Past experiences affecting your present behaviour

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Is this the case with you?

For me I am not sure whether it's that or past life experiences.

I don't know. For some reason I am reluctant to go up to people and talk to them like they like me. I am always thinking "stay away, they probably hate you or think you're weird", "Don't talk to them too much, they probably don't want to talk to you", "don't go and stand with them, they most likely don't want you there" etc.

The 100% default is thinking people think neagatively of me. It is very difficult to change that perception.

A part of me says this is irrational. I automatically think people think negative and mean things when I pass them in the street, or see them face to face.

What could this be?

Past life?, past experiences?, low self esteem?, paranoia? delusion? All of the above?

It comes across as unfriendliness that I don't make an effort to engage people, when it isn't that.

I do that, too. If you have failed in social situations, it can create sort of a "learned fear" of engaging in those situations again; not the same as social anxiety, necessarily, but anxiety nonetheless.

I feel similar. Only recently I found my self wondering why most people seem to hate me.

PN i use the word seem, which means I am aware that it may be my perception of things or it maybe because I am feeling rejected and am over generalising. Or I may have misread a social cue and gotten the wrong impression. I actually can't tell if people like me a lot of the time, I usually have to take their word for it. Ergo I can get confused about such things and appear more paranoid than I actually am.

But yes I have had bad past experiences and it does affect me in the sense that I am less inclined to want to socialise these days due to the fact it seems to be associated with rejection and pain or because I am coming to accept that I just don't enjoy it no matter how hard I try and because I am, at nearly 40, now very tired of it.

I feel as though I want to retire from the social scene so I can spend more time being with things that do bring me joy. Life is so short and even when I do attempt to be social I am not successful so why keep wasting my time on it? Why not just spend my time doing something I can enjoy and succeed at instead? I only have one life, one chance to do all the things I am passionate about and to learn about the world we live in. I don't want to miss out on any happiness I can attain just becuase of societies obsession with socialising.

I am tired of the belief system in our culture as well. It seems to make everything miserable..everything is a battle (ie such as exploring healthy eating...for them it seems to be about deprivation , for me its all about exploration instead....rather than going without I am simply exploring new foods to eat that are much better for me than the old ones I was eating. I like to use my imagination to make it all fun0....and people seem to want to make everything extra hard for themselves. Are they masochistic? That is a serious question and not a dig. I think they sem to enjoy suffering both their own and that of others.

I am disturbed by suffering, I do not like to see it or experience it. So I adopted a way of thinking that makes things more pleasurable instead. i appreciate the world is not interested in my way of thinking but I am not interested in adopting it's way of thinking either. I think it must be in their nature to reject peace and happiness for some reason. This worries me. I am scared by human nature lately. A little anyway.

Humans appear to me to be predators trying to act civilised in a civilised world whilst failing at it. Their predatory nature manifests in insiduous ways such as via the ego, a need for power, enjoying other's pain and suffering and enjoying being the winner all the time at the expense of more important things such as someone getting the help they need (when giving advice it seems to be more important for them to be right even if the person is left suffering because in actual fact they are wrong instead. You are not allowed to say anything though as their ego will be wounded. What about the person left needing help though...is that fair on them just because the other person can't cope wtih being wrong...its so sad as in makes me want to cry and makes my heart sink sad, not as in judgmental they are idiots sad).#

They look civilised on the surface but they are still predatory by nature.

Living in society is like living in slavery. You have no freedom to be yourself if you don't fit into the narrow box they want to force you into. This makes me feel heart sinking sad as well.

i don't like society much, I want to exist outside of it where i can have my fun way of doing things and inspire myself (id love to inspire others too but it seems i am too weird to be inspirational to anyone) to achieve the things i want rather the follow the expect way of thikning which is to judge the self, beat onself up and bully oneself into doing things.

Why so mean to the self?

i dont want to be mean to myself.

i don't want to be mean to anyone really. I wanted a peaceful life and I cant have that if I try to join in with society. It leaves me feeling angry as I can see a way to live my peaceful existance but my own need for a companion to live that existance with me, my loneliness and society and its belief systems (which it keeps trying to force me to believe) won't let me. not to mention practical considerations.

I wish society was different then I wouldn't feel so angry.

I get so frustrated I don't konw what to do with it

Absolutely. Although NTs can have this problem as well, it is worse for us as we find it difficult to deal with the unstructured randomness of a life that is not regulated like an army. We often miss out on things NTs take for granted.

There are many things I have only learned to do recently as I was too scared to try them again after bad experiences in my youth. In other cases it is things I have never done before, usually as the fear of rejection or failure, acquired via stereotypes portrayed in films or TV outweighs the potential benefits.


There was a time when I wished I could be a brain inside a life-support mechanism (like the Star Trek episode "Spock's Brain") and just do great science. However, the lack of human company at all would have made that impracticable, plus my own need to find a compatible companion. And we don't have the technology anyway.

After several years of feeling like that, I ended up having to learn to deal with Real Life up to a point, primarily due to unemployment and the support I received for it. Dealing with people and socialising is still hard for me and I am in no way as able as an NT; there are still things I can't do or am too afraid to do.

But, er, very recently I have at least started out on some things I have never done before

But what is the true nature of reality really? And what is real life? Everyone ones life is different. Everyones experience is different. Society does not have to be the way it is, it is the way humans make it.

It is not real life...it's human society. And humans tend to create their own suffering.

As a species we made the world what it is. The shame is is that we could have made it different. We didn't.

Wanting to not be part of a particular society on the basis of moral objections in regards to its choosen belief systems or ways of life is not avoiding real life. The basics of real life still exist whether you are part of a particular society or not...survival...food, water, shelter, etc.

When people say being a part of real life in regards to joining and taking part in a society what they mean is conformity. You have not chosen real life, you have chosen to conformto a particular culture and its belief systems, norms, values and way of life.

There is no one correct way of living, despite what society tells you. All life is real life whether it is conformist to a given society or not.

Also:

Not living in the real world would imply living in a world that is delusional...

Ironicaly Society is delusional in believing that its cultureand belief systems are truth. They are beliefs, not truthes...mass delusions about the true nature of reality as definded by man.

If you wish to live in the real world...define reality....

Reality is unlikely to be a cultural belief system. Those are usually made up by man, usually to satisfy its own ego and keep civil control.

/\ One of the best posts I have seen on WP.

People have NO IDEA how consensus reality is REALLY shaped and it is no more real than countless other cultures. Einstein himself said that it's almost impossible for most people to form opinions independent of the culture they grew up in. I learned over the years many times we take for granted as "natural" and "real" are actually carefully scripted.

It's a matter of the relative presence, or absence, of Free Will.

LOL, that's a fact

When I used the phrase "Real Life" I was a bit jaded about having to conform; society is a product of common thinking, sheer chance and human error. I guess that's why there exists the social model of disability.

That post by bumble summed up in words a lot of what I had thought over the years, some of it I had thought consciously and some subconsciously that I hadn't really realised I was thinking

And let's please not have a debate about whether people who are just different are disabled or not - we have covered that one ad nauseum

I think this happens with anybody. It happens with me too. It can be a bad thing if it's affecting the person in a negative way and alienating people from them. When we first moved to Montana, I thought I was being bullied so I mistook teasing for bullying and other harmless stuff kids would do to me so I always reacted to it and I had to be the one in trouble. I thought teachers were siding against the "mean" kids. I was lucky to overcome this. My past bullying experience made me think I was being bullied. I also still tend to take it personally if anyone is mean to me or attacks me or I feel singled out by them until I see them doing it to others and then I know it's how they are in general, not that they were doing it to me because I am different.

I am still afraid of rejections and think people won't like me if I try and be their friend because that was what I got all the time as a child. I am also afraid if I talk a lot or join in conversations, people will get mad at me. I am even afraid to tease or do harmless things because I am afraid people will get upset with me, that goes for hugging and kissing. I think this is pretty common in ASDs. Other people seem to have better luck doing these things because they can read social cues and know when it's okay to do it and we don't so we may be too afraid to do it at all so we never do it because we don't want to make anyone upset or mess up.

OP, how much of this is you setting up you - the self-fulfilling prophecy. Think back to successful encounters, and figure out what worked/what you did. Build in some smiles (it's easy for us to forget that) and apply the KIS rule - (keep it simple). Keep a list of the ones that go well from now - however few at first - and do some journalling about them. You have some anxiety to overcome with this. Small steps and practice might help. Essentially, you have to desensitise yourself from past failures and build up new patterns, new behaviours, new confidence. You can do it. Just don't set the bar too high at first. And stay away from hostile people, who get their kicks from dumping on anyone and everyone. Keep it in perspective. A few failures are bound to happen, but a few swallows don't make a summer. Good luck with changing this.