An allegorical story
Perhaps the most visible aspect of my Asperger’s – if you were actually to look for it – is the way in which I interact with other people.
There is quite a distinct style behind this, and some strongly embedded techniques that I use all the time to try and make my life easier.
First, I assume the other person is right by default, and I acknowledge this in lots of ways whilst I’m interacting with others. To do otherwise will often lead to me having to defend myself, and this feels both threatening, and difficult from the point of view of finding the right words.
Secondly, I’ll resort to communicating in a written way, if I can get away with it. In the office, email is king for me. By doing this, I can take more time to find the right words for what I’m trying to express. If you knew me, and really thought about it (I doubt people do), you’d realise that I can express myself far better in email than I can face to face.
I also use mimicry quite heavily, especially when in larger groups. If people laugh, then I laugh. I’m often not fully aware at what I’m laughing at, but I know that to blend in, I should laugh, so I do. Understanding the joke can come later, unless of course I’ve already reached the point of over-stimulation.
Perhaps the most intriguing technique I use is that of metaphor, analogy and allegory. This is a technique I’ve learned to apply frequently when I need to describe something to someone. It has been a technique many years in the making – probably a lifetime, and certainly from way before the prospect of having Asperger’s was ever on the horizon.
So, why do I use it?
I’ve always found it difficult to verbalise ideas and thoughts that are in my head. This, you may be surprised to hear is something of a new revelation to me, despite suffering from it my whole life. Mundane stuff can be easy to say, as can information about subjects which have become something of a special interest, but feelings, emotions, concepts, techniques and other things like that I frequently find difficult.
In the days before I understood that this might be part of a neurological condition, I realised that others found it difficult to understand what I was trying to convey to them when discussing something that I found difficult to put into words. I would get flustered, and would find that the more I tried to put it into words, the less sense it made to me, and unsurprisingly to the other person too. Suddenly, I would find that I didn’t have the words that adequately described how I perceived the concept in my head. What I didn’t know at the time, was whether the other person found my words to be difficult to interpret, or if it was the subject itself. I also didn’t understand why it was difficult for me – it just was, and that was that. In other words, I had no real concept as to whether others had the same difficulty in expressing things verbally in the same way that I did. I may even have assumed that they did, unless they were very obviously an extremely eloquent speaker.
My response to this was to try and find some other way to express what I was trying to say. Metaphor. Analogy. Allegory.
These techniques seemed to work very well for me, because they generally turned a concept in my head into some visual picture. A concept that was difficult for me to interpret could be shoe-horned into an allegorical story (well, just about), and it would then make far more sense to me. Then, when it came to trying to explain the concept to someone else, I’d resort to the allegory after my first attempt had caused confusion.
Does my use of these techniques help the other person to understand? I used to think that it always helped. That isn’t true, though. The real picture is that sometimes, yes, it helps. Other times, no.
What I can say with some certainty is that it helps me tremendously, much of the time. By turning a difficult concept or thought into a silly situation with characters that I can picture, it instantly makes more sense to me.
These days, I wonder if the language in my head is different from that of the typical person. I know, for instance, that I’m a very visual thinker. Could it be that the way that I process thoughts and feelings uses different techniques than a typical person? Might this explain why I don’t seem to have a very appropriate language to turn my thoughts into verbalised words? Might it also explain why I find feelings so difficult to explain, and why I find concepts difficult too? Maybe these things do have a language of sorts inside my head, but the language is not the same one I verbally use. Indeed it’s happening right now, even in writing. I have a picture in my head of how this might work, but I can’t find the right words to describe it.
One thing is for sure though – in my tool kit that helps me make sense of the world, allegory is one of the first tools that I reach for.
Was that a metaphor?
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9 Comments to “An allegorical story”
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James, I have exactly the same problem only I have not come up with a functional solution. It is so disheartening. I also tend to mimic OR perhaps it is the parts of me that feel the most comfortable come out. I am never even close to the full me around others. It makes me sad to realize no one will ever really know me. Just different parts.
Eileen,
Have you tried the use of metaphor or allegorical stories? I’m sure my use of them started almost by accident, but they really do help, at least some of the time. And like I said, when I can, I resort to email etc., to get my point across.
I think it’s a touch rash to write off anyone ever knowing you fully. It’s true, I think, that neurotypical people will never understand fully the way you work (and likewise you won’t fully understand them), but whose to say that you won’t find a close friend in another person on the spectrum, who in time really does fully understand you? I see no reason at all why that couldn’t happen.
James
I too communicate better through written word and have difficulty explaining what’s in my head to others. I’ve tried metaphor, and I’m still perfecting it because often, even the metaphor makes sense to only me. I like the method of delivery though! It gives me a chance to try to explain myself and be creative at the same time.
jonah,
Absolutely – I’ve had people look at me like I’m very odd on many occasions when I resort to telling a story to explain myself. It makes perfect sense to me, but clearly not to them.
It does work some of the time where a conventional description has failed, and as I said in the article, the allegorical story helps me make sense of things too, so it’s certainly useful from that point of view.
“Metaphor. Analogy. Allegory.”
I don’t think I use these as a response to anything, it feels like the natural way to me.
My mimicry is not particularly conscious although I borrow other people’s mannerisms quite a lot.
I do have trouble explaining things though. Will be going to GP again, this time with an advocate.
Soph,
Interesting isn’t it? You’re not sure what the correct mannerism to use is, and you don’t feel like you have a natural response, so you borrow someone elses. I do this a lot.
I hope the trip to the GP goes better for you this time. Let us know how you get on.
James,
What really interests me about this is the visual thinking you refer to. I was reading Tony Attwood’s The Complete Guide to Asperger’s over the weekend and I was surprised to read that “People with Asperger’s syndrome have a different way of thinking, sometimes thinking in pictures rather than words.”
What surprises me is not that some people are visual thinkers, rather it is the implication that most people (particularly NTs) don’t think in pictures but in words. Perhaps that should have been obvious to me but although I’ve always been conscious of thinking in a very visual way myself I hadn’t actually thought that everybody else must be thinking in words… It appeared obvious to me that the visual is innate and more immediate and that language is something that we then apply to the visual image to enable communication.
I thought I was on a slightly different wavelength to other people but perhaps I hadn’t appreciated just how different that might be.
Jake
Jake,
You describe it very well – it really is like language is something that we apply to the pictorial representations to enable communication.
I too was surprised to discover that not everyone thought about things in the way I did. But then again, we only have our own experience to go on, as people don’t tend to express how they think about things very often, so why would we have had cause to think we were unusual?
I’m sure that plenty of people without ASDs have visual thoughts too, but these days I’ve accepted that it isn’t the norm. Maybe it goes a good deal of the way towards explaining why I find it difficult to turn a thought into verbalised idea – sometimes the correct words simply don’t exist.