Self absorption

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Do you have problems with being self absorbed in the sense that your brain seems to be primarily fixated on your own thoughts and thought processes?

Do you have trouble jumping out of your own thoughts and thought processes to listen to other people?

PN I don't mean in the sense of being intentionally selfish or uncaring, as to me, that is a different thing, but more in the sense that you get lost in your own internal world at times and have trouble pulling out of it, be it in regards to daydreaming, pondering points of interest, thinking things through etc.

In short do you live predominantly in your own head?

I often have problems with this and find it tends to cause people to say and think that I am selfish, arrogant and narcissistic (because I relate to the world via my own experiences and talk about those experiences a lot when communicating)....which I am not, I just get lost in my own brain and am not always aware of what other people are thinking and feeling. I am not devoid of feelings or compassion etc and I am not overly arrogant, I just get lost in my own little world most of the time...I am unintentionally self absorbed and its takes me a lot of energy to pull myself out of the world I understand in my head and push myself into a world I often find confusing (the world of other people and socialising for example).

If that makes sense...

Yes.

Bumble that's like asking 'do you have AS?'. I think what you describe pretty much defines ASD.

Yes very much so but that is what autism is

Yes, I am usually lost in my own mind, but please don't send a search party, as I have made this my psychological "home." It's kind of the ultimate spelunking experience.

I do care about the world beyond my own mind, but am usually too engrossed in my own thoughts to interact effectively with the rest of the world. I am also a solitary type person, who is not into socializing, and I don't really know how anyway, so I avoid most get-togethers.

Since I don't have friends, and my family is aware by now that I am always going to be "different" I don't have to worry too much about what others think. Besides, I have found that other people don't really care what I or others think. They just care how people act. There is no way I can act totally normal, so there is no point in my getting upset about it any more. If others want to get upset about my not being normal, that's their problem, not mine.

Just live your life the best you can, for what is best for you.

yes

Absolutely! The real world sucks big time, especially most of the people in it, so why not live in my own fantasy world? That's why there's Second Life too. It's called escapism.

I actually have two whole worlds in my head that I have created. They aren't just for fun though, but also places for me to have many different experiences and to learn. Some of these learnings and insights I then bring back to this world and write about. I suppose you could call this a form of meditation.

Escape while there's still time!

This made me laugh. I do not know if I have AS or not but I deal with what Bumble is describing every single day.

In order to pay attention to other people I have to pull myself out of my mind and remind myself that "someone is speaking... listen to them..." otherwise I will miss everything said to me. And catching sarcasm, nonverbal cues, and people's emotions? That's just way beyond my capability.

So no worries, you are not alone in this As was said previously in this thread, that is a huge part of what autism is

Yes, to everything you said, but especially this para. I sometimes find when I am talking to someone and they tell me something about themselves, I'm often immediately reminded of something from my own life or something I heard about. I suppose I've got a story for everything (so long as it's not the soaps, clothes or chit-chat). I've been told I'm interesting and helpful and have been thanked for being such good company. But, they've probably only met me once. If they had met me again, I do think they might have gotten the drift of me being self-absorbed.

Like you, I'm not selfish, I'm very caring. I use my own experience and knowledge about how things are to help others. Recently, my friend was in a great deal of pain. From my own experience, I knew she had gallstones, but her doc said otherwise. After several days of this pain and me going on about how the experience was for me, she went to A&E and was kept in for 10 days, with (you guessed it) gallstones and liver complications, because it had been going on for so long.

I love to chat with people who are equally 'self-absorbed', but chatty. Meeting one tomorrow, as usual for a Thursday. It makes me feel really comfortable, for us to bounce off one another.

Almost always...

Jason.

Yep.

About 8 years or so ago I stumbled on Schizoid info. and pondered whether it was this. But it's not...... I'm not afraid of intimacy as they are... ruled out.
I get just as lost and the more lost I get the harder it is to surface into people interaction land. I just do much thinking I guess.

Along with my other things/habits, a family member once suggested Autism to me.

I intuit the non verbal so I ruled that out.

Plain simple reality is I think I think too much.

I love intimacy...

I can read some non verbal cues (really obvious stuff like someone signalling me to walk through a door or someone smiling and link that to their being happy) but I struggle with subtle. Ie for the last few months, my male neighbour has been coming around for a chat and on leaving keeps kissing me on the cheek. I am still trying to figure out what that means exactly lol. I will give up trying to work out what it means eventually, shrug and live with the mystery...as I always do. But I have no idea what I am supposed to extract from the above in terms of meaning...something...but what? And I have got zero intuition on it!

I do sometimes wonder if I think too much and I have been trying to break the habit for years but to no avail. I kind of enjoy thinking see, otherwise my brain gets bored. If it's not off on a day dream somewhere its pondering what I just read in relation to my latest interest (presently geological processes, primitive nutrition, evolution and prehistoric marine biology...to be precise) or what I need to do next in regards to my studies (BSc Natural Sciences with an earth/life sciences pathway). It may sometimes ponder possible solutions to any problems I am having, or the reasons behind my social difficulties. If not any of that it is pondering philosophical stuff such as the meaning of life or thinking about my next art project for when that becomes my main interest again (for the moment the academic studies have taken over).

Then people come along and want to make chit chat (usually spontaneously without making arrangements with me first so that I can prepare myself) and I find it hard to pull out of my line of thinking and to focus on the conversation, especially if it is not a subject of interest to me. Now if they were to start talking about evolution or plate tectonics etc I may be able to follow along (or more likely babble away which is usually the case) but most of the time it's gossip or small talk type stuff, at which point, I just zone out and my brain goes back to thinking about whatever it was thinking about before it was interrupted lol.

I have the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to chit chat. I need to put my brain on reigns or something with all the wandering away it does lol.

Last edited by bumble on 22 Feb 2012, 10:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yes!

Many times I have trouble relating to what other people experienced or even listen closely to their stories. They tell me something and I listen, but I don't listen because I'm too deep in my own world and I rather tell people about my experiences. I'm not selfish.. I just find it easier than listening to somebody else and respond in an appropriate way.

Yup.

I do spend a lot of time in my head and thinking about 'me'. Having said that I do care a lot about my friends but because I spend a lot of time in the Paulie Motel I feel like I rarely let them know this, I would love to let them know but I'm not sure how to approach it, it would seem weird (and uncharacteristical of me) to just blurt it out one day. I also find it difficult to do things for other people sometimes if it makes me feel too uncomfortable or scared to do so, which makes me seem like a bad friend when I'm not, I'm just too much of a p****