Are you really self-aware?

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Does anyone else here have a very high level of self-awareness? i.e. You know what stresses you out, or you know what you need to do to calm yourself down, or you know why you have a meltdown.

Some people say that it's surprising for someone on the spectrum to have self-insight that is not just average, but above-average. The book "Asperger Syndrome: Gift or Curse?" says that one of the advantages of having Asperger Syndrome can be a very deep level of self-awareness.

I've come to the point where I no longer even feel like there is something else I need to learn about myself. There's also something else I have observed myself do, to a bigger and bigger extent as the time goes on. Because I can relate to some autistic people so well, I can really actually put myself into their shoes and feel for them. I don't know if it's what they're feeling at that exact moment. Maybe the emotion is not correct, because my ability to interpret nonverbal cues is almost nonexistent. However, if, say, someone makes fun of an autistic person for taking something too literally, depending on the intensity of the situation, I can even start crying because I've been through that so many times in my life and it's painful for me to see someone else to have to experience what had caused so much suffering to me. I think this ability to relate stems from the enormous self-awareness that I have acquired throughout my life.

I have no self-awareness at all. For example for the past 3 weeks I have been feeling negative physical effects from my emotions but am unable to figure out what emotions they are or what caused them.

I've very introspective yet often can't figure out or differentiate simple things like feelings of hunger. I notice details others don't but sometimes think someone could die in front of me and I wouldn't even realize it. Basically I don't know.

I'm very self aware. I know the things that trigger my meltdowns. I can also tell when I'm hungry or tired. I also when my depression is getting better, or worse.

Me too. I'm not spontaneously aware of my feelings. But because I have read so much about Asperger's, I can now observe corresponding patterns on my behaviour and put them into the framework of what I've read to understand the reasons for why I do certain things. It's very much me observing my own behaviour vs. me understanding my own feelings.

I am way, way too self-aware. I often tire myself out by thinking about what I am thinking.

Yea. I think that, contrary to pop psychobabble speak, being self-aware is more detrimental to mental health than helpful. I think I'd be a much happier person if I was capable of holding onto the delusions that keep most ordinary folks sane. I'm too critical and skeptical for my own good.

I agree. It just makes me think too much sometimes, to fixate too much on myself. On the other hand, I can control some things about myself better to an extent with this knowledge.

something like this.

i sometimes wonder if i don't have a subconscious, if that is even possible.

I am both self-aware and not self-aware.

A lot of the time, yes.

Same with me, more or less.

I vary. I can become so very self-aware that I begin even to doubt my senses... I wonder if I am breathing normally, as I am supposed to, or deciding how to breathe... which can be exhausting. I become too sensitive to everything around me... It's enough to bring on a panic attack if I don't watch out. I can also thoroughly lose myself in thought or in activity, such that I have to say as one person to another, "Wake up, the light's green..."

But there is always, always more to learn about yourself. This I promise. Time brings added experience resulting in a broadened perspective and therefore the ability to see things that once seemed simple and well-defined from angles and approaches that give the simple things depth... and thus, reveal aspects you once could not recognize.

But thinking you have it all figured out and have seen all there is to see is a pretty common symptom of youth. Not meant as a criticism. I mean it rather as a memory... I remember being the same way.

Ditto.



I agree completely. I'm still figuring myself out and probably will be doing so until I draw my last breath--and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm extremely self-aware

I am very self aware and I like it couse I know exactly how much and what I can stand and how I will feel/react when this or that happens to me