Have you ever tried to stop acting like NTs?

Post Reply New Topic

I have been mimicing NT behavior since I was 8 (1978) I wonder how people would react to me if I stop trying to force myself to act like everyone else. Pretending to be like everyone else has still gotten me picked on at work I wonder how they would react if was just myself. Not smiling, not making eye contact, or returning fake niceities that they spout off to everyone they meet? I would feel more comfortable I bet less full of hate I am sure.

I think the violent outbursts I had as a teenager were from the result of me bending over backwards to act like everyone else and still being rejected. I have a lot of pent up anger and rage since I was laid off I am hoping that acting like myself might be a good release instead of acting like something I am not.

By acting like yourself...you mean like letting yourself stim and what not?

I don't act like an NT anymore, gathering all of my energy for the times when I really have to do so, like when I'm meeting an important person or when I'm doing an interview. I used to try to act NT all the time. It was exhausting, painful, stressful, and simply not worth it.

I'm beginning to be myself again. I think I have almost completely forgotten who I am and, so it is a bit of a struggle, but I want to be who I was meant to be before the NT world remade me, now that I know what my difference is.

Yes. And the odd thing is, the more autistic I let myself act, the more skills I can begin to access. It seems like for the first two decades of my life, I used up so much energy in trying to act NT that I didn't have enough left over to use my strengths. I'd rather be myself, act eccentric, and do what I'm good at than get all neurotic because I'm not NT and people are looking at me funny. It's not like they didn't do that anyway; the act was never good enough to fool most people.

Not to zone out or anything like that. I mean stop faking normalcy durring contact with NTs. I think the more normal I try to act the more nervous I make people. All this make believe crap just makes me more angry and crabby, Like forcing myself to make small talk with some stranger who just walks up to me in the store or someplace without warning. When its over and I make it home I cannot concentrate I am still in defensive mode unable to get comfortable for a few hours. If I did not fake making eye contact or forced myself to talked to them this stranger they would have wondered off and I would have went home not pissed off or crabby.

Last edited by Todesking on 22 May 2010, 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think I've ever acted like an NT in my life. I do see the value in adopting certain NT behaviours though. They are tools to be used when the situation warrants it.

I act like myself, I don't fake anything, and if people don't like that, and think I'm too weird or whatever, they can stop talking to me and p**s off.

Trying to act like them is too stressful and the payoff isn't that great IMO. Just be who you are and if people can't accept that then it's their problem.

I have tried all my life (I am 77) to act NT. It was a tremendous effort, but I think there was no other way to survive, at least economically.
See "Good old Neon" by Davis Foster Wallace.

Heh, if I stopped putting up a fake veil every time someone tried interacting with me then I'd probably be burnt at the stake

Know what you mean like, it would be pretty awesome but IMO just as NT behavior is uncomfortable to AS's our behavior would be uncomfortable to them (and in my community NT far outnumbers AS ) people are all too keen to promote diversity until push comes to shove and they actually have to deal with diversity (again, IMO).

This was the realization I finally came to - that all my efforts for years to try to appear like one of them were never working anyway. Dropping the mask did very little to change how they saw me, I'd been wasting tremendous amounts of emotional energy for years putting on an act that wasn't fooling anyone but myself.

No matter how convincing you think you're being - they know you're not one of them.

Wallace in Good old Neon: "My whole life I’ve been a fraud. I’m not exaggerating. Pretty much all I’ve ever done all the time is try to create a certain impression of me in other people. Mostly to be liked or admired…. "

amen and this! I agree with. (It is good to see you still posting, Paolo (waves) ) I have never had the luxury of not trying to 'pass' all the time.

That's exactly what I have been doing since the age of ten, when I began to lose myself. I have a lot of work to do now, which may take the rest of my life.

I dont really even fake being NT. Id rather just be myself instead of letting the world dictate who I am. I have my own oppinions/thoughts/values and I am perfectly fine even if someone tries to convince me otherwise. (Gotta love it when NTs call me emo for hating society for philosophical reasons, I learned to view things the way I do by asking the crucial questions that society itself is blind to, such as the whole 'domino effect', especially how it relates to the economy.