Errmegerrd
New Member
I made a list of the most prevalent ways I identify w/ ASD and specific characteristics that make me suspect I am on the spectrum. Not an exhaustive list, but I've included the biggest ones. I'd love to hear from you on any commonalities or differences you feel or have experienced!
First, here are a couple of things about me that I feel are important factors:
-Diagnosed ADHD, PTSD, GAD and Depression
-I have experienced a commercial BOATLOAD of trauma & abuse up until only a few years ago.
SOCIAL
I have frequently felt like I show different sides of my personality in different settings. When I’ve tried to talk about this its always taken to mean I’m ‘fake’, disingenuous, or ‘two-faced’. I'm just so uncomfortable in social situations! Depending on my overall emotional energy and who is around, there are times I feel comfortable talking, and other times where—even around my closest friends— I can’t manage to squeak out two sentences together.
If there is a large group of people, like a party, I absolutely CANNOT stay in one place or around one sub-group for too long and must constantly move around into other spaces because I’m so uncomfortable and anxious, even to the point of having to take breaks to be alone because I’m so exhausted from being around people and never really knowing what is expected of me. The most recent example of this was over 4th of July weekend. My boyfriend had a pool party with several friends. Even though I isolated myself prior to it to charge my proverbial batteries, I still got so overwhelmed and exhausted after 2 hours that I had to lock (literally) myself in his bedroom and sleep for like 1.5 hours before I could rejoin the party. My small group of close friends knows I like to be alone, and they give me this time/space when I need it, even if we’re traveling together or at a group outing. I have a hard time making friends, especially female friends, because most of the time I just do not understand their interactions and motivations. Men are usually more straight-forward and less mercurial. The female friends I do have are very straight-forward and say what they mean—they’re all neurodivergent as well. I truly feel like the social skills I do possess have come from mimicking the people around me in order to seem normal and practicing over and over and over once I become aware of something that I do, or don’t do, that seems strange, such as eye-contact or interrupting people when they’re speaking to me, or talking to much about something that interests me. A few years ago, I read that making eye contact with people means you care, and ever since I’ve tried to incorporate that into my social behavior, but it doesn’t come naturally to me at all. I have to actively, continuously remind myself to make eye-contact during conversations. I feel like I’m constantly observing the behavior of everyone around me and measuring my interactions, intensely focused on trying to understand if its going well or not. I think that survival instincts brought on by years of intense trauma, abuse, and negligent parents caused me to hyper attune myself to people's body-language, motivations, and intentions, always on the look out for the next catastrophe. Its a constant search for interpersonal information that I never really understand, let alone relate to. It did however allow me to me to cultivate a passable repertoire of socially acceptable behaviors that don't accurately represent my internal thought processes. Go me!
I sometimes feel varying degrees of success at the aforementioned mimicry and as such I have often resorted to mutism and/or escapism to get through social situations that overwhelm me. When I’m burnt out on group-socializations I have been known to just leave. I just don’t have the energy to say goodbye, especially when considering the pressure of explaining why I need to leave.
I often seem blunt, rude, or not interested in others without meaning to. This has happened MANY, MANY times since I was a small child. My first memory of this happening was at my 7th birthday party. I was given a bright pink night dress with white daisies on it by a family from our church who was attending. I made a comment to them that nightgowns weren’t usually my thing, but that it was really cute. My grandma was really upset with me and I didn’t understand why, since I had just thanked them and expressed that I liked the gift which is what I knew you were supposed to do. She later explained that I should have just left out the “not usually my thing” part as that was really rude. (To this day I still don’t understand that.) Another incident I can recall was while riding in the car with my family at around 10 years old, my cousin made a comment about her weight and I asked her, “how much do you weigh, 200 pounds?”. I was genuinely just curious about quantifying what she was saying and had zero ability to correlate that specific number to “good” or “bad”, but they were horrified because to them I was calling her fat. (TBH I still don't relate to getting upset about being called fat when you are fat, but I've learned that its a big time no-no). Missteps like this happen all the time, even now as an adult. My family has told me I’m mean or gotten mad at me for things like this my whole life, and I believe I internalized their understanding of me. But I was genuinely unaware that what I was saying was mean/rude/too blunt. It’s honestly a terrible feeling, accidentally hurting people’s feelings and not understanding why what you said is hurtful. It contributes to a lot of my anxiety around other people. Which leads to the next…
When people confide in me their feelings about things, I often have a hard time relating or immediately understanding why they feel that way. I feel this way especially when they’re discussing their relationships with, or feelings about, other people or other people’s behavior. Quite often other people’s feelings seem illogical to me, and it sometimes makes it hard to come up with an acceptable response. That being said, I definitely do feel empathy very very strongly, even though I really struggle with expressing it. I think it makes me seem like I don’t care when I absolutely do.
At every place I have ever worked or gone to school more than one person has commented that I’m “weird” after a few conversations/interactions. I don’t think it was ever said maliciously, but I have never been able to understand what they mean.
I have difficulty maintaining the natural reciprocity of a conversation—ESPECIALLY when discussing topics I love. I have consciously been practicing this for a couple of years since becoming aware of it, but it is still a struggle. I have only just recently begun to remember more often to reciprocate questions and pause to allow the other person to get a word in. I know that I can talk way too much about things that I love and I often can’t tell if person is even interested. I have been told I talk a lot, I repeat myself a lot, or say the same the over and over just in different ways. (This post is probably further confirmation of this.)
I CONSTANTLY interrupt people when they are speaking to me, even my boss and co-workers. It is almost 100% involuntary, even though I’ve been practicing so hard not to. I can sometimes catch myself and mitigate it a little, but even when I’m actively trying not to I still do it. Others have commented to me that I do this, and I feel that it definitely affects my relationships.
Stay tuned for Part 2!
First, here are a couple of things about me that I feel are important factors:
-Diagnosed ADHD, PTSD, GAD and Depression
-I have experienced a commercial BOATLOAD of trauma & abuse up until only a few years ago.
SOCIAL
I have frequently felt like I show different sides of my personality in different settings. When I’ve tried to talk about this its always taken to mean I’m ‘fake’, disingenuous, or ‘two-faced’. I'm just so uncomfortable in social situations! Depending on my overall emotional energy and who is around, there are times I feel comfortable talking, and other times where—even around my closest friends— I can’t manage to squeak out two sentences together.
If there is a large group of people, like a party, I absolutely CANNOT stay in one place or around one sub-group for too long and must constantly move around into other spaces because I’m so uncomfortable and anxious, even to the point of having to take breaks to be alone because I’m so exhausted from being around people and never really knowing what is expected of me. The most recent example of this was over 4th of July weekend. My boyfriend had a pool party with several friends. Even though I isolated myself prior to it to charge my proverbial batteries, I still got so overwhelmed and exhausted after 2 hours that I had to lock (literally) myself in his bedroom and sleep for like 1.5 hours before I could rejoin the party. My small group of close friends knows I like to be alone, and they give me this time/space when I need it, even if we’re traveling together or at a group outing. I have a hard time making friends, especially female friends, because most of the time I just do not understand their interactions and motivations. Men are usually more straight-forward and less mercurial. The female friends I do have are very straight-forward and say what they mean—they’re all neurodivergent as well. I truly feel like the social skills I do possess have come from mimicking the people around me in order to seem normal and practicing over and over and over once I become aware of something that I do, or don’t do, that seems strange, such as eye-contact or interrupting people when they’re speaking to me, or talking to much about something that interests me. A few years ago, I read that making eye contact with people means you care, and ever since I’ve tried to incorporate that into my social behavior, but it doesn’t come naturally to me at all. I have to actively, continuously remind myself to make eye-contact during conversations. I feel like I’m constantly observing the behavior of everyone around me and measuring my interactions, intensely focused on trying to understand if its going well or not. I think that survival instincts brought on by years of intense trauma, abuse, and negligent parents caused me to hyper attune myself to people's body-language, motivations, and intentions, always on the look out for the next catastrophe. Its a constant search for interpersonal information that I never really understand, let alone relate to. It did however allow me to me to cultivate a passable repertoire of socially acceptable behaviors that don't accurately represent my internal thought processes. Go me!
I sometimes feel varying degrees of success at the aforementioned mimicry and as such I have often resorted to mutism and/or escapism to get through social situations that overwhelm me. When I’m burnt out on group-socializations I have been known to just leave. I just don’t have the energy to say goodbye, especially when considering the pressure of explaining why I need to leave.
I often seem blunt, rude, or not interested in others without meaning to. This has happened MANY, MANY times since I was a small child. My first memory of this happening was at my 7th birthday party. I was given a bright pink night dress with white daisies on it by a family from our church who was attending. I made a comment to them that nightgowns weren’t usually my thing, but that it was really cute. My grandma was really upset with me and I didn’t understand why, since I had just thanked them and expressed that I liked the gift which is what I knew you were supposed to do. She later explained that I should have just left out the “not usually my thing” part as that was really rude. (To this day I still don’t understand that.) Another incident I can recall was while riding in the car with my family at around 10 years old, my cousin made a comment about her weight and I asked her, “how much do you weigh, 200 pounds?”. I was genuinely just curious about quantifying what she was saying and had zero ability to correlate that specific number to “good” or “bad”, but they were horrified because to them I was calling her fat. (TBH I still don't relate to getting upset about being called fat when you are fat, but I've learned that its a big time no-no). Missteps like this happen all the time, even now as an adult. My family has told me I’m mean or gotten mad at me for things like this my whole life, and I believe I internalized their understanding of me. But I was genuinely unaware that what I was saying was mean/rude/too blunt. It’s honestly a terrible feeling, accidentally hurting people’s feelings and not understanding why what you said is hurtful. It contributes to a lot of my anxiety around other people. Which leads to the next…
When people confide in me their feelings about things, I often have a hard time relating or immediately understanding why they feel that way. I feel this way especially when they’re discussing their relationships with, or feelings about, other people or other people’s behavior. Quite often other people’s feelings seem illogical to me, and it sometimes makes it hard to come up with an acceptable response. That being said, I definitely do feel empathy very very strongly, even though I really struggle with expressing it. I think it makes me seem like I don’t care when I absolutely do.
At every place I have ever worked or gone to school more than one person has commented that I’m “weird” after a few conversations/interactions. I don’t think it was ever said maliciously, but I have never been able to understand what they mean.
I have difficulty maintaining the natural reciprocity of a conversation—ESPECIALLY when discussing topics I love. I have consciously been practicing this for a couple of years since becoming aware of it, but it is still a struggle. I have only just recently begun to remember more often to reciprocate questions and pause to allow the other person to get a word in. I know that I can talk way too much about things that I love and I often can’t tell if person is even interested. I have been told I talk a lot, I repeat myself a lot, or say the same the over and over just in different ways. (This post is probably further confirmation of this.)
I CONSTANTLY interrupt people when they are speaking to me, even my boss and co-workers. It is almost 100% involuntary, even though I’ve been practicing so hard not to. I can sometimes catch myself and mitigate it a little, but even when I’m actively trying not to I still do it. Others have commented to me that I do this, and I feel that it definitely affects my relationships.
Stay tuned for Part 2!
Figuring out I was on the Spectrum was an very important step. I wish I could say it was easy, but it wasn't and took a long time, making small gains slowly but steady over many years. At the end of it, it doesn't really happen anymore. Occasionally it trys to start, but I recognize whats happening and can cut it off at the pass. I am happier, as are my spouse and family certainly.
