How Would You Describe Your Social Separateness?

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I think also my mood swings can make me feel seperated from other people. I sometimes feel like a surly teenager, only now I can't get away with it because I'm nearly 22 and I should have grown out of that stage by now, so of course I get criticised for acting like a surly teenager - which actually makes me worse.

I know everybody can get in moods, but I seem to get in the wrong moods at the wrong times. Like when I'm at a shopping centre, I feel really irritable and snappy, and when I'm with someone like my mum, I pull a huffy expression when she wants to look at the clothes, and I just follow her around looking really bored and uninterested, while other young girls are enjoying themselves looking at the clothes, because that it typically where most women like be. I have got girls looking at me funny before because I was standing there looking really angry and bored in a clothes shop. I regreted it after that, and wished I had just been happy and looked interested in the clothes, then they wouldn't have looked at me like that.

Also I start getting irritable when I'm out anywhere. I start complaining and huffing and walking off, and people look at me and just sigh. I try to promise myself I won't behave that way, but at the time I can't seem to help it. A thick cloud comes into my head what makes my mind shut down and causes me to become disorientated and irritable. I really hate being like that, because it does seperate me from the social world.

I think I've become less socially seperate recently. It was really bad when I was a small child because I didnt like any stranger-contact at all, I'd cry if my mum took me to a public place and would find it difficult to engage with other kids my age. I seem to prefer adult company, though I've always enjoyed my own company the most. In my family I'm known as a 'recluse' because I spend most of the day in my bedroom, and hardly ever go out.

I'm told that im old for my age, only because I don't really go out and 'enjoy' myself. I go to college and hear other students talking about the last party they went to, or about how they cant wait until the next party. . . As Syd Barrett puts it "I think young people should have a lot of fun, but I never seem to have any" ... So, Im afraid I might grow up to regret not having that social benefit.

I feel as if I am surrounded by mindless zombies, or puppets, and the only way I can interact with them is to pretend to be a mindless zombified puppet too.

I tend to tune people out. I don't really notice people unless something strange happens, like if one does something I don't understand. Sometimes I notice clothes or hair but their faces, more often than not, blend in and if two people have the same color hair and look somewhat alike, sometimes, it's hard to differentiate and I confuse them. It just depends.

Like i'm in a fog.

I like the description "like a radio tuning in and out" too

I look every where but the person I'm speaking/listening to, then I get distracted by something, tell myself off and make sure I'm looking at them, only to get distracted by the fact I'm looking at them.

Usually I miss something they say or I forget what I was saying. Last few days have been really bad for it

'Autism' is simply an internal human 'normality' with the volume turned up. We all have experienced moments when we aren't quite aware or when we are too aware to handle the world. Or moments when we aren't quite aware of the company we are in or so overly aware of it that it gets hard to function. We all have had times when we've had hardly any awareness of our bodies, even been out of them, or felt so in, weighed down by them, that we become hypercritical, eager to escape, tune out, or disappear. We have all had times when we've lost the plot, the why, the what or been distracted by the meta-reality inside our heads to the extent that we are suddenly jolted out of a daydream. So too, have we all had moments when we have been so aware that we have taken things in ... almost overwhelming, extreme detail. For me, the experience of 'autism' is not any of these things in themselves, but rather the frequency and extremity with which they are experienced and the degree to which these experiences affect how one expresses oneself and relates to one's inner world and the outer world. It's a matter of whether you visit these states or whether you've lived there.

from the Foreword to "Autism and Sensing, The Unlost Instinct" by Donna Williams

I feel disconnected from people. Occasionally I meet someone I connect with (mostly because they are as quirky as me), but it is very rare. I also find socialising (in the most part) to be incredibly boring...the endless small talk and gossip really does not interest me and when I want to talk about something I find interesting people usually tell me to shut up. When I do speak, people will often speak over me and despite having a very loud voice (that I have toned down a bit over the years because people thought I was shouting when I was not) I am not one of those people who others seem to hear (in other words, most of the time I may as well be talking to myself anyway).

I feel odd around others...I seem to think differently and I am quirky. I do sometimes feel social but don't fully understand the obsession most have with socialising. I don't really crave lots of friends, maybe one partner whom I am very close to and one very close friend (or maybe two) but I have no desire for lots of acquaintances and I don't enjoy making casual chit chat with strangers just for the sake of doing so. Sometimes someone I enjoy talking to comes along...and those people I enjoy the odd natter with, probably because I like them (or something about them).

I tend to prefer to do something useful with my time (such as pursuing my interests which are presently geology and evolution) rather than make endless pointless chitty chat about nothing of actual interest with people I don't know and am unlikely to talk to again (such as someone standing at a bus stop or at a party that I didn't really want to go to).

Small talk feels fake anyway! People ask you how you are but they don't want the real answer. They make obvious comments about the weather (such as how sunny or rainy it is) when you can quite clearly see what the weather is doing yourself, they give you irrelevant information such as when they need to do their washing (huh? the only time that might be of any remote interest to me is if it's in context and is related to a friend, or someone I like, or someone I love etc) and they gossip endlessly about what other people are doing with their personal lives (most of which is inaccurate anyway).

Try starting a conversation on rocks and geological processes and watch them run away...It's a great way to get some alone time lol.

Also when I am in hobby mode, it is hard for me to get my brain to change tracks. I cannot just switch modes unless I am prepared to do so or am ready to do so myself, so if people turn up unannounced that can pose problems for me as I feel they are interrupting me and I just want them to go away and come back another time when my social mode is switched on. Also sometimes people will stop and talk to me whilst I am out and about but I am busy in my own head pondering something. At those times I get annoyed as well because my thoughts are being disrupted by their nattering. The only time I don't mind my thoughts being disturbed is if it's an emergency and they need urgent help or support of some kind or need a vent because they are upset.

I tend to spend a lot of time living in my own world/head and I don't like to be jolted out of it by social interactions I am not in the mood for. If I feel like popping out of my own head though, I will, but jumping out of my own world in order to socialise can be exhausting, so I only like to do it for short periods of time. Their world confuses me and often does not make sense to me, my world does not confuse me and makes perfect sense even if others cannot understand it.

Their world is all about social game playing and my world is all about geology and evolution (or whatever my main interest is at the time), my own thought processes and musings and my own inner (often complex, but fantasy based) day dreams. I have always lived mostly in my own head, even as a child I was off in a world of my own somewhere rather than out and about connecting with people.

So in a nutshell, I feel bored, disconnected and odd around other humans...unless those humans are as strange as I can be...

The whole "wall of glass" between me and everyone else... that pretty well describes it for me.

I feel like I'm taking a tour and the world is one big, elaborate movie set. I'm just watching people play this game, acting their parts. Sometimes they notice me and talk to me and it takes me by surprise. Sorry, I'm not actually a cast member - I'll just get out of your way.