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NotQuiteHuman
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17 Feb 2019, 9:00 pm

Hi, I just recently joined so a big hello to everyone! I should also state that I haven't been officially diagnosed, and when taking the "Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale" I am 2 points away from being in the definitive category for positive diagnosis.
So let me get to my questions. Do any of you ever feel like you're not quite human? I observe chimpanzee behavior and can't help but feel if people behaved just a bit more primitively, without the complexity of modern human behavior, that I would fit right in. It's how complex people's behavior is that really stumps me and makes me avoid social situations. For example, if I'm hungry, I just wanna focus on eating and enjoying my food, why would anyone want to talk while eating? Or if I'm horny, I should make it clear to the person I'm attracted to in order see if they reciprocate (while of course not doing anything inappropriate). A lot of neurotypical behavior seems to be a filtering of basic instincts via a highly developed social brain that focuses on subtlety and deception, and at this I constantly fail. This isn't all there is to my non-normative experiences, but it's a big source of my general anxiety. It's mentally and even physically painful to have to alter and filter one's natural responses to stimuli!! ! Anyone else struggle with this?



jimmy m
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17 Feb 2019, 10:49 pm

Welcome to Wrong Planet. I appreciate it when people say what they mean and mean what they say.
But far too often that is never the case.


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EyeDash
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17 Feb 2019, 11:41 pm

Yeah, I definitely relate, although I might put it as "not feeling remotely human"... I used to think humans were a disaster as a species because of their useless social behavior (especially sports-maniacs and fans of celebrities!) as well as due to their being driven to illogical behavior because of emotional drives. I still relate more to animals than humans - back in the late 1970s I was convinced that the ape society depicted in the original Planet of the Apes movies would have been like a utopia for me. Fortunately and tragically I had to learn over the decades to simulate normal human surface behaviors almost perfectly, like eye contact and eye movement, body language, voice inflection, facial expression, humor, emotional signaling, etc. I understand there's a dimension to how neurologically typical humans interact that I don't experience involving social responses, mirror neurons and being sort of mysteriously neurologically linked to each other that I don't experience directly but can analyze. So I can function adequately with humans in quite a few settings, but (1) it can become incredibly mentally taxing and exhausting, (2) it can be quite unsatisfying to mimic certain behaviors when I don't get the pay-offs others experience and (3) I can get in over my head in situations that are new to me or are overly complex to analyze, such as intimate relationships. Therapists used to try to correct me when I said I was effectively an intelligent animal in a human skin, but my current counselor actually gets it...



quite an extreme
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18 Feb 2019, 2:43 am

NotQuiteHuman wrote:
Anyone else struggle with this?

Yes I do. We are emotional different and a minority among the humans. The NTs totally outnumber us.
Seems like some emotional species had mixed in ancient times. The behaviour of NTs fits perfect ape like hierarchies. Hard to realize to live on the planet of apes. Welcome on WP!


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Benjamin the Donkey
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18 Feb 2019, 7:25 am

Yes.


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Kerguelia
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18 Feb 2019, 5:19 pm

I think that's where the name of this site came from.

Yes, I get this all the time.



skibum
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18 Feb 2019, 5:24 pm

NotQuiteHuman wrote:
Hi, I just recently joined so a big hello to everyone! I should also state that I haven't been officially diagnosed, and when taking the "Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale" I am 2 points away from being in the definitive category for positive diagnosis.
So let me get to my questions. Do any of you ever feel like you're not quite human? I observe chimpanzee behavior and can't help but feel if people behaved just a bit more primitively, without the complexity of modern human behavior, that I would fit right in. It's how complex people's behavior is that really stumps me and makes me avoid social situations. For example, if I'm hungry, I just wanna focus on eating and enjoying my food, why would anyone want to talk while eating? Or if I'm horny, I should make it clear to the person I'm attracted to in order see if they reciprocate (while of course not doing anything inappropriate). A lot of neurotypical behavior seems to be a filtering of basic instincts via a highly developed social brain that focuses on subtlety and deception, and at this I constantly fail. This isn't all there is to my non-normative experiences, but it's a big source of my general anxiety. It's mentally and even physically painful to have to alter and filter one's natural responses to stimuli!! ! Anyone else struggle with this?
Welcome to WP. I spent my entire adolescence feeling that way (not quite human) and sometimes I still do.


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Aladar
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19 Feb 2019, 4:39 am

Firstly welcome im still technically new here myself but to answer your question yes im constantly feeling like im not human it borders on feeling mechanical and robotic with a malfunctioning artificial intelligence chip


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Joe90
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19 Feb 2019, 5:26 am

I feel human. I am a human. The only thing that denies me from feeling human is the fact that I have never got drunk in my life, because the vast majority of humans have been drunk in their lives. It shouldn't make me feel any less of a human, but somehow I still feel guilty about it. I think it's the way people think there's something wrong with you if you have never been drunk before.


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Edna3362
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19 Feb 2019, 5:55 am

I'm a human, and I feel too human. I don't like it.

More like I feel like a celebrated foreigner at best, out of place at worst -- but not any less human.


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vintagedoll
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20 Feb 2019, 6:47 am

I've never felt like part of the human race, and I realised a few years ago that it is because I don't feel an innate human to human connection with other people that I can't see myself as human. I'm ok with that now, although I wasn't always ok with it. For too long I felt defective, I felt too abnormal, too different to other people to be one of them and that really used to bother me. Now, I'm just me. My feeling is that as long as I'm not endangering anybody, as long as I'm not doing anything illegal or seriously immoral, so long as I'm not outraging public decency, doing anything obscene or disgusting in public, which I am far too inhibited ever to do, and so long as I am not being overtly antisocial, then I don't need to be part of the human race, I only have to be who I am.


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DanielW
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20 Feb 2019, 5:37 pm

Not quite human, that sounds like you might equate it with less than human. I feel different than human, but not more or less.



coschristi
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28 Feb 2019, 3:54 am

Part of me is human. I think that makes me a ... Hybrid?



Heidibains
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28 Feb 2019, 7:51 am

jimmy m wrote:
Welcome to Wrong Planet. I appreciate it when people say what they mean and mean what they say.
But far too often that is never the case.


Thanks you I have resolved many issues in this forum.



quite an extreme
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28 Feb 2019, 8:31 am

Welcome on WP too! :)


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MagicMeerkat
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28 Feb 2019, 3:59 pm

I always felt I was born the wrong species. Not sure what exactly, just something that wasn't human or humanoid. My boyfriend feels that spiritually, he is a wolf. I don't really identify as a "furry" because I legit feel human isn't my true self. Most "furries" seem to do it for fun. I think technically, I'm a therian or otherkin.


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