so Asperger's and relationships in this video I'm gonna share three tips on how
you can maintain a relationship coming up hey guys welcome back to The Aspie World
my name is Dan and I have Asperger's syndrome ADHD OCD and dyslexia I make
weekly videos on this content so if you're new around here and you'd like to
learn more remember to hit that subscribe button by hitting the
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hit the like and follow button so you see daily videos from me in this video
I'll be discussing three tips that I personally use to help maintain a
healthy happy relationship that I've had now for the past 10 years so all that is
coming up okay as in all my videos before I get started I'd just like to
read out some comments that you guys had sent me from Instagram now if you'd like
me to read out your question or comment from Instagram make sure you go below
and follow me on Instagram and turn the notifications on so you know when I ask
you to ask me questions and hey you might actually be in a video just like
this okay so the first comment here is from the creative hermit and they asked
can being obsessed with a musician be a special interest I suppose it can be
definitely yes of course economy the next question here is from Jess stop
rain hard to 2:09 and they said I what's your favorite genre of music and my
favorite genre music is like skate pop rock pop punk kind of like College
American rock high school right I don't know I kind of stuff American Pie
soundtrack basically okay so the last comment here is from Irene Kerr and just
got FM and they said do you tell new people you meet that you have ASD or
autism basically um that's an interesting question
I don't just open it I don't like be like hey I'm done I have Asperger's in
or anything like that I just kind of I talk to them and then
if it comes apart if I need to tell them then I tell them I don't just kind of I
don't make a point if I just tell them if I need to basically okay guys a super
pumped about this video I think I get requested this video a lot from like my
followers and stuff and you guys watching right now probably if you
already follow me you might have actually requested this video and I find
it super interesting because so a lot of people ask me this question you know can
you do a video on Asperger's and relationships and autism and being a
relationship and I basically you know I've been in a
relationship with my girlfriend for almost 10 years now and we have a son as
well so he's he's coming up for just a year old and people kind of like you
know can you make videos on all this kind of stuff and I am I did a parenting
video my first one last week so I'll link that below if you're interested or
in a card above here you know what it's like being a parent and being on the
spectrum but also more importantly I feel like people want to know how do you
maintain a healthy relationship whilst being on the spectrum I mean if one of
you is on the spectrum if both you're on the spectrum if you know if the the guy
or the girl or both girls with both guys don't specially how does all work so I
thought I would just kind of do a video talking about it and also give you guys
three tips and the bonus step right at the end of the video for me from my
personal experiences that I feel would really help everybody so one of the
biggest issues I guess that people are confronted with is that they are finding
it difficult to make friends and then making friends is the first step to
making kind of romantic friendships and that will lead into a full-blown
relationship now making friends is a difficult one if you don't have a plan a
game plan like a gap that's it to make friends I did a video all about making
friends which I won't bore you with right now because our video is quite
extensively long and it's a good one though it's a great one if you want to
start there with trying to make friends and stuff like that so I'll link that
below or in a card above here as well so you guys can check out how to make
friends kind of like pact I made but it starts with making friends if you can
make friends and you're confident and making friends and you can make romantic
relationships you know from those friendships if that's where it's gonna
go now how do you maintain a relationship with somebody if you're
invested in them as a partner or a boyfriend or a wife or a husband or
whatever and it's all down to like a few different factors now for me it's I'm
lucky in the fact that like Naomi my partner you know she is a specialist she
has a first degree honors and autism and Asperger syndrome for like childhood
studies and children and things like that so she can understand me way more
than like the average typical person would but needless to say we still have
our issues just like anybody else would be it this is not me saying to you guys
that hey you know the first partner you go with needs to have a degree in autism
to understand you and that's not what I'm trying to say I was just saying like
from my experience this is what's kind of helping me a little bit more than the
typical kind of like couple but let's go on to like what I believe are tips that
I gonna definitely help so I made a kind I
just made a small list of like three things and I checked like a bonus one in
which we'll talk about at the end because it's thought it was kind of cool
so the first one is communication right and he like okay down communication but
the communication is so so interesting because communication is the one thing
that we all know that we need to work on in any relationship regardless of a
neurotypical on your diverse right but everybody forgets about it like everyone
forgets about communication I find this fascinating if you make sure that you
understand conversations correctly arguments can just fizzle out so when
you get into rouser arguments or disagreements on stuff it's usually
because one person wants one thing one person wants another thing and I never
gets on but the argument comes from the fact that the two people in that
conversation don't understand what each other is saying this simple
communication right when you're in a relationship with an autistic person the
autistic person will definitely have communication issues and some of those
issues will be in the form of not understanding the flow of a conversation
especially if it's heated especially if one of them is getting anxious on both
answers or vice-versa it's kind of like you have to understand
the pieces of the puzzle to then resolve it you're going to take a drink color so
this comes down to this my advice is if you or your partner on the spectrum make
sure that everybody involved in that conversation knows everything that is
happening there because far too often what happens is you'll be in a
conversation with your partner so if you're in the spectrum and you're
talking to somebody then you won't understand what they're saying properly
so you'll just say something that might anger them or it's completely off off
the chart so that's nothing to do with it and then it'll make it look like
you're not listening to them and it's gonna cause a whole huge like argument
in a row right it's gonna go crazy now if you on the other hand you're the
receiving this information and your patterns on the spectrum and they don't
seem to understand the flow of the conversation or they go off topic just
bear in mind that they are not going off topic because they don't like you or
they're trying to notch and resolve the issue
they're basically enough topic because they haven't really grasped the gist of
the conversation so my advice would be to write it down or get a diagram start
drawing out pictures I know it sounds like boring and montine that one's
thinking like what I'm gonna do I'm gonna get on notepad in the middle of us
like heated arguably like throwing things on you like
but you know it's just stop it getting to that level get out a pattern pen
write down and draw small images of what's going on because visually things
could be way more explained than they can orderly because one of the things I
know is that like whenever no me tries to explain something to me choices like
draw a small picture and write it down because I can't really get the what
she's saying just verbally I'm just like a wine how much was some tunnel that
means so that is number one making sure everybody understands exactly what's
going on and use of visual representations because they are gonna
help you understand so much more easier okay so number two this one's kind of
interesting and and it's a it's an obvious one but again people forget
about it it's being open and honest like autistic people have an issue expressing
their emotions right how do they communicate their emotions like how are
they conveying their emotions and stuff how do they feel about certain
situations and that can be difficult but if you're open and honest and you just
lay your cards on say okay look I'm the autistic person and so on you know in
this situation so I'm really okay I'm gonna tell you exactly how I feel on my
emotions on everything and this is all I can explain because this is my
relationship with it and that's what I'm gonna tell you then the other person can
like understand you them because you've been completely open and honest and vice
versa if you're in a relationship with an autistic person then tell them how
you feel open and honestly telling your emotions
town like your your feeling for that day on how you feeling because being an open
honest relationship and being completely transparent with everything is it gonna
help you so much more because you're gonna understand each other way more
right you're gonna know all this person's feeling down today because they
told me I don't have to guess anything cuz that's another thing people in
relationships forget that they just do have to tell people how they feel no
one's just gonna you know magically know what they're talking about especially
not if they have an autism spectrum diagnosis because that's never gonna
happen those unwritten kind of like cues and stuff I just gonna miss so being
completely open transparent and honest about everything it's gonna give you
great results and it's gonna help you to no end okay so number three is a
personal favorite of mine and I love doing this this is keeping on track of
special event so if you've done something like you had a birthday or
your birthday party or whatever then taking pictures at that time or whatever
the event is and then remembering about I like writing it down keeping kind of
like a journal on it to then talk about again so that if it comes up again
you'll be like oh I remember they enjoyed this at that time and that
worked really well so then I can go forward in the future and if it becomes
their birthday or something else or they want to go somewhere I remember that
they enjoyed this specific time because it was special right keeping a
relationship romantic and keeping that communication open with your loved one
and can be super stressful if you're on the autism spectrum and you don't really
understand all these social norms so what I do is I have like a calendar on
my iPad that has like all the special events like Valentine's Day like
birthdays and stuff like that and like Christmastime and whatever all like the
holidays and stuff where you are compelled to do these things that I
would usually forget about because it's not actively on my mind because like
it's just something that might shot to memories rubbish apart I can't like
remember to do things so I have to write them down and do them a bit later now
what this does is it gives you the ability to then plan ahead for these
events so you don't forget and you can make that effort because you've already
known about it one of the things I used to slip into is I'd forget these events
could it be so busy with like my work and whatever else and then I forget
these events and I'm like oh my goodness not one because I don't love my partner
or I didn't want to share some love or do anything like that was because I just
simply don't have the capacity to remember to do those things so I have to
write them down so keep a track of special events birthdays and all that
kind of jazz because it's definitely gonna benefit you in the long run guys
if you think this video can help somebody please give it a share hit a
share button down below and share it on social media Facebook or Twitter or
Instagram or whatever you feel that this could be shared and I would be forever
grateful because I feel like it would be awesome to just help other people out
okay so I told you guys I promised I was going to do a bonus tip right at the end
of the video so I'm gonna do the bonus tip right now so this is kind of like a
tip for somebody who is dating an autistic person so if you're dating
somebody who has an autism spectrum diagnosis then why not do this why not
read up on how they interact with their emotions so do some research into how
artistic people behave with emotional kind of like distress or how they
interact with their emotions how do they display their emotions all that kind of
stuff because you gotta remember that people on the autism spectrum that
facial features and their voice the tone of voice may not always match how that
feeling right so my girlfriend always is like why are
you so angry all the time like I'm not angry I'm absolutely happy as ever but
my face is very kind of like straightened
you know just angry kind of like when I'm just doing nothing I'm and so she
thinks I'm angry all the time but I'm not it's just that my my facial
expressions don't really convey how I'm feeling what my emotions are so I would
just read up on how you can spot those things or how you can just reset like
how do sick people deal with emotional interaction and that will help benefit
you in so many ways okay guys if you've enjoyed this video please give it a
thumbs up and I'll see you next time peace