Fed up feeling so damned uncomfortable in my own skin

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I feel so damn different to everyone else on the planet, just walking down the street gives me such an uneasy feeling, I feel like Ellen Page in inception when shes in Leonardo DiCaprios dream. I always seem to think people look at me funny, as if they know I dont belong there. It makes it near impossible for me to achieve anything in life, I only ever feel truely comfortable when Im in my home on my own, but thats no way to live.

Thanks to facebook I get to see all the people I went to school with getting on with their fabulous lives, with their fabulous jobs, partners, parties and social events every week. They seem like theyre truely living while Im merely existing. I want to have the life of a normal 28 year old, I feel like Im an old man before my time.

Thinking back I only really started feeling like this after the doctor stated I had aspergers, I remember before my diagnosis I used to at least have some semblance of a social life, I just thought I was shy, I wish with all my heart that no one had told me, and that I could just carry on living in blissful ignorance for the rest of my life.

My sense of unease with myself now seems to subconsiously show to anyone I meet, and for that reason Im usually rejected after they meet me once or twice, sometimes I dont even get that far. Im tired of picking myself up and trying again, maybe I should just accept defeat and come to terms with living a solitary life. I just wish I was one of these aspies who didnt need friends and didnt feel loneliness.

Fascinating. When they told me I'm on the spectrum I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Why? Because now I KNEW for sure why I was so different. And you know what? Now I BELONG to something. I belong to no social club; the way I feel it seems like I don't belong to any race or creed, either! I sure as hell don't belong to my family. I'm an outsider, but I'm balanced enough to recognize this difference doesn't mean loading a gun up with bullets and shooting up the place. It's just meant I have something to hang my hat on - autism. And I belong.

(Sorry for sounding morose. The events of yesterday here in Seattle has a lot of us hypervigilant, spooked but still reaching out to console each other as tragedies often tend to do).

Last edited by redrobin62 on 31 May 2012, 7:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yes, we are out of step with the NT world, but so what? Turn it around. They are out of step with us, too. Most of the time I also feel out of time phase with the NT world due to the time delay in my mental processing of input and output, so the NT world is always on a faster time track than I am. As for the social aspect, I find the only person I can really stand to be with for any real length of time is me, so I am glad that I live alone. I don't have the ability to fake being NT, and I found trying to maintain friendships much too demanding in time, energy, commitment, and in expectations of normalcy that I am unable to achieve. I need a HUGE amount of alone time, and friendships don't work well around that. NT friends expect to spend time with their friends. If you are almost always unavailable, then they naturally figure the friendship is off.

Remember though, although you may not be having luck with outside friendships, you are among friends here at WP!

(Questor always seems to write such cool responses.)

As far as FB, that's why I have nothing to do with it. It's bad for my precarious mental health to have other people's normalistic lives shoved in my face every day. Holy crap.

As far as that self-consciousness, I used to 'live there' all the time, but now there are days where I truly don't care and those are good days. I don't want to claim too much credit for it, though, since I think it's partly a matter of being too tired to worry as much (due to health stuff), now.

And nowadays, I use a cane sometimes, sometimes it's 3 or more seconds before I can respond to people saying something to me, and other out-of-it/slow reactions, but I don't care. (I joke that I'm diagnosed with brain damage, but I actually am diagnosed with that.) I think there is some freedom in it seeming like normality is too much of a stretch to pull off.

I think the worst is when, with all your effort, you can just barely manage to fake it, so you're either exhausted/stressed from trying so hard all the time or kicking yourself because you fail every other time.

Facebook is the suburbia of the internet - everyone puts on a smile for the neighbors no matter how dysfunctional their lives actually are.

Asperger's is a spectrum, it's not black-and-white. If you once had a social life there is no reason you won't ever have one again just because of a diagnosis.

Sometimes I am very lonely and want to be alone, even though those are contradictory.

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Last edited by smudge on 08 Jun 2012, 7:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Really? Didnt feel that way at all to be honest lol

I don't know if what follows will help you, but I hope it will.

The key here is to realise that EVERYONE in the world (so-called "NT", "Aspie" or otherwise) is different to everyone else. Some of us are different in a way that matches up to the way some other people are different (medical people like to term this "Aspergers/Autism/Alien Creature, but the rest of the "NT" world isn't all one colour (metaphorically).

The key is to take whatever to take the "you-ness" of you, and OWN it. I don't know how to describe this in words. Put up with me for a bit while I fumble around for the right words....Well, I guess - I switch around the emphasis in my head, from: "I am different, I must try to fit in" to "I am me, I am the template for a good, fun, interesting, normal conversation/social interaction/facial expression, everyone must fit in around ME".
OWN how/who you are.
I turn my weirdness into interesting, engaging, intelligent quirkiness. I can walk down the road however I want to. I can interact with shop assistants however I want to. I can comment on things I observe, even if other people look at me like "what the f*ck?"

Stick a smile on anything and be ironic/don't take yourself seriously and suddenly your differences are engaging and endearing. People (the right kind you'd want, not the dopey sheep follower types) are drawn to you and gain confidence.

At least, that is how I have come to operate in the world.

I've explained myself poorly and not thoroughly but I've tried at least

very good if only i knew what you said lol but it sounds about right. everyone has issues of there own.

Sometimes (or often) I feel like I'm trapped in my own skin. I want to escape and be someone else. Some people have such fun social lives that they don't know they're born, and they're so confident and know just how to make and keep friends and live life without hardly any social anxieties, and they're such a great person that people automatically like them for who they are, not because they feel they have to. How much I would love to be going away on vacations with a crowd of mates and being accepted and having a good time and dancing at the bar in the evenings and talking to new people and never sitting there feeling bad about yourself at all. I normally spend my vacations dwelling on how bad I really am at socialising and always feeling like the odd one out and just standing back watching the people who I've gone with chatting well to other people, and knowing I can't join in without making an idiot of myself somehow.

What's the point in living when you don't trust yourself to you speak to people? I want to be able to talk to people and give off a vibe that automatically draws friends to me and makes people think, ''cool, she's good enough for me'', and be my friend and enjoy having me around.

Yep, I definately feel trapped in my own skin. I can practice social confidence 'til I'm blue in the face, but that will never make my AS go away. My brain is wired this way and that is that. Not fair. Why me? f**k life.

Sweet Pea hugs

Well you said it all for me. The only difference on my end is that I am actually more comfortable knowing the reason now rather than wondering all my life what the heck was wrong with me.