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Is it possible to be autistic and this social?

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Kurgan
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03 Aug 2014, 10:13 am

Dillogic wrote:
If think you're missing the point.

It's not whether you're asocial or not, it's how impaired you are when you're actually socializing (which is defined in whatever diagnostic criteria your location uses).


This.


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MathGirl
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03 Aug 2014, 10:34 am

BirdInFlight wrote:
I'm among those who post about being in more of a downbeat place regarding getting out there and socializing, but don't be so sure that people who speak of less positivity have always been that way, or less "determined."

There was about a 20 year period in the mid-section of my life (so far) in which I made a superhuman effort to be "determined" about a hell of a lot of things, including going out and creating/finding a social world for myself -- which I did. Plus also pursuing my creative field, and doing a lot of things I had thought I wasn't capable of, during a time prior when I was living at home and nobody thought I could ever make anything of my life.

For a good long time there I kind of did. It's only now as I'm an older person in the latter half of my life that I have quite honestly burned out, and have no more energy for this kind of effort.

It also helped that coinciding with that more energetic period of my life, I also had my life set up in such a way that I got a lot of recovery time and my socializing was on my terms, at my choosing.

These days I'm in different circumstance and my interractions are in fact forced on me rather than chosen by me. Also the ratio has reversed of alone-time to "forced to be around people time."

However, in the little socializing I do do now, yes, I DO mask my traits because they've kind of gotten worse -- combine that with the fact that everyone in my life is not actually a close friend but in fact a work-related situation or a very casual acquaintance who would not understand my traits -- and I do NOT have the energy to try to explain to someone who will probably react badly -- that I just don't feel there is a benefit to letting it all hang out.

IF the people in my life were closer with me and actually loved and liked and cared about me, then it would be different. But I'm largely dealing with strangers and there are survival reasons why it's best to just "act normal" to get through my day and my life at this point.

But I'm happier understanding that about myself and giving myself the alone time I need.

I was always a natural introvert, so my "determined" efforts at socializing were a Sisyphean task indeed, for me. It comes more naturally to you, thus I did pretty well even trying. But it's not my natural state and I don't have to do that, I've come to have more compassion about my real needs. This is just my own story, as someone more inclined to introversion than the OP.
I think when I said what I said, I was referring more to the portion of people on the spectrum who are extroverted by nature, because I don't really know how introverts experience the world aside from what we've learned in our psychology program or from what people have told me they have experienced. I've noticed you've mentioned an expectation of people reacting badly - it's interesting because I've never had that. I tend to expect good, not bad, reactions from people about anything. Even years of being conditioned otherwise didn't seem to have a lasting impact on the way I think.

The low energy part I often take for granted - I don't notice any energy deficits in myself, at least not any long-term ones, when it comes to socializing. It seems I can go on socializing indefinitely, as long as there are no abrupt topic switches, visual/tactile overstimulation, or aversive auditory stimuli. Masking, for me, is actually overwhelming and makes my thought shut down, so it's much more energy-consuming than explaining, so I either do the latter or don't do anything at all. I can enjoy alone time, but I need to get "wound up" by social interaction first before I am able to think properly and be productive in a solitary setting. However, alone time is not necessary for me; I have never left a social situation just so that I could get alone time. I get some when I need to do solitary work or for some healthy reflection (too much and it becomes self-destructive).

In real life, I know numerous people on the spectrum, but somehow almost all of them need at least some alone time. It also seems from the MBTI results here that the majority of people on the spectrum are introverted. Maybe this is far from the truth and the prevalences of introversion and extroversion are actually the same within the ASD population as within the general population, but from what I've seen so far, there does seem to be a link between introversion and ASD.

I think my extroversion is rather extreme, though, even compared to many NTs I've met...


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BirdInFlight
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03 Aug 2014, 7:31 pm

It's very interesting that you need to be around people or teamwork in order to think more clearly and think at your best -- I've always experienced the opposite! It's odd, but when I've been doing too much socializing, am around people too much, or am in a team or group situation, I actually find that these are the times when I can't think properly at all.

It's only when I get away, alone, and can finally be by myself and process my own thoughts, that I can think clearly and have ideas, make conceptual connections, process things, be productive, and even clearly know how I feel and what I think, etc.

One time, many years ago, when I was thinking about how this seems to be a "thing" with me, I thought of it like tuning a radio to a station (the old fashioned radios that you had to turn a dial until the perfect signal came in, not the digital ones that tune in perfectly by themselves).

I feel like my brain/mind/ability to think clearly gets like a badly tuned radio when around other people -- something about other people causes my radio receiver static and my signal can't get clear. When I get away from other people, the static and interference to my signal clears up and goes away, and I get perfectly tuned into my ability to think clearly and be productive once again.

I've read that this is indeed one of the indicators of an introvert, as is the draining of energy when around people, while extroverts actually feel energized and recharged around people. I can't even imagine that!

Isn't it interesting how opposite people's best way to function can be?!

As for the issue of masking autism traits or explaining them to people -- I think I and some other people who may be I guess "high functioning" have found that their particular lives seem easier if they don't "come out of the closet" so to speak, about their autism, and "pass" as NT even if only to certain people, like in a workplace, for example.

I lived my whole life undiagnosed and expected by everyone around me to just be "normal" even though I wasn't -- and when you've lived up to that for 52 years, or at least attempted to, it's a hard habit to break, simple as that.

And even though I now know this should never have been how I had to live, and maybe I should now just stop the masking of the traits, again, after 52 years that's a scary thing to contemplate, especially when my world at the moment consists of people I'm not that close with but have to deal with. I have only told three people and the problems those people's reactions have engendered for me have not been worth the disclosure, I've personally found.

My attempts to mask are exhausting, and I totally agree that if stopped altogether perhaps I would indeed not feel quite so drained. I don't disagree with that possibility. I'm not a fan of this very thing I myself do, but in my particular set of circumstances I've found that it's preferable to the potential results of not doing so. The short version is that I'm not surrounded by caring or supportive people, friends or family, and really at the moment the people that are in my life are all practically strangers rather than a circle of loving friends who understand and accept me. If I let out all my traits, my needs, my requests for how I want things to be, it wouldn't "fly" in my particular situation right now. So masking is the choice I make to get by. I don't like the notion that I feel the need to do that in order to function in an NT world or be accepted -- it's messed up, frankly. But right now I personally would not be willing to deal with the fallout if I didn't. I think that is all about whether or not you live in a world of strangers and work situations who don't want to deal with special needs stuff, or if you are surrounded by support and people willing to accept you.


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