What Is Social Imagination?
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- Autistic people experience difficulties with social imagination, but it's not something we often discuss so I made this video explaining what social imagination is and how difficulties with social imagination can impact those on the autistic spectrum.
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This is a very important piece of the autistic experience that allistic mental health professionals do not understand/are not aware of. Recently I talked to my psychiatrist about how the root of anxiety disorders that autistic people develop is the fear of unknown, after which I was reminded that everyone fears the unknown. What I forgot to explain is that for autistic people most common daily function and interactions contain large portions of unknowable factors that are either known, or irrelevant to allistic people. This makes a lot of common life situations traumatizing for autistic people as we struggle with predicting all the possible scenarios that might throw us off the original course.
Your point is totally correct and almost completely unknown in mental health community. Thanks to people like purple Ella and the autistic community the world is slowly changing.
This is so true.
So many everyday things that one might expect me to be able to do easily, I simply can't, because I'm going through all the possibilities of what I might experience or might happen.
Even things that happen often, like leaving the house, become hard or even impossible, because no two situations are ever exactly alike. I need to relearn them time and time again.
It's important because I could - and do - genuinely come to harm in a way that non-autistics would tend not to, such as, I'm on my own (another autistic life hazard for many of us), or there might be certain sensory overload that might leave me unable to think clearly, and I lose the ability to speak. I wouldn't be able to keep myself safe, and no one else is there to help, so I could literally be in danger if shutting down or melting down.
And this is why this is autism and not social anxiety or panic disorder etc: CBT often doesn't work because the wiring of the brain makes the problems keep coming back and back and back, and this is why it's not an excuse and why we aren't narcissists.
We really are trying our best and we really worry about our impact on others. It's exhausting and embarrassing.
I had a psychologist tell me before I was diagnosed that me pretending as a child to be a mermaid or a princess "wasn't very autistic". Thanks for reaffirming that we can be imaginative and explaining social imagination!
One thing that prevented me from realizing that I'm autistic was the fact that I can be very imaginative, and autistic people stereotypically are not. One developmental milestones that my autistic son missed was imaginative play. He never, for example, pretended to feed his stuffed animals. And I did that sort of thing all the time as a child. But social imagination... Yeah, mine is terrible. This video makes it so clear.
I spent a huge amount of my childhood pretending I was a mermaid or a fairy changeling because I felt SO "other" and not quite human. I think that's pretty autistic actually
I spent several years as Spiderman 😂
Some doctors are so quick to try to find anything to deny that we're autistic. Autistics must fit in a certain box for them and any adaptation or normal human thought is taken as proof that we're neurotypical
Yes this made me question myself too, I used to play pretend with my siblings all the time, so much and it was until I was maybe 13, pretty old for it I think. Early on in school kids in my class, usually just 1 would play the games with me too. I had the experience a few times of people being awed by how cool it was to immerse yourself in pretend the way we did. We would pretend we had magical powers and we would fight witches and dragons and we'd pretend there were aliens, we were pirates, sometimes I would b a boy, a genie, a witch, etc. It was a huge part of my childhood.
I found that I do that. People think I am negative by exploring all the worst case scenarios, but it makes me feel prepared in case something happens that I'm not expecting
I love this topic! Thank you 🖤 I was an only child and used my imagination as a coping mechanism, like making up personalities for toys and made up friends. When I couldn't understand why my peers would treat me differently, I was able to retreat to my own world after school where I could be away from the criticism - alone but not *lonely*, a strength that I keep up to this day! 🥰
I used to imagine my house was a boarding school kinda thing and that other kids lived with me. I have 1 older brother but he never wanted anything to do with me. It was good because since I was imagining everything there was no chance for the unknown and I was in complet control of everything
@@shadowkyber2510 yess the control was important for me too! 🖤
This was definitely me growing up.
This single concept explains soooooo many of the things I struggle with! I hate that I can come across as controlling or a busy body... when actually all I am is confused something went differently and responding fearfully to the sudden void I'm left staring into, or trying to make sure I'm able to follow the whole chain of events without something tripping me up. I don't mind exactly what people do or how things go, I just need a bit of an advance on it whatever it is... you explained that so well!! I guess I need to work on explaining this to those around me :(
I feel like every interaction I have with NT people is like a social experiment lol
I’m 23 years old and just got diagnosed autistic. I grew up in a abusive household and deal with several other mental health conditions such as ocd, bipolarity, ptsd and d.i.d, alongside dyslexia and dyscalculia. I had an over abundant amount of imagination . it was the only was I could cope with my feelings and surroundings but was also what fueled such severe ocd at a young age. I also had a tremendous amount of empathy and it would overwhelm to the point I had meltdowns and got burned out very quickly and because of this it was very hard for anyone to see that I was on the spectrum because of this “ idea “ of how autistic people were supposed to behave. I often as a child would experience meltdowns and would get very upset when things didn’t go as planned and I had to ( and still do to this day ) have to have things planned completely out but I learned quickly in the environment I was living that my behavior and reactions from what I now realize is autism was unacceptable and I have had to mask very badly. Now that I’m free from my abusive household and received my diagnostic it really made a lot of things click into place but it was a struggle for me and many other professionals to understand I had autism because “ you’re just so feeling “ “ you’re a very creative and feeling girl I can’t see you being autistic “ hearing those things really showed just how much stigma there is and how much even professionals don’t understand the disorder. I often use my art as a way to express emotions of having to constantly mask and shove down strong feelings of irritability, anxiety and feeling like I’m inadequate in every social situation because I can never act or behave like my peers. It’s really sad to see how much people misunderstand this disorder and how it’s on a spectrum. I really thought for a while there was no way I could be autistic even with all the proof I was offered because of much empathy I felt because of the stigma revolving around that as well. I realize now my high levels of empathy actually over stimulate me and it’s a sign of being on the autistic spectrum.
I relate a lot, thank you for sharing
I love fiction writing and have always struggled socially which led me to study Psychology (and creative writing) for years. Despite my writing doing well in most aspects, characters and their relationships always messed me up. I couldn't figure them out or the difficulties I was having in life (social stuff, behaviours, sensory issues, etc.) until years of struggling with stress-induced physical pain, led me to seek an autism diagnosis. Lo-and-behold, I got diagnosed in my 30s. Currently, I'm rethinking and rebuilding my life. Pain management is unfortunately still part of my life, but I look forward to returning to writing in the future and embracing my neurodiversity as part of the writing process, rather than fighting against myself like in the past and getting nowhere.
One of the key factors that led to my diagnosis was the fact that I used myself as a frame of reference for everything (ie not knowing anything about my friends beyond the things we share together, showed empathy by sharing my own experiences etc) and lack of social imagination in general. I'll be showing this to my husband, he's been wanting to do more research as my diagnosis was fairly recent!
Thank you so much for sharing this! I'm the same way and have been berating myself for being "self-centered," but I love the way you've described it.
For as far as I can remember I've often related to people by referring back to when something's happened to me. Had no idea social imagination is what I'd been doing. Thank you Purple Ella for sharing this!
I didn't know you could empathize any other way than referring back to when you experienced something. Anything else is just sympathy because you're supposed to be sympathetic...
My whole life I have had issues with empathy and had to fake it, and I felt really guilty and like a monster. This is interesting.
same and sometimes people take it as a narcistic pov but i have to relate through my internal world in order to understand thats just how my brain works!
In the modern sense, sympathy is feeling sad that someone feels sad. It's more detached and intellectual.
Empathy is actually feeling what someone else feels, putting yourself into their shoes.
That's why it's often considered rude to talk about yourself and your own experience when someone is suffering. It sounds like it's taking the focus off them and putting it on yourself. You might not be connected to their feelings in the moment if you're thinking about the past. "Connecting experiences" can be quite an intellectual exercise.
We all use past experiences to help us understand what others are going through; it's just not necessarily appropriate to mention them.
It's not bad to be a little more emotionally detached at times, either. I'm hyper-empathetic and can get really overwhelmed by feeling what others are feeling; boundaries can get blurred and other people's feelings can be highly contagious, leaving me feeling really disoriented. So I see intellectualising as a bit of a protective mechanism. The trick for me is to make sure I say the appropriate things, use the appropriate tone, facial expressions etc to show that I care while not taking on more than I have the capacity for.
Isn’t this something everybody does, though? Why is it considered different or selfish when autistic people do it. You’ll be talking about something and a friend will respond with their story of that thing that you were talking about. Allistic people do this!
Thank you for helping to describe the exact thing that I couldn't put onto words. Your channel has helped immensely.
I'm so glad to hear this 😊
Thank you, Ella!!! It helps to know that there are others out there that struggle with the same issues. People think I'm a pain (my new nickname is 'Extra') when I want to know a lot about what is going to happen. It's just so much easier for me when I know what's to be expected, because I really hate surprises or changes. I've been doing Plan B and Plan C, but I still get extremely frustrated and angry and I don't know what to say at the time.
This explains so much. The amount of times I've felt like a complete idiot because I haven't been able to anticipate how something would play out and respond in the moment while no one else was surprised in the least... it has made me feel incompetent at my job and doubt myself so profoundly. Understanding this changes my perspective entirely. Thank you.
Thank you for this video! I got my diagnosis last year, and although I had never heard of "social imagination" as a term, I definitely recognise it in myself.
Ever since I was little, if I had been planning on eating a certain thing and when I go to eat it, it’s gone, that triggers a huge meltdown. To this day, if someone eats my food, I freak out and I can’t help it.
I can usually come up with backup plans, and backup plans for the backup plans, but most of the time things don’t work out like I want to. So, in that case, since I now have the ASD diagnosis and I’m unmasking and learning about myself, I now know that going to my mom or a trusted friend who has experience with ASD, helps me get through the fear and panic.
I'm definitely sharing this video with people (including my therapist) to help them understand why unexpected change causes so much anxiety for me. Thank you for this video!
You're welcome, I'm so glad it's helpful
This is another great video. Thank you Purple Ella!
I struggle with the changes in meals as you described and also if what I planned to buy from a supermarket isn't there. I can't choose an alternative
Thank you for describing something I have experienced all my life but never knew what it was called.
This video made so much sense to me. As a teacher I would overplan every lesson. I had back up plans for if I went through things too fast or if something took too long. This helped me be “flexible”, which is necessary as a teacher. Of course when there was an unexpected fire drill it caused a lot of anxiety for me.
We’ve been working with my daughter on flexible thinking and understanding that sometimes plans have to change and how to come up with alternative plans. It’s definitely helped reduce the number of meltdowns she’s been having. Good luck to you on your processing.
I never got that support as a kid, but as an adult it has been getting a bit easier by remembering that my life will not fall apart if change happens. I still get easily frustrated and angry but the intensity is less than it used to be. Your daughter will thank you as she gets older.
NTs also only have empathy for things they can conceive or mainly have experienced! that' why it's also so hard for them to have empathy for us, autistic people and put themselves in our shoes. The difference is that NTs have common experiences and way of experiencing things among themselves and they are the majority. They do not have more empathy than autistic people!
That was an excellent observation and well put!
My heart sped up as you described your experiences. Thank you for sharing.
Ohh I struggle with that so much too 🖤
This makes a lot of sense - I'd always wondered why there was an assumption that we lacked imagination when so many of us are really creative
This has helped me understand why social situations or new experiences are so exhausting and I need significant time to "psych myself up" and mentally prepare. I'm running through every imaginable scenario and trying to make plans and mentally rehearse for all of them!
I love this!
Lacking ‘social imagination’ perfectly fits several of my puzzle pieces together. Up until now, I had struggled to describe several characteristics of this.
Thankfully, I don’t experience this with food, because my brain doesn’t see that as having a ‘social’ component with what I might process as a high-stakes situation.
Hiya Ella, What sends Me into meltdown is the ticker on the bottom of the screen say on the news, Paul on the toon review and world of sport TV, took there's off so I could watch the programme,bye the way I'm a big Newcastle United Fan, and Toon Review and World Of Sport TV ,Concentrate on all Things Newcastle United, So a big shout out to Paul from The Toon Review and Barry from World Of Sport TV, this is Choppy in Whitehaven, Cumbria, England
Well, this explains a lot about my life.
This is so interesting and possibly explains why I've always happily taken on the role of organisor in my group of friends. I'd never thought about it from the angle of it helping me know what was happening.
Beautifully explained! Soo relatable....
Undiagnosed, when you described the food and how it wasn't how you had imagined it and described that situation I found myself say it may be the same but it's not it's different. I go through this everyday where things don't go or change and I find myself constantly anxious in the moment and eventually just overwhelmed and overloaded.
Thank you so much for this video (and so many others)! I've been suspected to be autistic since childhood, but didn't realize the depth to which that affected my thinking.
I've always struggled to ask questions, because "you don't know what you don't know" so how do you even come up with a question to ask? I'm happy to talk about other people, but to me that means letting them say what they want, not me trying to probe into a void with random questions that I pulled off a "things that polite people ask" list. Then, of course, I relate with comparative stories because it's what I know. These things combined come across as only wanting to talk about myself - I felt like I was self-centered and terrible. Now I realize this is likely due to struggles with imagination. I'm so appreciative that you've helped me understand myself better, so I can have more room for that ever-elusive self-compassion!
I thought I was a monkey until I started school. Because my father called me "x the monkey". Which I took literally. Had to ask what my "real" name was. As an adult I drove my kids crazy with comparative stories, in an attempt to relate to them. I think it may have come across as being self centered. Which wasn't what I was doing. I was trying to understand them, and demonstrate my understanding by sharing an anecdote of my similar experience. Like "I see your upset, this happened to me too and this is what I did". Not so helpful. I didn't realize others processed in a similar way.
I still share similar things that happened to me I just try to keep it short and at the end go back to their issue and talk about them again. This way I hope I am coming across as less self centered.
Edit: and I try to avoid implying that my situation is worse than theirs. It usually makes the other person feel worse.
I know people don't like my comparative stories very much but I can't help saying them in some way, even if it's short.
@@wiegraf9009 Yeah, it is hard.
@@Catlily5 I'm coming around to self acceptance. After a lifetime of trying (and failing) to navigate the neurotypical minefield. It's exhausting.
@@dlesliejones I am around a lot of other neurodiverse people luckily.
Thank you for another great video! I can definitely relate to this. How can I imagine something that is not in my memory bank of experiences? So I will often think of both the worse and best case occurring, realizing that I have never been able to imagine what an event actually may look like until I go thru it (so neither extreme will actually happen). Thinking about best/worse case scenarios at least somewhat helps with the anxiety, since I know something in between will happen and I can let go of those extremes. There’s still a lot of anxiety about that unknowable middle, but understanding that I can stop trying so hard to imagine something I can’t goes a long way to finding the right anti-anxiety tools that work for me. And I had no idea until my diagnosis last year that empathizing with a personal experience was not the neurotypical response! Others would get so upset with me and I never understood!
Thank you wonderful!
You've really nailed something down for me. I have a great imagination for a scene or tableaux but shocking with scenarios with moving parts. As a consequence ruining a d&d game i have great characters and worlds but really agonise to great a simple plot.
I like these videos. You bring up things i'd never thought of before. You have your finger on the pulse. Keep up the good work.
This. This is something I have struggled with for my entire life but I never knew it was a real thing (I was only diagnosed with autism recently). Thank you so much for helping me to understand myself a bit better. I will be sharing with my family to hopefully help them understand too
ZOMG, this explains so much about my behaviour, thank you! 🤯
This is why my son hates change! Thank you. I love your channel.
Thank you, this has been very helpful to me in a current situation
People always say you have to learn to go with the flow and it NEVER worked. If anything it made it worse to try to go with the flow because it would lead to a meltdown.
This video was very helpful, thank you.
I love your videos ❤thank you for cheering ❤
This was super interesting and helpful Ella
This is painfully relatable! So many times, when people have changed plans at the last minute it's left me bawling my eyes out like a toddler, which is then very embarrassing because people think you're just being selfish and having a tantrum because you didn't get your own way. Also, I never knew that trying to empathise with people by sharing a similar experience that happened to you is an autistic behaviour. I'm quite surprised to find that out actually! I've always done it, and assumed that NT people do it too.
This was such a helpful video! My teen and I are both autistic, and we definitely struggle with this. I make back-up plans, and back-up plans for back-up plans, and I'll still get thrown if something changes. I never knew why until I learned that I was autistic and started figuring out more about myself from this channel and others like it.
i can relate alot thank you
This was super helpful thank you. Explains a lot. Also quorn nuggets with Katsu sauce?! Why have I never tried this?! That might change my life!
Some interesting angles on this, thanks. I've always been aware that creative people have a strong tendency to be numerous kinds of neurodivergent, and I knew that even before I knew the term...most of the artists I knew, including myself, were a bit unusual. I'm middle of the road on creativity; I always wanted to be a commercial artist, not a fine artist, because I wanted to start with parameters to problem solve. I don't want a blank sheet of paper with which I could do anything I wanted -- what would that be?? Too stressful.
Your description of social imagination started me out with a question that has always led me to question whether or not I was autistic -- am I that rigid? Neither I not my mother liked being surprised, and are/were anxious when it happened, but even so I often feel like I fall short of what you're describing. I got a pretty clear answer on that just now, when you got to your coping strategies...I've always used the Plan B technique, at least as an adult, because I don't "improvise well" when changes occur. So I have already been trying to compensate. And yes, Plan B planning is very stressful, especially if you need a bunch of them (not a Plan C or D, but a Plan B for multiple different elements of one activity). Especially if your brain is always stressed about what you might be forgetting to plan for...which might be an ADHDish component.
And yes, I've always had strong feelings of empathy, which make people suffering very upsetting to me, but I'm starting to realize that the reason that my empathy doesn't produce good results is because it's based on the thought processes you describe: I only interpret it terms of what has happened to me, or (biggest communication issue) how I feel about it myself. Also, I mirror: someone gets upset, I get upset in the same way, which makes responding with sympathy...not my natural response. I hate that, it's what makes me feel like I'm unfeeling, and it probably looks that way to others too. And the analytical post-mortems on social interactions you describe are totally what I do, and a factor in my RSD. "Ohhh, I bet they saw what I said in THIS way...oh nonononono!!"
Yep.... adding it to the list
Ahhhh. So this is why I spend so much time scripting every possible outcome of social scenarios. I always wondered, since I always inevitably step off-script. There are also situations where I just refuse to anticipate any possibilities, at all.
Oh wow, I feel very seen here :')
I’m far more imaginative than my neurotypicsl peers in most professional contexts.
Ie I solve problems better because I both know how stuff works and in the cases I don’t know how stuff works I can imagine how it probably works and therefore usually have a Much better Cham eg of fixing them.
Just yesterday had a meltdown becuse my husband was cleaning the bedroom well the old bedroom we moved to a couch bed becuse all my stuff is in the bedroom..my poor husband only trying to help...but I couldn't get thr right words out n said stop nonono! I'll do it in a mean voice it was hard to get out that I don't want him to throw out anything meaningful so insted of saying that I just screamed throw shit e very where n was in a ball crying the rest of the night I hate not being able to say what I mean at the moment. Thanks for another wonderful video luv you ella! 😘
Happens to me with parking all the time. With time I got better to managing it and I have a plan B (or C). Sometimes I’ll go to the place or Google map it (street view) to try to understand where I’m going.
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"What will I do if it rains?" - "Get wet" is my usual answer. :-) I don't *like* getting rained on, but I don't mind it that much.
I have been trying to describe this experience to so many therapists, but could never articulate it the way I wanted to.
My question is: I've been doing this for SO LONG, I can't stop it. I will spend HOURS just imagining all the different possibilities, but I'm feeling distressed about spending so much time on it.
Maybe it's just because I am out of routine
Wait…people can imagine things they have never experienced or heard of…?
I am in my 30s and and have just been diagnosed with Autism. This is actually one of the parts I’ve been questioning forever because I also have ADHD (diagnosed since childhood) and this is where ADHD and autism collide. I don’t need a plan, I can spontaneously do things and I like doing it. But….if there IS a plan and it’s not followed I have a hard time. Or if it’s something that we are planning will unfold spontaneously I become anxious and start to fixate on the unknowns. It’s almost like I can be spontaneous but only within parameters and only if it’s impulsive spontaneity…
5:31 in philosophy, is time just a altered perpection of reality?
Does anyone have any tips on someone being late or early to an appointment/home visit?
I keep having meltdowns due to it, usually if it were family or friends I’d call them to see what’s happening if they’re late and they all know not to turn up early but this is people on the mental health team so it’s not like I can call them to see where they are.
I do try to tell myself they’re often late and not to worry but that doesn’t work so just wondering what others do.
This is the same as "sociological imagination", correct?
I’ve wanted to be an actress all my life but the world has been preventing me from doing so
I hate when I expect a thing and then another thing happens! The worst! Doesn't everyone hate that?
Here's a story, one time I was about to meet my partner's friend, but he didn't look like how I had imagined him, so it went kinda like this:
-Hi, what's your name?
-👍😃👍
-*awkward silence*
I think the neurotyoicals have a weird concept of empathy I don't get. Because the autism test questionnaire about empathetic thinking, I remember it having questions that seemed weird. Idk what, but the test felt like it was saying if I'm confused about what other people's feelings are, that's the same as lacking empathy? Like idk what they're feeling but empathy means to me if someone looks like they're in pain, I do feel compassion for them, I'd call that empathy. I can see their suffering and their pain, doesn't mean I'm an expert at what every little facial nerve twitch means or that I understand non-basic feelings well, like if someone's face looks bored or confused I won't be able to tell but I could tell sad from angry bc those are both basic and obvious emotions. Idgi how the implication with the test is if idk what a blank stare is, or if eye contact with the picture of a person too intense makes me afraid and I guess in a panic, I lack empathy. I just dislike looking that closely at other people's faces and yeah I suck at reading subtle variations in moods. But that shouldn't imply that I don't care about people.
Like you know the one, they make you look at faces and guess what they're feeling and the faces are vague but often intense and difficult to look at, and they possible answers throw the dictionary at you like:
0_0
Does this person feel:
- nervous
- agitated
- sexually advertising
- Quetzalcoatl
And you're left going uh aren't A and B synonymous and C would be inappropriate to assume irl and D is that even a word or some scrabble tiles on the floor idk
Not really relating to the topic at hand, but your description of empathy is at odds with my understanding of it. To me, empathy is the ability to imagine what it feels like to another person who is experiencing something you yourself have not previously experienced. It also excludes you having experienced something analogous to what the other person is experiencing. While you may understand how this other person is feeling if you've previously experienced it, but I consider that sympathy, not empathy.
In order to feel empathy, you first have to be able to identify with that other person. Lacking that, we can't feel empathy for them. Autistics inherently know that they are different from neurotypicals, so we don't identify as strongly with them. This, I believe is the root of the empathy myth about autistics. We can feel empathy for people with whom we can identify with, when we ourselves have not previously experienced their situation, or one like it.
B.
There are different types of empathy
My understand of empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another - so I see you in a hole and I am climbing into it to share those feelings. Sympathy is I understand how you're feeling (and care) but I'm not making myself vulnerable by trying to feel what you're feeling.
I don’t think this is a good description of social imagination. Especially the part about not eating the food because it was not exactly as was expected. It should be more about understanding how other people think and being in their shoes, rather than facing an unexpected situation.
Hi! I accidentally disliked your video when I meant to like it. It’s been happening to me A LOT since they changed the buttons. Sorry! I fixed it.
I went to a food bank the last place I lived so when I went to a food bank where I currently live I had the expectation that the experience would be similar. Unfortunately there was a man who wad really pushy and this was already a hard week so the situation ultimately led to a complete shutdown. I am fairly recently self diagnosed and watching so many people's videos about their experiences has been really helpful in recognizing that how I feel isn't abnormal, but a different kind of normal. I hope to save up enough money with my husband to be able to seek a formal diagnosis, but until then I plan to keep learning as much as I can about autism and continue processing everything.
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