In this video, I explore my relationship with literal thinking. I question what it is, whether I, as an autistic person do it, whether I always think that way and if not, when it's most likely I will.
Taking things literally is to absorb information in the way that it was presented, adding no sub-text, wider context or relational meaning to it. Autistic people are commonly thought of as being highly literal but I'm not sure it's that simple. While I have found myself to be more literal than I imagined, that only described the initial relationship I form with this new input. What happens after that is highly contextual, depending on my environment and the nature of the input. In terms of inputs I identified the level of action I'm required to take and the level of emotionality inherent to the situation to be key factors in whether my thinking expands beyond the what-you-see-is-all-there-is or not. I dive into this further in this video and also consider how my personal history influences how inputs are received and how likely it is I'll get stuck on a literal interpretation of events.
Overall I found this topic to be much more challenging and interesting than expected. As always my thoughts and insights come from my own experience, I'm not professing to be an expert in this topic and neither do I wish to speak for all autistics.
I hope you find the video and accompanying slides useful and must warn you there are a couple of mild swear words and a little smutty humour included.
30 сен 2024
