What it is and how it feels to act normal
Here is my description of it:
We aspies usually act awkwardly because we generally don't have social skills, throughout our lives we get used to acting awkwardly and that becomes normal (just like writing with your dominant hand, except that you have awful calligraphy), at least for us, as we don't have any other way to do it.
So, when socializing AFTER learning social skills, we tend to avoid that intrinsec awkwardness we are used to.
It feels like writing with your non-dominant hand or changing which hand folds up and over when you cross your arms. If you're a rightie, it feels like holding a fork as a leftie would:
You know the concept of holding a fork, you know what is the proper position you're supposed to handle it, you know how to use it, you've seen thousands of people doing it, but when in fact you're going to eat, you spill the food and even miss your own mouth. That is how socializing feels to me, just like handling a fork with your non-dominant hand. That would be how I would explain it to an NT.
Hope I've been very clear, as I really wanted to find a proper way to explain it.
Write down your own description of how it feels to you,
I'll be delighted to read them all and I'm sure many others will too.
Peacefully,
Dante.
When I was a kid acting normal meant not picking your nose or rubbing your crotch or holding your hand between your legs close to your crotch and also not sitting on your bike with your butt hanging over, also not being goofy and not always getting yelled at and into trouble and not crying and shouting a lot in class, and not stuttering or talking funny. Yeah I found all this hard to control and it also meant walking with your body straight up and sitting straight up and all that felt too awkward for me. It also meant holding your scissors the right way too and that also felt awkward. I knew I was different and wondered why other kids didn't act that way and the ones who did who also labeled as weird. I realize all these kids may have also had problems and probably had an IEP too even though they looked normal. Weird is just a word kids use for someone who is unusual and doesn't act normal.
It took me years to control my behavior and to control my habits and I think occupational therapy helped too and I also had to learn to control my emotions better. It doesn't feel hard like it did when I was a kid when I would control it. It was like always thinking about not doing it and always on my mind and I would only do it for that class and then after that class would get out, back to my old self again. It also took me a while to get used to holding the scissors the right way because I would hold them right in school but at home I would hold them upside down and my mother started to make me use them correctly and it was like writing with your left I would say. It was the same with holding pencils too when the aide in my self contained room started to make all her students hold a pencil correctly. But it all takes time to get used to it and then it becomes natural.
As for trying to socialize, trying to do that was like trying to do something you have no interest in so it's a chore. If we were playing jump rope or just swinging on the swings, that was different because I found it easy but it was the chit chat I just found hard. They talked about boring stuff and all they wanted to do was just stand around and talk, not play and here I was trying to be normal by forcing myself to just be with my friends and I would just stand there and no contribute to the conversation because I had nothing to say. Also I played with younger kids because they were not into socializing, only playing so I had more things in common with them and they didn't reject me. I think for younger children playing is a form of socializing and considered as having good social skills so mine were considered good until around 5th grade but I started to have troubles in 4th grade.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
The examples you gave were very much like my experience.
One thing caught my attention the most:
Socializing as a chore and playing, because, as you said, for playing there's no need to interact most of the time. If there was, it would be kept to a minimum depending of the game. My difficulties became even more evident as I had to socialize more and more.
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