Fear

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I find that fear is one of my overriding characteristics. In the past I tried to force myself to be in situations in which I would be around people, hoping that I would connect with someone. Not only did I not connect with anyone, but I crashed and burned badly. I was a member of a volunteer community group and I tried to make it more democratic, according to its own principles, and I was so naive in doing so that I didn't realize I was going against a powerful leader. I then got upset and made myself look bad by losing my temper. I had a petition circulated against me and was voted off the board of directors in my absence, then I was banned from the group. No one stood up for me, and everyone believed I was the one in the wrong. That was ten years ago.

More recently (3 years ago) I was friends with a group of women online (one of them in real life) and they bullied me at the behest of one of them, who was jealous and vindictive. I reacted badly and was in meltdown mode for a while, which made things a lot worse. I felt so hurt it shattered me at the time, and I'm still not over it.

Now I am terrified of trying again. Everything I tried to do, with great effort and going against my natural reticence, only made it worse for me. It only made me more afraid, and the hurt is still with me and I don't think I can stand having it happen again. I know that in some respects it's my fault because I acted badly, but I don't know that I could avoid the same mistakes.

Anyone else feel that fear overrides any attempt to put oneself out there and try to create some connection with other people, or even apply for jobs or try volunteering?

Well, I know what it's like to be afraid. I work as a corrections officer, and any time I'm in a new situation and I don't have someone to lean on for answers, I get very nervous and anxious. Oddly, I have never been afraid of the convicted criminals around me, only if I'm gonna screw up the paperwork the lieutenant needs me to fill out.

Your fear and mine are pretty much the same though: Fear of failure. And we've convinced ourselves that trying and failing IS worse than not trying at all. But that's our own fear lying to us. Yes, there will always be as*holes who don't understand us, who think they don't have to be nice to us or even civil when we make mistakes. But we can stop letting them make the rules for us. I wish I knew more about how to help you get what you want, but I can only tell you that fear is our way of telling ourselves there's danger, and courage is our decision that what we have to do is more important than the danger.

Definitely feel you, especially about everyone turning against you as one despite you wanting to do everyone good. I noticed that if you mess with the leader of a group (for example not have the same opinion or point something inappropriate/against the rules that they did), almost everyone will stand for him (sometimes even including the people who suffered the consequences of the leader's acts) and turn against you. For some reason, what you're allowed to do in a group highly depends on your place in the hierarchy of said group.

Do you actually want to socialize? Getting into groups is really complicated and there's often one or two people who are going to be domineering other members and influencing their thoughts and acts. If you would get in touch with isolated people instead of groups, you couldn't be voted out, not to mention one-to-one communication is way more relaxing for an AS. What do you think? Or did you have the same problem when talking to isolated people? Because from what I could observe, when it's just talking to an isolated person, if they strongly dislike you or have no interest in you, they'll just find a way to avoid you or make you understand they don't want to talk anymore, it's less likely violent situations will take place. I find what happened with the petition to be very cruel, those people so strongly disliked you that they wouldn't even ask your incentives for acting the way you did, like whatever you could say they wouldn't want to give you a second chance. And you see, I can really understand why you're still not over it, but cruel people is something that really turns me off. From what I can see, you really lost nothing in the process - they just showed their true face and let you know they weren't nice at all (someone nice, for me, would never have excluded someone that cruelly).

I understand where you are coming from. You feel like you put yourself out there and you shouldn't have to be somebody that you're not. When I work or volunteer, my goal is to get the work done and socialize enough to make that go efficiently. For other people the goal is making relationships and alliances and the work is just there to have a reason to get together and engage in group dynamics.

You are not playing by their rules for whatever reason. It makes them uncomfortable with you. When you respond by getting angry you are violation of the rules and are effectivley throwing yourself onto your sword, and they see you as being completely out of order and wrong. In your first example, they probably were expecting you to subjugate yourself to higher ups even if the current protocol is idiotic, and it was seen as trying to take their hard earned control away from them. The second one probably had little to do with you personally other than you didn't form relationships as quickly as the other women did. Men pound their chests to determine order while women group together and attack those without supporters in order to get them in line. You are probably better off in the future with trying to bring something perceived as valuable to these activities. It gives you value to the group without having to fight for position. You should not be willing to give so much power over you by fearing enough not to try something you want to do. I have done that myself at times and at the end of the day you're the only one being punished.

Fear, and its buddies anxiety and panic, keep me from doing a lot of things. Ive had so few positive experiences trying to socialize that I dont take very many chances.

Yes, I am always surprised by that when I shouldn't be by now. It seems obvious when you say it, and when I think it, and I appreciate your recognizing it and spelling it out, but in the situation it's like I'm a member of an alien race for expecting even the most basic decency.


Courage has never been a strong suit of mine. Ironically, at the time I thought I was exercising courage by standing up for what I thought was right, but in retrospect I was probably just being foolish, because I didn't realize what I was getting myself into.

I do want to socialize, but meeting people one by one seems very difficult. I don't really come across a lot of people in my day to day, and I don't really know how to befriend someone, which seems to be a common Aspie dilemma. I do have a few friends, and I count myself lucky. I thought that by joining a group I would have an instant community, and I did know a lot of people at the time, though none were close friends, but it proved to be too difficult to navigate.

I understand that intellectually (I even ended up writing a short book about group dynamics as a result of my experience) but I don't know that I can apply that knowledge and not step in the same dog doo-doo the next time.

I think that's very wise. But it's hard to let go of the unresolved and unfinished conflict when I'm alone and ruminating over it.

Totally. I'm really struggling with exactly this at the moment, drowning in fear, and for the same reason as you - I have continually put myself into situations to try to 'improve' things, even though I didn't know what the problem was, and now all the accumulated hurts from getting things wrong is just undermining me so badly.

Perhaps it's because, even though I still believe there are good people, I no longer think I will ever meet any. I'm not sure it is fear of failure, so much as fear that there is no more reason to be optimistic. I seem to be operating in a vacuum, without even the expectation that what I do 'might' be worth the effort it takes, whereas that used to be enough to keep me trying.

We are known to be more cortically arousable, so it definitely makes sense that we might be more sensitive to fear.