Do you feel you have to explain yourself to others?

[gregmcph]

The need to lay out the logic of every situation.

Yeah, I start to do that, then... pause... "... well, never mind. Doesn't matter." (and think to myself "You don't care anyway.")
You need that awareness of the person you are with. They usually don't need your explanation.

 

[Kida]

I worry quite a lot about what people think of me, and I'm often kind of afraid that people misunderstand what I say and feel hurt or upset.
So yeah, I often feel like I'd have to thoroughly explain myself to avoid such misunderstandings.

I kind of hate that part of me that worries so much about what others think of me.
I think it's probably one of the biggest of the reason why I'm socially awkward.
I'll worry so much about being misunderstood or hurting others or otherwise saying or doing something that could give a person a negative image of me, that I usually end up just not saying anything at all.

 

[Sparticus]

Yes and I'm f*ckin tired of it! NT's don't care...plus I feel if you are male [and a former Gladiator:ninja2:] society frowns :timebomb: upon that. Heck even if you are woman Aspie people [bullies?] pick up on that-body language and use it against you. Sometimes I feel like a socially bumbling Scientist...especially when my NT Cloaking Device gives out in mid conversation...:cold:

 

[Neat Hedgehog]

In terms of day to day activity, less now than I used to. I have realized in the last few years that the person taking my order for a burger isn't wondering why I don't cheese and really doesn't care, so I think that's a step in the right direction.

Conversation-wise, I will digress rather heavily if I can tell the other person is getting the wrong interpretation of what I am saying. I can't stand it when someone arbitrarily "decides" what I'm saying or doing and runs with it without clarification. Unfortunately, they usually get confused and tell me I don't make any sense.

Now, it's another thing if someone is actually trying to get me to explain myself. I'm all for it, if they'll actually listen and understand me (or at least try). But if they keep needing an explanation for everything, like they're trying to tell me I'm doing something wrong (ex-girlfriend did that "explain why you act like X" one to many times) then forget it. I showed them my hand, they know what they're dealing with. If they want to brow-beat me for it, I will either let them know they need to stop, or I can guarantee I can punch any number of holes in their own rational due to the sheer, illogical nature of their actions (and people really don't like it when you do that, so they tend to stop talking to me).

 

[Sparticus]

Neat Hedghog, if I ever argue with you, please remind me not to! The creative side of me will be thinking "ah can win this arguement via an alternate brilliant route..." while the logical side of me will be saying to me "Danger Will Robinson! Don't argue with him! His motherboard is too advanced, his memory too vast...for the love of Zeus, abort!"

In terms of day to day activity, less now than I used to. I have realized in the last few years that the person taking my order for a burger isn't wondering why I don't cheese and really doesn't care, so I think that's a step in the right direction.

Conversation-wise, I will digress rather heavily if I can tell the other person is getting the wrong interpretation of what I am saying. I can't stand it when someone arbitrarily "decides" what I'm saying or doing and runs with it without clarification. Unfortunately, they usually get confused and tell me I don't make any sense.

Now, it's another thing if someone is actually trying to get me to explain myself. I'm all for it, if they'll actually listen and understand me (or at least try). But if they keep needing an explanation for everything, like they're trying to tell me I'm doing something wrong (ex-girlfriend did that "explain why you act like X" one to many times) then forget it. I showed them my hand, they know what they're dealing with. If they want to brow-beat me for it, I will either let them know they need to stop, or I can guarantee I can punch any number of holes in their own rational due to the sheer, illogical nature of their actions (and people really don't like it when you do that, so they tend to stop talking to me).

 

[The Impossible Girl]

This has been a big deal for me lately. I finally have an explanation, yet when it comes time to explain to my NT family and friends I cannot seem to get understanding. All I keep hearing is "try harder" or "calm down and don't worry so much" which pretty much tells me they haven't listened to a word I say. I find they blatantly assume because I am not bawling my eyes out, I must be ok. How do you let people know how bad it is for you, if you can't open up emotionally to them. All my friends turned away when I told them, I think I am on the spectrum. I feel like they wiped their hands of me. I'm just too hard to figure out. I am The Impossible Girl after all

 

[Neat Hedgehog]

Neat Hedghog, if I ever argue with you, please remind me not to! The creative side of me will be thinking "ah can win this arguement via an alternate brilliant route..." while the logical side of me will be saying to me "Danger Will Robinson! Don't argue with him! His motherboard is too advanced, his memory too vast...for the love of Zeus, abort!"

lol nahhh, I only get spiteful when people strike the dreaded "explain yourself" attitude, like I'm a child.

A normal argument is fun.

 

[Ylva]

Still working on not explaining myself to myself ? but I no longer explain myself to others. They don't have a right to ask, and when they occasionally have that right they still tend not to ask.

It was one very valuable attitude I learned from Mary Poppins.

 

[reindeergirl]

Yes people think that just cause asberger is a form of autism means that it's the same as very severe autism. And they say oh well you talk very well and you do this very well and that very well. And that really annoys me and people patronize me. And when I'm having difficulty with something like when I was in college the tutor always patronized me and made it out that I shouldn't be there doing that course.

 

[Historianthomas]

Well, the only one I told about my self diagnosis was my close friend. She is very understanding about it, though she doubts that I have it. She thinks I am weird and goofy. My girlfriend was the one that introduced me to that possibility. That was when I took a self diagnosis test to confirm what my girlfriend told me. We went to see a counselor about my friendship anxiety and she specialized in Aspergers. She told me that I definitely have Aspergers traits. I didn't get a psychological test done.

 

[lostinspace]

Throughout my life, I?ve just had this intense longing to be understood. So many people either express confusion from things I do or say, or take things completely the wrong way. My exchanges with neurotypicals have been rough, for the most part. Because of this, I began doing the only thing I could think of to fight this- explain my actions at nearly every opportunity that isn?t perfectly clear. If I do something that may make people wonder, it?s hard to explain, I just experience this slight pressure in my mind until I get my intentions out in the open.

Most of the things I have read in this thread are very true of me, and this one paragraph says it the best. You really nailed it.

 

[LittlePuff]

Some people feel they don't need to, but I work in health care. Patients were misunderstanding me, and I had no idea until the boss had a talk with me about it. I was shocked and explained that I never meant how they took things, I never even said them. It happened a couple times, then I got fired for it. I even went to the patient and their families and apologized and tried to explain what I meant. Got fired anyway. So sometimes, you have to do it. It apparently didn't matter to others.

 

[Christian T]

I very often find that I have to explain myself to others. They're always misinterpreting my body language and being befuddled by my actions. Plus, I have Tourette's Syndrome (I blink and twitch very erratically) and motor dyspraxia (basically, I have a medical reason for being unco) so I always have to explain to people that I'm not nervous, I just twitch all the time. That I might find a certain physical activity more difficult than other people do because my motor neurons are much slower and get lost much more than those of most other people (wow, that was really wordy).

The fantastic thing is that after doing speeches about AS to the staff and students of my school, just about everyone at my school knows I have it and understands it to an at least reasonable degree, which makes things much easier for me.

 

[Dusty285]

Some people feel they don't need to, but I work in health care. Patients were misunderstanding me, and I had no idea until the boss had a talk with me about it. I was shocked and explained that I never meant how they took things, I never even said them. It happened a couple times, then I got fired for it. I even went to the patient and their families and apologized and tried to explain what I meant. Got fired anyway. So sometimes, you have to do it. It apparently didn't matter to others.

We are so different we are almost a different species. In my own life I am repeatedly surprised and often really shocked by what the NT's think I said or what they think I meant. NT's read a whole lot into what they hear because they all think exactly alike and much of their verbal communication is non-verbal keying into common threads of thought. I have found that mostly it does not help to try to explain because they tune out what I am trying to explain.

The work I did best at was when I was by myself, not involved in a 'team' operation. I did not have to try to get others to cooperate or plan a course of action for the group. I worked alone; managed and planned and 'did' on my own and made money for myself and the company (and the senior supervision/owners liked that!). Minimal exposure to customers. All inter-action with customers (and often with co-workers) was difficult or an outright disaster just like your experience.

 

[lostinspace]

We are so different we are almost a different species. In my own life I am repeatedly surprised and often really shocked by what the NT's think I said or what they think I meant. NT's read a whole lot into what they hear because they all think exactly alike and much of their verbal communication is non-verbal keying into common threads of thought. I have found that mostly it does not help to try to explain because they tune out what I am trying to explain.

The work I did best at was when I was by myself, not involved in a 'team' operation. I did not have to try to get others to cooperate or plan a course of action for the group. I worked alone; managed and planned and 'did' on my own and made money for myself and the company (and the senior supervision/owners liked that!). Minimal exposure to customers. All inter-action with customers (and often with co-workers) was difficult or an outright disaster just like your experience.

This describes my experience very well. At the time, I had no idea what was wrong. Now, I am looking back over my life and it is starting to make more sense. Now I know why I was having so much trouble with everything I tried to do before. The question now is, what do I do about it? I am now looking around to see if I can find something that suits me.

 

[Explosition_Rooster]

Yes on several times, but the real problem was with me. I didn't have the skills set-up or understood when it comes to dealing with others and interacting with nt's, so I naturally burned a large number of bridges in that place.

 

[umbrellabeach]

Yes. Whenever I'm doing something that I think others will think is weird, and/or I know someone's watching me, I think of something to say to them if they ask me about it. They usually don't, but on the occasions on which they do, I'm glad to have a response ready.