19.scripting
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[00:00:00] Hello siblings. Welcome to the Sensory Siblings Podcast. I'm your host, Louisa Shaeri, and this is beaming to you from the solar system, the liberatory framework, and unmasking unschool for creatively identified autistic folks who are seeking another way to see no and be yourself. This is a radical re-imagining of what's.

[00:00:26] Possible when we redefine ourselves from within, by unlearning who we are, not making self connection. Our goal, activating the languages of our sensory oriented perception and creating the culture shifts to activate futures and cells, it all starts within,

[00:00:49] Hey, sibling, today I wanna get into. A whole series of episodes that are about social communication, relating relationships, belonging, interacting with other people, and I've been thinking about this and how much, what's underpinning, what I wanna say is connected to rejection. And how much we experience a higher amount of unnecessary and unfair rejection.

[00:01:27] And so really a lot of what I want to cover is with the goal of just validating that this may have been your experience and. To really give you as much thinking and ideas and evidence as possible to know that the reasons for this have nothing to do with anything about you being an in inherently bad or wrong or worthy of rejection.

[00:01:59] Even though it may feel that way, even though you might look at your past, you might look at your experiences. And feel like, well, there must be something because of how hard social interaction has been, how stressful an anxiety inducing other people can be, and how painful the amount of rejection that you may have experienced might be to the degree that.

[00:02:32] Retreating away from and being isolated and also being lonely may have been a large or predominant part of your life. Right? So if that's the case, I, I'm hoping that what I'm gonna share in this and several episodes will really just give you a lot of. Yeah, validation that this is something that may have happened, but it's really not about you.

[00:03:09] It's really, really not your fault, and it's really not a reflection of who you are, and I know that you know that, but these experiences of being rejected at an above average level. And in many different scenarios can create the unconscious belief that. It's about me. It's something I'm doing wrong. I'm bad.

[00:03:35] I need to be something I'm not. I need to fit in. I need to change myself. And so when that is a conclusion that you make deep down, it becomes the lens through which you interpret everything, right? And so it can add another layer on top of what is already hard and what is already hard is a social landscape that.

[00:04:01] I think, yeah, it carries things that are extra hard for people who process and think differently and have a different body and pro and make sense in ways that aren't as easily translatable and that don't land as easily, but also experience the predominant or majority of people around them. In that way as well.

[00:04:25] Like people just don't make sense. Why are we doing small talk? What is this all about? So that's my intention and the kind of overarching theme. And this episode is just on scripting. And the reason I wanna talk about scripting is because it's been, uh. It is been a subject that's come up with lots of different, uh, people that I've worked with, several of my one-on-one clients and several siblings in the solar system in different ways, and my own experience of unlearning scripting conversations.

[00:05:08] I would credit with being one of the. Biggest, most impactful transformations on my sense of self, on my levels of social anxiety, and on my ability to feel connected to other people. So with all of that, I wanna start with a study. From 2016 with a ridiculous title called Neurotypical. Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with autism based on thin slice judgements.

[00:05:47] So that Auvi title is, uh, for a paper that discusses some research, which was into the immediate first impression judgments made by so-called typically developing people. Of autistic people and finding that it was significantly less favorable. Not only that, but that immediately those, um, those immediate first impression judgments that they made, led to, I quote, reduced social intentions as in.

[00:06:25] This person is not making sense to me. They're not conveying the social, this is my thoughts, not the papers. Right? They're not conveying the kind of social currency and belonging cues that, um, that I look for. Then therefore not someone I'm gonna pursue getting to know. Right? So, neurotypical people, if we're gonna really, um, generalize thinking that autistic people.

[00:06:55] Are less relevant, less interesting, less worthy of getting to know based on very immediate, superficial, uh, reading of nonverbal cues and also verbal cues that are not about what was said. And there's another level of this, I quote, this may reflect a previously under-recognized contributor to the reduced quantity and quality of social interaction experienced, end of quote, by autistic people.

[00:07:30] Well, yes. Uh, yeah. It's not news. So this is something that I wanted to bring into this because of. How this study points to the, the reality that you are just going to be navigating a world in which there is a predominant way of thinking and processing and doing social interaction in which you make less sense and in which you are making less sense to them.

[00:08:06] Leads to them making the conclusion that you are less relevant and less carry, less social currency, and therefore are less interesting or worthy or important to them. Okay, so this may have been part of your experiences and probably will be a big factor in. Your experience of hiding and masking and trying to second guess and calculate how to be and try and fit in with other people and be in the exhausting work of trying to do all of that.

[00:08:48] And so scripting is a part of that. And so this is really what I wanted to. Frame scripting. With that, we experience this level, this level, these in increased levels of rejection, in ways that are really hard to pinpoint the source of like, okay, I'm being rejected. I dunno why I must be doing something wrong.

[00:09:17] So the paper said that it's not based on what you say. But how you say it and the nonverbal Q cues that surround that. So the way you move, the way you act, the way you maybe dress them, very tiny, subtle indicators for how you naturally think and process and relate that mean that they aren't receiving a clear signal, right?

[00:09:41] So it's not that you lack social skills. But that the social signals that you give out are just on a different frequency, a different language, and are harder to read to those whose social language is predominant and constantly affirmed and is the one that is belonging to people who are. The most well resourced in terms of how they think and express.

[00:10:17] So instead of opening up to include you, they're not receiving a signal that makes sense to them, and therefore it's much easier to just judge you. That's the human brain in action. And they already decide before getting to know you that they aren't gonna put any effort in. And so they have reduced social intentions, right?

[00:10:39] And then you experience. Rejection of very subtle types, not just explicit or bullying or anything like that. Very subtle forms of rejection where you're just kind of sidelined or left out or wondering why people aren't making the effort with you or giving you attention. So you end up having these low quality interactions, low levels of interest and wandering.

[00:11:06] And internalizing it as something that you must have done wrong or that you are doing wrong or that you are wrong, and that over a long time, over and over repeat experiences of that are gonna create a belief that not only that there's a right or wrong way to be with people and do social communication, right, that other people have social skills and you don't.

[00:11:31] But also that you are doing it wrong, that you don't know how to do it, that everyone else seems to have the, the script, the manual, the instructions except you, or even deeper that you are just fundamentally wrong or bad, or that's something about you that is, uh, not worthy of acceptance and inclusion and belonging.

[00:11:55] So. Add to this, the, just the general social landscape, which is influenced by the culture of work, of opportunities, of, uh, values of, you know, things like what makes, uh, a person interesting or worthy. And so we have all these added layers. And then there might be this other layer, and this is theoretical.

[00:12:24] I'm not sure if this will be the case for everyone, but there may have been some of you where they've been, experiences where they have got to know you and then something you said, or sharing yourself in a certain way, maybe increase their openness to getting to know you. And so the difference between being rejected or not feels like.

[00:12:47] It's about what you say and that what you say matters. So add that in with the belief that there's a right or wrong way to do it. That you are doing it wrong, that you don't know how to do it. And what happens is that your experience of social communication becomes about saying it right? Having the right thing to say and avoiding saying the wrong thing.

[00:13:12] And then another layer. This is a many layered cake. So add in on top of that, the fact that many of us, because we are just processing more sensory experience at any given time, we are noticing things. We're taking in sounds sites, things around us that other people aren't noticing. So there's this added like split focus and distractibility and also that it just takes us sometimes longer to process speech.

[00:13:40] So then processing what the other person said, and then trying to have the right thing to say readily for the moment when it's your turn to speak and working out when that is, all of that becomes a highly stressful, anxiety inducing experience, right? A deeply disconnecting, uh, stressful experience. So. Uh, cue social anxiety.

[00:14:07] Your belonging is tied up with in your own thinking, right? Your, the beliefs that you've in, you may have internalized from these experiences. Your belonging is tied up with your ability to keep up with conversations and to say the right thing, and also do things like small talk. Which side note, I think really is just a carrier for.

[00:14:33] The, the, the predominant, uh, I, I don't like the word neurotype, I have to say, but the predominant neurotype to suss out and experience each other's nonverbal cues and just generally vibe each other out. And so it's not really about what's being said. It's like, oh, we're just feeling out each other's energy and, but, but the ways of.

[00:15:00] Interpreting and sussing each other out in that small talk moment. In those small talk moments don't really translate. They don't really work across different cognitive styles, right? And so with people whose ways of processing and making sense and relating, if that's not incompatible with you, and if they are being.

[00:15:26] Like affirmed and resourced in all of that, and so they're thinking that their way of being and their way of expressing and their way of interpreting the world is just the reality. Then they're gonna look at you and be like, you don't make sense to me. Your nonverbal cues are not giving me the signals of social status and currency and belonging and insight that I can sense will be helpful.

[00:15:54] So ergo, you are not relevant. And then meanwhile, you are in this game of trying to catch the right moment and say the right thing and work out what the right thing to say is, and process everything that's being said and trying to fit in, right? So if that is the case for you, along comes scripting, right?

[00:16:15] For some of you, this is when scripting enters. Scripting. Let's zoom out for a second and just say that everyone's scripts, people's script talks, people, even Ted Talks. Ted Talks, I believe they have a very specific format for what is said when it's highly scripted. I script this podcast. Scripting is a really useful tool for communication, right?

[00:16:41] It means you can be ready to explain an idea or a message in the best way possible. However, notice how scripting is really only effective when the conversation is one directional. So this is why many of us prefer public speaking to unstructured small talk in a group, myself included, public speaking, way easier.

[00:17:05] However, in the kinds of scenarios that I've just described about. Being with other people in loose, unstructured social conversations and being judged, uh, pre-judged, trying to keep up operating from the beliefs that there's a right or wrong way to communicate that you need to have the right thing to say that saying the right thing at the right time is the goal of social communication.

[00:17:32] Then this can lead you to end up, and this is what I did, rehearsing and scripting and running things through your head of how they might go, imagining conversations ahead of time before social events, and doing that with conversations with speech that isn't one directional. And so I wanna talk about the impacts of this and the problems it created for me and many of my one-on-one coaching clients.

[00:18:07] And it's also come up in the solar system for siblings too. So I know it's not a rare problem, and I know that there's solutions, right? There's ways to move through this and. You are not alone. Okay? So if this is you, you are not alone. This is common and my goal is to give you a perspective and a taste of what's possible so that you know that there, there is another way that you can get to experience social communication.

[00:18:41] That isn't as stressful as this. So scripting social interaction used to be something I did. I would say for, for almost every social event, or at least the ones I knew were coming, I would. Be anxious about them way in advance and to deal with that anxiety would conjure up imagined versions of what it would be and the kinds of conversations that I predicted might happen.

[00:19:06] And I would imagine things I could say in those situations that relieved that sense of anxiety for a minute that felt like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how I'm gonna set, that's how I'm gonna be. That's what I'm gonna say. That's gonna be the things that are going to. Uh, make me acceptable. And obviously that's not what the thoughts I was actually having.

[00:19:28] I was just doing it. I was just imagining it was just happening automatically. So what ended up happening was I was rehearsing all of these things in my head, how to be, but this also became a habit that was happening even when I was alone and there was nothing coming up, right. This would become. A habitual state of my mind to be in this kind of running monologue of thought, checking and running.

[00:19:57] My ideas of things I might think or say or share with other people against this idealized, edited. Version of myself that I'd imagined in my head, so I'd be completely alone. And this internal monologuing would would be there, right? And it would feel like, it would feel like in my brain, having airport security checks for who I was being, what I was thinking, the words I might say, even to myself in my own head, as if every single thought had to run past.

[00:20:35] The social approval guards. And so I'm listening to my own thoughts through the imagined lens of their eyes and their thoughts and their judgments. And when I say they, I really mean the people who either collectively represent those I've felt, let the least safe with, or that I'm most desirous of their approval.

[00:20:59] As in, I don't already have it. So it's a type of vigilance and it comes from thinking that you, I need to make sure I'm acceptable at all times and trying to maintain this idea of self, of who I needed to be around other people in order to be okay. Right. In order to be. Not only acceptable to them, but also just feel okay and avoid rejection and the pain of that and this internal monologuing and scripting ahead of time.

[00:21:35] It didn't really feel good, right? It kept me in these loops of anxiety and indecision because it's like, oh, can I make this decision? Can I make this choice for myself? I need to double check it with the the thought police, right? And so it's a state of disconnection from self. It's a state of. I can't actually be in my body and in my, uh, in my own experiences, I've got to check and, and correct and approve first.

[00:22:15] And then the other side of this was the impact that this had on real conversations, which is that I, especially if I'd scripted and rehearsed and imagined and conjured them up in my head beforehand, including. An image of myself, uh, an idea of myself and an idea of them and the ideas of what they might do and what I might want to say.

[00:22:44] What happened was, okay, I might be able to approximate that roughly and possibly. To not experience over rejection, but so many times when I said the thing that had sounded good in my head, when it came out, it fell flat. It sounded terrible, it was weird, it was disjointed. And then they would respond in ways that I hadn't pre-calculated.

[00:23:17] They'd go off script. They'd go off the plan that I was enacting in my own mind, right? So I say that to say that scripting conversations that are not just one directional, not only does it not actually work. On the whole, it doesn't work to create connection, right? Doesn't want work to create ease. It doesn't facilitate you being yourself, but it reinforces the belief that there are right things to say and right ways to be, and just creates more and more of the same social anxiety, right?

[00:23:57] It doesn't actually solve the problem. It makes me constantly think about, oh no, I did that wrong, or, oh no, that's like another data point I need to add into my scripting. So I want to give you a perspective on this that radically, radically, deeply transform not only my experience of social interaction, but also the folks I've worked with too that impacted their experience of.

[00:24:29] Dating of friendships of relationships with family or chosen family, but most of all, their experience of themselves while with other people and their experience of themselves when alone, which is that they feel genuinely connected and they didn't have to do or say or be the right thing for that to be the case.

[00:24:54] And that unlearning the habit of scripting everything. I actually helped them get there. It was a big piece of that. So when you are scripting, and this is, this is the perspective I wanna give you. When you're scripting ahead of time, what happens is that you create a false image of yourself or a false ego self, and a false image or concept or idea of the other people involved, right?

[00:25:23] So it's a kind of conjured up illusion. That you are training your thoughts and your emotions to believe is real. Even if you're like, no, I know it's not real. I'm just imagining it. But it will have an impact on then your ability to be present or not. Your ability to actually connect with how you are experiencing those interactions.

[00:25:48] And it means that when you are in them. You are not in the moment, but instead you're seeing everything through the lens of how you've imagined you, how you've imagined them, and how you've imagined it would go. And this also means that you have preci and pre interpreted them, you the conversation and therefore.

[00:26:15] Yeah, everything that happens is in comparison with that, and it means that you're not able to be open to the unknowns of who the other people are or what will happen, or of how you will experience it. So those unknowns might. Might even be negative, right? And I wanna just validate that the feelings underneath this habit of scripting that aren't getting processed might be negative, right?

[00:26:45] They might be coming from. All of those repeat experiences of rejection, they might be coming from the ways that you reject yourself. Along with that, by believing that you aren't enough, that you need to show up in a certain way, that the ways that you naturally just communicate are not good enough and that you need to have the right things to say.

[00:27:07] But what happens with all of the feelings of past rejection, of anxiety, of fear? Of panic is that they don't go away. They just get expressed somewhere else, right? They just show up in your life in a different form. So that might be the exhaustion afterwards, it might be the anxiety of all of the work involved in trying to be something you're not.

[00:27:34] It might be in. The reclusive or avoidant tendencies, it might be living in fear of really looking at yourself and having the type of encounter with yourself that is required for self-acceptance. So this is the, the self suppression that happens that is a hallmark of. Of scripting. When you are acting from an illusion and a false ego self, like a version of yourself that you're thinking instead of who you actually are, what you're actually experiencing, then what you're doing is you are reducing who you are to something that will fit within certain limiting, uh, lines of.

[00:28:25] Acceptance, right? You're reducing your sense of self, you're reducing possibility, and you're relating to others as if you need to perform for them the right things to say. Instead of listening, experiencing them and sensing your own true responses, self is not something you can think. Self is not fixed.

[00:28:50] It's not consistent. If you find yourself imagining and thinking a self, if you find yourself conjuring up versions of self and saying this to this person or doing this, whenever you are thinking self. You have to know that it's, it's a construct that your ego is creating. It's a set of thoughts. It's a mental illusion, and it's gonna get in the way of you being yourself.

[00:29:20] It's imagining how would this land if I set it in the eyes and ears of this specific person or this general population of the people who have so social ease and have social capital, and it's also giving you a temporary dopamine hit of that good feeling of approval. Conjured up in your mind, having that thing to say that pleases them and that gets you that approval.

[00:29:47] And so your own fantasy becomes, uh, an addictive place to escape to, to avoid the actual feelings you're experiencing underneath. So all that it's doing. Is feeding this false ego, idealized, probably neurotypical, approximating, constructed self, and it's gonna keep you from experiencing and connecting with people and with yourself.

[00:30:15] While with people it's going to generate. Emotions and ideas that are also coming from fear, right? Or from assumptions and from your past. So it's gonna keep you stuck in your past and in the anxiety loop. And this was me, right? That anxiety loop leads to where it led me to tensing my throat, to really not being connected to my own intuition and my own experiences.

[00:30:47] And to going nonverbal at times, right? So this was me. Scripting didn't solve this. Unlearning. Scripting solved it. So scripting, it's okay if you do it, and I don't want you to now go away and judge yourself for it. Become aware. Allow yourself lots of time to just notice if this is something that you do to allow it to be something that you do to, um.

[00:31:17] Grow that awareness and to not judge it. And not judge yourself for doing it. This has been a coping mechanism that kept you safe, right? So we want to love that you did this, that this is a habit, that this is something that has helped you, but you now get to work on re withdrawing your energy from that, right?

[00:31:42] So. It takes time. Your brain will want to keep running that motor, so it will still have steam and it will still do it. Meanwhile, you can just, if you notice that it's happening, bring your awareness into your body and into how you're feeling. And then work on those beliefs that this is created, right?

[00:32:05] That I need to have the right things to say, that I need to have a particular persona that I'm being, when I'm with other people, that I need to say the right thing, that I'm not already acceptable. That when people reject me, it's because of me. So. You don't need to hold any idea of self to be who you are.

[00:32:32] And in fact, when you don't, when you let go of needing to have a, a mental conjured idea of self, then you get to actually be in the experience and find out who you are and be surprised at finding out who you are. And that surprise, that discovery, that unraveling, that opening up. Is really the gift of getting your life and your mind back.

[00:32:57] I feel like I finished one life that was several decades and that involved a lot of scripting and involved me thinking that there was a certain version of myself I needed to be and I'm in my second life. And that second life came out of allowing myself to not know who I am. Not know what I do or how, how I do things or what I like or who I like, and to be in the finding out.

[00:33:31] And you also get to find out that social interaction can feel good when you are accessing your intuition, your intelligence, when you're connected to your body, when you are willing to feel all of the shitty feelings that come with a social landscape that contains. A lot of rejection in certain with certain people, right?

[00:33:55] And to not judge yourself for that, when you unravel those beliefs about needing to have something to say or the right things to say, when you stop giving energy to this idealized false version, and you get to encounter and meet yourself for real. And meet other people for real. So this is what I, and those I've worked with on this now experience, real connection, real imperfect people and real presence, real self sovereignty, real boundaries, real connection.

[00:34:36] I hope this will help you to see where maybe there's some habits you have around managing social anxiety. That come from things that are not your fault, that are internalized often as thoughts around, I'm not doing this right, or I need to do this right, and that. It's possible to have a different experience of being with other people, not all people, right?

[00:35:08] Not all contexts, not all the time, but enough that that experience allows you to know deeply that you are enough and then to begin to find out who you like being with who you are. And. What kinds of structures around your socializing really suit you? A last note I want to say is. This for me really underscores why it's so important to spend time with other people who think and process and make sense the way that you do.

[00:35:43] Right? When you can experience the, what's called cognitive empathy, right? Which is not um, so much about, I know how you feel, it's that I can read your body, I can read the way you express, I can read the way you move your eyes. I can read the way that you speak and you make sense to me. And being around people who make that extra level of sense.

[00:36:08] Um, which is a, was the subject of another study, which is that people of similar so-called Neurotypes or, or, um. Diagnoses or, you know, cognitive styles have, uh, a heightened cognitive empathy, right? There's, and that's evidenced by the level of rapport that's possible. So maybe I'll link to that study as well, that between autistic people, there's this higher, much higher level of rapport and that that's perceived.

[00:36:38] Not only by the people who, the themselves, but pe but outside people observing that happening that when we get together, we can read each other, we can reflect each other back. I see you, you see me. There is a, a level of connection and a type of intimacy, a type of into me see a type of, I get you, you get me.

[00:37:05] That isn't possible with everyone and that when you experience that and you've had that in your nervous system of like the relief of that, and you have that as a regular thing in your life, then you get to. No. On a much deeper level below thought in your nervous system, like deeply. Oh no, this isn't about me.

[00:37:29] The, the, the kinds of rejection I've experienced were just, um, what, what Damian Milton calls a mismatch of salience. Right. It's just, it's just two ways of being that make less sense to each other, except that one of them. Their world, the world is structured more healthfully towards, more enabling towards, and the other not so much.

[00:37:54] Right? We are in the, not so much, we are in a space where connecting with each other and affirming that is the, it's like the, um, incubator. It's like the conduit, the, the nurturing. Soil out of which to grow, structures and ways of thinking and social, uh, habits, rituals, uh, needs, ways of expressing that can then start to be much more visible and can awaken those whose realities are constantly affirmed that there are other ways of thinking and being.

[00:38:42] And that those carry value that you are worthy of getting to know and that you are someone who is deeply lovable and already. Worthy of acceptance. Alright, I'm gonna finish it there. Um, let me know how this resonated. If you're not in the Discord community, come join us. Don't be shy or do be shy. Join lurk, be quiet, read everything, and then decide if you want to interact and share your own thoughts.

[00:39:16] And there's lots more in the disco community. Uh, lots of different threads, resources, and a space in which you can connect over the types of experiences that you may have had and know that you are not alone, that this isn't about you. And that there are ways that we can start to address all of the impacts of it.

[00:39:42] Okay. Love you lots. Bye. Thanks for listening to this week's Sensory Siblings podcast. Head over to Solar systems.xyz where you can join the plus Siblings Discord server and discuss the topics explored with other listeners, and if you are ready to go deeper into activating your future self. I want to invite you to join my six month unmasking unschool called the Solar System Plus siblings.

[00:40:11] You're going to unlearn the habits of self negating, then create self-esteem, self clarity, and the self-belief to model the social esteem that will create culture shifts first in yourself, and then rippling out into everything you do and beyond. Head over to Solar Systems xyz slash. Siblings where you can join the solar system, plus siblings and I will see you inside.