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taking "things to heart" - in general! "literally

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Taking 'things' literally ( to heart) causes constant arguements/friction in the household with parents especially my mum anything I do to try and decrease these situations from occuring? I think parents sometimes forget It AS based tend to annoy them both! Which upsets me! Does anyone have this situation?

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I never really understood what people meant when they say 'taking things literally' and some of the examples given were absurd in my view - like the "don't walk" scene in Rainman where he's crossing the road and suddenly the red "don't walk" sign shows up and he stops in the middle of the road. Sure it depends on where you fit on the spectrum but I think what 'taking things literally' means is more to do with not reading between the lines.

 

Anyone who has ever watched the TV sitcom Lovejoy for example will perhaps be inspired by how Lovejoy (played by Ian McShane) interacts with other characters in the programme. It's as if he communicates with them on a whole other level and this is the level to which many not on the spectrum engage/reciprocate at. And I think this is what it means by taking 'things too literally' - it means not being able to naturally engage socially on the kind of level someone like Lovejoy interacts at.

 

Does anyone else know of any other famous characters who are able to communicate at the 'normal' level who perhaps those who take things literally can draw inspiration/understanding from?

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I am getting therapy from a psychologist just now.

 

he has suggested that i have a range of terms that i can understand are not to be taken literally.

 

eg

 

i will only be a second,

 

so that whenever i hear such a phrase i can ignore the literal bit, i translate it to "they will be some time".

 

I am having difficulty expanding the range of phrases that i can overcome like that.

 

Having recently started a new relationship ( I am 45 ) although other half was pleasant, they would just open their mouth and make noise - ie the words they used were ambigious to me, i was unable to understand what they meant.

 

this resulted in me asking in lots of questions to check underastanding, because i did not want to get the meaning wrong.

 

the relationship ended after a couple of months, one of the reasons she gave was that she felt that she was "treading on eggshells" and had to think too hard about what she was saying so that i did not ask her questions to check my understanding.

 

The topic of loose english used by others, is a big problem for me.

 

best wishes,

alexon

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I often take things to heart when I shouldn't. I usually do this with people I don't know very well because if it's my parents or my sister I have known them a long time. So when it happens with them I can tell myself that they sometimes say things that they don't mean, and remind myself of the last time they did it.

 

The problem with AS is trying to accept that others can make no sense at all at times. I think it's best not to try to understand why they do this, but just to accept that this happens. Just like they must accept the various baffling things we may do as a part of our AS, even though they'll never truly understand our point of view.

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The topic of loose english used by others, is a big problem for me.

 

That is a major bugbear for me too. Especially when shop signs and websites use apostrophes incorrectly and people use wrong homophones like 'there' when they mean 'they're' or 'their'. The only thing that annoys me more is when I tell someone and they just think "Who cares?".

:angry:*fume*

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That is a major bugbear for me too. Especially when shop signs and websites use apostrophes incorrectly and people use wrong homophones like 'there' when they mean 'they're' or 'their'. The only thing that annoys me more is when I tell someone and they just think "Who cares?".

:angry:*fume*

 

 

Same here :wallbash:

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