How much have your efforts to fit in paid?

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Trying to be what I am not just isolated me more, over the years I have got very good at pretending, I have a switch and just act the part.... but truthfully its exhausting trying to be someone else. Being myself has helped me really see the world differently, but allowing and accepting true self has made a huge difference to me - now happy and proud

I've been very successful too, but unfortunately my success came at a cost of intensifying social anxiety. When people see me as a capable, fun, easygoing socializer (because I can be that way some of the time), they can't understand when I start pulling away and isolating myself. The act of being social is offset by the internal understanding that it is often just an act. That discrepancy between how others see me and how I know I really am seems to be some of what causes the social anxiety. Maybe a similar thing happens with depression.

Z

My efforts paid very much. My goal which I'm still working in was however not 'being a certain way' such as fitting in or trying not to fit in, but gaining the ability to express myself adequately.

To be authentic wherever and whenever I want to be.

To be me, to know me, to know the world, to know how it relates to me and so on.

I couldn't do that at all before I started ASD therapy.

I'd have to say not enough to justify the means.

Honestly though, I don't try to "fit in". I only kind of try! I've learned to just keep quiet most of the time. I can be very talkative, and as one might expect the subjects usually revolve around myself. I always feel stupid though when socializing, and I regret doing it every time, even when I'm quiet. I'm much more talkative with familiar people, though. When I'm in a group of familiar people, however, I am not comfortable.

I've been frequenting the internet for over 12 years now, and I've noticed that many people seem quite comfortable chatting with random people. I avoid it for the most part. When I see groups random people enjoying conversation, I am actually very annoyed. For some reason I feel as if they're all stupid for doing it, as if it's pointless and they should be doing something more productive.

A little over a year ago, I met some young woman on a game. She seemed okay enough, so I hung out with her online and we played games together. I did something quite unusual though. I wasn't myself. I kept all of what I knew people disliked to myself. After about three or so months of this fake me, I dropped the act. She was NOT happy with that. She then started getting very annoyed with me, and quite rude. A couple of times over that year she referred to that point as me "snapping". I eventually tried to explain to her that I didn't snap, and that I was just being myself. After learning that I have AS, I tried to explain that to her, and she said that it was an excuse. She claims to have ADHD, so she should know what it is to not act as oneself (unless she's never practiced restraint). I finally stopped associating with this person.

Overall, I'm usually unsatisfied with socializing. Trying to be somebody I'm not wont make that better for me.

I interact more with classmates, but I do insist on staying myself. It isn't that hard, just listen to their monologues about themselves and they like you. I sometimes think NT's are the ones with the monologues, since I notice that they love to talk about themselves.

That hit home. This is the reason I've gotten stuck in doomed relationships before, including the one I'm currently stuck in. In trying to meet other people, I tend to put forth what I think other people will like, and then when that facade crumbles, the other person is angry and disillusioned, and I am depressed and embarrassed for having done such a thing. Yet I've done this many times, like I haven't gotten the hint yet.

Of course, I've only recently started to understand AS, and how it has affected every one of my relationships. Maybe now I can start to internalize this aspect of how I am and not let it screw up my life again...

"So enough about me, what do YOU think about me?"

There is talking about yourself and then there is uncouthly, arbitrarily, and tangentially changing topic mid-conversation (or at the start of it or when you happen to walk into the room ) and refusing to release control of it. The later seems to be where ASC folks get themselves in trouble a lot. I'll listen to you talk about meercats and Greek history and bluegrass. It sounds interesting, no really there are decent supply of NT folks that are willing to not limit the conversation to football and hooters. But hogging the conversation isn't cool, and you don't always get to go first. Reciprocation is very much appreciated and in the long term pretty much a %100 requirement. Though that's probably the rub for those that aren't actually interested in much outside their own niche interests, if not judgmentally appalled by most of it, and aren't willing to STFU and "fake" it.

P.S. The "rudeness" is one thing, and there are NTs that get hung up on that. But don't underestimate how uncomfortable it is for someone used to being "subtle and polite" to weld the bluntness sometimes required to reach those on the spectrum. It is a different skill and a different headspace to get into, going against a lifetime of training. There is a lot of inhibition to overcome, the feeling that you are going to hurt the person if not completely crush them.

OK. I've thought about this Q for a while.

It is starting to pay off, but it's hard to tell.

I did a lot of high-level work (social theory, synthetic Theory of Mind) but then I have spent most of this year on low-level work, developing verbalization abilities and semantic maps and rhetorical insights, etc. I'm still building up the language stuff and have moved up to rhetoric.

So I have very lopsided development right now. I have a very advanced and efficient synthetic Theory of Mind function worked out (more advanced than most NTs, probably). I also have a couple of other advanced skills to support a complex social function. But then there's a big gap in my development where I have little behavior control, strategy and all that. So I skipped a lot of work after I did some of the high-level work and now I'm down at low-level stuff working on verbalization and rhetoric.

What I skipped is all personal social development (not skills) -- so developing strategies or sense of how I want to behave, what I want my personality to grow like and other personal social development. I have to wait until I have more information before I start on that because I have some personal trauma experiences I have to heal and I need better verbalization skills, etc. to do that properly.

So when I get the low-level stuff done, I will move back to the stuff I skipped, the personal social development, and work on how I want to present myself, what my social strategies will be, and so on.

I put a lot of effort into being civil and polite and that really goes a long way. However I make no effort at all to fit in. I have some aquaintences and a benefriend relationship with a woman that suits both of us just fine. I've never had any friends, ever. It used to bother me but I just don't care any more. I have too many other things to do.

It would be cool if I could develop, at least in the short term, better "civil and polite" skills until I figure out how I want to fit in anywhere. At present I have poor impulse control, too. So that just makes my behavior more abrasive.

It's really pretty simple. Just start with the basics like please, thank you, excuse me, etc. Most NT's are so uncivil anymore that the worthwhile ones will take note of your behavior in a positive way.

Oh for me it makes very small difference. (voted for option 3) Yes, I agree with Cockneyrebel to. It is so over rated, holy geez.

My efforts to fit in were largely counterproductive. When I stopped trying, I started fitting in better. Apparently people will accept someone who is unapologetically, confidently weird to a much greater degree than they will accept an odd, neurotic person who is constantly worried that they will not be liked enough.

Something I forgot to add: being me helped me fit in immensely. By being me but by gaining the ability to express myself adequately, I become much more accepted and tend to stand out either a lot less than before or just not as negatively as before. Not sure on that.

ziltsj, rien, nada, nichts, niks [niemendal, niets] &c &c &c

is what i had in mind, but no CW, you're wrong - the question was 'paid', and that includes finance
and finance, as we know, includes negativity (which currently also seems to increase the outgoingness of the currency)

so, i already started uni late (can be explained by 'adaptive' autism)
dropped out at 33 - left to free-lancing - worst position ever for an aspie -
managed to hold out for some twenty years of not getting assignments paid
including winning law suits only to find the cash gone in bankruptcy fraud
- excellent work delivered well within deadline , and having to beg being paid

having to be grateful for getting paid after six months

i did not know, if only i had known - but to have had to stoop to their level

and now, not a year upon selfdiagnosis just yet - i am facing:
- no place of my own (at 52)
- around 15000 euros in debt and on the way of a clearing scheme that will put me on handouts for the next four years
in order for me to be able (when i'm 56)
to start again, from zero????

mind you, i have to be grateful for that - so i'm reminded

o, and i just received an unexpected invoice -
- another almost 13000 euros to cover the diagnostic process they had assured me would be covered by law

for that money, they might at least have come up with a cure as well

early this year, shortly after official dx, i had to get a new bank account, a personal injury police, and, the social worker maintained, a deceased policy
i have accrued about one euro worth of pension-rights; it's going to be the absolute minimum of old age benefits after 65 - at best

if i got was i was not paid - i would actually be out of the most dire straights
i would say i am owed around 25000 euros - no way of ever getting it

did i mention i have to be grateful?

That sure sounds to me like a pretty good plan. It entirely makes sense that an AS person could end up pretty miserable if they were trying to be someone else, aiming so hard to "fit in". Plenty enough NTs end up miserable trying to "fit in" by being a certain way that they are not. I suspect they are behind the examples I see pointed to here about how fake and cardboard NTs are. But they aren't the whole of the population by any stretch.

There are whole communities of people accepting of others with quirks to their personality. Acacia's community of Grateful Dead fans would almost be the prototype for that as their priority of values is quite different than what is thought of in "mainstream", for them different is good. Plus, like Callista insightfully pointed out, confidence and being forthright will get you a long way. That is underlying what I was getting at here. It is a very rare person that can successfully convince someone else of something while not believing it themselves, and you don't really want to be that person anyway because they tend to "use up" a place pretty quick as the cracks appear in their facade. That makes a natural starting point for convincing others to be comfortable with you, with your differences, and that you belong being confident and comfortable with yourself, your differences, and that you belong, whether you "fit in" or not.


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Sora, could you speak more of this "ASD therapy"? You are seeing someone? Are they working from an outline that you have access to or can point me to? Do you have any material on theory of how to go about this, anything like that? Thanks.

Last edited by DwightF on 22 Dec 2008, 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.