Unanswerable Autism screening questions?!?

[Parkerpenny]

My counsellor went through some screening questions with me.

Here's an example.

Do you know what people's motives are or whether you can tell if people are getting bored? If you didn't realise, you wouldn't realise that you hadn't realised! How would I know?!

All week, I've been wondering whether everyone is secretly bored of me and remembering lots of times I have actually misunderstood others' motives (but wouldn't have realised I was misunderstanding so would have initially answered no to the question.)

Lots of the questions I found confusing as I couldn't objectively compare my experience to anyone else's.

Surely someone knows what I mean here? Ha ha ha!!

Was the counsellor maybe asking if you notice when people are getting bored in conversation with you, for example if you talk for a long time on a single topic? (Not saying this happens obvs!)

"Do you know what people's motives are or whether you can tell if people are getting bored? If you didn't realise, you wouldn't realise that you hadn't realised! How would I know?!"

Have you ever been really enjoying a conversation and then been surprised when someone suddenly goes to talk to someone else instead?

Have you ever thought someone was your friend then realised that they did unkind things?

Have you ever been confused by the way people behave and can't quite work it out?

The question isn't about your deep understanding of their motives. It's about whether you pick up the subtle signs that people don't necessarily feel the way you think they do.

Yes, that was the question.

I said I try not to be boring! Ha ha.

I have learned to 'give and take' over the years except with those closest to me and they tend to get the monologues. I am a trained listener as it happens but younger me would be asked to shut up!

I feel sad that I could really be inadvertently boring.

It's things like: noticing when someone is asking what you do for a living as a polite conversation filler Vs wanting an in depth description of your job duties and day to day work life. DH, for example, can get into a detailed conversation about legionella testing protocols and how the LA policies are inadequate when people really want to hear 'I run a school site team.'

They're not unanswerable if you're NT, I believe. I think that's the point. Autism causes communication difficulties.

@Lougle

OMG - cringe. Yes, yes, yes and yes. This is so sad! It's embarrassing for me to look at!

However, I DO have a lot of interesting conversations that last and are two sided (with interesting people).

I have found a lot of friendships bewildering but have some rock solid ones as well.(Unless I'm misinterpreting massively!)

What would a NT person say and how would they know they weren't just not realising all of these things? (They could just THINK they were getting along just fine.)

OP I wouldn't discuss this with anyone any more. If you have people explaining what the questions mean, it could skew the results of the test. They need your answers directly when you're asked the questions, not after 2 weeks deliberation with multiple people explaining it all.

Superficial connections don't interest me as much as deeper ones. I struggle with boundaries and oversharing and can't understand why anyone wants to stay superficial (small talk). However, I try not to be too probing/nosey but maybe it's the subjects I steer towards.

Some people share reciprocal and I can have some really warm interactions as I am (over) empathetic.

This doesn't match my preconceived views of autism and it's a surprise that I scored highly on a counsellor's assessment.

Does anyone relate to this? X

Does anyone relate to this?

Very. It's a myth that autistic people don't want friends. Some people also do better at the social stuff than others. Especially if you've spent a lifetime masking and copying others to fit in. The spectrum doesn't range from "mild" to "severe" (although, confusingly, I've heard they might be grading it that way now). It's a collection of symptoms and their effects, a person could have any combination of any of those symptoms and effects. There's a web page somewhere called "aspergian: spectrum doesn't mean what you think it does".

Good point. Thanks. I think it's just been a bit confusing. I thought I might be ADHD but shocked to get a high score elsewhere and hoped to make sense of the maelstrom in my head!

So, I’ve done a fair number of these screenings in mental health settings. They are not very clearly worded, which is silly given what they’re screening for - though in my experience most solidly NT people seem to have little trouble reading between the lines.

If you’re boring people without realising, chances are someone (a parent, a teacher, a friend) might have brought it up to you at some point, which is how you might know you hadn’t realised.

The question also wants to know if you can relate to the experience of recognising you’re boring someone. We all bore some people some of the time, it’s just a fact of life. Most people can recognise when the other party is losing interest. It feels pretty crappy, and you tend to remember the feeling. If you have no recollection of ever feeling anyone is bored with you, chances are you are either missing some cues, or the feeling of boring someone doesn’t particularly bother you, which both suggest some differences in social communication.

The question about misunderstanding people’s motives isn’t asking whether you can be 100% sure you objectively understand them, but it’s trying to gauge whether you are commonly confused by how people behave or communicate.

People who have trouble inferring others’ motives might be taken by surprise when someone who invites them in for coffee after dinner out together then tries to kiss them, for example. They assumed the invite was literally just for coffee, as explicitly stated - and didn’t spot the sexual / romantic intent.

People who have trouble understanding others’ motives might also find it difficult to make sense of it when someone ends a conversation by saying ‘we must catch up for a coffee soon’ and then never arranges or accepts invitations to catch up over coffee. They don’t realise this is a throwaway comment intended to end a conversation kindly.

It’s this sort of thing they’re after.

In my experience the more deeply and offensively nonsensical the questions seem to someone, the more likely it is there’s some neurodiversity at play. Not because the questions aren’t woolly and imprecise, but because ND people are significantly more troubled by wooliness and lack of precision.

FFS my edits aren't working.
It's a myth that autistic people don't want friends. Some people are better at the social stuff than others. Especially if they've spent a lifetime masking and copying others to fit in.

The spectrum doesn't range from "mild" to "severe". (Although, confusingly I've heard they're sometimes grading it that way now.) It's a collection of symptoms and their effects. A person could have any combination of those symptoms and effects. There's also three main (and important) areas of life that all autistic people struggle with, that's what the screening is for, I think. If you don't meet that criteria, you're not autistic, even if you have other traits associated with it. There's a webpage somewhere called "aspergian: spectrum doesn't mean what you think it does" that explains it better than I can.

Yes, but I'm diagnosed with Autism, so that's not going to help you much!

As an autistic woman I can objectively see people's motives and intentions in relation to other people. I'm just a bit rubbish at realising that stuff in my own interactions.

Thanks for all of your responses. I'm not quite sure how to quote little bits of a post or reply to one person but I've read all of the replies here.

To answer that question you'd need to ponder whether you've ever had a suspicion that you're boring someone or whether you've ever wondered about someone's motives. If never, then you may land somewhere on the spectrum.

This.

I feel sad that I could really be inadvertently boring.

I couldn't read this and run, I just wanted to say that I'm sure you're far from boring. Some of the most interesting people I know are autistic. I find myself fascinated with the most unusual topics that would never normally interest me because the person talking about it is so enthusiastic and knowledgeable.

@VoltaireMittyDream Well... that HAS happened to me. The sudden realisation that a man wanted more I thought we were just having a nice friendship. I've always felt guilty that I had accidentally led them on especially one time when it was someone senior to me.

Conversely, I didn't realise when I was being cheated on. More than once. I've deep down thought I'm very stupid/naive.

And the 'we must meet for a coffee' means that I should look in my diary and organise an actual date because why else would anyone say it?!

@Ficklebricks aw thank you. That's sweet.

I am an introverted extrovert if there is such a thing! Socially awkward but once I find my feet, there's no stopping me.