An Inability to understand ourself? Wanting to feel safe.

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Do you think it is dificult to even understand yourself at time?

I have been diving into my own mind over and over again, trying to understand why I do the things I do. And it has only dawned on me when an outside observers can see and tells me but I can't see it in myself.

For example:I like to wrap myself up in a blanket like a cacoon while sleeping. And in general burrowing into cushens, pillows, blankets and people. I never knew really why I would do this until my boyfriend observed me and gave me his intake on it. Because I felt vulnerable and I wanted to feel safe.

I didn't feel safe around my environment or situation so I would correct it by hiding/covering myself in some way. I was afraid of something. But I don't know what it could be.

When he told me this I felt angry and VERY vulnerable. It made me want to hide even more but I couldn't so I just started to bang my head on his arm in frustration because i didn't know what to do or say. He understood a part of me that I couldn't even understand myself.

Has anyone else had anyone tell them something about you that you didn't know or understood yourself?

Has many aspies feelt they way I felt. Vulnerable and just wanting to feel safe?

Feeling safe is big with me. It's one of the most important things in my life. I'd rather stay at home than go anywhere, cause I don't feel safe around people.

Most of my childhood I did not feel safe, except for three weeks every summer where I would visit some of my mothers friends. They lived in a peacefull little town, had so many routines, and the mom was home all the time.

I wish I had a person in my life that I could feel safe around, like a father or an older brother that would protect me. Or a place that I could go to, with people I would feel safe around.

I think this talk about caves and aspies is about feeling safe.

I don't think anyone has told me something about me I did not know, except one guy who told me that when he talked to me he felt like I was looking down on him allthough he was taller than me. I now know it's because I don't have eyecontact and look at peoples mouth instead.

Being around more than one person at one time - that's nearly always unsafe for me.

I am safe 99% of the time I am alone.

I am safe now because I am alone even though I am talking to you on the internet, you are not here in real life.

Love,

Brave Murder day.

I only feel safe in my own chosen environment either alone or with a person i trust 100% (only 3 people then LOL).

Some of it is how ive always felt and behaved but it has been made worse by hypervigilence i suffer due to a few bad experiences and resulting mental issues.

I often get stunned at how people make remarks that catch me off-gaurd. I think, "was it that obvious???"

Yeah, sometimes our own life is out of our "field of vision". Its like trying to look at your forehead. Sometimes you need a mirror, but the only mirrors for our lives are other people.

I feel safe anywhere................ of course I'm a Ninja, so I don't really fear anything. and I'm the closest thing here on the boards that's even slightly..........NT.

yeah, I'll admit that I'm more NT then Aspie, besides how many Aspie's in college would be brave enough to apply to be an RA for sophmore year or later on?

Yeah I love feeling safe as well. But from my other posts in your threads, you could probably guess that, hehe!

Mirror,
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention something else, and I didn't really go into this in any of your other threads. This refers to the part of your original post where you talk about how other people might understand you better than you understand yourself. Admittedly, I am like you in that I think that I understand myself and what I do completely, but then sometimes (oftentimes?) people seem to have a better understanding of me than I do. Mostly I think it's because we get so used to doing something, that it's near impossible for us to catch ourselves doing it. Worse, the thing could be something really bad, and we might think, "no, I don't do that at all," and be in denial when other people point the thing out to our face. But in retrospect, I've noticed that by far most of the time they were right, that I actually was doing it and just never realized it until then. I could also see the same thing in other people very easily, but I simply couldn't see it well at all if I were the one doing it. It's a bit of a self-awareness problem, and I am not sure if it is correlated with AS in any way. All I can say is that all the people with AS that I know (including me) are all guilty of this problem.

By the way, hugging my puppy (see my avatar! ) makes me feel safe. He's not fat, but he's got a lot of extra skin and really soft fur, and loves being hugged by people. Great stress reliever, and makes me feel great! You know you wanna hug him!

I dislike it when somebody points out something that I'm doing that I was unaware of, but they are angry and operating under the assumption that I was perfectly aware, and following some selfish agenda. They never believe me when I say I didn't know. Or maybe I did know, on some level, but was unaware how it was impacting on others.

Its the difference between being having functioning mirror nuerons and not. We can understand our own thoughts and motivations quite well (usually due to trying to figure out why we are different) but cant figure out how we appear to others. For NTs I presume its more the opposite.

While no one can perfectly know how they appear to others they can at least look in the mirror or imagine themselves and generally know what emotions their expressions and gestures are conveying.

As for safety.. well I dunno about that I dont feel particularly threatened except by large unruly crouds (I dont trust the herd mentality of people.. stampedes are common and deadly) but I do get stressed and like to be in a confined space to regain my bearings and relax.

My kitty helps at least.. every day when I get home from work I lay down on my back on the couch and he runs over, lays down on top of me with his paws outstreached next to my neck like hes hugging me, I wrap my arms around him and he purrs loudly while I stare up at the ceiling. He then proceeds to rubs my face with his head until I calm down. The weird thing is theres no reward for him I didnt train him to do that in any way and my previous cat did the same thing (except she would nibble on my earlobe instead of rubbing my face).

They can probably just tell Im not feeling well and have figured out that their actions are beneficial to me.