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    Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker
    Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker
    Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker
    Ebook330 pages6 hours

    Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker

    By Travis Breeding

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    About this ebook

    Has something ever seemed a bit off about someone you met? Have you considered they might have Asperger Syndrome? This book is full of confessions from a former stalker who has Asperger Syndrome. The author explains his thinking and reasoning behind what he thinks is logical behavior that women think is creepy. Learn how a man with Asperger syndrome perceives the social world he interacts with.

    This book will give the reader insight into how someone with Asperger Syndrome processes advanced social situations like dating and relationships. The author shares an honest and heartwarming account of his experiences trying to date women. This is one of the most in depth books you will find about Asperger Syndrome, dating, relationships, and sexuality.

    Travis introduces the reader to the grey areas of socializing that seem to make perfect sense for others that appear blurry, jumbled, and confused for him. Learn how his black and white thinking has landed him in some dicey situations with women and with the law. This book will bridge the gap in understanding of people with Asperger's and Neurotypicals in social relationships.

    In this first hand account of a life with Asperger's Syndrome Travis shares how his thoughts, feelings, and emotions toward dating are processed and shown through his social skills. He shares his challenges and struggles with dating and even shares some successes he has had with women while trying to get to know them. This is a great book for anyone wanting to learn what it might be like to try and date as someone with Asperger's Syndrome.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBreeding Publishing
    Release dateAug 30, 2018
    ISBN9780463794388
    Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker
    Author

    Travis Breeding

    Travis is an author from Huntington Indiana how enjoys entertaining and educating through words. He enjoys telling a story and taking it from his mind to paper. He has authored several books on autism, mental illness, schizophrenia, and disability issues. He continues to write about those issues but also explores some fiction writing as well. Travis has a loving family and enjoys spending time with friends and family. He loves to play bingo and meet new people. One day Travis hopes to start a family of his own and give them so much love. Travis would like to thank his readers for supporting him on his journey of becoming an author. He could not have done it without you. If you would like to get in touch with Travis please email him at tbreedauthoratgmaildotcom,

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      Book preview

      Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker - Travis Breeding

      Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker

      Travis Breeding

      Published by Travis Breeding at Smashwords

      Copyright 2018 Travis Breeding

      All Rights Reserved

      Contents

      Introduction

      What is Asperger Syndrome?

      Understanding Social Context

      Advanced Social Context

      Understanding Creepy Behavior

      Sexuality and Mental Health

      Stalking is Caring, So We Thought?

      Buying My Creepy Behavior

      Not Coming On Too Strong

      Disengaging Socially

      Emotional Stalking and Talking

      The Power of Your Beliefs

      Challenging Your Beliefs and Fixations

      Self-Disclosing Asperger Syndrome

      My Aspie Special Interest is My Best Friend

      Autism: Fixations, Obsessions, and Special Interests

      Autism: Sensory Overloaded By Emotions

      Introduction

      Sexuality and relationships are two areas of Asperger Syndrome that have impacted my life greatly. These are the two areas in which I have often felt the most misunderstood out of any area that is related to autism spectrum disorder. It is my hope that in writing this book I will feel more understood by other people in how I relate to and experience the world of sexuality and relationships as a person with autism.

      Even greater than helping myself is the hope that this book will have the power to change lives of many people who have Asperger Syndrome. While this book may be more geared toward the sexuality experience of a male with Asperger Syndrome there are also things in this book that could benefit females, who have Asperger's as well.

      There are two goals in this book. The first is to explain sexuality and relationships in the way I experience them as a person with Asperger Syndrome. It is my hope that this goal will empower those who love and work with people who have AS to live inspired lives and be fully understood.

      For future reference I will often refer to Asperger's Syndrome as AS in this book. AS simply means Asperger's Syndrome. It is important that people with Asperger's Syndrome have a full understanding of their bodies after puberty. It is important that we understand our gender roles. It is very important that we can behave appropriately according to our gender roles. Perhaps most importantly it is crucial that those with AS can understand their sexuality as it relates to who they are. For me sexuality is a big part of AS. It is a big part of who I am.

      Peter Gerhardt says that sexual behavior is social behavior. So, understanding your sexuality is every bit as important as understanding all social skills that you use to relate to the world around you. The first goal of this book is to help others who may not have AS understand how sexuality can impact the lives of people who have AS while also helping others with AS understand that they are not alone in their sexual desires and feelings. The reality is most people crave intimacy. While we crave intimacy in different ways and each person both on and off the spectrum may define intimacy in different ways, no matter what our sexual orientation is, one thing we can all agree on is that we all crave human connection and some of us crave a sexual or intimate connection with others of the same or opposite sex.

      Having sex is not a right or a basic human need for anyone. It is certainly not a right or a need for someone with autism. However, understanding one's sexuality and how it is a part of who they are is a right and a basic human need for anyone. Sometimes people on the autism spectrum may need a little help in understanding their sexuality as it relates to who they are.

      The second goal of this book is to begin to break down communication gaps between autistic males and neurotypical women. While this portion of the book may not be geared specifically towards aspie women, there will still be some critical information in this part of the book that women on the autism spectrum can relate to. It might even be helpful for some aspie women to understand men with Asperger's in case they would happen to fall in love with a man who has Asperger's one day.

      This portion of the book will try and connect two very different minds that live in the same world. We will attempt to connect the male Aspie brain with the neurotypical female brain in hopes of helping autistic men to feel more accepted by their neurotypical female peers. Relating to neurotypical women is a special interest of the author. It is something that has driven him absolutely nuts since he was in his teenage years. He has spent a lot of time talking to women, other men, and researching methods for dating and understanding the female mind.

      While the author is in no way an expert in understanding the female mind he has an open mind willing to try to understand and relate to the neurotypical female mind so that he can present a better picture of who he is to them without feeling misundertood and most importantly without having them feel scared of him as he begins to talk to them and try to form a meaningful emotional connection and social relationship with them.

      This book will discuss a lot of the grey areas with dating and relationships. Most men with Asperger's Syndrome are high functioning enough to know what is and is not against the law. While that may keep you out of jail, it will certainly not make all neurotypical and aspie females feel safe in their environment.

      One way to look at the grey area is to begin to imagine making women feel safe. It is often not the black and white areas that men with Asperger's Syndrome will need to worry about as we are pretty good black and white thinkers. It is those troublesome grey areas that our minds do not interpret well that will likely cause a woman to feel unsafe in her environment as she gets to know us.

      This book will begin to digest and explain the grey areas of dating and relationships. We will begin to break down the grey areas in ways Aspie men might understand but also in ways that neurotypical women might be able to understand how aspie men process the grey areas.

      Stalking is probably one of the greatest examples for the grey area. While men with Asperger's might often understand the black and whiteness of stalking that would be legal versus illegal behavior, we are more likely to have greater difficulty in understanding the grey areas of stalking which are the areas and behaviors that would cause a woman to feel uncomfortable and unsafe.

      In my own life I have always thought of stalking as what you see in movies and on television. Where you follow a woman home. Follow her to her place of employment and basically make yourself a nuance to be everywhere that she is always. For years this is how I defined stalking.

      Stalking is so much bigger than that. It is a broad issue that can contain a lot of social behaviors. While there are only parts of stalking that are illegal and can get you into trouble with the law there are many areas of stalking that are not illegal but could still cause women to have very uncomfortable feelings about a man. These are the parts the author will attempt to explain in this book so that aspie men and neurotypical women can better communicate to form more meaningful relationships with one another. More importantly this is a topic of interest to the author because the last thing that he ever wanted was to grow up was to make women feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

      This issue is close to the author's heart. It is very hard for a male with Asperger's Syndrome because a lot of these social behaviors are attributed to the way he understands the social world around him and a lot of these social behaviors are simply a part of his personality and who he is. It can become a complex issue when a male with Asperger's Syndrome feels that he needs to change who he is to make women feel safe and comfortable around him. This is no easy task, but it is a very worthwhile task that will totally change the type of relationships a male with Asperger's Syndrome has with neurotypical women and improve both aspie males and neurotypical females lives.

      Stalking Is Not Caring was chosen for the title of this book because of the concrete thinking of the author and of many aspie males. I have talked to countless males on the Aspie end of the autism spectrum who all have the same question. Everyone says girls like attention, so why don't they like stalking?

      This book will begin to answer that very question and many more questions aspie males might have as well as many questions that neurotypical females might have about aspie men.

      As the author it is my hope that this book will help everyone who reads it to better understand men with Asperger's Syndrome and while it is not necessarily intended to help female aspies we hope that there are parts of this book that aspie females can relate to and learn from. It is my hope as the author that everything talked about in this book will improve quality of life and quality of relationships for aspie males, aspie females, neurotypical females, and neurotypical males.

      Thank you for taking an interest in understanding the complex world of stalking and relationships. As stated it is a very complex world. It is a world that we all live in, so it is the goal of the author to help people feel more connected to each other and better understood by people who might be a lot not like them. I hope you enjoy reading my book Confessions from a Former Aspie Stalker.

      Chapter One What is Asperger Syndrome?

      I am sure we have all looked at someone and wondered just what they are doing. They seem so out of it and lost. If you have a child with autism, you probably encounter this quite often. I hear so many parents say, if I could just experience their world for one day. While it isn’t possible yet to get inside of someone else’s brain and know exactly what thoughts and feelings they are having without communicating with them, I will attempt to share some of what I was feeling and do feel when I find myself in a period of isolation and loneliness. I will explain how my make believe/imaginary world works and talk about why this is beneficial for someone on the autism spectrum.

      It is important to remember to keep in mind when we are reading this, Dr. Stephen Shore’s statement, If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve really only met one person with autism. It is also true that, if you have heard one person with autism describe what their make-believe world is like and how they process their thoughts and feelings, then you’ve only really heard how one person processes those thoughts and feelings.

      If I am watching a movie and mom calls me, Travis, Travis, come do your laundry. I do not seem to hear her or realize that she is talking to me. I am watching one of my favourite movies on television and I seem to not notice she is there. I am lost in the movie and do not know that the real world exists. Why is this? Is this normal?

      We are all aware of what daydreaming is and how we can get lost in the moment. Some of us get more lost than others do. I have found some people daydream for a moment or two but then they come back to reality and are able to comprehend what is going on in the real world. For me daydreaming is more than just a dream. It is a way of life. It is a coping mechanism for me with Asperger’s Syndrome. I daydream as an escape when things are not working as I would like them to socially; when I am feeling socially isolated and rejected. When I am lonely, this daydreaming state is a coping mechanism that allows me to escape the realness of the real world and go into my own make-believe world where I can control my situations and outcomes. It is a safe haven for me.

      Dr. Tony Attwood talks about people with Asperger’s Syndrome creating a make-believe world inside their heads. He often states this can also be a result of escaping into imagination. I have done this a lot in my life. As a child, I can remember doing this while I was in school. At recess on the playground, I saw the other students running around with each other having a great time and so wanted to be like them but for some reason I was not. It led to me feeling sad and depressed even as a child.

      I was not aware of what I was doing at the time, but as an adult, I now know that I was imagining my own world. I was trying to escape the real world or real situation and create my own. I am very good at this and so are many people with autism. Not only is it a coping mechanism for me, but also it was also like having make-believe friends. I remember pretending to be a superhero while on the playground and flying around saving everyone. I used to have so much fun just by being in my make-believe world. Not only was it enjoyable there, but also it was also very safe and comforting. I was controlling how my world was going and there were not any outside factors causing me any harm or confusion.

      Teachers sometimes had to yell my name just to get my attention, but they certainly were not yelling at me for the same reasons they yelled at other kids. Many kids liked to cause trouble; I never understood the point of intentionally causing trouble or harm to someone. However, many kids throughout my school years that did this. It is stunning to me that this seemed to get worse as we got older and entered middle school. I think a lot of times the fact that I found comfort in watching a movie also lead to my ability to create a make-believe world and escape into my imagination.

      I often sat at home because there was nothing else to do. In middle school, I watched television or rented movies from the local video store. I remember that this used to be what I would look forward to on the weekends. I would just sit at home and watch movies. The characters in the movies became my friends; they were the ones who were always there for me. For instance, there was a Cameron Diaz movie called, Head Above Water. Cameron Diaz, or her character Natalie, became my best friend from the movie - she was someone who would always be there, all I had to do was push play on the VCR or DVD player and there she was. She was talking and interacting. In my mind, I would have conversations with her. I processed thoughts and talked to her about things that were going on in my life, but then also things dealing with the movie. It was as if she was my best friend; someone to whom I could relate and not judgmental.

      The ability to create this pretend situation/make believe world is something that many people that are not living with autism do not fully understand. It is hard to imagine something that you cannot experience. While it is great to have this ability to escape into imagination and create the make-believe world, it can also become a challenge. The challenges become trying to balance that make-believe world with the real world that we live in. The reality of living within two worlds.

      For me it all started when I was in the second grade. There was a group of kids playing on the playground by the swing set. I went up to them and started trying to join their game. They did not like this very much at all. They ended up laughing at me and running away and taking their game somewhere else. I felt so rejected. Why did they do that? I asked myself. It did not seem very nice. I slowly lowered my head and walked back to stand next to the teacher on the playground desperately wanting recess to be over for the day. This scene repeated itself daily. My same attempt at social interaction met with the same rejection by my peers. Today, I know that making the same attempt at social interaction in the exact same way each day is obviously going to get the same result each day. However, as we know the Asperger’s mind is very black and white. All I knew was the same way to approach my classmates.

      To me, there are two steps. There is step 1 and step 10. I often skip straight from step 1 to step 10. I am not able to see the steps in-between. Steps 2-9 are non-existent for me. I know that steps 2-9 are there I am just not able to see what they are. I can even read about them in technical terms or get an idea. Nevertheless, I am not able to visualize them in my mind. I am a visual thinker, so I need to be able to visualize a situation or a step in my head before I can take it.

      This brings up an interesting point. We often hear of people on the spectrum who might see a social situation unfolding in a movie and then they go out in public in the real world and try to recreate that situation. Why is this? I can process those social situations in my head, of which I have a direct visualization. If I can see a social situation from the outside, I quickly take mental notes of the situation and what happened. I will then proceed to keep those notes in my mind, go out, and try to use those notes in a social interaction attempt. The problem with this is that on television there are time constraints and other contributing factors that make that social situation skewed and inaccurate. Television is not a good social-skills teaching too for people with Asperger’s.

      You might ask, why not observe social situations in person and apply what I see to my daily social interactions? The problem with this is that when I am there in the moment, I am so intently focused on what I already know and am trying to process those thoughts, to later use and practice, that I’m not able to effectively observe the socialization overtures others are making. Even when I am in a group with a few people, I am unable to observe their reactions and how they are processing the social situation. This is because I so intently focus on trying to say the right thing or do the right thing, or even make the right body language gesture that I tire and cannot process anything else from the social situation.

      Therefore, in a way, I am better able to observe social situations in movies, take that knowledge, and apply it to my life. This is because for a movie I am just sitting there observing and watching. I am not trying to process what is going on in the real world. I can focus on the movie and what is going on during the movie. I can also re-watch the scene and look for more social cues. I cannot do that when I am with a group of people. Unfortunately, this means that some of my social actions continue to be skewed.

      I have read a bit about an approach to social skills development that involves teaching people on the autism spectrum social skills through the production of a musical. The writers create the musical in the way special real life social situations would occur; in a way that each character in the musical would be practicing real life social situations. However, because there is a script for the musical the actors would not have to work as hard at taking in all the nonverbal cues along with processing the social thinking: they just follow the script and act in their roles.

      I think this is a method from which we will benefit in the future. There is more research to be done here and I am interested in seeing where this will lead. However, you can quickly see the comparison with a movie and a musical. The difference would be that the musical design features real life social situations that may present themselves in our day-to-day lives, not scenes skewed or overdone by Hollywood. This just might be an easy, visual way for us to learn social skills. It is role playing but playing a real role in a real-life situation.

      Chapter Two Understanding Social Context

      Throughout this book we will talk about social context and certain social behaviors and skills being context driven. Because of that it is important to take some time in this chapter to explain exactly what social context is.

      Think of social context as the content of a story. The social skills themselves are the chapter titles in the book. The social context is all that content that exists within the chapters of the book. Saying hi to someone might be a title of a chapter in a book. While explaining how to say hi to someone might be the content of the chapter. Saying hi is the social skill but to understand how to say hi to someone appropriately we must understand the social context of two things.

      When we think of social context we are primarily talking about two parts to it. The first is the social context that you have created with the other person that you are interacting with. Every one of our social relationships will have a certain social context to it that will help us determine how and when to do things and how and when to display certain social behaviors. Your social relationship is the title of a chapter in a book but the social context that is created among you in your social relationship is the content of the chapter.

      Saying hi to someone you just met might look and feel different than saying hi to someone you have known for five years. That is because you have an entirely different social context developed with the person that you have known for five years than you do with the person you are saying hi t for the very first time.

      The second part of social context is the social environment or setting that we are in. To understand social context, we must understand our environment as well as the type of relationship we have with the person. Context is so particular that your social behavior may be expected to change from place to place. For example, acceptable social behavior may be viewed differently at church than it would be at a bar.

      Many neurotypicals will subconsciously pick up on how the social context changes from place to place. They will also automatically interpret and understand the social context that they have created with each person and know exactly what social skills to use and when or how to use them with each person.

      Context is such a big issue that even the way you behave with your best friend can change from place to place. Context is everywhere, and it will always be around us. Therefore, I say learning social skills is only ten percent of the journey because the other ninety percent is learning how to understand the social context of your environment and social relationships so that you know how and when to apply those social skills in which you have learned.

      When I speak of environment though context goes even deeper. It is not just changing from place to place. An example of this is that you might need to know how to behave differently around one of your female friends based on how they are feeling. We also talk a lot about contingencies and antecedents in the field of behavior therapy. They also apply to social context in many ways.

      You might be used to treating one of your female friends the same way all the time. You might be very joking with her and tease her from time to time and over time you have developed the kind of social context with her that allows you to tease her and joke with her. You know because of the social context that you have created with her that she is going to feel it is okay to joke around with her and make fun of her some. But if you are hanging out one day and she is on her period? Now suddenly, we have an entirely different social context created because she is experiencing something in her internal environment that is making her feel different. This internal experience she is having may cause her to behave differently and as a man who is her friend if you try and behave the same way that you do with her every other day she may become quickly irritated or upset. Knowing how to recognize the changes in your environment is an advanced skill that takes a lot of observation.

      Women are not likely to come to you as their guy friend and say, I started my period today, so you should be extra nice to me and treat me different. While they may not tell you verbally there are a lot of chances they are trying to give off implied hints non-verbally. Those are things that many males with Asperger's Syndrome would often miss out on because we do not naturally pick up on non-verbal communication and implied hints.

      There are so many contingencies and antecedents that can really affect the social context of what is going on in the social world. Contingencies and antecedents change behaviors, and this will change the social situation that you are in.

      Understanding how and when to apply social skills in the appropriate social context is very important when it comes to developing successful and healthy social relationships with anyone.

      Context is very hard for someone with Asperger's or autism to learn because it is all left up to social interpretation. There are no set rules when understanding social context and the context of the situations and relationships that you are in can change from moment to moment as you are getting to know each other.

      Aspie's are not typically good at generalizing things and that is always a goal that therapists are working on with their autism and Asperger clients. Context and understanding social context requires a great ability to generalize things across different social environments and across different social relationships.

      Even something as simple as sending a woman a dozen roses can have a lot of social context to it. How and when does a man with Asperger's Syndrome know that it is appropriate to send his female friend a dozen roses? The trick to understanding this is to understand the social context. Accepting and knowing that there is no clear cut social rule that you should send your female friend a dozen roses after hanging out with them one time is important. As an

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