Do you ever feel restricted by who you are?

Post Reply New Topic

Lately I've been feeling very restricted by who I am. What I mean by that is my real name, my age, my living situation, my disabilities, my ethnicity and heritage, my sexual orientation and my physical appearance.

I can somewhat change my physical appearance, but it's way harder to change the other stuff. I'm trying to reduce and hopefully get rid of my disabilities by improving my health. Hopefully one day they'll be gone and I can just forget all about them. Once my disabilities are reduced I will probably have a proper job and live alone.

I can't change the other stuff, but I'm hoping to escape from it by getting into performing. If I do stuff like music, writing or art I will probably use a pen name and different persona. I will make my persona match what I'm actually doing. I enjoy writing science fiction and pop music. I think it makes a lot of sense why I'd want a separate name for each of those things.

you seem like a talented person to me

Go for it, girl!

I think you'll succeed.

I've always felt very restricted by who I am - specifically by my physical appearance. Being such a big guy I've never been able to buy the clothes (even spectacles) I wanted. Any hobby that would have involved wearing a jacket or anything particular on my head, hands or feet was either off limits or would have incurred huge extra cost. Travelling where space is confined is seriously uncomfortable (I hate to think how I'd fare on a long haul flight). I'm not handsome so dressing or styling myself as others did made me run the risk of looking ludicrous.

I feel a sense of freedom because of who I am. It's when people try to dampen my individuality that I feel restricted.

I felt restricted alot by my physical disabilities & living situation.

I hate when people try to dampen my individuality. They used to do that to me all the time when I was a kid. All because of one stupid diagnosis. I bet if I wasn't diagnosed they would have just let me be.

I am restricted by my various addlements, and by my back being worn out.

^I like this.

I feel a little suffocated by the place where I live. It feels like I belong in a different time and place. I'm basically free to be myself but it just doesn't really connect to anything around me.

I wish I could move away some place more interesting. There just isn't anything to do here. But I feel like my job options are really limited so I can't earn enough money to move away.

I feel like I've been restricted a lot by my background (family, environment, education). Kind of wish I had grown up in a city rather than a rural area and had access to better schools. Wish I'd had more opportunities to do artsy things and supportive parents who encouraged me to develop my talents. My life might have been very different.

I feel limited by my sensory issues and general oversensitivity to things. It stops me from doing some of the things I'd like to do. Just can't handle too much noise, crowds, lights, smells, etc. And I guess that's why I need to live where I do, because it's quiet. It's just boring.

I always felt that about myself nearly towards everything in myself

Well, I was restricted growing up. My parents had good reasons for this. My daughter will have to wait until she is older to drive. She has to go to a special school. She feels restricted by this. I was a stay at home mom depending on my ex to help me be able to stay home with the kids. Home felt like a prison after years and years of nowhere to go and no one to talk to. My daughter doesn't know who will hire her, what she will do, how she can possibly move out. I told her roommates! Tech school for her, a small local community college for the other one. That one found out there was now way we were letting her go off to college out-of-state or in some big city her first two years. Yeah, there are a lot of restrictions. But not everyone can actually be president. Not everyone is going to work at NASA. Everyone finds limits and glass ceilings and all that kind of stuff. Our minds are much more free than some people's. We think about things they don't see or even question. We don't have as many hangups as some normal people. They limit themselves to little groups, a church where everyone is always agreeing with everyone else. And they don't think they are limiting themselves, they think they are right where they want to be and can't even picture anything more for themselves. I think they are so caught up in putting themselves in gilded cages, their minds are not as free as ours and they can't even see it. We see barriers and wish we could tear them down. They build gated communities. Go figure.

Those are areas that restrict me too. I'm too old to have any hope of a real life, and it's all due to everything that's wrong with me. I have so many hangups I could have been a sitcom all by myself!

I feel restricted in that if I wasn't Aspie I probably would be married by now. I just don't go out and socialize enough to meet a nice single guy my age. Sometimes the feeling that I just want to find a nice guy and get married to a sweet guy who adores me is just overwhelming And if said sweet guy lives out in the country that'd be heaven

And as DevilKisses aluded to I feel restricted alot by my physical appearance. I have a bad overbite so I am very self-conscious about smiling. I have no money to get that fixed. There are other things about my face I can do nothing about (I think my eyes are too close-set, very narrow forehead) bother me in that I wonder how I'd ever attract a nice guy when I am not pretty at all.

My physical issues like my POTS restricts me from getting a nice job. I can't even work my minimum-wage job at the coffee shop anymore due to standing issues and tachycardia. I probably won't ever be able to work full-time, even at a sit-down job. I see women my age juggling high-paying jobs plus kids and I am not even married yet. I would not have the energy for all of that, barring a miracle recovery!

On the other hand as CockneyRebel said I do feel a bit of a sense of freedom, as now that I realize I'm Aspie and that that is the reason I act in the ways I do, that I can just be myself, and if that includes odd stims in public or funny facial grimaces I don't realize I'm doing, then so be it! I say if anyone doesn't like what they're looking at, they don't have to look at it!

I am bigger than the people with whom I share the world. Walt Witman expressed it better than I can:

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Walt Whitman

Our brains are high performance engines. A high performance engine requires a skillful driver. We need to obtain these skills. We cannot obtain then from the typical NT, even those with alphabet soup that includes PhD or who are heralded as "experts"

Embrace who you are!

I hear what you're saying. In fact because I come from an immigrant origin I go by my English name which is not my legal name. This has led to people not honoring my request, disrespecting me etc but that just shows they suck. Don't let anyone tell you who you are. You know who you are. If you are interested in changing the way you look why not try: Youtube's fashion, makeup and fitness tutorials.

If you are uncomfortable with stereotypes why not try adopting some stuff that is like the opposite of the stereotype. Like if your ethnicity is stereotyped as unathletic or unmasculine, work out and get strong, take supplements on Bodybuilding.com. For example Eminem was able to buck the stereotype of white men being unable to rap. If you are uncomfortable with your living situation. Also to avoid anti-gay stereotypes u know fight the stereotype. Be a 'guys guy' or a 'girls girl'.

There are options to make more money for example through Odesk, where you can do freelance gigs online if you can't work outside. Make sure to save up a lot of money because that is freedom. I wish you the best of luck. The best thing to start now is to log in to Odesk and look for some gigs there.

I've often felt unhappy about my appearance. I'm only 5 foot and 6 inches tall, but I'm often treated like I'm about 6 foot tall. I often wish I was shorter, like about 5 foot 4 at the tallest. That's how high my female friends all seem to be.

Also I feel self-conscious about my neck. I stand and walk up straight, but I often feel like my neck is stooped a bit, and I can't seem to do anything about it. It might just be me feeling paranoid, but because I have had random people in the past laughing at me or staring hard at me, it has sort of convinced me that I look stupid. If only these people realised how they were making me feel. And NTs are supposed to have empathy???