being your self in public

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How many of you are your-self in public. like do you self stim ,act weird , and do general autistic things. Or do you try to be normal?

Which is the right thing to do?

I want to know so i know what the right thing to do is.

For me it depends on who is around and how old I am and probably some other things.

Face it - some stimuli I get / have always gotten too stressed and either shut off or lose it, public or not. Sometimes I have been able to do the Superman thing and hunt for a phone booth to be invisible /ananymous in, but it has not always panned out that way.

The more I am around people whoare used to me, the more people who actually GET me, and the older I get, the less I will try to camouflage. It never really worked anyway - you cannot fool a chimp into thinking you are even a bonobo.

It is better because IF I can dare be me, I do not gett the same stress levels.

My word would be, get yourself a safe retreat space, then get as many people used to / understanding you as can be.

I'm not myself in public. No way! I feel like I had my Avatar for public places. It is so unnatural and fake... sometimes disgusts even me. I'm still anxious and stressed, I should have a warning: Don't touch! I may explode!
When I come back to my private place, I leave this clumsy, boring, seduced and humorless version and become myself again.

I tend to keep a low profile while I'm out so I blend in the background as much as possible.
When I'm out I'm usually in my own world anyway, so when I'm in my favourite shops in town I'm there for about half an hour looking at the same shelf reading the books or playing with everything. So I don't think I do actually look anonymous at all if I'm standing there for god knows how long, ah well.

Hey I like that saying. And I like bonobos.
I am soooo using this in future conversations.

I do. I think



No I do not



Don't directly attack other people. =/
[okay... not the best phrasing]

No I have to hide so much it sometimes hurts a little I wanna do some things that I normally do but I can't in public

I like to play music by banging things but it becomes a serious compulsion. Understandably it pisses people off when I do it in the middle of a lecture in college. Honestly though this is a satisfying method of stimming and people don't see you as weird for doing it cuz everyone likes music.

I feel like a chameleon in public. I am either very quiet, very sarcastic, or the little fool depending on who is around. I always tried to laugh off anything that bothered me. I still laugh when i am physically hurt and somehow it does not hurt. When i am alone I am able to express myself and that is only with a few people. I am the kind of person who holds there anger in for a long time and does not express it.


A strange thing is i do not laugh much in public, but my friend has counted that i have over 8-10 different ways to laugh depending on the situation and i usually never laugh the same way often.

I am always myself in public, unless I'm trying to impress someone. I stim, tic, ask annoying questions, have tantrums, and be myself. If something pisses me off, I let people know it. I'm only 16, but I still know the right thing to do is to be yourself. My friends and family still love me and that's what counts, right?

I find it very easy to be myself, in public. I just slap on a Kinks T-shirt and a red jacket, and go to town.

Do you find you get bullied alot as an adult when your yourself? have you ever been halled off to a mental ward for having a melt down in public?

These are the things i worry about when i am myself in public. Although if i am myself in public i find i am less likely to melt down.



I have not been myself in public for a while. I am so good at pretending to be normal people don't think there is anything wrong with me. but it is so draining to pretend and i often meltdown . i cant stay out for long either. I find pretending is making all my issues worse like my sensory issues and my ocd and especially my depression. I feel it makes me forget who i am. i feel like the life leaves my body and i am without a life at all.

am trying be myself again and i am finding i feel better for doing it. being myself means stimming in public, singing when walking, talking to much and generally being a happy, bubbly ,annoying person.

I swing on my swing outside and dance on my swing. i avoid eye contact and generaly act weird. i like my weird self I am proud of it.

I just don't want to get severely bullied or worse beat up when i am in town. what are the risks of being myself in public?

I really admire you for that! i think it is so cool!

I act like myself in public. I've got better things to do, such as avoiding pain and trying to navigate with faulty visual/motor skills, than trying to look normal.
At work I make more of an effort; so I'll sit reasonably still and actually look at my students rather than at the patterns on the wall or whatever.

I'm definitely not myself when in public. I get this intimidating "I'm going to kill you if you talk to me" demeanor that I carry with me everywhere. I kind of had to get that persona from being picked on in high school and living in a tough part of California for most of my life. Kept me alive. Now I'm in Kentucky and everyones laid back and has hardly anything to worry about. I think I scare most people here because usually I see people looking at strangers and saying Hi, but with me they look the other way or look down. *shrugs*.

I wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult. My family and I never knew exactly what was wrong with me, but knew it was something. I was smart enough to pick up on how to 'act' in public from an early age. After all of these years it's a habit that is hard to break.. I think if I tried being myself while out an about now it would take a lot of work; even more work than it takes to keep tabs on all my movements, words and actions.