Changing yourself and stress.

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Anyone else find that most of your stress stems from people trying to change you and make you more 'normal'?

I can keep my stress levels low but only by pottering around doing my own thing in my own little world where I can be my natural self with my oddities.

Society does not like to let me do that though and so when dealing with 'society' my anxiety levels hit the roof and shoot off into space...

If it were not for my desire for love and a life partner, I think I would want to be a hermit just to avoid all that god damned stress.

I'd have to say most my stress comes from having to communicate with people I don't understand (almost everyone) or from people expecting things from me, specifically needing me to perform a certain task like picking kids up from school, expecting me to call someone I don't know for information or helping with homework. Low self-esteem tends to make me sure I'm going to let them down in a big way, even for inconsequential tasks. I don't really encounter people trying to change me, but they frequently have expectations of things I should be able to do because I have a high IQ, and get very perplexed/frustrated when I'm incapable of things they take for granted.

I've already changed myself to suit myself three years ago. I don't need the stress of people changing me in order to fit society's idea of what I should be. There was one woman who was trying to force me to go to the Women's Breakfast at the church that I live behind just this past Saturday. She had this idea that we would eat all this health food for breakfast and than get our nails done afterwards. I told her that I have Gender Identity Disorder and I was being honest with her. She said, "No you don't. Says who. Who told you that you have GID. Let's walk in together!" She started walking in and I walked the other way in order to get away from there. She yelled out, "Jesus loves you! I love you!" Let me live the life of a man and leave me the hell alone, is my advice for society.

Although my Executive Function Disorder, and my other health issues cause me stress, a big part of my stress is caused by other people. NTs are herd animals and have an expectation that others will/should be also. They can't handle it when they encounter people who don't conform to the herd pattern, so they try to "fix" the different person. They get upset when they are unable to fix that person, and can even go beyond that to being angry and blaming the other person for being deliberately different. That leads them to believe the different person is being rebellious, even when that's not true. If you are perceived as rebelling against fitting the herd pattern or even being part of the herd, then you are bad, even where you have done nothing bad--just been different.

I found the only way to reduce the stress from this enough was to become a hermit, and minimize contact with relatives, who are the worst when it comes to trying to get one to conform to the herd pattern.

I am not capable of conforming to the herd pattern well enough to please the herd, and I am not willing to put up with constant efforts to make me achieve an impossible goal, so turning hermit was the only way I had to reduce the stress levels enough. I still have problems when my parents are up here at their summer home in the warm months.

After over 5 decades of observing life, I am not impressed with herd life anyway. Conforming to the standards of the herd pattern doesn't look so appealing from the outside. I do conform to common sense standards of behavior regarding crime, such as murder, stealing, etc., as we do all need to behave with at least some basic civility in order to maintain a civilized way of life. But I am not interested in conforming to stuff that is trivial to me, and/or has no value to me, just because most other people are doing it.

As long as you behave with basic civility, just be yourself, whoever that happens to be, and however different from the norm that is.

I do have stress with changing myself, but also I don't like being different either. I do like to look nice, but at the same time, I can't always be bothered. It's a very complicated thing to explain, because when I tell people, they either only look one way or the other. I mean, really, I'd be quite happy to just have greasy, scraggly hair, with the front just tucked behind my ears, and never having to wash or brush it. But, at the same time, I want to fit in and look presentable, so I have to make a bit of an effort by maintaining a neat hairstyle and having to wash and brush it regularly. It's also good for my morale too. I know all these social obligations of making an effort with your appearence can cause stress, but for someone who complains about having low self-esteem and feeling rejected and a loser all the time, making the effort actually does me good emotionally, in the long run.

It's a catch-22, really.

I wash my hair every day and I wear nice clothes that match my interests and personality. I like the vintage Mod look. I like it when I'm walking to my clubhouse and strangers ask me if I'm on my way to work, and I tell them that I just really enjoy dressing up. I get compliments by making myself happy.