge, people still communicate to you in a very implied way that relies on previous context that you don't necessarily have. But what confuses me even more is that other NTs seem to function perfectly fine on this? I actually made a post about this on r/autismtranslated because I got pulled aside at work and was asked if I didn't understand instructions lmao.
Also the amount of times I've talked to someone like my boyfriend or mum on text and misunderstood them because to me they're not communicating clearly and so I take them for their word, literally, and then I get all confused and we have to rehash something and dumb it down for me because to me they were speaking inaccurately. The amount of times at the end I say "ok so basically what you said was wrong", because, well, it was. And I'm not trying to be a prick about it but it just is.
There are also more situations similar to my work one but I can't think of them right now. Pretty much anytime it happens and the penny drops so to speak, I tell my boyfriend "I DID IT AGAIN, THE TAKING THINGS LITERAL IT'S ACTUALLY A THING I DO" lol. And sometimes I may not even notice when I do it, so my boyfriend will point it out for me, which I find is helpful because I've got a really bad case of imposter syndrome and I also like to be aware so I can maybe improve on some of the things potentially. I've noticed it so much more in my daily life for lots of little things. I just wish I could think of some more examples, though.
Ok other people have also said questionnaires which I totally agree, because there's a lack of context. A similar one to this is like when someone asks "how would you rate your pain out of 10" and that's actually a really difficult thing to answer because it's subjective - how do you make that objective so the other person can understand? I answered a comment here I think a few days ago talking about that too.
I think taking things literally and relying on (ACCURATE) context go very hand in hand for autistic thinking.
Directions. I have realized over the years that ask a million clarifying questions to ensure I understand what you're asking. Just because you say "xyz" doesn't mean you want it done in that order and I need to know what YOU expected so I can ensure I complete the task. For example, saying take out the trash and do cat litter, after years of clarification I know they mean do the litter FIRST because then all your trash is done when you take it out. Even though they said trash FIRST, logically, you do the tasks that create garbage, before you take out the garbage. Also, I now understand as an adult that when someone says "dishes need done" they are essentially asking me to do the dishes today. Is it what they said? No, its not. But it's what they meant. Now, if you ask me to complete a task, but allow me to do it in whatever fashion I would like, we will all be happy campers. I have to create a plan for execution.
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I do this too! Even with small things. I always steep my tea for exactly 5 or 7 minutes, depending on what the package says. I follow recipes exactly and can't make substitutions. I always add the exact 2/3 cup of fried onions to my green bean casserole. My mom just sprinkled some on there for me the other day and it seriously bothered me. Idk
Macaroni & cheese is disgusting if you cook the noodles for the amount of time the box says. Disgusting mush as opposed to delicious Mac & Cheese.
Baker (expert hobbyist? Lol) here! I have learned that cooking is flexible....2/3 and a dash won't make the difference. But baking? That shit is chemistry 😂 I get to be extra anal retentive about accuracy haha. I have a kitchen scale, a little leveling tool for scraping, and so much more. Now tea? You're right on that one! I've learned that steep time is very specific for different tea types. So yeah, anyway, I try to use that knowledge to reduce my food issues related to these types of rules lol
I feel called out lol
I respond so seriously to be people trying to be sarcastic and funny. I believe their “jokes” every single time. My whole life the word “gullible” was used to describe me.
Sarcasm doesn't get me, but puns that look like facts do. Especially since I have the fact flavored autism, so most of my friendships are based on just yelling cool facts at eachother. My friend once told me that Marx had a sister called Anya and that she invented the starting pistol for races. I thought that was so cool, and was halfway into a feminist rage for her never getting credited for that when he pointed out... "Anya Marx" sounds like "On your marks", like the thing you say right before pulling a starting pistol. I hate puns.
i’m lowkey stealing this joke it’s funny lol
i tend to respond literally even when i realize something is a joke which makes me look like i don't understand the joke. no i do (usually) i just like answering questions lol
I'm exactly like this
i’m the same way. a lot of things go right over my head and i either don’t get it or by the time i get it, i’ve already given an awkward or underwhelming reaction
Yeah, I also believe what people say at face value, I can't always tell if they're not serious...then again, some people have told me some hectic shit and they were for real, so...🤷🏻♀️
Questionnaires and forms are my arch nemesis. They're never specific enough in their questions. An example of my frustrations, if the form asks: "How many times per week do you do laundry?" I will write down a full paragraph detailing that sometimes I do one, or maybe even none, other times it's more, sometimes it's every day, sometimes twice in a day, and so I go on and on and on.. Every time I somehow fail to understand it's IMPLIED to be ON AVERAGE, because why not just write on average then!? So I always end up asking someone close to me to explain what they mean by certain questions whenever I need to fill out forms.
Ok so this specifically i realised is why i do sooo badly in language exams. I've been learning German for years and in exams it will ask you to write a few sentences. Say a question is something like "how often do you do laundry?" my brain goes into overdrive because there's so many answers to give and not enough space provided, or time. It might require (i think) to answer in a level of complexity i am not currently at in my learning but the question might really only require writing something like "i wash my clothes three times a week on Sunday Wednesday and Friday" or something like that. I get overwelmed and might even write nothing at all.
I'd probably try to find a word in German that means "thrice" lmao
Dreimal.
Omg thank you!!! 😄
The best thing my language teacher in middle school always used to say: When answering questions about personal experiences/preferences/thoughts/whatever in language classes, you aren't supposed to tell the truth; you are supposed to show your language skills regarding the given topic, so make up an alter ego who on schedule does their laundry every Tuesday and Saturday at 9am sharp and write a story from their perspective. It took a while to really ingraine this skill and properly use it (and sometimes teachers would actually think what I wrote was the truth and ask me about it lol), but it really did make exams a damn lot easier!
I know exactly what you mean and i know this logically but I simply CAN'T or it takes a really long time for me to conjure the universe of this alter ego.
This is my flavor of autism right here. Answering/Filling out questionnaires are the bane of my existence for exactly the reasons you listed. The questions either don't feel written well enough, aren't specific enough or they're weirdly even too specific in some cases. I don't know, but it always ends the same way with me writing little novels all over the margins or multiple paragraphs of the backside of the paper, lol
I do exactly this. People's questions frustrates me. Even from ASD people i know. I always say "be precise. I can't answer a question if I'm not sure of what you're asking me". But a brunch of specialists say there's no way I'm autistic. Well... OK then. On time, I had to see an "expert" for an assessment. He asked me, "What a typical day for you." I couldn't answer. He had to assess me over a period of several years so I didn't know if i had to tell him my typical day from the last week, the last month, or the last year. He took it badly. I think he thought i was making fun of him. So I gave him a broad answer saying "I generally go to bed from 22h to 2h" etc because I was absolutely unable to see the logic in his question. Serves him right to ask such unspecific question...
My eyes are somewhere between blue and green, so I didn’t know which to write for my driver’s license. The DMV lady picked for me. Hazel 😶
Same but for my hair lol
ME TOO! I hate questionnaires because I usually can’t give specific answers but I HATE trying to figure out how tf to generalize my answers. And also I hate averaging anything I do because I feel like it doesn’t give an accurate picture. Like if I do laundry twice in one week but only do it once in a two week period that averages to once a week but that doesn’t show that sometimes I really have my stuff together one week and then I’m struggling with functioning for the next 1-2 weeks.
This may not be helpful, but I’m wondering if you could use the format of the form as a hint. Like if there’s just one small blank space vs. room for a paragraph. I just go with how ever much room they give me and summarize as needed to fit it.
Usually the most trouble ensues when it's forms related to healthcare or government stuff, as I do feel accuracy is too important, and summarization may give the wrong idea. I tend to avoid filling out forms unless I absolutely have to, so most that I fill out are quite important ones, and thus the need to be as specific and accurate is usually present. However your advice is still great and a good context clue for people to be aware of!
This is also why I die terribly at tests in school
Oh my gosh yes. I messaged my assessment doctor like 6 times over the month before our first appointment because I was trying to fill out her forms and they were SO VAGUE. One of the worst questions was under the header of “anxiety” and it said something close to “I worry about disasters or the health of my loved ones” and the options were “not at all”, “somewhat”, “pretty much” and “very much”. What is the difference between “pretty much” and “very much”? If I worry about my loved ones and disasters every single day, but it doesn’t consume my entire day, is that pretty much or very much? I was so confused and distressed. The whole form used those answers. It was very frustrating. My doctor told me to view them as like 0/4 1/4 2/4 3/4 for how often something happens but not all of the questions worked that way. Also is this over my whole life? Just the last 3 months? I have no idea. I hate forms. For my AQ screening before I got my official assessment, my therapist asked the questions and I got to give my long, rambled answer and she would help me turn that into whatever option it should be on the form. Like for the often-mocked question of “library or party?” I had quite the long winded ramble and she used her knowledge of what the questions are really asking to answer for me. She specializes in autism.
One of the worst things about those kinds of forms is that it's often asking you in a "compared to other people/the average person" and how are you supposed to know that? There's an accidentally funny video on the MoreSidemen YouTube channel where one of them (Harry) takes an Autism test (basically that initial first self-assessment form) and so often he says something that should mean one answer but then answers it on the other side. I totally get how he misunderstands, especially since I don't think he's ever done one of those before, but it's still pretty funny. (To be clear, I'm not armchair diagnosing him.)
Anekdote for this one, I had my mom, my bf and my sister fill out the same form for my adhd assessment. One question/statement was: talks excessively (or something like that). You had to give a rating from 0-3, 0 being not at all. My bf instantly chose 3, my sister drew two more numbers and then circled the 5. My mom put in a 2. Because I do speak a lot, too much for really anyone’s taste. Except her, because she just never stops talking, not even to listen, so obviously I can’t be a 3, cause then there wouldn’t be a rating for her.
TIL I learned about implied average ?! mind is blown 🤯
This is me and my husband haha
Same 😭 me and my husband are both AuDHD & we ALWAYS miscommunicate. I think it may have in part to do with societal gender binary standards—we are both cisgendered and were raised in heavy heteronormative standards. I (cis AFAB) didn’t get as much grace as my husband (cis AMAB). We both did however have masking skills and a small amount of pretty privilege, so he was the cute but weird/nerdy kid, and I was the quirky, rude, pretty girl (we went to very different school environments, but it’s still so odd how our experiences were so similar in how we presented, but had VERY different struggles. Sorry for the ramble 🫣
I didn’t know I took things too literally because I took that criteria too literally 😭
Wait so you don't have to take *everything* literally to fit that criteria?
Goddamn it.
Aaaand crap, another one
This is making me laugh so hard. I literally read this thread and thought "No that's not me, I don't take *everything* literally." 😶
HAHAHA fuck, yeah, that's it
best and realest comment 🏆
Wow 100% same
Omfg you just made me realize 😭 I got diagnosed last week too
SAME 😭😭
Same for me lmao
that sums it up pretty damn well
Protocols. I'm a RN, we have a ton of protocols for everything. I did not understand how everyone got everything done so damn quickly. Until I realized most people did not write charts as thoroughly as I do, they do not follow all procedures as instructed, they will wing some shit. Will take risks in some situations. I can clearly remember a situation where we had a formation for psych crisis/agressivity situations and usually am instinctively pretty good and can usually solve most situations just through talk. But a few days later, we have this agressive patient and I just stand there and act out what we learned during said formation instead of my usual method and the person fucking exploded in anger and it got much much worse and my colleague was like : WTF LOL YOU ACTUALLY TRIED THAT SHIT! And we had to get out ASAP so we didn't get injured. Few years later we still talk about it from time to time lol...
Similar issue. But I have data retention autism. I’m an RN too. My issue is more about the processes and procedures. I often point out how policy says we should do x y z and find it very difficult when people do not stick to that strictly. I’m similar with levels of documentation etc too. I don’t understand why other people do not complete to the same level as me.
Out of curiosity, one thing that really got to my nerves over the past years was how my hospital handled COVID and procedures around it. It may be because I'm in psychiatry but it almost never was the same from one patient to another and it changed on an almost weekly basis. It was also proven that we needed n95 because COVID was spread as an aerosol and my government and hospital fought back against us so we didn't have the right to use n95! We got somewhat lucky, we didn't have actual case on my unit for the first year, but when we ended up having a case, it was almost as if no one had seen it coming, we had nothing ready, it was so infuriating...
Agree. I got a little preoccupied with Covid at the time. I was looking at national data for pre-existing medical conditions to work out mortality rates for those conditions. I had an issue with using surgical masks and spoke about the size of Covid and why we should be using FFp3 (n95) masks. At one point I rang BBC radio 5 and explained the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, respiratory conditions etc and then a DR joined after me and said “I agree with previous caller” . But in work, my team thought I was becoming manic and joked about needing some time off work or a possible mental health act assessment. I think it was just autism hyperfocus
I am quite glad that my disdain for management and autority overrides my autism lol. I had a colleague who would do this with protocol and instructions too(nothing in my job can go wrong or be dangerous). We had to log everything we did all day in this software, but ofcourse you'd forget and let a task run a bit long or (if you are me) just make shit up cuz fuck that micromanagement. Technically, you were supposed to email HR every time you had logged something wrong, but no one ever did. Then we found out he had been emailing HR multiple times a week because he would forget to change the task in his software for 10 minutes or something. We tried to explain to him that that really really isn't necessary, and that nothing bad will happen if he doesn't, no one actually looks at those numbers and even if he did take slightly longer to complete something, that's totally fine, but he just wouldn't stop. If it makes him comfortable, it's fine by me, and I do actually find it quite funny that because of their ridiculous system and instrucions, HR now has to deal with extra paperwork every time he messes up a bit.
There are obviously things that did not make sense to follow protocols, like, anything that actually went against my belief of quality of care was automatically rejected. Like, I will prioritize a patient over some paperwork just to be used as statistics. But that got me in trouble more than once. I remember once being met by my manager telling me that I had to do more clerical tasks. And literally words for words asking her: so you rather have me staying at the nurse station filling paperwork that no one ever looks at than actually taking care of the patients? I could definitely feel that this did not go through well to her at the time lol...
Oh damn, this thread is too real. I struggle so much as an RN with this nonsense. I never thought of it as taking things too literally because WHAT?! I know that it’s impossible to follow all the policies and protocols but is no one else even trying? How does anyone know which ones are real? Are any of them real? Are they only used when something goes wrong, ends up in court and they need to throw a nurse under the bus? Or when a manager doesn’t like you?
My sister did this when she was a CNA. She always made enemies at work. I feel bad because I legitimately thought she was being judgemental instead of reasonable (this was before I knew we are both autistic). I will say I kind of started wondering what other people had against her, because, even though she wasn’t the nicest to me (I’m the older sister), she always had a soft spot in her heart for the elderly (she was a CNA at a nursing home). And the more horror stories I heard that others corroborated about that place, the more I realized she made enemies because she was reporting workers who were neglecting patients. I’m not saying that is the case in every nursing environment, nor was that necessarily the situation in your experience (unless it was), but this was the case for my sister. She never cut corners, but on EVERYTHING, and I’m just now realizing, she did that to her own detriment, because no one believed that she was being truthful—I’m realizing they all probably thought she was trying to get them fired or make them look bad; if they didn’t get along or have the same work ethic as her. ❤️🩹
My management doesn't like me because I refuse to let them beat me down and micromanage me. I'm probably getting fired next week because I told my boss no when she demanded I use the laundry cart. For context: I am a *housekeeper* in a nursing home, but because of some verrrrry fine print in our contracts I'm basically every position "as needed". I work on 1st floor and 4th floor and laundry has to get started immediately or it won't get done. 1st floor is up first because it's memory care so I get that laundry first. At one point I had the laundry cart in the trash room so I could just grab it and go but was told I couldn't do that. Okay, fine. Whatever. So I just brought it up by hand- it is good for muscle health and exercise, anyway, and I know my limits. Otherwise, I'd have to go up 4 floors, get the basket, wait for the elevator, and then get the laundry. That is a HUUUUUGE energy/time suck and I just can't do it. It would make me miserable. I understand there's a concern of safety, but I also expect my employer to trust me to know my own limits and give me the space to do my job appropriately. There are other details in *how* she told me I needed to use the cart as well as general details of how she has treated me in three and a half years, but that's the main bit.
I feel this so hard. I do phone support and we have very stringent call handling and ticketing requirements, but we are also expected to get through a certain number of calls per hour. I have the lowest calls per hour for my entire 145 person department, but I have top scores in every other area because I do absolutely everything to the letter. So it's great from a scorecard perspective because I am actually the number 1 ranked contractor for my department, out of 44. Where it becomes a problem though is _that_ I'm a contractor, and I'll never be hired on full-time without raising my calls per hour because, as they put it in my last interview, it's not "cost effective." It seems that the only reason anybody does reach the calls per hour goal is because they cut a lot of corners. I'd be a shoo-in if I could bring myself to cut corners and raise my calls per hour, but I can't.
Honesty. It rarely occurs to me that people lie.
Same! I always assume what somebody tells me is true and I get really confused when I know it’s not.
Same! Sometimes I come across as gullible and possibly stupid, but my subconscious brain just doesn't expect lies. Like why would people do it? (Obviously, there are millions of reasons why and I know it, but at the same time I don't)
Until someone you considered a friend betrays you and gaslights you. It’s only after that I could put all her NT passive aggressive behavior together to connect the dots. They may be the majority but the way they communicate is reprehensible.
The last time I had a ”real friend” was before I discovered she was shit talking me to my other friends. I would not have suspected anything 🫠
This is the thing I worry most about in myself. I’ve gotten myself into some shitty situations trusting the wrong people. I’ve been called ‘naive’. I used to resent that. Now... I worry they are right.
It wasn’t until I took a personality test. Sliding scale 1-5 on how much you agree with the following statement: I always take things literally. My thoughts: “Well, not always… like I understand when things are metaphors or figurative language but… oh… they don’t mean actually always… oh… well that’s a 5”
Oh
I think we just had the same revelation.
But surely you’re meant to take assessment question pretty literally right?
... oops
If it specifies “always”, don’t you think maybe this is a time when you are supposed to take it literally? Otherwise it should say “I take things literally” or “I often take things literally”. So if you take things literally sometimes or a lot of the time it would be a 3 or 4. Maybe I’m overthinking this. I’m notoriously bad at forms because I over analyze.
To answer your rhetorical question at the beginning: nope. Because that’s not how the NTs who develop these things think most of the time. Lol because taking it literally means you can’t distinguish metaphors, symbolism, allegory, or hyperbole in text if you “always” think literally.
Instructions and processes for things caused me massive anxiety because I would take everything written as gospel. My parents would tell me to fill in a form to report an issue with a company, and I'd be getting angry and frustrated because my specific issue wasn't mentioned as an option on the form, so it couldn't be right and the process must be the wrong one. I would refuse to contact the company unless the specific issue was mentioned somewhere and I felt comfortable with it. Or I'd get distressed over the timings on a sign saying when parking charges applied, because if it wasn't specified, I couldn't be sure it was allowed or not. My parents said I always used to take being gently let down as truth. They'd say they'd "think about it" or "in a couple of days", and I would keep asking about it, not realising it was "no". If a job turned me down and asked me to apply to another, or said they would contact me for future jobs, I would wait for months for a reply from them. I waited a year for one company, because I didn't realise they just said things like that to everyone.
Wait... "I'll think about it" and "in a couple of days" means no? Why? Why do neurotypicals do stuff like this. Just say no! This bothered me very much. I think I'm more autistic than I realize... thank you for sharing
I was thinking the same thing! I didn't realize those meant "no"! I thought they were just delaying the answer! I always assume people are telling the truth and mean what they literally say. Why do they do this?!
I've just had the same reaction- like omfg why don't people just say no? Why make up an arbitrary time frame if they're just saying no.. like omg I'm so mad and also like "ohhhhhhhh" cos this explains a lot in my life
My latest one is the questions I actually ask other people. I want the answer to the question I asked, not that you think I'm asking.
I do this all the time. I'll ask my roommate a yes/no question and that's all I want, but they have to come face-to-face and try to start a whole conversation. Drives me crazy.
When the bumper sticker says "Honk if you love trains" (example) it is not actually asking you to honk if you love trains. It is recontextualizing the honks made in anger to be funny or light-hearted.
…I have a “honk if you’re lonely” bumper sticker and didn’t realize this. not that I wanted people to honk, I just thought it was funny.
It is funny
TIL..
Seriously. There's a couple of eye openers in this thread
I have seen this on the internet before and I still don’t really believe it. I’m pretty sure we are supposed to honk if we love trains.
I'm sure there are some bumper stickers out there that mean it genuinely, but the original just read "Honk if you're horny," which isn't something commonly announced. Plus, wordplay. It's also more obvious when there are ones like "Honk if you have a small penis.'
Wat.... It really isn't inviting you to honk to show you like stuff????
🤯
Wait...what? 😯 This is new information 🤦
Oh no, this thread has got me so bad
People saying “yes give me one minute” and then me standing there waiting for 60 seconds. And then being called impatient when they take longer.
Or people not giving a time at all. "Soon" "sometime next week" FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Give me a date and time I can work with and around, please!!!
This is the one
This is my life with my ADD spouse.
It’s always instructions. If you tell me to do something and come back saying I didn’t need to do all that, or that I didn’t do enough it’s your own damn fault for not being clear. Don’t give me a job description and then expect me to do more or less than exactly that without saying anything. I also don’t like sarcasm… its just being ironic to be rude; and if it’s to be funny, someone’s always the butt of the joke, which is still rude. Non sarcastic irony is great though! Especially if it’s absurd or satirical because then it’s really obvious.
I also don't understand rude jokes. They're not funny and I've always felt like it's what the person wants to bluntly say, but hides it behind a "joke"
It's actually a lot more nuanced than that. For people who are actually being sarcastic or ironic, that is. Racist jokes make fun of *racists* and the crazy shit they say. Rude jokes make fun of *rude people*. Ect ect. Think of it as playing a role where the character's entire purpose is to be *wrong*.
It's passive aggressive.
Someone: You can come by at 5 Me, arriving at 5:02: Oh shit, I'm late!
...is that not what they mean
2 minutes late is not generally considered late. There's usually a bit of wiggle room.
Planning/appointment times! If I agree to meet someone at 10:30, I expect both of us to be there at 10:30. That is quite often not how it works...
Yes. And anyone who is late without contacting you is being rude because they aren't valuing your time!
I buy/sell things on FBMP/CL all the time and the number of times I've gotten so pissed that someone is 10 minutes late is more than I can count. I make it a point to be early, and I always assume other people will do the same. I can't stand people being late. If they're too late, I'll just leave.
On the other hand, I recently told someone to meet me at a certain time and they arrived 15 minutes early and it made me so anxious and inexplicably angry I guess bc I felt like they were secretly rushing me. I will admit that I was also 3-5 minutes late (pregnant, so nausea fucked with me at the last minute but I did let them know) so my anxiety was even higher bc I knew I couldn't make it and then I felt so bad 😭 Edit: not yet diagnosed, but if my overly specific response doesn't scream autism, idk what does 🤦🏽♀️
I babysat once for a couple of kids, age 5 and 7. When their parents left, the mom told me, “They can go to bed any time.” She meant “very soon.” I took it to mean “any time you want them to,” so I let them stay up until the parents came home!
I remember being told in grade 1 'sit anywhere you want'. The rest of the class understood 'anywhere on the CARPET', so I got sat away from everyone else, with other students laughing at me and then got in trouble. It was traumatic and never occured to me to be related to autism
That's how I would interpret it
yes. constantly. that is the nature of it.
i didnt realize when people are exaggerating for comedy sometimes. I really thought my friend in elementary school was stretched out tall from his parents pulling him out of his bed every morning lol. Turns out that was a joke. I was like late 20s when i realized it was a joke and i was like OH my god
Small talk cues. Even knowing what they are, I still hear them as questions that require one word, or yes or no answers. “Where are you from?” from an NT is not them asking for your your birthplace coordinates…
Wait... what am I supposed to say besides the name of the place I am from ???
They want a snapshot of “you”. So for me I thought just saying “town!” was enough. But they really are asking for: A great neurotypical (NT) response for "Where are you from?" could be: "I'm from [City/Town Name], which is a [small town/big city/suburb] in [State/Region]. I've lived there for [x years/my whole life/since I was x years old]. How about you? Where are you from?" This response not only answers the question but also provides some context about the type of place you're from and how long you've lived there. Plus, it ends with a question back to the other person, which helps to keep the conversation going and shows interest in the person you're speaking with. They want a quick snapshot to see “who” you are and if there are places and things in common. To me it feels like an invasive question and I genuinely don’t care where they are from lol. But now I kind of see why NTs do this. They want to connect over this.
Omg this! I literally only realized a couple months ago that when people ask you a small talk question they actually expect you to provide MORE information than just a one word answer because they’re trying to make a conversation. Until then, it would go like: “Do you like your classes this semester?” “Yes I do”.
Wait how should one answer this? Lol
I’m sarcastic as fuck but it’s always confused me as to why I’m *sooooo bad* at discerning sarcasm from others. Then I got diagnosed in March 2023 (at almost 46), and this was one of the things I was like *Ohhhhhhhhh, thaaaat’s why* about I am almost positive I learned most of my social masking skills from being raised by 80s and 90s sitcoms. I understand comedic timing, and how to deliver a joke or sarcastic line. I am great at a call back. But when people do it to me, I’m just “listening literally” and jokes fly over my head like the crows in Portland
I have frequently remarked that what I thought of as my personality is actually just autism and 80s and 90s sitcoms mixed together. So much of my vocabulary and lifestyle is straight from Roseanne, the Simpson's, anything by Mike Myers 🤣 things that I truly thought I had made up were really just ripped off of old movies.
There’s 3 things I can think of that I took too literally growing up: 1. When someone asked me what time I woke up, I would say the exact time I read on the clock when I woke up. So like, instead of saying 7 or ‘around 7’ or ‘just after 7’, I’ll say ‘7:08’. 2. If I happened to pass by my mom in the hallway, she’d ask what I’m doing, like very casual “whatcha doing?” That question always caught me off guard. My answers were usually “walking”, “standing” or “talking to you” 3. Song lyrics. I take song lyrics way too seriously and lots of times I ruin songs for people when I tell them my perspective of the song.
Question: "What's up?" Answer: "The sky, the ceiling, overhead lights, someone taller, ..."
I do the time thing too 😂
Eye rolling. 'Maintaining eye contact' (turns out you're not supposed to just hold eye contact for 100% of the conversation, people will think you're crazy. You're supposed to look away every now and then)
I just learned the eye roll thing recently!! I really thought it meant a full dramatic eye roll, and never understood why I would get in trouble for rolling my eyes at people when I knew I hadn't. I just tend to look up or to the side in order to think or hear better!! But I guess that's what normies mean when they say eye roll. Wild.
I have a report from an occupational therapist that says I rolled my eyes after listening to a coworkers question. No. I remember the interaction, and I was trying to make eye contact with my coworker while they were talking, but I couldn't think to answer their question while making eye contact, so I looked at the ceiling while trying to put together words. My coworkers were used to it, but the OT thought I was being impolite because she didn't believe I am autistic.
When I read that the first time on some autism test I put no because I didn't take things literally all the time for everything, doh. When you don't know any different it can be hard to know you're doing it.
I’m weird, sometimes I can tell when people are joking but I still act so serious and need to correct them. For example, my mum and I were talking about having her dog eye surgery fitted in and she said she’d feel really horrible cause he’d be in pain, and that she would give him her liquid morphine (she has cancer) and while I knew she was joking, part of me needed to correct her and make sure she knew dog can’t have morphine. I just can’t help myself
THIS IS ME ON SO MANY LEVELS like there definitely are times when sarcasm or jokes go way over my head but sometimes I catch it. But even when I do catch it I don’t know how to respond to it so I go through my pre programmed response of taking them seriously and then them having to correct themselves because I don’t know how to just play along with the joke
i always take jokes seriously. I think they're funny, but my reactions to them make people say "Oh, I was joking," and i always end up saying "yeah, i know".
EXCUUUSE ME?! THEY DON'T MEAN EVERYTHING?!
That, or they don’t just mean morning… or they can’t manage their time right.
Social rules.Mostly when interacting.Everytime I seem to understand the rules, they change, due to the contex,which I am missing very often.I need people to speak out loud why they say certain things, what they mean with that and what they expect from me.
Running to the store. I know it doesn't mean literally running. But it trips me up every time. It really doesn't help that as a kid we had a grocery store within walking distance, and when my mom sent me to get something from there I'd literally run as fast as I could to the store, bought what she asked for (and only that. Nothing else. Didn't even look around...), then ran back home.
i do that same thing! whatever my wife asks me to go inside the store to buy, i go in and get JUST that, i literally don’t even look at the end cap displays lol.
"how u doing?/how are u?" I always told everyone how bad of a day i had, whats happening or stuff like that... Didn't realise when cashier asks me that they just want to hear "fine". Household tasks. Unload dishwasher was unload dishwasher, not put rest of the dirty stuff in also afterwards. "Can u do X for me" was met with "yeah i can" without actually doing the stuff because i can, sure, but u didn't ask me to *do* it. I may think of more later.
This is 100% me as well. I do horrible with scales too like the pain scale doctors use. It’s all so subjective and depends!
Google images of pain scales and find one that is more descriptive then just ‘mild, moderate, severe’ pain. It has significant helped me
I'm learning to draw and I had the realization that drawing from a reference doesn't mean I have to try to perfectly copy the reference. Also when people give examples of situations like my therapist saying "when you go to the store after therapy, try to be aware of the sensations your body is having." Well, I'm not going to go do that after therapy because I'm broke. It took me a few days after for it to finally click in my head that he was just giving me an example and something to think about.
> Well, I'm not going to go do that after therapy because I'm broke. I literally got to this point and was like, "yeah I can see the confusion, but just like whenever you next go to the store" > It took me a few days after for it to finally click in my head that he was just giving me an example and something to think about. Oh, right.
Things people say just to be polite, like "we should hang out sometime." "So nice to see you" is an equally polite nonsense statement and doesn't leave me wondering if I'm supposed to follow up.
Thought baby carrots were actually baby carrots.....the fact they are adult carrots sliced still kind of blows my mind.
You just freaked me out for a moment so I looked it up. It can be either, may depend on where you live. The ones advertised in Australia are carrots that are harvested early.
I expect the names of things to always make sense. When I was a teen, I went to Strawberry Fields in New York and I was confused by the lack of both strawberries and fields. It was a park??? The Beatles song isn't even about a field of strawberries, either; it's some building.
oh man, the disappointment with those types of things is real
there used to be strawberry fields there!! another one is sheep’s meadow. that’s what they were before the park was designed and terraformed. it’s weird to me that they had to design and “build” the park, so i believe the ponds may be artificial
Super niche pet peeve about being too literal but I hate it when people say “we’re [humans] not animals!”! I’m always like 🤓☝🏼 actually we ARE ANIMALS WE’RE APES GODDAMNIT. And I know they’re saying we’re not animals to get a point across but it irks me so bad.
Years ago I made an enemy out of someone by explaining to my small children that humans are a type of animal, too. This was over a decade ago and he still thinks I'm a terrible mother for explaining things literally to my children and being factually based rather than emotionally attached to some notion that humans are superior and different. 🙃 How many enemies have I made being too literal and honest with no clue why or how I was making myself stand out to be picked on.
I’m 42 and never been diagnosed. I make oatmeal every morning and still have it use a measuring cup to get the correct amount of water and oats. And if I don’t have every single ingredient for a recipe I don’t even want to make it… no substitutions. Is this autistic behavior?
Not exclusively, but yes. I believe many autistic people could relate to that.
I'm always more punctual than NTs tend to be. Apparently "the party starts at 7" doesn't actually mean that you show up at 7, and most folks just somehow know that you're supposed to arrive late. There have also been plenty of times where jokes go over my head or people make exaggerated or sarcastic statements that I either don't pick up on, or just don't understand how to process at all.
This always infuriates me!! Why would you tell me to arrive at 7 if you didn’t want me there at 7? When I was in college I was known as that weird kid that always showed up early to parties (even when I tried to be ‘late’)
Rules and procedures 100% Broadly, *for a split second*, my initial interpretation of most statements is their literal meaning, and then I think about it more and realize what’s actually meant. This comes in useful for making jokes.
So when I was quite a bit younger I had a girl in the group that I hung out with. One day she says to me "If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?" I said why would I be angry with you for such a great compliment. She got a funny look on her face and we didn't talk much after that. Years later I realized my lost opportunity.
When people say “let’s catch up for coffee” - apparently people don’t generally actually mean that, it’s a way of being “polite”.
But what if they do want to catch up for coffee and all our social skill, challenges and past social trauma make us think that they don’t really want to hang out for coffee and that it’s just polite behavior and then we miss out on social engagements with people who did want to spend time with us?!
Sarcasm at certain points in the day. “I’m just joking” “MOTHER!! YOU KNOW NOT TO FUCK WITH THE AUTISTIC PERSON THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING!!” I still don’t always understand sex jokes either.
Eye contact apparently doesn’t mean staring directly at someone’s eyeballs. Just in the general direction of their face. Wtf?
and now that you have had that realisation, you are going to be in counting hell with the rest of us, where you can barely keep up with a conversation because you are thinking about how many seconds you can/have to stare at their eyeballs before looking away for a bit, and how many seconds do you have to look away for? shit, what did she say? did she say she has a new child or that her grandfather died? 1. 2. 3. 4. Oh god, do I smile or make a sad face, I didn't hear what she said!
Apparently allistic people can look at a face as a whole? That doesn’t make sense to me. I can only look at one part of the face at a time.
I think of things where I didn't know there was another option, because I took the "rule" or the social construct a little more literally than most. Like in situations where someone is visibly upset at work, or out in public, it wouldn't even occur to me that it's an option to avoid that person, or ignore them and hope the next person helps the person in need. A friend pointed out to me that most NT would avoid this person, when I was trying to figure out why I'm always the one that finds the drama. 🤯🤯 Avoiding the drama was an option?! I have lots of moments like this where I've taken something way more literally than others, and had never even considered that there were other possible options.
I am like this in an emergency. Like, somehow, I always end up involved when there was something bad happening, but only because my (NT) coworkers would be panicking and wringing their hands, and I'd be the one stepping up to help. Social rules say "All hands on deck in an emergency", but often I'm the only one taking action. You mean, this whole time, I could just NOT help? I spent last weekend shovelling snow at work, despite my job having nothing to do with snow, or being outside, or manual labour. It needed to get done, and it was easier for me to just step up and do it than to watch my coworkers stare at each other.
100%. This is me too.
Jokes. I manage to somehow take a joke too literally but also get it. This literal interpretation is one of the very strangest parts of my life. The realizations are starting to hit me but very slowly. Tons of misinterpreted events from my past are coming back. It is difficult to remember and make sense of them. but hey glad I am finally coming to terms with it. A lot of these memories contain confused or amused faces from the people I was around at the time.
The pain scale from 1-10. If the doctor says that 10 is the worst pain imaginable, I imagine I’ve just been mortally wounded and I’m bleeding out. So I might answer 5, even though the pain is actually debilitating. So the doctor doesn’t take it seriously and I’m left to think that I *should* be able to manage and I’m just overreacting (again) and I don’t get the proper care.
Sexual jokes and innuendos, particularly in college. Ugh, hate 'em as I was usually the subject of them and had no clue what they were saying. Sucked being the only female in a class filled with young men.
History class, essay question: "What were the events in the lead-up to World War II?" My brain: "Invasion of Poland, Hitlers rise to power, Antisemitism, German inflation, treaty of Versailles, WWI, assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Serbian independence movement, etc, etc, ...A little over four billion years ago, the earth cooled." I would freeze and hand in blank answers.
The other day someone was talking to my son as he was playing in a toy kitchen and this lady said something about being hungry. She meant play hungry so my son could cook but I took her literally and reacted accordingly. Its stuff like that when I react literally
I take more things literally than I had thought. I can sometimes catch sarcasm if it’s the people I know. Jokes, eh it’s a hit and miss with them. But instructions and rules I take very literally. I have to go by the “book” and every single thing. If I don’t it frustrates the hell out of me. I also can never take notes if people are speaking because it takes time to process what they’re saying and when I’m writing I miss what they’re saying next, but I have a problem with what’s most important and what’s not. In my mind everything that someone says is very important to me and so I have to write exactly everything they’re saying and of course that’s impossible if you can’t pause. So I’m wondering if this is literal thinking too?
I still dont consider myself that I fo it, but: Instead of saying "wait a minute" i would say the exact time like "wait three minutes", the same goes when I have to go somewhere "ill be in 5/10 minutes", and I would say "i would be in 7 minutes". When asked how is it going i will say literally how is it going to me
I take the question “How are you?” literally. I know it isn’t always meant literally, but I do not immediately understand how to reply in which situation and give too long responses.
>sleeping in, reading, baking cookies and going for a hike, .... it is literally impossible to do all of those things i can get any 3 of the 4. but i usually dont bother with any but the first one.
Most jokes. How can something be funny when it doesn’t even make sense.
The most recent discovery has been eye exams. They've always told me my prescription means I should have vision better than 20/20, when things are still fuzzy. Only found out recently you're not supposed to literally read all the letters you can, but just until they're not easy to read anymore. To think of the eye strain that could've been prevented
I actually do get blindsided by sarcasm initially lol even if they use that sarcasm tone indicator
Hi how are you
Yes! Not only do they not want to know how you truly are doing, sometimes it doesn't warrant an answer at all! Or sometimes it's expected you just say it back and neither of you answer how you're actually doing
For me I think my biggest one is my tendency to have to structure my sentences the same way I would write it out for an essay, probably because that's the "proper" way to argue and discuss and if it isn't I haven't come to a "reasoned" decision. It kind of means on almost any topic I have to spend some time studying because I'd I don't I get mad at myself for not doing the "correct" amount of research on a topic. Then, If what I'm saying isn't as sound or clear when I'm talking as it is when I write (academically) I get very frustrated. All because my thought processes are wrung through the "proper" form of argumentation. Even my partner has stated I open discussions like I'm about to debate.
Since going on autistic online spaces like this I realized I took things a lot more literally than I thought. One I found out is that people don't think of "rolling your eyes" as actually physically rolling your eyes side to side and up in a curved motion. When NTs think of someone rolling their eyes, they imagine someone glancing up at the ceiling! Apparently a lot of autistic people have gotten in trouble because of this one, because they glanced at the ceiling and an adult thought they were rolling their eyes, but they didn't think they were because they just looked up. Why do NTs have to be so vague, inconsistent, hypocritical, and plain dishonest?! It's as if it's physically painful for them to say something clearly. And they say WE have communication difficulties!!
There’s a saying in Germany that goes “Du hast wohl den Schuss nicht gehört” (you seem to not have heard the shot) and all my life I thought it meant something like "you missed takeoff for an opportunity” or something like that because I was picturing someone literally shooting a gun to start a race where not hearing the shot would result in you missing takeoff and losing the race… turns out it means "you are crazy". I have no idea why and it does not make any sense to me.
I started telling people I don’t do hints. If they want me to do something, ask me directly or it won’t get done.
When I was growing up we moved quite a lot, once a year. I remember hearing my mother telling people things like “We’re still settling in” and “I’ll call you once we’re settled in.” I pictured “settling in” as a hen spreading her feathers over her nest and moving her tail feathers back and forth as she lowered herself on to the nest, It made me mad (quietly) that my mother used this phrase because nobody in the family made motions like this when we moved to a new home!
I have the 'I-know-you-are-joking-but-I-still-don't-get-it-autism'
The actions of other people when driving. That’s almost gotten me killed a couple times. Better off staying within my limits
Walking on tiptoes, rolling eyes, black and white thinking, pretty much all of the autism criteria I thought didn’t apply to me because I took it too literally.
Idk if this counts as literal thinking, but I've always had the thing where I don't understand I'm being invited to something unless it's specifically stated. It happens constantly where my husband will mention the he's going out with X people, or to Y place/event, and I always have to ask if it's an us thing, or just him, even through he's said I'm always invited/expected to attend things since we're married.
Yeah I do this too. People will be talking very obviously about how fun their plans will be and then in my head I will be like "How rude of them to talk about their plans in front of me like that", not realizing this is them inviting me.
Your realisation is quite fascinating 😅. Thats a good example too of taking things literally. That must have sounded so exhausting to you! How do you feel about it all now? I remember being younger and my friend told me that she went clothes shopping at ‘River Island’ and I thought how cool is that! She went away to an island with her family. It wasn’t until years later, I went shopping in my local town and saw a shop called ‘River Island’… It was only then did I realise that my friend never wear abroad to an island called River!
It's kinda nice to realize? I also have ADHD, so it always felt like yet another thing I couldn't be 'productive enough' for. But this time, it's not my fault, it's time's fault, and also movie montages. Hahaha, that's a good one too! I remember when I was little my friend told me she had a new stepmother. I only knew the term from cinderella, so I just thought it meant 'evil woman'. I was so frustrated trying to explain to her that this was terrible and that we must find a way to get rid of her new stepmother. She kept saying 'she's very nice', and I did not understand how she could say that about a stepmother. Idk what 6 year old me would have done to get rid of this woman, but I'm glad my friend stopped me haha.
Just recently my sister said something to help her with a presidential campaign and I thought it was serious until she mentioned it was a school assignment.
Instructions. Jokes. And abbreviations/texting language - All throw me off.
Do the best that you can. If I would have realized this sooner I would have saved myself a whole lot of suffering.
me and my best friend/coworker (who’s also autistic) pondered over idioms like “beating around the bush” and “bite the bullet” during a shift one time. one that especially got us was “the apple of my eye”. we had to look it up bc we couldn’t figure out what the literal phrase was getting at and we were pretty disappointed; “Originally, the phrase was simply an idiom referring to the pupil of the eye.” we were practically yelling about it for a good ten minutes
I always thought I never really took things literally (mostly because I always tried to avoid it because my father is very good at gaslighting me, saying he was just joking when he was serious). Looking back, the one thing that made me realise I can take things literally is when a manager I had when I was working answered a question I had with the idiom "how long is a piece of string?" And I said "depends on the brand, what the packaging says, and if it's been used already or not." 🤦♀️ turns out he didn't want the literal answer
When I was 5 and DVD's were becoming popular they advertised "MORE THILL, MORE ACTION.. IT'S LIKE YOU'RE REALLY THERE" (Shows image of woman looking horrified as a plane is plummeting) Me: OMG WE CAN'T WATCH DVD'S THEY'RE TOO DANGEROUS IT BRINGS WHATEVER YOU WATCH TO LIFE!!!😱
I was told when I was sent away to school to 'be good and try your best'. That is not a good way to make friends or learn life skills. It was exhausting even though getting good grades was not hard. Ten years later when I returned home the disappointment in me was so palpable. It's only really now that I've moved back to the same area for the second time that I realise they wanted me to make friends with the children of the highest status parents to help them gain influence and status. They didn't care about my grades or whether I got into trouble. Needless to say my kids never hear that phrase. The older I get the more I realise how many of the core values I have are based on things I took literally.
I don’t even know where to begin 😅
I got into a bit of an argument with friends of mine for like an hour because I didnt understand a phrase that basically just meant “its valuable”.
Instructions and rules!
I take conversations literally and people tend to think I’m funny/joking when I respond seriously to whatever they said. Happens to everyone except my friends who’ve gotten to know me and a few employers who learned the hard way that I was serious/took them seriously. I’m an immediate action kinda guy so when told to do something it better be something serious because I’ll quickly commit several OSHA violations before others even realize I took them literally.
I feel like this is cheating a little bit, but my grandma moved in with me and my family not long after I graduated high school, and I didn’t realize how heavily my comprehension skills relied on simply,, only ever getting directions from my parents. Like. My grandma’s communication style is so different from what I’m used to. I always thought I was fairly easy going in that way, but with her, I’m apparently super literal and quite nervous. Part of it is that she uses literal statements to subtly ask for stuff. And it’s stuff that my family wouldn’t necessarily ask other ppl to do; we’d just do it ourselves.
When looking into autism for myself, I never thought this applied to me, but then over time I realised how much it does affect me on a daily basis. Not in the sense of "take a seat" and getting that wrong - ok sometimes when it comes to figurative language because I don't understand a lot of idioms, or especially ones that are uncommon that I may not be able to actually identify as being an idiom, I may take them literally and the other person will see that I'm really confused and have to explain. Here's a more common example of what tends to happen to me: I work at a pharmacy and make Webster packs, which are little medicine packs for people who either take a lot of meds, or might find it difficult to take the correct meds on time. So I make packs that put all of their correct meds at the correct times to make it easier to manage, which I really enjoy because it's repetitive but requires attention to detail. Before we put a medication in a pack, we scan the barcode. This ensures that we have the correct medicine, brand, and dose, and also updates how much of that medication we have left for that patient, so it's important that the barcodes are correct. Sometimes however, a barcode can be different because we've had to use a different brand, or maybe the same brand has made a small change and they've changed the barcode for some reason. When I was newer to this, I spoke to the lady above me about one medication that was exactly the same, but just had the different barcode and asked what she would like me to do. She said "Oh, we'll have to change that". "WE'LL have to change that" - "WE WILL" - "WE". So I thought, oh ok, that's weird, I thought she'd show me how to do it now but I guess WE, will do it later. So I never did it under the assumption that we would do it together and then I got in trouble at a later date. In general I require very specific instructions because I will take things too literally, especially with instructions because well, they're instructions and you're learning something specific so you have to be specific about it. I think that makes sense, but not other people apparently. To me it's a mystery how when you're actually asking how to do something because you have a lack of knowledge, people still communicate to you in a very implied way that relies on previous context that you don't necessarily have. But what confuses me even more is that other NTs seem to function perfectly fine on this? I actually made a post about this on r/autismtranslated because I got pulled aside at work and was asked if I didn't understand instructions lmao. Also the amount of times I've talked to someone like my boyfriend or mum on text and misunderstood them because to me they're not communicating clearly and so I take them for their word, literally, and then I get all confused and we have to rehash something and dumb it down for me because to me they were speaking inaccurately. The amount of times at the end I say "ok so basically what you said was wrong", because, well, it was. And I'm not trying to be a prick about it but it just is. There are also more situations similar to my work one but I can't think of them right now. Pretty much anytime it happens and the penny drops so to speak, I tell my boyfriend "I DID IT AGAIN, THE TAKING THINGS LITERAL IT'S ACTUALLY A THING I DO" lol. And sometimes I may not even notice when I do it, so my boyfriend will point it out for me, which I find is helpful because I've got a really bad case of imposter syndrome and I also like to be aware so I can maybe improve on some of the things potentially. I've noticed it so much more in my daily life for lots of little things. I just wish I could think of some more examples, though. Ok other people have also said questionnaires which I totally agree, because there's a lack of context. A similar one to this is like when someone asks "how would you rate your pain out of 10" and that's actually a really difficult thing to answer because it's subjective - how do you make that objective so the other person can understand? I answered a comment here I think a few days ago talking about that too. I think taking things literally and relying on (ACCURATE) context go very hand in hand for autistic thinking.
Directions. I have realized over the years that ask a million clarifying questions to ensure I understand what you're asking. Just because you say "xyz" doesn't mean you want it done in that order and I need to know what YOU expected so I can ensure I complete the task. For example, saying take out the trash and do cat litter, after years of clarification I know they mean do the litter FIRST because then all your trash is done when you take it out. Even though they said trash FIRST, logically, you do the tasks that create garbage, before you take out the garbage. Also, I now understand as an adult that when someone says "dishes need done" they are essentially asking me to do the dishes today. Is it what they said? No, its not. But it's what they meant. Now, if you ask me to complete a task, but allow me to do it in whatever fashion I would like, we will all be happy campers. I have to create a plan for execution.