Yet another random twenty-something autistic computer geek somewhere in the Boston area. (Like that narrows anything down...)
I’m once again realizing, as I attempt to watch this Hatfields and McCoys miniseries on the History Channel, just how faceblind I am.
Not being able to tell Major Hatfield Family Member from Major McCoy Family Member without really staring intently… yeah, this is just a bit of a problem.
This isn’t the first time I’ve managed to mistake mortal enemies for one another in a TV show or movie, either. Happened to me with one of the recent James Bond movies, too, which is…just a bit embarrassing.
…Seriously, why are pr0n spammers invading the ‘autism’ tag now? Is it because of a certain Playmate? Because that’s the only thing that would even remotely make sense…
It continues to amaze me how just plain dodgy my auditory processing is.
Just tried watching a few minutes of a TV episode on Netflix with subtitles off at my uncle’s house, because their streaming Blu-Ray player didn’t support that functionality of Netflix. Gave up after quite a few lines of dialogue that sounded sort of like…gibberish with a few recognizable words thrown in. Sort of like, “Gskdhafklh street aksdjfhla flskjdahf tree asdfhka klhdfah old man.” (Seriously, actors mumble these days, I swear.)
And then I watched the same episode through my computer, which does support Netflix subtitles. And not only could I make out those lines that sounded half-gibberish to me, but there were others that I realized I hadn’t picked up on even though I thought I had heard them.
And this sort of thing happens to me regularly. It’s also why I don’t see movies theatrically much— for that price, I ought to understand far more of the dialogue than I actually get. Though I may start doing it more now that the theater at Fenway has introduced closed-captioning glasses, which seem like an awesome idea if they actually fit decently over my prescription lenses (which is a big ‘if’).
Sometimes I find it really ironic that I have visual processing issues that can be kind of huge sometimes, and yet rely heavily on subtitles for about 90% of things I watch.
One weird thing with me: I have a hard time processing just general visual info (and especially with spatial stuff), but my visual processing works fairly decently with written text.
Yet on the other hand, my auditory processing is much better suited to music than to speech…
Cannot focus on writing because people are constantly making background noise by walking, talking, and shuffling about.
Credit: Anonymous Submission.
Replace “writing” with “programming” and this is basically every day at work for me.
It continues to amaze me how much easier it is for me to understand text than speech in real time. And how much more I get from text than from spoken conversation.
It’s seriously like I’m smiling and nodding and not even realizing I’m doing it.
And I swear that my auditory memory seems to be getting even worse lately…
I think instead of Spoon Theory I’m going to start thinking of it as “hearts,” like in Legend of Zelda.
“Sorry, man, I’d love to help you, but I’m down to like half a heart and I’ve got that awful ‘BLINGGG BLINGGG BLINGGG’ noise going right now.”
YES. I love this.
Well, I guess there is one thing that autistic people and asexual people do have in common:
Frequently, if not constantly, being misunderstood by normative people.
I just saw the documentary (A)Sexual at Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square today.
The movie actually briefly mentions that there seem to be a lot of asexuals on the internet who are also autistic. And in fact, this is mentioned because one of the people profiled in the movie is explicitly identified as being on the autistic spectrum. (Which is more than can be said for a certain other documentary which said that such a fact was irrelevant…)
So yay. I’m not the only one to have noticed this!
Edited to add: Also, the meetup afterward was a thing of utter awesomeness. *waves at anyone who was there*
I’m honesty glad nobody used the term “quiet hands” with me as a kid.
Because, given my reaction to other figurative phrases, I just know I would’ve been left utterly confused at best, and probably punished for insubordination at worst.
(“But I am hand-flapping quietly!”)
