The Checklist of Emotions, Theories, and Social Behavior

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Hello all. I'm just a new member here just dropping by to give out something that I think may be helpful to some other aspies out there who are in a similar problem as me.

After being incredibly lonely for the first 7 grades of school, I finally learned what it was like to have a friend. It is a very grand experience, and so I wanted to have the same feeling once more. So in the 8th grade, I adopted an altruistic mindset that went off a theory that the only reason people are friends is because they provide usefulness to each other. I started trying to improve myself to increase the chances I would make friends, and also as a way to be happier with my self.

A good amount of change in my behavior has happened in the 9th grade. With a good amount of help from my counselor, Mrs.Kolk, speech and debate coach, Mr. Davis, and 'best friend', Jessie, I've been able to speed up the process much faster. Massive kudos to Jessie in particular, who is also in the same year of high school as me and has pointed out so many of my behavioral flaws (with request of course) and has led me to finally start understanding how aesthetics work, to the point that I let her dye my hair and make me change my clothing to expand the options I had available besides the school uniform.

About 2 days ago, upon suggestion from the counselor and as a method of self-reference, I created a document detailing every rule that I have been told to follow as social behavior. Most come from Jessie.

http://willhostforfood.com/access.php?fileid=85229

My goal and hope is that one day, all of those will be green. And so every day of school, I work as hard as I can when I can to make that happen.

A little background info that will make this a bit easier to understand: as a method of getting friends and self-acceptance, I adopted an altruistic mindset. So concerns over the selflessness of an action will appear in various parts of the document, and in fact an entire category is dedicated just to Altruism. The quotes that you see, in order, are from Jessie, me, and Jessie.

Mind is an imaginary friend I have that could be almost the same as a subconscious. Able to feel emotions, react differently, think in a different logical way, and just basically having a completely different personality, Mind has been both my greatest obstacle to becoming happier (making me feel depressed when isolated. Aspergers + autophobia do not mix.) and one of my greatest assets in thinking in ways that are more beneficial.

I'm also, ironically, part of the speech and debate team. Conversation is still out of my league, but I've definitely been able to become more confident and less shy because of it, while also having access to a huge amount of other sources to further getting me to the state I want. Jessie is also in it, so that helps tremendously. In fact, if not for the club, I don't think I would have any friends at all, let alone anything to do in my spare time or something to look forward to in school.

Anyways, that was a bit excessive, but I'm hoping that this post and the ideas within may be able to help others, and maybe even gather some constructive criticism on what I could add or how to improve the list.

Last edited by Aqua_Dragon on 17 Sep 2009, 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi there, I would like to read your list but I can't get it to open correctly. Do I have to save it to my computer to do so?

What's an .ODT file? What do we need to open it?

.ODT files are OpenOffice Writer files. Aqua_Dragon - you might want to resave the file as a .RTF file, since those can be opened by just about anything.

My apologies to all 3 of you. I am on a Mac, and I erroneously forgot that most people have Word, not OpenOffice

The link has been fixed.

Last edited by Aqua_Dragon on 17 Sep 2009, 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That list is absolutely insane.

I have thought of some of the same things in that list quite a bit. Still working on many things though.

We could always get OpenOffice though. Its free. I have it on my PC.

@buryuntime
I shall accept that as a compliment.

Thanks.

@Deadfire
You should try creating a list like this also. If you have 'instructors', it lets them know what you're working on and how far you are with it, and also serves as a good self-reference. It's helped me quite a bit, even if I don't even open the file too often.

Oh I know, but that's a hassle. Most people still have word.

when I was a child, I was told that if I wanted friends, I should be myself. I quickly realized that was not true and they meant that I should be more like them. It seems that you have found the same.

As an adult, I paid a psych to help me learn more about body language. After a few months, she told me to stop because I was focussing so much on what I "should" do that I was becoming extremely self critical and was suffering an increased rate of anxiety attacks. My self esteem had plummeted from low to destructive.

I suggest that friends would help you make a list of the good things about yourself and would help you target essentials that you need to address e.g. running inside can compromise the safety of yourself and others so that is good to work on. If people only like you because you wear your belt in certain ways or wear specific colour groupings then they are not friends. They are socially challenged themselves.

perhaps by "Being yourself," they didn't realize you were so different. i can relate. if i were myself throughout schooling... well let's just say i lost a huge sense of self.

I got that advice BECAUSE I was so different.

Yah. I think so too. The problem is, I only have 2 friends that are students of the school. The 2 teachers that are helping me can't observe me throughout most of the day like them, so they can't do an extreme amount except help me with the list and the few things they do see.

Hopefully things will improve over time.

@jamesongerbil and auntyjack
To "be yourself" is the worst convulted piece of 'constructive advice' that has ever been devised. From what I read, you should be yourself because otherwise you can never truly be happy since you're always resisting the inner you. And yet I also read that if you notice that yourself makes you unhappy, is self destructive, or hurts others, then you should change the "yourself" to something better. The contradiction is apparent - so long as you're not happy with yourself, you can always justify changing yourself. And if you are happy, then you probably wouldn't want to change yourself in the first place