An except from Twirling Naked in the Streets and No-One Noticed…
A Voice in a Fake World; Asperger’s on the Inside
A simple invite to a coffee shop can be an overwhelming experience for an Aspie, those of us with Asperger’s Syndrome. The coffee machine frothing, customers placing orders, the door opening and shutting letting in the distracting sounds from the outside are just a few of the background noises that my senses fail to filter out. All the sounds come at me at the same time, all wanting my immediate attention.
I desperately want to stick my orange and green foam earplugs into my ears, but that would be rude. Besides, they make me look the bride of Frankenstein. I slip my hand into my pocket and squish them between my fingers instead. The cushiony feel of them between my fingertips makes me feel better; a stress ball and security blanket in one.
Several women sit at the table sipping lattes and discussing their kids, the neighbor’s new boyfriend, and the latest church gossip. It all sounds like noise, jumbled words that all blend together, and I cannot hone in on any one voice, on any one topic, or any one conversation. I fidget in my seat. I’m lost and I can’t keep up, so I say nothing; I have no voice.
The sun shines through the glass sending blinding rays directly at our table; no-one else notices. I slip my sunglasses over my eyes. We are just a tad too close to the restrooms, and when the door swings open the faint smell of urine mixes with the smell of cappuccino in the air. My stomach churns, jumps, and I try not to heave; no-one else smells it.
The conversation fades into the background as I retreat into my own world. I have nothing to contribute, no idle chitchat to add. My mind is wondering—contemplating the next chapter of my book, my next blog post, the mound of books that I want to get back home to read. Back home to my computer screen. I love my computer—all my friends live in there, the people who I can talk to, the ones like me, the ones who understand me.
My cellphone dings, and I smile on the inside. I steal a glance at the phone; do not be rude! A little square green face pops onto the screen. I know I received a text message. Another ding, a small envelope—an email is waiting. A tiny pastel blue bird chirps—a new tweet mentioned me. The royal blue “F” indicating a new Facebook message or comment has my fingers tapping the screen, forgetting where I am.What do my virtual friends have to say?
Their words are in black and white, I can read them, process them, take a breath, and think about what I would like to say. I respond in my time, without pressure, without chitchat, with earplugs in, with quiet contemplation. They speak in turn, one message to read at a time, and if I miss a word I can go back and reread it again. No strange looks for wearing my sunglasses indoors, or odd stares because I didn’t get the joke. If I am overwhelmed I don’t have to respond immediately; I can breathe; I can be me.
In my virtual world I have a voice. I can “talk” without worrying about how I sound, if I spoke out of turn, or unwittingly offended someone. I can put my words to the page in a logical order, say what I mean, and mean what I say. In my fake world, I am real, I am alive, and I have something worthwhile to say. In the real world, I am fake, voiceless, a mannequin, posing, pretending to fit in. I grasp for logic, meaning, and order–but there is none.
The conversation died down, but I hadn’t noticed. Purses were gathered, and coffee cups cleared. “We’ll have to do this again soon,” followed by a polite smile. Was she talking to me? Soon? How soon, when?
“Um, Ok,” I say. I sling the strap to my purple purse across my shoulder, unclip my car keys from the belt loop on my jeans, grab my phone from the table, stick it into my back pocket, and head for the door—glad that my coffee with strangers is over. Exhausted.
The next time I am invited to attend, I say I will, but won’t show up.
This reminds me in very small measure of the process I go through when I attend sf/f conventions. At home, I spend a lot of time in silence or moving slowly through conversations — this is what comes from hanging out with Quakers and Buddhists! At cons (where I am usually a panelist), I have to to “revv up” my brain, to react too fast, to cut short the silence before I speak (which means I have less time to really listen to what the other person is saying, or I have to sort through my own thoughts while I am listening, getting ready to jump in at the slightest pause, which means half of me is not present in the conversation). I don’t mean to compare what to me is a tiring but manageable challenge to what you face every day. I can only imagine how difficult it is to deal with this kind of thing all the time.
Ps. Sorry, a quick complaint: it took me in total 6-8 attempts for the two comments above to convince your blog’s software that I am not a robot. I think the word verification process is too difficult, making it cumbersome to comment on your blog (alternatively, I am a word verification retard, which is also quite likely).
I am sorry to hear that you had difficulty responding. I am hoping it was a crazy glitch that day. I also lost all of my stats that blogger was keeping for page views etc. for a while on the same day. So–I am hoping that it was an isolated problem. It would really bite if others had difficulty too!
Thank you for persevering!
Hi Jeannie. Thank you for replying to my comments back in October 2012 and sorry for not replying back, I did not notice! WordPress usually notifies me of replies to my comments, and I sometimes forget that it doesn’t happen for blogs on other platforms! So I just assume there were no replies. I get notified about comment replies on your other blog (Twirling) automatically, but not this one. Sorry for any missing replies, I don’t mean to comment and then not read the replies.
And I see there is no Word Verification anymore… Which is great, thanks!
“Their words are in black and white, I can read them, process them, take a breath, and think about what I would like to say. I respond in my time, without pressure, without chitchat, with earplugs in, with quiet contemplation. They speak in turn, one message to read at a time, and if I miss a word I can go back and reread it again. No strange looks for wearing my sunglasses indoors, or odd stares because I didn’t get the joke. If I am overwhelmed I don’t have to respond immediately; I can breathe; I can be me.”
Very well written! That is precisely why I tend to prefer online/written socialising over than face to face socialising!
I have only recently taken to socializing online. Maybe because of all the tension involved in socialization in the past I shyed away from all socialization (online included).
I am extremely glad that I decided to take a chance and give the online/written route a try. What a difference a kind word from someone who actually knows how you feel makes! That is hard for me to find in “real” life.
Yes finding ‘kindred souls’ (~ people who experience aspects of the world in similar ways) has been very helpful.
“A simple invite to a coffee shop can be an overwhelming experience for an Aspie, those of us with Asperger’s Syndrome. The coffee machine frothing, customers placing orders, the door opening and shutting letting in the distracting sounds from the outside are just a few of the background noises that my senses fail to filter out. All the sounds come at me at the same time, all wanting my immediate attention.”
That sounds precisely like how I experience a meeting in a cafe! Very well written! ‘All the sounds come at me at the same time’… spot on!
I wouldn’t usually go to a chick chit-chat coffee meet-up in a cafe (if I was invited) because there is no point. I suffer from the background noise, can’t concentrate on nothing, high-pitched noise is painful (beeps, high-pitched laughter and other sudden high-pitched sounds), I can’t hear what people say (it ‘all arrives at once’ as you describe it… the sounds get tangled up and I struggle to pull out the meaning) and have to ask them to repeat it repeatedly, and I don’t actually like random chat & gossip… so it is a totally loose-loose situation, and people are better off without me there.
However, I like to have coffee with my husband and 1-2 of his friends if it isn’t too noise, that is, WITH ear plugs. I always wear ear plugs indoor in a cafe (and many other situations) because otherwise it is too stressful. I don’t think it is a problem to talk with people while wearing ear plugs, as long as they can’t see them (otherwise they’ll start shouting when they talk to you). Foam ear plugs don’t need to be in flashy colours. Mine are skin coloured and supposedly unnoticeable when I have my hair down, especially if the part that sticks outside the ears is cut off (reducing the size does reduce the effect a bit, but it is still much better than not wearing any). I wrote about them in this post (scroll down), which is about a business meeting in a cafe but the strategies are useful in many other situations.
I think socialising is often easier with ear plugs because it helps filter some of the background noise out and reduces the tangle overall so it is easier to listen to one person at the time. Of course your problems and possible solutions may work in a different way, but it sounds like a quite similar issue from your description. I have outlined my problems with noise sensitivity here.
Our noise sensitivity does sound very similiar. At times it has gotten to the point that I put my crazy colored ear plugs in and have to not care. I attended a meeting in my son’s school to sign him up for Cub Scouts. I had not choice, I had to pop those ear plugs in. If I had not, I would not have been able to fill out the sign-up forms. I could not get my brain to work and even understand the writing on the page with all the chaos.
If you wear skin-coloured ear plugs and are strategic with your hair (don’t put it up in a pony tail or other ways that visually expose your ears) then people won’t notice the ear plugs, and you won’t have to worry about what they think (~one problem less) and can wear them all the time if you like. That is what I do (I mean in all noisy situations such as supermarkets, cafes etc).