Is it worse for Aspies to have high self-awareness?

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I know there are good points with having high self-awareness, like being more able to observe behaviour of others and develop more social skills and be less vulnerable or dependant, but at the same time it is more likely to cause stress, anxiety, and social phobia. I'm an Aspie with high self-awareness myself, but I sometimes wish I weren't because it makes me constantly feel that I am:-

/self-conscious about myself
/worried about speaking up in groups because of fear of being interrupted or not listened to
/ashamed of myself a lot
/constantly regretful of a lot of my actions and wandering why I always figure I've done something socially wrong when it's too late
/oversensitive of other people's reactions
/fear of being humiliated, too sensitive of ridicule
/constantly analyzing situations
/so worried of what people think of me that I have trouble with performing tasks in public due to the feeling that I am being watched or judged
/always feeling ashamed to be seen or heard so I find I hide away a lot
/living in fear because of feeling that I don't trust myself

I think Aspies with lower self-awareness have it better, especially if they enjoy being different and don't get so affected by other people's reactions or feelings. I think having too much empathy, emotion and self-awareness can make having AS more unbearable and cause the person more emotional pain, fear, stress, anxiety and depression. Anyone else agree?

Do we share a brain?? I'm interested to hear what others think of this.... you sound just like me; this is a perspective I've never considered before.

I also think I have too much empathy at times. It might potentially make me a better artist, entrepreneur, political activist, but it definitely comes at a social cost.

Now, I have learned certain "tricks," such as letting a medium mistake just be a medium mistake.

I've learned a lot from poker (don't recommend it on the money side!)

I'm also attracted to zen philosophy, such that mistakes add texture to life.

I don't know if this is what you were asking, but in some ways my AS has been easier to deal with post-diagnosis because I understand better what's going on but in other ways my AS has been much harder to deal with post-diagnosis because I understand better what's going on.

That is to say, I had all the same difficulties before, but when I didn't have the AS framework from which to understand, I was often able to just keep charging forward with my life, convince myself that things would be "different this time," and go into denial of past patterns and keep reaching out to life and to other people.

But now that I understand AS better and see my life patterns more clearly, I'm often backing away from life and afraid to reach out to other people because my higher level of self-awareness now makes me anticipate the problems that will come. I can almost compare it to getting hit in the head -- it hurts whether you're expecting it or not. But if you're not expecting to get hit in the head, you can go about your business and enjoy whatever you're doing until you're interrupted by that sudden blow. If you are more aware, however, and are expecting to get hit in the ehead eventually, you will be cringing and watching for it and inhibited from enjoying what you are doing because all you can think about is the pain that is coming soon.

Yes - all the things you listed and the constant "WHAT IF's" running through my head... it was worse when I was young but still bad...

If someone says something to me I don't know how to react to, I must look like a big dummy in stunned silence (far from it, my brain is RACING with the many possibilities of "what did that mean" "what's the best thing to say/do" "what if...")

I have always been very self aware and know what you mean but I fought it with the way I was raised.
I was taught very strongly not to care about the opinions of others too much and never let it tear me down.
You like me for who I am or piss off!

Some Aspies who aren't so self-aware seem to think that every Aspie is like that (as I've picked up on when reading and writing on WP, not this thread in particular so I'm not getting at anyone here , just what I've read in the passed 2 and a half years I have been a member here). Each time I say things like ''people stare at me in public'' or ''I've seen people laugh at me in public'' or ''I feel disrespected by other people a lot of the time'', I always have to explain myself in great detail about how much self-awareness I have got with my own body language and other sense of conformist details, making my posts four times a long as I wanted it to be, otherwise I get people thinking ''oh she's Aspie so that means she flaps her hands, has poor hygiene, stands or walks crooked, and dresses differently to the norm''. But not all Aspies are like that, there are some Aspies out there who can pass off as an average person without no out-of-ordinary signs, even if there are they are so minor that it gets swallowed up amoung the crowd and people don't notice enough to judge the person badly anyways, and besides everybody's different and not everybody can be the same otherwise the world would be a very dull place (as they always say). Well, I've even heard NTs admit that a tiny bit of difference never scares anyone. But like I said, there are Aspies out here who are able to conform to NT standards and able to get away with it and even feel happy with it (like me) and there are some NTs out there who don't bother to conform and will stand out but that doesn't mean they're not NT, just like you can see a normal-looking person coming towards you in the street who happens to be an Aspie in disguise.

So that's where self-awareness plays a big part in some Aspies who are willing to fit in and conform and not want to stand out and be different, and there are even some Aspies who also find it quite natural to conform and fit in amoung the rest, and that is actually me, that's how much self-awareness I have got. So that's where self-awareness can make me feel pleased I don't have any worse cases of AS or other disabilities, but sometimes a situation can come along where I worry that I am not meeting the right NT standards (like at a party or something) and so I end up avoiding parties and weddings and other social events, because of worrying that I MIGHT do something that is out of the ordinary, like talk at the wrong time or say something a bit odd that makes people judge me or something.

I relate to many of the posts on this thread, and I must say that developing self-awareness (the typical adolescent angst, albeit later than neurotypical people my age)
certainly upped the anxiety and made it harder for me take on life, but it also helps fitting in and getting along in life.

This is me, except perhaps oversensitive of others reactions, I mean, I am, but not right there and then, only afterwards. I can see a facial expression in retrospect with my minds eye and decide they did not like my comment, but I do not realize it at the moment it happens. And I do not live in fear of what I might do or say except perhaps I think along those lines 1-2 times a month.

I do sometimes wish I were less aware, but then again, I was less aware as a kid, and that didn't get me far. Atleast now I know what my weaknesses are, and I can change my behaviour accordingly.

It's something I used to spend a huge amount of time dwelling on and that only made it worse. I had a friend at the time who was hyper-critical of me and criticized my every movement so bad that I could not act in a natural way. This made me look even MORE awkward from the outside than usual. Now I try not to think about it. If I do think about it then I find myself utterly confused and/or thinking that every action of someone else around me is directed towards me and some little thing I did. However, intellectually I know this is probably not the case 90% of the time since other people have their own lives and may things could cause their reactions.

Well I've always been self-aware, and I wasn't bullied in school, maybe teased a few times or had people acting a bit impatient or unkind with me and I got shunned and didn't have much luck with friendships, but I wouldn't say I was bullied to the extent a lot of other people on WP say they were. Being so being bullied is common for people on the spectrum, and being so the school I went to was quite a ''rough'' school meaning it had a bad reputation and a lot of bullying went on there, I must say I am quite surprised I didn't get as bullied as I could have been, so I must have been self-aware back then and quite good at hiding my AS and passing off as ''normal'' when walking and talking, so if I got away with not being bullied when I was at school then surely I must be even better at not drawing attention to myself now that I'm older and even more self-aware and socially wise.

@Joe90. I'm curious. You don't use an avatar. You'd think a picture of a little school bus or city bus would be it.

I remember I used to have a cousin who was the same age as me and was a boy, but he criticised me on everything I did. He got on to me over what music I liked, what age of men I should fancy, how I should style my hair, and even what sweets I should and shouldn't buy in shops. It was rather unsettling for me, and I was afraid to move when I was with him. But then I got so used to him that what he said didn't bother me any more, and I just took it as a joke and laughed. I even started to say, ''try criticising that!'' each time I suggested or broadcasted something.

Today I was waiting outside a shop for a friend in a busy town, and a woman with 2 children walked by and literally walked right at the other side of the path from me, as though they were trying to walk as far away from me as they could possibly get, and as usual I started taking their reaction personally and thinking, ''why are they avoiding me like that for? Do I look like a child-abuser or something?'' - until I saw an elderly lady pass in a wheelchair so it was onvious thay they were just walking on the edge to allow her plenty of room to get by in her wheelchair. So then I started telling myself that there is usually an explanation for everything and that 99 percent of people's reactions are not negatively caused by me at all.

Hmm, good point.

If you weren't self-aware, some people would be turned off to communicate wiht you because it might be too much energy, time, and patience to enjoy communication and friendship. Don't take it as a bad thing. It depends on how we react from our self-awareness, which is quite the loaded phrase to say the least. Basically, as aspies, we probably just have to f**k up a lot until we get it right enough,

I have far too much self-awareness, more so than most other people. It's the most depressing thing ever. It's like I'm aware that I'm screwed and the fact is constantly relayed to me over and over again every day. I wish I could be one of those ignorant types; y'know, the whole "ignorance is bliss" thing.