social skills they don’t teach us

Even more on learning no

June 27, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

Boundaries are complicated.

Sometimes you want someone to stop doing something, and you have every right to demand that they stop. Sometimes you don’t, because it’s something they have every right to do.

Sometimes it depends on the relationship.

Sometimes it’s very, very ambiguous.

Sometimes it’s the kind of thing where it’s ok to ask, but not ok to demand.

And this works in reverse. Sometimes it’s ok for people to demand that you stop doing something; sometimes it’s ok to ask but not demand; sometimes it depends on the relationship; sometimes it’s ambiguous.

When you’ve been taught that you aren’t allowed to have any boundaries, part of what that means is that you’ve probably been prevented from learning the tools to tell which things it is and isn’t ok to demand, insist on, or request. The relationships and various categories of obligations are probably unbelievably confusing.

Part of learning how to have boundaries is learning how to respect other people’s boundaries. Respecting boundaries isn’t at all the same as deferring to people, but the difference can be really hard to sort out.

This means that when you start learning to have boundaries, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. You’re going to demand things it’s not really ok to demand, and you’re going to refuse things it’s not really ok to refuse. You’re going to make mistakes about other people’s boundaries.

And you’re going to hurt people, including yourself.

That’s unavoidable, because it takes time to learn these things. This doesn’t mean you should give up.

Sometimes, while you’re learning about boundaries and making a lot of mistakes that hurt yourself and others, you might feel like you should give up. You might feel like you are irredeemably bad, and that maybe you’re just too awful to allowed to have boundaries. You might even feel like you’re too irredeemably awful to have the right to live (I’ve felt that, at times). These are really common and normal feelings for people who are learning this, but they’re not the reality.

You have the right to exist. You can learn this. You can learn how to have boundaries and respect other people’s boundaries. You can learn how to keep yourself safe and still treat other people well.

You have a lot to learn, and you have to keep caring how you treat people. It’s important to keep actively paying attention to your boundaries and other people’s. You have to continually work on it and improve, in both directions. You have to do the best you can, learn from your mistakes, and try to do better. You can do this.

It’s ok that you are going to make a lot of mistakes. It’s not ok to ignore the mistakes you make. Part of learning to assert boundaries means that there are a lot of other skills you have to learn about understanding obligations and treating other people well. This gets messy.

You also have to accept that some of your mistakes are going to have consequences. On the extreme end, you might hurt people in ways that mess up relationships while you’re learning. Some mistakes you make might be deal-breaking for people you’d really like to remain close with. Even if it is not entirely your fault, even if you messed up ought of honest confusion, it still might be legitimately deal-breaking for someone else. You might get banned from cons you like. You might get fired. You might lose your place in a group you valued. It’s awful when that happens, but it’s bearable. It doesn’t mean you should give up. It means you should take what you’ve done seriously, keep learning, and leave the person you hurt alone if that’s what they want.

Even when it’s not your fault you don’t know how to treat people, other people don’t have to tolerate it when you treat them badly. They also don’t have to sympathize, forgive you, or listen to explanations about how you came to misunderstand the situation.

That’s the extreme end. That might not happen. What will definitely happen is that you will hurt people in more minor ways that almost everyone your age knows how to avoid. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but you do have to take responsibility for what you do, fix things if you can, and keep learning.

This is hard, but it’s important, possible, and worth it.

Don’t give up.

More on learning to say no

June 26, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

When you first start learning how to say no, you won’t know how to do it politely.

This means that you’ll offend people. Even when you have every right to say no. Even when everyone agrees that it’s ok to say no.

Asserting boundaries politely is a skill worth acquiring, if you can do it. But that takes time and practice. It’s something that’s learned alongside learning how to have boundaries; it’s not something you can learn first as a prerequisite for being allowed to have boundaries.

And when you haven’t figured out how to say no politely, the reactions you get might look to you like evidence that you really *can’t* say no. It might look to you like you have to choose between having no boundaries, or hurting people in unreasonable ways.

This is especially true if you are a disabled person who has learned to pass as nondisabled by following rules. A lot of disabled people are taught that they must pass at all costs, and taught not to asset boundaries as part of this. Starting to learn to have boundaries will probably undermine your ability to pass. That can be terrifying, and some ways people react might be triggering. But you’re ok. You’re not broken. You’re allowed to have boundaries, even if it means looking weird. Even if it breaks rules. Even if people are offended. You are a person and you have rights.

The rules for politely asserting boundaries are really complicated. It takes time and practice to learn these rules. And not everyone can master them. And even people who can have to be rude sometimes in order to have boundaries, and that’s ok too. Being able to be polite is not a prerequisite for having rights.

It’s ok to say no, and it’s ok to have a rough time learning how.

Hunger can impair communication

June 15, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

Some people who can usually use language to communicate lose a lot of their words if they get too hungry.

When you’re hungry, you don’t have as many cognitive resources available, and some of what is available gets taken up by dealing with hunger. For some people, this can mean that the resources needed for language simply aren’t there.

If you’re finding that you often can’t speak well in the middle of the day, it’s possible that you are forgetting to eat. This might be the case even if you don’t feel hungry.

If you get used to not eating properly, it can be hard to notice hunger. If you’re too hungry for too long, sometimes you get used to automatically ignoring the sensations of hunger, which can make them hard to identify.

If you’re experiencing sudden cognitive or communication impairment, and you haven’t eaten recently, it might be a side effect of hunger. Sometimes, if you get too accustomed to the sensations of hunger, you don’t notice feeling hungry until it stops you from thinking well.

If you used to be able to use language reliably but are experiencing seriously diminished ability, it might mean that you haven’t been eating properly for a long time.

Hunger isn’t the only reason some people have intermittent language problems, and it’s not the only reason people lose language skills in a longer-term way. But it’s very common for people with communication disabilities to have dramatically worse communication problems when they are chronically hungry.

If you’re having communication problems that seem to be more severe than you expect, it’s worth checking to see if you’re also having trouble eating enough. And if you are, it’s worth making fixing that a priority.

Getting therapy doesn’t mean renouncing all boundaries

June 10, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

If you want to try therapy (OT/PT/psych/CBT/whatever):

Keep in mind that you’re under no obligation to do so
You should do it if it helps you, and not if it doesn’t
It’s ok to judge this for yourself
If the therapist doesn’t respect you, find a different one (if you still want to continue trying therapy; it’s ok to decide not to)
If the therapist seems to prefer for you to be in pain, that’s a problem
Whether it’s emotional or physical pain
Some therapy inevitably involves a certain amount of pain, but it’s a major red flag if a therapist seems to be pursuing it as an end in itself
You do not need your therapist’s permission to quit
If they keep convincing you in person to continue, but you always want to quit when you’re not with them, it’s ok to end the therapy over the phone or email
Or to just quit making appointments
Some therapists are really good at manipulating people into doing things that are bad for them, and you don’t have to cooperate with that

About rocking

January 10, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

Among other things: Rocking is body language. Rocking is emotions.

There is a slow happy!rock. And an anxiety!rock. And anger. And affection. And any number of others. And they are not the same.

And it is possible to look and understand. It is possible to learn how to read rocking, to know what it’s showing.

This is body language. Meaning shown on a body.

They tell us that we do not have body language, that we have a flat affect. And then they try to make this true; they try to flatten us and stop us from moving and showing emotional body language.

But we aren’t flat. We have body language. And rocking is part of it. (And any number of other movements. Not just rocking. But rocking is on my mind.)

I can’t tell you how to read it. Not much. Not yet. I’m trying to figure out some of the words for that. It is hard to describe body language in words, even body language that is socially valued enough that a lot of people have tried. All the more so this.

What I can tell you is that autistic movement is meaningful. Not mysterious. Not ethereal. Not in-another-world. Meaningful, present, and possible to understand.

(Not simple. Communication between people is never simple, and never formulaic. Meaningful. Complicated.)

Keep that in mind. The first step to understanding is knowing that there is something to understand.

A red flag: “I’m not that kind of person”

January 6, 2013June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

Any variant of this conversation is a major red flag:

Person: Please stop doing x
Other person: I would never x! I’m not the kind of person who does x!

Or this:

Person: I’ve had problems with x in the past. Please make sure not to x.
Other person: How dare you suggest I am the kind of person who would x?!

Or this:

Person: Please x.
Other person: Of course I’m going to x! How dare you say I wouldn’t?!

Here are some less abstract examples:

Person: Please stop pulling my hair
Other person: I’m not pulling your hair! I’m just brushing it. That doesn’t hurt. I’m not the kind of person who hurts people when I brush their hair.

And this:

Person: I’ve had problems in the past with roommates eating my food. Can you reassure me that you won’t eat my food?
Other person: I’m not the kind of person who eats other people’s food. Why would you say that about me?!

And this:

Person: When are you going to pay me back the money I lent you?
Other person: I’m going to pay you back! I’m not the kind of person who neglects to pay people back!

In all of these cases, Other Person is construing a conversation about a problem, or a request to solve a problem, as an attack on their character. Most people don’t want to attack the character of others, especially on issues that aren’t quite deal-breaking, and so often, this works and gets them to drop the issue and let Other Person keep doing the objectionable thing.

There aren’t kinds of people who do bad things, and kinds of people who do good things. Everyone does bad things sometimes; it is important to be aware of this and correct problems you cause. Making everything about whether you are The Kind Of Person who does bad things prevents you from seeing and fixing your mistakes.

Acting this way is *really nasty*. Don’t do it, and don’t let others trick you with it.