The world is confusing.

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I am so stressed out. I am fed up of this planet. It IS the wrong planet. Every time I go to a café, I see people talking with intonations in their voices, gesticulations, facial expressions, it just overloads me; I cannot process it at all, it's so confusing, I don't understand any of it. When I talk to people I never make eye contact (in fact I don't even look at their upper body at all) because looking at any body language sends my brain into processing attempt overdrive. I cannot understand body language / tone of voice AT ALL. And the figures of speech, why do NTs have to use them????

I am getting daily overload with every single human contact, ever single voice I hear spoken, even on the radio, because my brain starts trying to process and understand the deeper meaning behind what they're saying.

Should I just shut myself away from the world to protect myself from total exhaustion? I don't want to go totally non-verbal or have another relapse. Already I'm having anger attacks.

Also I keep saying the "wrong" thing. For example, my support worker said that I shouldn't have posted "who is dead?" when someone posted "RIP xxx" on Facebook. I didn't see a problem with that but apparently it's wrong. I am finding social interaction a bewildering challenge and people are saying I'm "weird" and "strange" and terminating conversations with me.

My psychiatrist says that my Asperger's is on the "severe" end, whatever that means. What do I do about social interaction and handling it? How can I lead a normal-ish life?????

First, I've never been diagnosed with Aspergers. I score quite high on the tests that we've all seen, but in real life there are days when I seriously doubt that I have it and other days that I think it is quite likely.

I never really noticed how much of the world I didn't understand until I started actually paying attention to it instead of just ignoring what I didn't understand.

It is quite common that someone will tell me something that I did not expect at all. When that happens, I usually don't say anything because I need to think about it a while. Then the next time I see them, I might bring it up and ask questions about it. In the process, I suspect that they get the feeling that I'm not paying any attention to it at all.

At restaurants, my preference is to take something to read, preferably a magazine but a newspaper will do in place of a magazine. That way I can completely ignore everyone else.

I don't think asking the question "who is dead?" is wrong either, but I think maybe NTs prefer it to be phrased as "who passed away?" because 'dead' is a blunt word.

If I'm wrong with that, then I really don't know why it's wrong either.

I do get overloaded very easily and I don't understand humans most of the time. (And everyone says I should stop calling them "humans") I tend to overcompensate for this by analysing everything that comes my way. It doesn't help that I'm a linguist cos that just makes it so much more complicated sometimes...

I don't understand either why asking "who is dead?" is also wrong. I usually ask "who died?" That sounds like something anyone would ask.

Don't withdraw completely, if you can help it, but do find some of the things that really overload you and cut those out so you can focus on putting some more useful supports in place. Those cafes that overwhelm you so much--could you stay away from them and instead have lunch in a more quiet location, with a friend or two perhaps? Are there sensory things that overload you? If so, you could modify things a little to remove some of the extra input. If you're trying to do too much, drop something nonessential. You only have so much energy and it is okay not to try to go beyond that.

Maiden, at the risk of confusing you even more, I would not recommend not looking above somebody's waste when talking; it might give them the wrong idea. Being male, I learned this the hard way since women thought I was staring at intimate parts of their bodies and it tended to creep them out even though leering was hardly what I had in mind. I'm guessing that if you were to do this to some men, they might get the wrong idea and think you are coming on to them.

People who know me know I have a hearing loss, and so this makes it okay to cock my good ear toward them and I don't have to look directly into their eyes, even though my hearing isn't all that bad. But they don't have to know that. Another trick I learned in boot camp was while standing at attention we were supposed to focus on infinity--in other words, focusing on something behind the person you are conversing with. You need to find a coping technique that works for you.

Good luck!

I find the vast majority of the human population to be confusing. They give off mixed messages.

just thinking about it more and im certain that who passed away is a good response, so maybe use that next time.

I had to think about why the "Who is dead" phrase is jarring.

It is custom to use euphemisms to those upset and close to the deceased, to "ease" them into acceptance and habit of missing the person.
"Dead" is a final word, a slap to the psyche and likely to bring a renewed sense of overwhelming grief and loss.

So, to use the phrase about someone you know indicates that the person's death and the feelings of those grieving are of no concern to you.