In- between two worlds - Autistic & Non Autistic

Post Reply New Topic

I know there are many people here with ASD who have highly adaptive skills and as a result can move with a certain grace within the social world.

I would be interested to hear from you and for you to share your In-between world experiences via means of this thread.

Wishing you all well from London.

Chris.

I'm not diagnosed and for most of my life I've functioned enough, or put myself in a position where my functioning is enough, to get by. I might not even be on the spectrum, but I am far from 'normal', that I can guarantee.

What I -do- know is that I'm weird, I have poor self-control, I have meltdowns, and I've cultivated an impressive persona. If I have the energy and the drive, you cannot tell that I'm different in everyday situations. In socializing situations where I'm actually enjoying myself, I naturally let go of some of my persona and my weirdness becomes apparent. I put my foot in my mouth, interrupt people, will display my enjoyment physically with excitedness, etc, but because it is a friendly situation, I usually do not offend people.

The older I've gotten the harder it is for me to do this though. All of it. I wasn't really too sure of this persona I have until the stress of my life made it crack a couple weeks ago, and underneath it's all coming off as cold and a b***h.

When I'm functioning and looking after myself and I'm at my best, it's getting up in the morning, and then putting on a whole persona so that I can function in the world. It means having coffee so that I have the energy to maintain the persona; it means staying in social groups so that there is no downtime. In highschool when I was in a clique of friends, some of whom were clearly on the spectrum, I flourished.

As I said, the older I've gotten the harder this has become much harder though. I see the fakeness as fakeness. I can't be myself without people getting offended. I am also depressed which pretty much makes any of the falseness really hard to do because the motivation isn't there. So instead I keep to myself. I tried making friends recently after a big change in my life that resulted in me being homeless, and I found myself being taken advantage of, badly, for the first time. My false self and persona is trained to please people, I was forced to be around people for large chunks of the day, and I was raised catholic, so I've been taught that being nice is good. Well I was taken advantage of. I am in a DBT course (dialectic behavior therapy), and I'm finally learning and putting into practice to say 'no' when it's not something I care to do. I lost my friends by speaking my mind and not being a pushover, (good riddance), and I see how much I have been being someone else for everyone else. It's been a real eye-opener.

Some things I am just learning to do now is to recognize my emotions and not quash them. I learned from a young age that in order to 'act right', I couldn't allow myself to have my own emotions because that's not what was wanted from me. Of course I also recall being smothered as an infant when I acted out, so clearly acting 'appropriately' (ie: in as non-bothersome way as possible), was very strongly enforced in me, from a very young age. Even now my social anxiety isn't so much a worry about people disliking or thinking poorly of me, but of me being a nuisance or bother to someone else such that I'll then be harmed in some way or another.

Like I said, I don't know if I am an example of HFA or not, but I'm example of 'don't be yourself to fit in', and I'm only now in my 30's discovering who I really am, and who that is seems like they could be on the spectrum. (FYI my dad is undiagnosed but to anyone who knows what autism is, is painfully HFA, and my mom has the empathy of a fish and also doesn't really make friends.)

The way I adapt at work:

I adopt a "court-jester" pose, so people find me funny.

I am exempt from most of the social crap that goes on.

I don't get involved in all the stupid games that go on.

Since I'm considered "weird," people don't think I would rat on them, so they talk openly about stuff in front of me.

I love the neurotypical world. I find it interesting. I get so intrigued with all the gossip that goes on.

I do like to get along with everybody, but I can tell who likes me and who doesn't. Most people like me.

There's this woman at work who doesn't like me much. But I don't get it get to me. She's just quite a difficult person; one minute she has a laugh with me and strikes up a friendly conversation, then the next minute she finds something to yell at me about, but she is not my boss or supervisor. That makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes me not want to bother talking to her at all, but, like I already said in this post, I like to get on with everybody, so I just be nice to her when she's nice to me.

I know everybody has at least somebody in their life who they don't get on with or are disliked by. It's just part of life. I've learnt not to get too upset when it's only one or two people who dislike you out of a whole crowd of people who do like you.

I'm only 19 and had just recently been diagnosed with Aspergers. My therapist says it's fairly mild. I don't really exhibit most of the more hallmark autistic traits, or at least not to the degree that others on the spectrum do. Most times I can pass as normal and no one would ever know. Other times, It's painfully obvious that I am affected by it.

I'm still doing a lot of introspection on myself. Much like Cavernio said, I'm weird, poor self control, I have meltdowns etc. I can't really read other people's body language even though I have the knowledge of it. For example, I know that when some people get mad their brows furrow, but in the moment of actually seeing it, it doesn't register until after the fact. I like to think of it as, I can 'feel' if someone is getting angry, sad, happy, confused, etc. but I can't quite see/read it, if that makes sense.

Back tracking to the more hallmark traits that others exhibit. I've seen others on this site that have really hard time with change, noises, etc. but I can handle changes if I know in advance. If something changes without notice I usually get really upset. I can handle loud noises, but I guess it just makes me really uncomfortable? I don't have impeccable memory like some aspies do (Maybe an ADD thing of mine.)

One thing I really do have a problem with, which I'm not sure if it's an aspie thing or due to other reasons, but controlling my emotions. I saw a post on here earlier where someone said they feel emotions intensely. I can relate to that. If I get sad, I get reeeeeally sad and so forth. It's a bit weird to explain. I'm aware of the emotion, I can feel the emotion, I know what's causing it and maybe how to fix it, yet I can't put it into action. It's almost as if it grips me and won't get me go until it has run its course or until I run out of energy.

There's a bunch of other stuff, but my post is getting long and I think it's getting off topic. I'm still trying to figure out a lot of stuff about myself.

Thank you everyone for your posts so far.

What about not having ASD but you are like a person with ASD

I still have problems with social adjustment, but, I was lucky enough to have (or at least, to have developed) a sense of humor. Being able to see humor, and to be able to relate it in the form of a joke, has been a huge help to me.

I was diagnosed early on which i have heard is rare for a female, but I displayed asd traits more honestly when I was young so i think that is why. over time i learned ways to navigate through nt spaces and I'm still learning, it's not easy. still, I've always been a weird one, and I'm not trying to hide or change that, just work on interacting and connecting better. I also have a medium-high intelligence (academically) and so I was in the advanced placement programs in middle and high school, which I think helped a lot because there were other weird and smart kids in those programs who I could more easily connect with.
in my adult life, so far I have placed myself in a setting where everyone is weird in one way or another, and so my weirdness doesn't really phase anyone.

I couldn't "move with grace" in the NT world as a child or a teenager. The world made no sense to me at all. I didn't understand my peers and they didn't understand me.

I have learned to adapt as I've got older. Basically I've learned from my mistakes. If I do x then y will happen. I think I've had some pretty understanding people around me as well who have helped me to adapt.

Occasionally people will twig that I'm on the spectrum. These people tend to be parents of young adults with aspergers and they recognise the traits, but if I tell an NT that i'm on the spectrum they just can't compute it because I come over as friendly, if not a little quiet. They expect autistics to have less good social skills than I do, even though I spend most of my time alone and don't really have any close friends. Strangely when I tell them this they take offence because they feel like they are my close friends.

I still feel a disconnect to other people though. Like I don't quite get what I'm meant to do in a friendship. And I certainly have no idea what to do with a romantic relationship. Because I seem nice people do think that I have chosen to be single, they don't expect that I just can't navigate the male/female relationship or they just assume I'm gay and not interested in men.

I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I feel very alone, like it's me against the world and I have no one to help me. I am always trying to keep my head above the water and I'm tired.

Yeah, I don't do friends. Not close ones. The best I've done is romantic relationships because I feel like in those it's kinda like, be yourself or don't bother. But with friendships there's this line that needs to be walked of how close you'll be and how interdependent you're going to be as friends, but because I don't know where that line stands so I always draw it far towards the 'not close' side, I end up not making real connections with people where I actually care about them.

I totally relate to that. There are some people who I genuinely really like. I just enjoy their company, but I don't want to be a nuisance and I keep them at arms length because I don't want to be too annoying. I never know where the line is. I usually let the other person draw the line. Unfortunately this means I end up with annoying friends who talk all the time and force themselves on me time wise. They feel like we have a connection because I let them express themselves, but they don't really know me because they never shut up. They are the only people who seem to invite me anywhere too and I go and I end up bored or overstimulated and come home with a buzzing head.

I always worry that I will end up doing that to someone. That I will end up forcing myself on them and they will tolerate me out of politeness because that's what I do with annoying people. It's catch22.

In my case I won't necessarily like the person but again, being around people = something to do for me. And liking someone for me doesn't equate to trust. I don't trust most people.