How Did You Explain Your Social Difficulties to Yourself?

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By affect, do you mean emotional feelings or just visible (or audible) displays of emotional affection? People can feel emotions without their being displayed; people can display emotions they don't feel; and people can display (for NTs, this is often automatic) emotions they do feel.

The alternative hypothesis in my case is that my a combination traumatic school days and obsessions lead to withdrawl and more obsessions. Mix in anti-social and demanding parents, and you have a recipe for a perfectionist obsessive loner who fails to learn social skills because he doesn't participate in social activities.

I'm still not very sure, though I can make a case that AS is the underlying root behind this. ie these are symptoms as much as causes. This is at least in part supported by the relatively recent discovery that I don't seem to pick-up nonverbal communication seem to have trouble with intuitive theory of mind (though I can and do reason things through - just not very well in real-time).

I can’t remember how I explained my social difficulties to myself as a child. I do remember feeling socially confused all the time, wondering what to say, when to say it, why people would respond in unpredictable ways, and never quite “getting it.” As an adult going through therapy, I was told to contribute my difficulties to Social Phobia. Apparently my doctor thought it was my anxiety and fear of rejection that was causing my social problems. This theory didn’t hold water, as I noticed that I my social difficulties were very apparent whether I was feeling anxiety or not. Medications to control social anxiety did not change my behavior one whit, nor did they alleviate any social confusion I was feeling.

Post AS self-diagnosis however, I find that I am finally forgiving myself for social problems and not beating myself up over them as I have done most of my adult life. I used to be very, very hard on myself when I would have social problems, mentally kicking myself in the teeth every time I screwed up. Now my anxiety in social situations has greatly decreased, but the confusion remains.

I always knew I was "shy" and by adulthood I was told I had social phobia. I think I probably did/do have that too.
However, after "feeling the fear and doing it anyway" (yes I hate that line too), my anxiety went away but my social problems got worse.
I now look back and see that wanting to withdraw was a by-product of years of social failure. Pushing myself foward confidently only exposed my problems more.

Having learnt about AS, now I understand what I'm doing wrong and why. That, combined with management of the anxiety is helping me to have some kind of bearable existance.

I don't think I ever got close to understanding that my problems extended far beyond mere shyness until I settled down with my long term partner. She started pointing out all the strange (to her) things I was doing and gave me a comparison. For instance, I could never understand how anybody could hear themselves think in busy, nosiy social gatherings. The effort on concentraing on making out individual conversations drained me so much that I had no time to think of replies. I thought that was normal and I was missing a trick that the others were using to get around this problem.
She suggested I go for a hearing test, and there was nothing wrong with my hearing - I'm always hearing things that other people don't even notice.
That really confused the hell out of me for years, how could my hearing be so good but I couldn't follow a conversation unless in a quiet room?

There were other problems too, all of which I thought nothing of or just assumed everybody had the same problem or I was being thick in some way.

I don't think I ever expected to be treated shabbily, I always used to hope things would get better, but rarely did and if they did get better, it wasn't by much. My attempts to separate myself from my siblings and stay by myself probably contributed to my desire to be by myself.

I never thought I was responsible for bringing it about either. I never could figure out what caused it, nor did anyone tell me. My mother would sometimes say cryptic things that made no sense like 'You're...whatever" or "you act goofy" and when I'd ask how or why, I'd get told either the same cryptic words over and over again, or get a lecture about having no personality or being told I have to take what others dish out without any recourse if I want to survive in the world, which I've learned is far from the truth because sometimes, you have to stand up for yourself.

I hate writing or talking about these things sometimes because it makes me feel like a victim, but what happened is what happened. I never understood what I did that was so wrong to deserve what happened to me. I never understood the illogical behavior of NTs so I couldn't quite figure out what to do to at least be left alone not be harassed by them, let alone be accepted. None of what they did made any sense to me at all, and still doesn't.

I've always been wondering why...

I thought everything: I thought it was because I was gifted, I thought that I was ugly or I was a bad person, or because I was poor, my mom blamed it on the music, or the t.v., or books, or the radio, or internet, or whatever, even she thought it was because of lack of love for me, or because I was sick, I thought I was too odd, and it was because I wasn't good at sports, and I was clumsy.
In high school I thought it was also because I didn't have a boyfriend, or because I was fat...

But then I found out there are people who are bad at sports, or clumsy and make friends, I also found out that people thought I was actually pretty, and there were boys who liked me. I stop being sick and people told me they thought I was a very good person, and they used to pay attention to what I said, and I got slimmer, and I found out I wasn't poor, and still had no friends and I was bullied.

I've felt weird because when I'm on stage singing or when I'm talking in class, or acting, or doing something like that, people treat me like I'm some kind of superstar, or the coolest person in the world, but in real life I got somewhat bullied, or just ignored, or I just was alone... My mom had for me the explanation every mom has when their children are getting bullied or when they can't make friends: "they're envious of you"---> but I don't believe it, because envy is silly, since each person wants different thing in life so you can't think "Oh I wish i was like _____" because one person wants to be a lawyer, another person wants to be a football player and that's how life is...

I mean appropriate visual displays of emotion. I think I atually feel emotions more intensely than most people.

Incredibly interresting topic and discusion. For me i always thought that i was unevenly mature. I could not make a lot of friends, but i acted in many situations as an adoult. Luckily i lived in a smaler village outside a smal vilage so i was almost always alone, and as everyone else too had very few friends, they couldn´t just dismiss me. Henche i could regulate my interacting with people to a comfortable level. I have few memories from this period of time in my life (age 2-3 to 12) so this is just a theory. Two outreaching brothers learnt me not to feel anxious with people i belive. There was some atempts at bullying me but growing up with my brothers (i do not make any judgements on them now, i do feel affection towards them) no one could posibly alow himself to be bullied. Later in life (somewhere age 12-16) i thought it was because my parents are psycos. They are, im not pulling your legs here ( @ the expression ). I can see myself quite objectivly right into the eyes and make a sound psycological analysis without dismissing those impressions that implies something i do not apreciate and i belive i can say that both my parents are emotionaly unstable. I would never sugest that i am able to act on what i see though.

I was called the professor at the age of 14-15. My language is actualy more laid back in swedish but i simply can´t do it in english.
Guess why the god damn idiots i had for teachers liked me They woldn´t have given a s--t about me if i had not talked like i had studied at a university on the subject of cockroaches oxygendistribution system for 25 years straight. The god-image in Monty Pythons "The Holy Grail" spring to mind saying: "Get on with it".

I saw the movie "A Beautiful Mind" some years ago. Since i have observed the pattern in leaves all my life (if you have three you have a nice triangle ) and rather studies the paterns on anything rather than looking people in the eyes and act much like Russel Crove as John Nash in that movie i started suspecting that i was developing schizofrenia. I actualy was intrigued at the thought of seing paterns more regularly and in incresing complexity as schizofrenics do. Boy did i love to learn just recently after becoming aware of aspergers that i had made the same misstake as a lot of other people missdiagnosing aspergers as schizofrenia. If i am not correct i get mad at myself if my thesis wasn´t even plausible.
This movie also got me REALY in to mathematics. I think hard and love it when it comes together. Sadly i am not that good at it. Im not as inteligent as most people think i am, so if i can get through university (i have about 2-3 years left before university becomes an isue though due to me dropping out of and going back to school. with enough knowledge to at least grasp the complexity of any given mathproblem i would be satisfied and can spend the rest of my days exploring the landscape of mathematics and keeping up to date with the latest theories in physics. OMG i am such a nerd.

I attributed my unpopularity as a child to several factors:
1) I was the class computer geek and computers were a really sad 'geek' thing in the early 1980's UK.
2) I am very intelligent and this seemed to cause resentment.
3) I had no interest in joining the other children in their social activities, which primarily involved abuse of other children. I generally was the target for this abuse (a few others were secondary targets) and this abuse was verbal, sexual and physical.
4) I had very little in the way of social skills.
5) I was not interested in girls very much, certainly not in the self-abasement and bragging that many boys seemed to be willing to stoop to, and this became zero interest after the sexual abuse.
6) I also had zero interest in or understanding of fashionable clothes, pursuits or music and went my own way, becoming an outcast and an extreme introvert (children seem to assume that 'geek' is infectious and can seriously damage your social standing )
7) I assumed that all other people must derive great pleasure from commiting abusive acts. I do not and refuse to participate in anything of this nature, even verbal sparring, and assumed I was a reject and had something wrong with me because of this (This has made me paranoid and reclusive to a fair degree). This is still causes problems to the present day.

I'm objective enough to be honest here although it brings back unpleasant memories and some things are very difficult to phrase in an effective manner.

Cheers,

Torak.

Hey dude, don't feel bad. Your sister is just more interesting to an NT person than you are and it's probably because she can read and respond to the social cues like body language, make small talk and chat about things that other people find interesting even if she doesn't. I'm guessing none of that will even compute for you, let alone be something you can do.
You are probably wise to keep your sister away from your friends. No sense in complicating things. Also, it may be that she has *charisma* in which case you cannot win anyway.


About me then

I was always just different. Now, thinking back, I clearly remember being a happy little only child when we moved to this little town and I was sent to nursery school. What hell that was!
I did make a friend who then 'abandoned' me by moving up a year. I felt utterly betrayed. Strange emotion for a 4 year old, I realise that now, but that's me - weirdo.
I comforted myself by reading obsessively. I'd go to a neighbous house and use it as a library. I think they even made me a library card. I was there every other day, getting a new book. Still 4 years old. I've got a photo somewhere, me, with a huge head and a book under my arm.

The kids in the neighbourhood abused me no end but probably did me the best favour of my life in that they made me learn how to get on with them. In the beginning, one of the girls would beat me up on daily basis and steal my toys etc and all my mother could ever say to me is - don't play with them. I wanted friends and these were the only ones available. So I talked to my dad who showed me how to fight back which is what I did and life got a bit easier after that. They still conned my out of my toys etc but nobody beat me up ever again. I had my own 'gang' later but I always felt like an outsider.

I liked school in the beginning , before it became more about socialising than learning. My grades suddenly dropped at the age of 10, but they came back up in high school (because I moved to a bigger city where I didn't know anyone so didn't socialise and could consequently spend my time on studying) Even later, when I was talking to the people in school and making the best show of fitting in, I'd still be the weirdo who spends their free time during recess reading books instead of hanging around corners, smokin&talkin. I still got bullied.

I was falling in love obsessively when I was younger. I'd be in love with some boy for years, without speaking to him or anything. Sometimes I would have 2 or 3 overlapping 'unrequited loves' on the go at one time. I made pining into a sport. The first boy I fell in love with was a neighbour and I think I just fell in love with the colour of his hair. When he tried to ask me out on a date some years later (when I was a more appropriate age to be asked out) I was a bit grossed out.

I discovered some odd philosophies which helped me cope with the not fitting in thing.

Honestly, I never thought I could have AS until only very recently when I got super stressed and all these, usually very well repressed, things came out and demanded to be acknowledged (by me). And now that I found this place and some others liek it, almost every one of your stories could be my story too and that's jsut freaky for a person who was really convinced that there aren't any other people like me in the world.

Anyways, I don't know if I have AS or not, but thanks for making this planet seem less lonely.

There's probably truth in what you are saying about her, but I still think she also made a conscious effort to try win my friends away from me. I think my boudaries should have been respected, and they of course, were not. Even as an adult, I still don't like the idea of my sister being around anyone who is close to me. I live in a different city from her but still, I think I should have moved across country instead of to just another city less than 100 miles away.



I didn't start school until 1st grade because mom stayed home and kindergarten wasn't required where I lived. That was the first time I'd ever been around other kids other than my family. One kid acted like my friend and then bullied me, back and forth. I didn't understand why and when I came home bruised, my parents complained to the school and fortunately, it stopped. That kid moved away and went to another school, so that problem went away on it's own. I didn't understand why this kid treated me that way, I hadn't done anything to him, I guess it was just because he could. Once he was gone, I got over what happened, but still never understood it.



I seldom dealt with neighborhood kids. In the first house I remember living in, we basically weren't allowed to go outside, other than our own back yard. I used to sometimes see kids playing outside and wanted to do that too, but was told no. At first no reason was given and then later, the reason was the kid next door who used to get into trouble alot.

We moved to a new house and I really looked forward to that, since the bad kid wouldn't be there, I'd be allowed out and I was. I did actually try and make friends with a few neighborhood kids, and had some luck there, but then my parents had a fight with the people next door and didn't want me around their kids. First we were restricted from going on our own street. We were only allowed on the streets behind our house, which had no houses on them. Then two of these kids, whom I thought were my friends, tried to pin something on me I didn't do and even though my parents knew it wasn't true, they made new rules that pretty muched banned us from going outside anymore, even telling us the neighborhood families would have us arrested for being seen anywhere on the street, which didn't make sense. This didn't seem to bother my sister, but it really bothered me.
I was restricted to the house for a couple of years, then our parents started letting us out again. We still weren't allowed to talk to neighborhood kids, but at least we could go out. It always felt kind of weird going out and not having any contact with the neighbors around me. Other kids I knew in school did talk to the neighbors, but we didn't. I never understood why. We lived in that house 10 years and never talked to the people next door again.



I went through the same thing. One school I went to was strictly about academics and since I earned good grades, I was respected there. After that, I went to other schools where being a good student brought me ridicule instead of respect, which was very hard. I wasn't an avid reader as I've said before, but still, I got bullied.



That never happened to me. I didn't want to have a girlfriend or anything like that, and that also got me harassed. I always thought my socialization should be my choice, not someone else's, yet schools try to cram their form of healthy socialization down everyones' throat. I didn't like the fact some teachers and even a school principal even tried to pressure me to go to school dances and the prom, which I refused to do.

I even got hassled by a school counselor over my lack of socialization. I didn't even know what a school counselor was up to that point and had no idea why schools even needed counselors. Girls used to tease me too and I thought it was all just a stupid game they were playing as opposed to the whole boyfriend/girlfriend/dating thing, which I didn't want much part of anyway.



I had never heard of AS until someone in a newsgroup I used to frequent mentioned it and gave a rough description of it. I went and did some research and took the Wired Magazine online Aspergers test and got a high Aspie score on it began to wonder if it possible I have it or if not, I have strong aspie traits which have resulted in my having some of the same problems Aspies report having.

Reading these forums about our experiences and more importantly, about the feelings we have during them, have really helped me. I now also realize I'm not alone. Like you, I had never dreamed that I wasn't the only one, now I know there are alot of others like me out there and through our experiences and this place, maybe we can help each other.

Thanks, dudette! Sorry I thought you were a guy.
Sister rivalry seems to be a very common theme, my mum and her sister are still bickering over who was more favourite and who got a short end of the stick and they are past 50 years of age. Even my nan is prone to that and she is over 70.

Maybe your sister didn't know how else to get close to you but instead got close to your friends. We don't always have to understand people to accept them

I was not concerned at all with fitting in my High School years. But I often blamed myself for the severe bullying I recevied in years 7 and 8.

If you're talking to me, I am a guy. Me and my sister often had trouble getting along, mainly because she's very dictatorial and has to have her own way all the time, which I never went for. The fact my parents often played favorites of her over me, and as it seemed, many times wanted me to be just like her, didn't help either. Why someone would want a male child to be a clone of his sister makes no sense.

I don't know about the getting close to my friends thing. She'd often try to make my friends start thinking badly of me. I always resented that fact that she'd meddle in my friendships, while I never made trouble for her and her friends. Like I said, the rules in my house were I wasn't to disturb her and her friends, but it was open season on me and mine.

I thought that my social anxiety was from years of teasing in school. After finding the information on Asperger's, I took a closer look and I realize that most of the teasing was because I was "different" or "weird". I just thought that I was socially imature, or edgy, or just warped from being picked on and not getting any social interaction with my peers in school.
The diagnosis makes me take a step back and better understand what makes me so different. (and wonderful too). I only wish I had had this DX years ago.

i was singled out since kindergarden, and i had no way to explaine my self till many years later when i got the diagnosis.