people thinking you are anxious when you are not

Post Reply New Topic

this happens often to me, when I am in a classroom setting I cannot keep still, especially when standing. the number of times I have been asked whether I am anxious, or that I look worried, when I am perfectly fine, I was concentrating on doing something in a lab yesterday and the lab teacher comes up and asks me if I am anxious, I was just concentrating on what I was doing and found it interesting.

I am not sure I like people thinking I am anxious all the time when I am not

I wouldn't like it, either. I think this used to happen to me, but not anymore

Moving around a lot is seen as fidgeting, which can be a nervous thing.

Still happens to me often

I get it too, not just when I'm standing there fidgeting, but also when I'm walking through a building with a particular purpose in mind. I'm thinking "OK I think the room I want is over there". But an NT person will stop me in the hall and ask me what is wrong. Apparently I make people think I'm frantically looking for something or someone, when I'm just heading toward my destination.

Prior to being diagnosed with ADHD people often misinterpretted my pacing, fidgetting, and hyperactivity for anxiety. At that time I used to attend a drop-in for people with mental health issues which was run by Richmond Fellowship


I fully understand why they interpretted my behaviour in this way as an anxious person may behave in that way. Anxiety triggers the "fight or flight response" which is caused by an adrenaline surge. Someone in that state is likely to appear restless.

Thankfully, after being diagnosed with ADHD & put on medication (which actually works by increasing adrenaline) I no longer constantly behave all hyper, so people no longer keep asking me if I am anxious.

I have the same problem.

People also think I am unhappy when I am not.

A lot of my stims make me look nervous and people say I look mad all the time

I have this problem. My doctor views it as either anxiety or mania, even though I feel calm in both cases, LOL.

Another case of people thinking they can read aspies (etc.) better than they acctually can.

it upsets me a bit that people think i an anxious when i am not, someone also told me i looked incredibly calm when i was in fact stressed. I thought the aspies were the ones with the trouble in reading others emotions haha

I think people can't tell when I'm anxious. As much problems as I've had with going to the dentist and gynecologist not once have I ever even been asked if I want valium or anything else to help with anxiety even though it's so bad I only go to the dentist if I'm in agonizing pain and didn't go to the gynecologist until I had cervical cancer.

It may be that you have difficulty displaying emotions appropriate for the situation you are in...so perhaps your "resting" face or body language is read by other people as being uncomfortable, and your calm face is the expression you show when you're stressed. A good portion of people on the spectrum have this too - so you're not alone.

I actually had a situation where my little boy (who is PDD(nos)) had run off and was found a few minutes later -- some paramedics had him and were looking for the parents. I went down the street to claim him, and instead of being happy that they had found the parent, they were pretty worried -- because they did not perceive that either one of us was showing the kind of emotion that they expected. They did not want to give him over to me, and I guess I still had self-esteem issues from always feeling like a second class citizen (side effect of of living with ASD for 30 years.) Otherwise I should have been saying, "How dare you" and getting pretty upset. But instead I just felt completely powerless and waited for my wife to get there and explain the whole thing.

A few years later, this is still a pretty painful experience to recount.

since my hands shake all the time people think that means I am anxious. (when I am not).

It feels great to have so many other people say they have this same experience. I am always having people tell me that I seem anxious and that I need help with that. Yes, sometimes I am actually anxious but usually I am not. They don't listen to me when I tell them that my depression is much worse than my anxiety. Gotta love NTs.