Living a lie

Post Reply New Topic

yeah I feel that way sometimes. especially when it doesnt seem like i'm develouping any freaking social skills right for a person my age

I can relate to you in so many ways. I dont like to party, I dont like drinking, and I dont like getting high, but to this very day, I do these things because it is acceptable (I dont get high anymore though), and if I dont, then I suffer ridicule and social alienation. This is just the reality of the situation. However, should you ever find people that are truly like you and enjoy the things you do, then by all means, hang with them.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Pretending to be someone else and hiding your feelings will just give you psychological problems and physical symptoms in the long run. I used to try to be like people and it was a lot of work. I paid for it with severe social anxiety and anxiety attacks. I was in a low mood which made me not take care of my health.

These days I don't care if people know I'm weird. They call me emo and nerd anyway, so what's the harm with a few more insults are thrown at me?

Why would you even want an identity? A label? Eugh! I can't think of anything worse.

I drink and take drugs because of how they make me feel, not because everyone is doing it. OK, I don't take drugs anymore because the last time something horrible happened. And when people smoke I tell them how they'll die. But people are used to me.

I hope you find some friends who can appreciate who you really are, but first you need to be you.

Doesn't this just describe me in my last two years of high school, when bullying ended and I began to seem to get along with everyone else better.

... And of course to wrap those two years up was a nice period of severe depression. Um... best of luck in avoiding anything. Hopefully you'll find the answers you're looking for.

Everlong, I totally understand what you are talking about. Here is what I posted in the thread under social skills:


"Ultimately, however, I think it was spending all of that time with my Dad and being around the many social aspects of sports that allowed my to develop an alternate persona for myself that was pretty much 180 degrees different than I was feeling and wanting to act on the inside. This allowed me to navigate the world pretty much as an undercover aspie until much later in life. It was the internal tension between the "real" me and the "for public consumption" created by my intelligence and self reflection that finally led serious mental health consequences such as severe depression, very, very severe anxiety, mild OCD and self destructive behavior."

I am basically just like you. No one that I knew before the the last two years would believe that I had AS. Hell, my parents still don't really believe it.

How to be you? Spend a day by yourself with your thoughts. Just allow all your thoughts to wash over you. Find out what your real interests are.

I used to hang out with indie kids then punk rock kids. The indie kids made fun of the music I listened to. They called me emo as an insult and the punk kids accepted me but they were just so outgoing it depressed me. I wasn't like that and hanging out with them was exhausting. But I spent a lot of time drinking with them and I didn't really know what I was really interested in.
Once I left all that I started to write my own sci-fi, collect Doctor Who merchandise, get into astronomy and teach myself physics and math.
I like to spend time alone dwelling on my thoughts. Sometimes they remind me to spend more time on an interest that I've been neglecting.

The way I see it, the more friends you have the harder it is to be yourself.
I act differently towards different people I know. And if I were to be in a big crowd I'd put on my widely accepted social act. Not the who I want to be act. So I am more comfortable hanging out a few good friends. If you have a couple of good friends who accept you for who you are, it's easier to be yourself.

I wanted to share a lttle bit from my latest book which I feel others here might connect with.


"In my case it was my diagnosis with high- functioning autism, an experience I now see as a moment of true enlightenment, which turned my life upside down and inside out, yet I felt great relief in finally being seen and understood at greater depth.

As I was sitting in the waiting room at Preston Railway station, waiting for my train home to London after my evaluation and subsequent diagnosis of autism, it occurred to me that the imagery of the 'waiting room' in the context of this memorable day was very rich indeed. For although completely on my own, I felt very much as if I was now sharing the waiting room with someone else who was a stranger.

This stranger was my hidden autistic self, whom I had never consciously met before, because I had disassociated myself from my natural orientation to such an extent, in order to protect myself from the daily humiliation of being unable to fit into society naturally.

Do we not all, autistic or non-autistic, to some extent at least, cast certain aspects of ourselves, parts of us we deem 'unacceptable', into the shadowlands of our subconscious? Many of us wake up sooner or later to a painful reality that we need in some way to claim back and befriend those parts of ourselves that we have deemed unworthy or too painful to face."

^
Nicely put. Are you writing a memoir?

In my early childhood I rocked, I bit, I stimmed and engaged in so many other autistic activities.
I grew up in hostility, I was neither safe at home nor safe in the world. I lived in fear all the days of my life… then part of me departed and came back as a warrior and there was but one statement declared… “I will get them!
I challenged myself to walk into my fears, into the various collections of people I encountered and to act their act better than they.
I became many people, as I walked across the neighbourhoods in my world I would be a different person to different people.
This was possible as a child but as I moved into adulthood this no longer worked or worked less over time.
Behind my various facades I fought to contain my anxiety… I was dizzy always… not sure if I would even be able to walk from one side of a room to another… a simple picture thought plunge me into overwhelm and dizziness.
As I entered adulthood I knew something was wrong with me, I was on the outside looking in, I felt separate from rather than part of. I suspected everyone except me had the special guidebook, the map book and the code book of life or at least this world. No one stepped forth to inform me of what I should say, act or do to be part of. Anxiety took on a dimension not previously felt. Everyone and everything became a daily challenge. I had a sinking feeling that this was not life, that I was not living, I was not actually doing anything really, just surviving and not thriving. I never felt at ease, secure or just simply ok and about to be exposed at any moment. I spent so much time manufacturing believable facades to stay safe, to fit in and somewhere along the way completely lost track of why I was even doing this in the first place.
Humour was always a fearful thing for me, intent, and inference was not understandable, it made no sense. it was as if these were cruel traps intended to expose me for the pleasure of the Neurotypicals. So I set about mastering humour and achieved this to a believable degree somewhere around 42.
I am now 58 and was diagnosed in January of 2009 I am changing, I am advocating for myself, I am saying NO, I am learning that it is ok to be me. I am learning how to be me. Thoughts are coming together in ways not previously experienced. I am learning every minute of everyday. I can no longer work despite working most of my life, getting married and raising two children.
So I do understand.

Thank you.

My 1st book was autobiographical (A Painful Gift-The Journey of a Soul with Autism)

But this book is Called Something Inside So Strong and it is a philisophical daily reflection book for people in the autistic spectrum.