Misunderstandings
Apr. 28th, 2010 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urocyonThis started out as a comment on feliscorvus's recent Communication Annoyances, but it turned out that I had rather a lot to say on the subject. *wry smile*
This has turned out way longer than expected, but I couldn't figure out a good place to place a cut. So, I will go ahead and stick the rest behind one.
The patterns she describes sound frustrating and way too familiar. I'm not sure how much these observations apply to any of the situations she's run into, though. Hopefully this will make some sense if you haven't read Anne's (locked by default) post, either. (I did ask her if it's OK to post this publicly.)
I've ended up in a lot of situations of mutual incomprehension and misunderstanding, with very little clue as to how to rectify this. Sometimes it just feels like talking at cross purposes, sometimes it turns into an argument--which I have been trying hard to avoid. It can be very frustrating.
I used to assume I was almost inevitably at fault when this happened. Now it may seem that I'm placing too much blame on the other party (or parties). But, I have had to be very aware that my mind does not always work in the same ways as a lot of other people's, and have had to put a lot of effort into trying to understand and work around this. I have been told more than once that I might want to consider going into social work or counseling because I've learned to be good at listening and avoiding/helping resolve conflicts in a not-so-confrontational way. (Ye gods, no. I'd burn out within a week. I already feel like I'm doing similar unpaid, out of simple necessity, and it's bloody hard work.)
I am aware that I need to listen closely, and sometimes it's important to stop and think about what everyone involved may be trying to say, and what differences in approaches and phrasing might be confusing things. I frequently have to try to figure out where the other person is coming from, and ask for clarification if I just can't figure out what they're getting at. A lot of the time it helps, sometimes it seems as if nothing I do will affect the situation.
Many other people are not used to needing to stop and think about these things. Some of them seem to resent the idea that they should be expected to do so, and can resent and become dismissive and/or openly hostile toward anyone who makes this necessity obvious. (A lot like any other kind of arrogance rooted in privilege, really--including the "not necessarily conscious behavior" bit.) Once their ire is up, nothing you do or say is going to get past their own mental filters--and they are likely to further blame you for trying. Most of the continuing problems I have run into have involved people displaying these characteristics, to one degree or another.
I'm prone to, if anything, over-explaining, trying to clarify what I mean and avoid conflict from misunderstandings. (Not usually about the way my brain works, but more general "this is what I mean, and why I'm saying this" kinds of explanations.) It rarely works as intended. An awful lot of people are just not interested in explanations, and will react defensively in ways which illustrate nicely that they did not understand (nor even tried to, in some cases). I've run into exactly what Anne describes, dealing with some relatives who would, presumably, be interested in the whys and hows (even as simple as dyscalculia), for future reference if nothing else. Most of the time, it's a slightly more subtle "this is my reasoning" kind of thing.
Yeah, that extends to blogging, and means I rely pretty heavily on links. Which came up in another comment a little while ago. :)
Mostly I've tried to stop explaining, unless I have dealt with the person before and they seem to appreciate the explanations. Otherwise, it rarely even works. Sometimes they just seem to pay more attention to the perceived insecurity there, rather than to what I'm actually saying--and get condescending/fake-reassuring (sometimes even really reassuring, when that is not at all what I'm looking for). It's like they can't hear what I'm saying over the emotions they're projecting onto me. It is hard to describe.
IME, this can look an awful lot like the same kind of weird social signal clash which lets "I'm so NICE" signals override the content of what a person is saying. Unlike that example, though, my "I'm a competent person, really" signals get interpreted as meaning that "I don't think I'm competent at all, and am protesting too much".
Note: this is without the other person willfully twisting what you are trying to say, which sometimes happens too--and sometimes subtly. Sometimes their own mental filters will not let anything though which contradicts the way they see things, so it is less conscious. I have had to think about these interaction patterns a lot, having spent a lot of time around a narcissist and someone who learned a lot of social skills from said narcissist--in situations in which there was absolutely no way to come out looking good, dealing with someone whose world was seriously threatened by any suggestion that they're not always right about everything. (A lot of the time, it's hard to tell what will be taken as criticism, and therefore a serious threat warranting rage.) Your perceived disagreement (real or not) may then be taken as evidence that you're a meanie who said awful things to them for no reason--projecting their own levels of disrespect onto you, and neatly justifying their own hurtful behavior (which is also likely to get projected onto you).
People who can fairly be described as narcissists (and as much as I dislike flinging labels around, there really are some) are a very special case. But, a lot of people react in similar ways, to far lesser degrees which are more likely to come across as reasonable. I seem to have less problem recognizing cognitive dissonance for what it is than a lot of other people do, so hope I am less likely to take my discomfort out on other people. And no, I am not trying to suggest that I'm somehow really great and superior at interpersonal stuff, just that I've had to work really hard at it, and put a lot of thought into it.
BTW, NellaLou wrote an excellent post recently on some ways this cognitive dissonance plays out in conversations, through the use of seemingly nonsensical statements (frequently used to shut things down). It made an awful lot of sense. I hadn't thought of it in that way before, and it fits very well into this context--especially if both parties do not recognize the tactic as such.
Even without the twisting, it's very frustrating and hard to deal with these persistent misunderstandings. Sometimes the other person's thinking and/or communication style is just sufficiently different that you're unlikely to understand one another properly, even if everyone is receptive to explanations. Sometimes their motives do not seem that good or even neutral.
It may be more basic than the social signal conflict idea, even: if you are demonstrating that your mind works differently, and the other person is inclined to assume that theirs works in the "right" way, further explanations just demonstrate the perceived inferiority of the way your brain works. So they need to reassure you that you're really not so "bad" as all that. This is very relevant to dealing with the ""disability can be Overcome With A Positive Attitude(TM)" crowd Anne mentions.
Most of the folks spouting that line don't want to think of themselves as rigid and intolerant. They still feel free to insist they know what other people Really Need, and you can't really keep that up if you don't think you're better in some fundamental way. At best, it's civilized oppression. By now, I just cut conversations short and avoid further conversations with people who act like that; I don't need the inevitable aggro of continuing to deal with them. It's not the end of the world if someone who persists in saying and doing disrespectful things thinks I'm rude. :-|
And, yeah, you can get some real insecurity going--and try a little too hard to keep other people from jumping on you before they understand what you are trying to say--based on a history of just such communication difficulties. I know I have.
Also, I seem to get into that thing a lot where someone is saying something I agree with, and I tell them as much, and then they seem to think I'm DISAGREEING, and then I end up in something that feels like an argument but isn't. Or that turns into an argument over word definitions and what I supposedly did or did not mean when I said a particular thing.
Oh yeah. This seems to happen when people are not hearing what they expect to hear, expressed in the way they expect to hear it. Then they focus on minutiae, because they don't even fully recognize what it was they were reacting to in the first place (i.e., why you sounded so "wrong").
A lot of problems with communication used to get blamed on my rhotacism, when my speech was not particularly difficult to understand. (At worst, when I started school, it was Jonathan Ross-level.) It was easy to point to that as The Problem (firmly in my court), in a similar way. Of course, now that I just get asked about my subtle "accent" a lot, the same kinds of misunderstandings--complete with not so much requests as insistence that I repeat things--continue. There is not that obvious difference to blame, so some people have to home in on other things, like word choice.
In both kinds of situations, I have started telling myself that if the other person is prone to misunderstanding and dismissing what I am trying to say--and jumping to conclusions based on what they're taking in--they will do so regardless.
It is not inevitably my responsibility to avoid misunderstandings and try to keep the peace, much less to preemptively justify what is coming out of my mouth. That is an unreasonable set of expectations. If the other person is unwilling or somehow unable to meet me somewhere in the middle, that's not somehow my responsibility. If the other person is working on an assumption that I'm dippy and weird, there's not much I can do to change that--and it's not my problem, except in how they make it my problem through treating me disrespectfully. Additionally, if the person keeps behaving disrespectfully, I'm not obliged to contort myself to somehow remain polite dealing with them.
Sometimes it's really, really frustrating just staying quiet, though.
feliscorvus's recent Communication Annoyances, but it turned out that I had rather a lot to say on the subject. *wry smile*This has turned out way longer than expected, but I couldn't figure out a good place to place a cut. So, I will go ahead and stick the rest behind one.
The patterns she describes sound frustrating and way too familiar. I'm not sure how much these observations apply to any of the situations she's run into, though. Hopefully this will make some sense if you haven't read Anne's (locked by default) post, either. (I did ask her if it's OK to post this publicly.)
I've ended up in a lot of situations of mutual incomprehension and misunderstanding, with very little clue as to how to rectify this. Sometimes it just feels like talking at cross purposes, sometimes it turns into an argument--which I have been trying hard to avoid. It can be very frustrating.
I used to assume I was almost inevitably at fault when this happened. Now it may seem that I'm placing too much blame on the other party (or parties). But, I have had to be very aware that my mind does not always work in the same ways as a lot of other people's, and have had to put a lot of effort into trying to understand and work around this. I have been told more than once that I might want to consider going into social work or counseling because I've learned to be good at listening and avoiding/helping resolve conflicts in a not-so-confrontational way. (Ye gods, no. I'd burn out within a week. I already feel like I'm doing similar unpaid, out of simple necessity, and it's bloody hard work.)
I am aware that I need to listen closely, and sometimes it's important to stop and think about what everyone involved may be trying to say, and what differences in approaches and phrasing might be confusing things. I frequently have to try to figure out where the other person is coming from, and ask for clarification if I just can't figure out what they're getting at. A lot of the time it helps, sometimes it seems as if nothing I do will affect the situation.
Many other people are not used to needing to stop and think about these things. Some of them seem to resent the idea that they should be expected to do so, and can resent and become dismissive and/or openly hostile toward anyone who makes this necessity obvious. (A lot like any other kind of arrogance rooted in privilege, really--including the "not necessarily conscious behavior" bit.) Once their ire is up, nothing you do or say is going to get past their own mental filters--and they are likely to further blame you for trying. Most of the continuing problems I have run into have involved people displaying these characteristics, to one degree or another.
I'm prone to, if anything, over-explaining, trying to clarify what I mean and avoid conflict from misunderstandings. (Not usually about the way my brain works, but more general "this is what I mean, and why I'm saying this" kinds of explanations.) It rarely works as intended. An awful lot of people are just not interested in explanations, and will react defensively in ways which illustrate nicely that they did not understand (nor even tried to, in some cases). I've run into exactly what Anne describes, dealing with some relatives who would, presumably, be interested in the whys and hows (even as simple as dyscalculia), for future reference if nothing else. Most of the time, it's a slightly more subtle "this is my reasoning" kind of thing.
Yeah, that extends to blogging, and means I rely pretty heavily on links. Which came up in another comment a little while ago. :)
Mostly I've tried to stop explaining, unless I have dealt with the person before and they seem to appreciate the explanations. Otherwise, it rarely even works. Sometimes they just seem to pay more attention to the perceived insecurity there, rather than to what I'm actually saying--and get condescending/fake-reassuring (sometimes even really reassuring, when that is not at all what I'm looking for). It's like they can't hear what I'm saying over the emotions they're projecting onto me. It is hard to describe.
IME, this can look an awful lot like the same kind of weird social signal clash which lets "I'm so NICE" signals override the content of what a person is saying. Unlike that example, though, my "I'm a competent person, really" signals get interpreted as meaning that "I don't think I'm competent at all, and am protesting too much".
Note: this is without the other person willfully twisting what you are trying to say, which sometimes happens too--and sometimes subtly. Sometimes their own mental filters will not let anything though which contradicts the way they see things, so it is less conscious. I have had to think about these interaction patterns a lot, having spent a lot of time around a narcissist and someone who learned a lot of social skills from said narcissist--in situations in which there was absolutely no way to come out looking good, dealing with someone whose world was seriously threatened by any suggestion that they're not always right about everything. (A lot of the time, it's hard to tell what will be taken as criticism, and therefore a serious threat warranting rage.) Your perceived disagreement (real or not) may then be taken as evidence that you're a meanie who said awful things to them for no reason--projecting their own levels of disrespect onto you, and neatly justifying their own hurtful behavior (which is also likely to get projected onto you).
People who can fairly be described as narcissists (and as much as I dislike flinging labels around, there really are some) are a very special case. But, a lot of people react in similar ways, to far lesser degrees which are more likely to come across as reasonable. I seem to have less problem recognizing cognitive dissonance for what it is than a lot of other people do, so hope I am less likely to take my discomfort out on other people. And no, I am not trying to suggest that I'm somehow really great and superior at interpersonal stuff, just that I've had to work really hard at it, and put a lot of thought into it.
BTW, NellaLou wrote an excellent post recently on some ways this cognitive dissonance plays out in conversations, through the use of seemingly nonsensical statements (frequently used to shut things down). It made an awful lot of sense. I hadn't thought of it in that way before, and it fits very well into this context--especially if both parties do not recognize the tactic as such.
Even without the twisting, it's very frustrating and hard to deal with these persistent misunderstandings. Sometimes the other person's thinking and/or communication style is just sufficiently different that you're unlikely to understand one another properly, even if everyone is receptive to explanations. Sometimes their motives do not seem that good or even neutral.
It may be more basic than the social signal conflict idea, even: if you are demonstrating that your mind works differently, and the other person is inclined to assume that theirs works in the "right" way, further explanations just demonstrate the perceived inferiority of the way your brain works. So they need to reassure you that you're really not so "bad" as all that. This is very relevant to dealing with the ""disability can be Overcome With A Positive Attitude(TM)" crowd Anne mentions.
Most of the folks spouting that line don't want to think of themselves as rigid and intolerant. They still feel free to insist they know what other people Really Need, and you can't really keep that up if you don't think you're better in some fundamental way. At best, it's civilized oppression. By now, I just cut conversations short and avoid further conversations with people who act like that; I don't need the inevitable aggro of continuing to deal with them. It's not the end of the world if someone who persists in saying and doing disrespectful things thinks I'm rude. :-|
And, yeah, you can get some real insecurity going--and try a little too hard to keep other people from jumping on you before they understand what you are trying to say--based on a history of just such communication difficulties. I know I have.
Also, I seem to get into that thing a lot where someone is saying something I agree with, and I tell them as much, and then they seem to think I'm DISAGREEING, and then I end up in something that feels like an argument but isn't. Or that turns into an argument over word definitions and what I supposedly did or did not mean when I said a particular thing.
Oh yeah. This seems to happen when people are not hearing what they expect to hear, expressed in the way they expect to hear it. Then they focus on minutiae, because they don't even fully recognize what it was they were reacting to in the first place (i.e., why you sounded so "wrong").
A lot of problems with communication used to get blamed on my rhotacism, when my speech was not particularly difficult to understand. (At worst, when I started school, it was Jonathan Ross-level.) It was easy to point to that as The Problem (firmly in my court), in a similar way. Of course, now that I just get asked about my subtle "accent" a lot, the same kinds of misunderstandings--complete with not so much requests as insistence that I repeat things--continue. There is not that obvious difference to blame, so some people have to home in on other things, like word choice.
In both kinds of situations, I have started telling myself that if the other person is prone to misunderstanding and dismissing what I am trying to say--and jumping to conclusions based on what they're taking in--they will do so regardless.
It is not inevitably my responsibility to avoid misunderstandings and try to keep the peace, much less to preemptively justify what is coming out of my mouth. That is an unreasonable set of expectations. If the other person is unwilling or somehow unable to meet me somewhere in the middle, that's not somehow my responsibility. If the other person is working on an assumption that I'm dippy and weird, there's not much I can do to change that--and it's not my problem, except in how they make it my problem through treating me disrespectfully. Additionally, if the person keeps behaving disrespectfully, I'm not obliged to contort myself to somehow remain polite dealing with them.
Sometimes it's really, really frustrating just staying quiet, though.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-28 08:34 pm (UTC)Yes, this, very much this. Highly relevant to what I was referring to. And it's not like I go around offline talking about my cognitive configuration constantly. Whenever that sort of thing DOES come up it is generally because I am beginning to feel backed into a corner in the context of that interaction. As in, at that point it's either "try and explain something" or "just watch things get rapidly and exponentially worse" (between me and whoever I am trying to communicate with).
And I really do think you've elucidated the root of this issue: that is, explanations that seem totally neutral, "merely descriptive", and potentially useful to me get taken as my being "down on myself" or "lacking in confidence". I remember when I (again, in one of those "backed into a corner" situations) disclosed to a former supervisor that I was autistic, his reaction was pretty much to say "oh come on, why do you want to look at yourself that way?" Where the implication was clearly that "that way" (i.e., autistic) was somehow fundamentally bad. When I did not even mean to suggest that at all -- in that case it was just a matter of wanting him to understand that my periodically being unable to speak about things I could discuss perfectly well in writing was not some bizarre affectation, or rudeness, etc. Text is a literal necessity for me sometimes, in situations where others might prefer speech, but I don't see this as bad, it is just something that needs to be dealt with. And I have plenty of tools for dealing with it.
But I get frustrated a lot when people seem to be focusing way more on the tools, and methods, I use (whether to communicate, or to do any number of other things) than on the end goal I am attempting to accomplish. Another example is when I am in a complex/technical discussion with someone and I am taking lots of notes. This is another thing that is utterly necessary for me. But I get told all the time "Oh, you don't need to write this down", or even, "Don't take notes, just try and listen to me, you can't always be taking notes in the real world!" (and yes, serious WTF on the "real world" thing).
OK that got rather tangential. And there are more bits in your post I want to respond to, but I have to go take out the garbage and such so will have to comment more later.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-29 12:21 pm (UTC)it was just a matter of wanting him to understand that my periodically being unable to speak about things I could discuss perfectly well in writing was not some bizarre affectation, or rudeness, etc. Text is a literal necessity for me sometimes, in situations where others might prefer speech, but I don't see this as bad, it is just something that needs to be dealt with.
*nod* That sounds very familiar. And it's really frustrating to get responses like you describe when trying to explain that this is so. At work? Ouch.
At my last job, I didn't even try to explain the CAPD--just, when it became obvious that this was a problem, explained that I have an ear that stays blocked up, with some hearing loss. And suggested that I can make out what people are saying better if they're facing me. All of which is true, as far as it goes.
Turns out, they're treating chronic "glue ear" more aggressively now not only because of the risk of screwing up the eardrums, but because having their ears blocked up at certain stages of development will give kids auditory processing problems! In my case, I think it made an existing problem worse. (Same with the dyspraxia, given the vestibular weirdness.) So, the explanation was even less misleading, but I still don't like needing to be less than honest.
It's annoying to have to choose explanations that carefully--and deliver them in a rather apologetic tone!--but more people can understand straightforwardly physical hearing loss without turning it into something as negative as "hello, I has scrambly brain". (Actually, I think of things that way a lot, just try not to pile on the value judgments!)
"Oh, you don't need to write this down", or even, "Don't take notes, just try and listen to me, you can't always be taking notes in the real world!" (and yes, serious WTF on the "real world" thing).
*headdesk* Sometimes I honestly have to remind myself that what I am living in is the Real World, after hearing enough of that kind of thing. I'm glad it finally hit me that, in situations like that, I am rarely the one demonstrating a tenuous grasp on reality.
I can rarely pay attention to what people are saying and take notes at the same time, so I used to get snarked at over not taking notes. (After 25+ years of it, I didn't even realize that I was relying on lipreading at all until I moved here, and got seriously thrown off by people moving their mouths very differently. So I couldn't even have tried to explain that.) Yeah, I agree that there's often way too much focus on tools and methods rather than goals. Which makes more sense of some of the bizarre reluctance and even hostility toward the very idea of accommodations; if someone doesn't understand that even non-disabled people do things in different ways, even simple and seemingly obvious accommodations are just not going to look reasonable nor necessary. Even before you get to the power-tripping which too frequently seems to be involved.
I have to go take out the garbage and such so will have to comment more later
Ha, I'm messing around here instead of getting some lunch and heading out to buy groceries. Ah, inertia!