This won't be easy...

[Mis-fit]

I hope you feel welcome here Many are in same boat.

Thank you!

 

[Mis-fit]

Welcome and great intro! You really are a gifted writer.

I to get what you are saying. I also learned recently I’m an Aspie so this does explain the lack of friends. The few I had dumped me recently when I told them about being an Aspie - was treated like it was contagious, really hurt. Currently, I also have no one other than my husband.

I tell you, I have found that people with the best intentions reject what they can't understand. The "friends" I had the were picking on me, were not even being all that mean, per se, but they constantly poked and jeered at me in a way that was anything but making me feel welcome. They thought they were being funny, I felt it as disrespect. I'm sorry your friends rejected you. But like I said earlier in replies to this post, picking on an Aspie is like picking on someone with a broken leg for not walking straight. They are off, not us. They are wrong, not us. No one, in their right mind is the requirement, would pick on an Aspie for anything we can't do as well as a NA does. It is ridiculous. And if they knew how badly it hurt us, they most likely would not do it either. Your okay, and boy do I understand. That is why I am not going to bar all NA's from my life, but when it comes to sharing personal information, I will just keep that between me an other Aspies.

 

[Mis-fit]

Welcome. Based upon my experience and analysis relationships are based upon meeting the needs and wants of others while getting your own needs and wants met. They are based on spoken and unspoken agreements. This applies to friend relationships as well as romantic relationships. When needs or wants are not being met then people move on continuing their search. Who stays in a relationship when they are not getting anything out of it? Of course emotions come into play but agreements are the bottom line when it comes to relationships.

You are very wise Martha. Up until now, all I have really known were NAs, who were NOT meeting my needs or wants. That explains it in a nut shell. Thank you! I will still communicate, "get along" with NA's but for my personal friendships and relationship, I will stick with an Aspie. I think that people need to listen and understand what our needs and wants are to meet them, and perceive the ones that are not spoken. How can that happen with a NA? I just am not sure it can. I guess it could, but they would have to be a super special person!

 

[Mis-fit]

i'm an actual aspie,so i get the feeling,because people who we try to be socially interact with,we barely get a response from & probably end up in a social struggle with alongside other aspies like ourselves,even if they're self-diagnosed.

I do plan on asking my Dr for the "Aspie" test. I just finally realized there is no point in not trying to find out more about this. I am just too, too much like ya'll. I have a 130 point spread in my IQ Scores.

 

[Mis-fit]

I won't exclude an NT from a pool of potential friends, however I actively seek out friendships with other autistic people. I do not actively seek out friendships with NTs. It's simply because of the fact that I feel more comfortable around other neurodiverse people and I'm able to relate to them much better than I can relate to most NTs.

Hello,

I agree with your philosophy in the area of NTs. I just do not understand NT's 99% of the time. I can be their acquaintance, but I notice they have a lot of trouble understanding what I say 99% of the time. Not 99% of what I say, but 99% of the time we communicate in some area, they have a look on their face that tells me they just don't get it. While I will no longer try to make friends with NTs, I won't exclude them from my acquaintance list, it's just that they have to be very non-judgemental for me to be their friend, and that is hard to find around here in a big city. It is hard to have a relationship with someone we cannot relate to. I'll put it that way : )

 

[Mis-fit]

it's better for people with any form of autism,especially those with aspergers,to wait for them to ask you whatever they ask you,based on what interests you that also interests them.

I agree. Do you like the game StarCraftII? I LOVE that game!

 

[Mis-fit]

Yes, I have problems with most NTs and suspect two of my friends are in fact undiagnosed aspies.

I wish we could some how tell if someone else was an Aspie and others could tell if we were. Like the Veterans wear Veteran hats that say what branch they were in or what war they fought in. Wouldn't that be cool? But I guess then everyone would pick on us too lol?

 

[Mis-fit]

I have always had trouble making friends apart from those I enjoy participating in activities with. Luckily my core group of friends are accepting, knowing that they have quirks and accepting mine. This is part of a larger group of Young Sierrans, some of whom I know well and others not so much. This August we are having a get together for several days and my spouse and I will be helping out and decided to let a couple of out of staters stay in our guest rooms. One will be interesting and I am planning on practicing strict equanimity. Let's call him Mr. A. My first encounter with A was when I was leading a fall canoe trip. I had prepared what I thought was a generous amount of food for people canoeing 6 to 8 hour days, yet when Mr. A bellied up to the table where I set out a spaghetti dinner (with home made sauces) he proceeded to attempt to hoover up half the food and that left me scrambling to feed everybody. I am sure he knows that while we are lodging him for the objective of group harmony, neither my spouse nor I will accept any selfishness on his part when he stays with us. Sorta tough-love friendship, but my friends have seen my meltdowns and they know that apart time is sometimes necessary, so I do what I can to maintain a good relationship with them.

I wish I could have those kinds of skills, to be stern with people when they need to be treated sternly. Not that I am a whimp, but I don't know how to be nice/stern. I just have never been taught how to be that way. It's not that people don't ruffle my feathers or over-step boundaries, no one, and my family didn't help any, has taught me how to be that way, nice/stern. Good luck with your guest. I hope it works out well!

 

[Mis-fit]

Friends are difficult and rare for me. Friendly acquaintances are a little easier.

What is most common are people who "put up" with my oddities and really would prefer that I mask all the time. Keeping a lid on my excitement about special interests isn't easy. Dealing with sensory overload in chaotic environments is stressful. Contributing to small talk in social conversations is next to impossible.

Ah well! It is what it is and it falls into the category of coping with the things I cannot change. Now that I'm retired, withdrawal from it all becomes more of an option.

I'm am where you are in a lot of ways. I try to "behave", or act acceptably to fit in, more than I feel free to do what I would like or say what pops into my head. I have to censor what I say so I don't catch a bunch of flak. It is almost like I haven't grown up in some ways. Like playing with fireworks, I love to do that, but people are like, "Fireworks are for kids!" So I don't. Know what I mean?

You mentioned that you have trouble dealing with sensory overload. That may be that you're personality. There are extroverted people who talk like a mile a minute, and introverted people who are quite and would rather be alone most of the time, but still like to socialize. Extroverted people talk to deal with problems and stress, while us introverts need to be alone to deal with stress and problems. I have a major problem with sensory overload, I scored high on the introvert scale. There is a website where you can see what your personality type is. It helped me a lot to figure out that is half my situation to deal with, Aspies is the other half. Check out 16Personalities.com they have a website that figured out there are basically 16 personality types and have tons of information on how you can work with the one you fit in with. I am an INTJ, only 2% of the population have my personality type!

Best Wishes!

 

[Mis-fit]

Interesting we attending a get together on Saturday, first time since covid started, pot luck. So good luck.

Thank you! And good luck at your potluck!

 

[Thinx]

Hi, and I left out a lot of the hardest parts of my life that are due to having Aspies. It's been tough.

I started Talk Therapy 35 years ago. I got better in some situations, like not blaming myself for my dad abusing me and my family, which was not an easy thing to accomplish, but other things like the social interactions, nothing. Because I was so absolutely convinced it was my fault my dad abused me and my family, I didn't have the realization that it was not my fault until I was 42! And I was in weekly therapy for an hour at a time over 21 years before this happened! I was a hard nut to crack, but I got it.

What happened was a friend of mine, and they were not even a therapist, helped me to change my perspective of the initial event which I thought caused all the abuse. In an instant, 37 years of believing it was my fault was reduced to rubble! Perspective Shift Therapy is information on how you can change your own perspective at will. You will be able to use a therapist, but it doesn't not require one. To me information is what healed me. I combined the decades of therapy I had been through with the information I used to reduce my false belief to rubble and condensed it into this book. I consider it, at this time, to be my greatest achievement. I wrote other books based on Perspective Shift Therapy, but this PST book is the information that will enable most people to know how perspective works, how they can choose theirs and learn to think more objectively. I'm sorry if I mislead you to think I am a therapist, the word therapy is multifaceted. Like massage therapy, animal therapy, I meant it to be a therapy of healing false beliefs on your own. I have actually had more hours in therapy at this time than a psychologist has hours in school after their first two years of college. It's not the same, I know, but still, I have been working on me, longer than most people take to learn how to work on others : )

Yes I self-published on Amazon's Kindle

Thanks for clarification, I did a lot of therapy before I then understood I was on the autistic spectrum, I think much of it was useful. I then trained as a therapist. Having the level of PTSD you had must have also slowed your recovery but I think autistic traits help us persevere sometimes. We are all so varied however, with it being a spectrum, and with life events and personality also coming in to play.

I self diagnosed, in my 50s after plenty of relevant reading and research, aswell as experience of working with people with Aspergers and their families as a relationship therapist. I do agree that for many on the autistic spectrum thinking is a significant way we can progress, as opposed to the emphasis on emotional approaches in many therapies.

I am INTP on the Myers Briggs personality indicator. Plenty here seem to be in your and in my subset, or others starting with I, but some are more extrovert.

 

[SusanLR]

I am INTJ also.
There are others here also.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I wish I could have those kinds of skills, to be stern with people when they need to be treated sternly. Not that I am a whimp, but I don't know how to be nice/stern. I just have never been taught how to be that way. It's not that people don't ruffle my feathers or over-step boundaries, no one, and my family didn't help any, has taught me how to be that way, nice/stern. Good luck with your guest. I hope it works out well!

Being firm with my expectations is something that I needed to learn how to do. Previously, rather than expressing my boundaries clearly, I would let the tension build until I would melt down. Part of learning to more clearly express my desires also happened a long time ago. As a teen and young adult I felt that I was whipsawed by others expectations for me and had no agency. Part of putting myself back together was learning to have my own voice and advocating for myself. I still do have problems with that sometimes.

 

[Mis-fit]

Thanks for clarification, I did a lot of therapy before I then understood I was on the autistic spectrum, I think much of it was useful. I then trained as a therapist. Having the level of PTSD you had must have also slowed your recovery but I think autistic traits help us persevere sometimes. We are all so varied however, with it being a spectrum, and with life events and personality also coming in to play.

I self diagnosed, in my 50s after plenty of relevant reading and research, aswell as experience of working with people with Aspergers and their families as a relationship therapist. I do agree that for many on the autistic spectrum thinking is a significant way we can progress, as opposed to the emphasis on emotional approaches in many therapies.

I am INTP on the Myers Briggs personality indicator. Plenty here seem to be in your and in my subset, or others starting with I, but some are more extrovert.

I like your name in here, "Thinx"... awesome. That is fantastic that you achieve the level of becoming a therapist. I had that as a goal in mind, but I always felt held back because I have so much trouble reading other's intentions. I can feel empathy, and do, very strongly. I have a lot of problem solving skills and aptitude, but a big part of being a therapist, I think, requires skills I don't have.

I like to write. I have another book I am trying to write on how many people have become disrespectful over the years. I am trying to write it so people who have been disrespected understand that it is not supposed to be that way, that they, as the recipient, are not wrong, it is wrong to be disrespectful. And that being disrespectful in return only spreads more disrespect which is what hurt us so badly. Being disrespectful only hurts. It does not heal, help, solve or fix anything. So in the book I try to present an understanding of how to heal from being treated that way.

If you would be so kind, I would appreciate it if you could get my kindle book Perspective Shift Therapy to review it as a therapist. I had two psychologists review it, they said it was good, but they didn't put any google reviews on it. If you have a book I could read for a review, or some way I could return the favor just let me know. All I want is for you to give an honest review. If you think there is something I could improve, please let me know. If it is great the way it is, please go ahead and put your feelings on google. Having it self published, I can edit it at any time and re-publish it.

Yes, I agree that thinking over feeling is what helps a lot of us heal. Working through emotions never really helped me much. Changing my perspective of what brought about the thoughts that brought about the feelings I have... now that helps "A lot"! : )

P is for Perception right? J is for Judgment but it is not being judgmental, it is exercising Judgment over making decisions based more on gathering information. I don't know if it has anything to do with my upbringing, but I exercise judgment before I decide what to do as a preference.

Thank you for your reply. I'm glad there are so many "I's" here. Personality is what I feel to be the biggest factor in all the decisions we make in life.

 

[Mis-fit]

I am INTJ also.
There are others here also.

Wow, that is super fantastic. INTJ Aspies?? Wow! I don't know if you remember the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer movie on TV that used to come every Christmas for Decades... But in the story, Rudolph was picked on for having a different nose. All the other reindeer would laugh and call him names... as the story goes he was not allowed to play in any reindeer games, just like me not being able to fit in, he struck out on his own to find his own way through life. Well, he found the "Island of Misfit Toys". Where all the toys that the kids didn't want would go. There was a Charlie in the Box, a train with square wheels, a doll with an eye missing, geeze I can't remember them all, but there were all these toys that were on the Island of Misfit Toys, where they were happy to belong with each other.

That is what I feel like I have found here. I never fit in anywhere, as soon as I did, I would say something and poof, I was scorned. I appreciate being here, and finding my tribe as it were. Thank you for your reply. If you ever want someone to talk to, please send me a conversation, and I will be happy to respond!

 

[Mis-fit]

Being firm with my expectations is something that I needed to learn how to do. Previously, rather than expressing my boundaries clearly, I would let the tension build until I would melt down. Part of learning to more clearly express my desires also happened a long time ago. As a teen and young adult I felt that I was whipsawed by others expectations for me and had no agency. Part of putting myself back together was learning to have my own voice and advocating for myself. I still do have problems with that sometimes.

I am getting better at it, but it is a huge area of concern for me. Sometimes people can take advantage of us and not even know it because we didn't speak up! I have learned that, but practicing saying things, sometimes anything is tough. I hear ya!

 

[Sabrina]

The challenge, for me, is not so much making them as keeping them.

 

[Alexej]

Hi @Mis-fit

Welcome to the Forums. Glad to have you with us.

 

[Mis-fit]

The challenge, for me, is not so much making them as keeping them.

Yes, yes. I am a generally accepting person, very approachable. I am very, very good with acquaintances, I can keep them very well. But when people hang around me and I start being myself, I get criticized and misunderstood. Not always are they meaning harm, for me it is just kind of never "really" being understood, not being able to make a solid connection with someone. My friend Gaines and I were locked together like brothers, we knew what the other liked, we knew what to say, we were able to anticipate what the other would say or how we would react to what we would say to each other before we said it. There was NO stress between us, and we Never argued!

In here, I already relate to others that well. It's like; what is said, how it is said and why it is said, I understand. I don't always understand the Non-Aspie type. And I sure can't read between the lines. I "Always" if not "Always" : ) say what I mean. If I say I am going to be somewhere at 3pm, I am there at 2:45pm. If I can't make it I call. If I say I'm hot, it's because I am hot. Non-Aspie types tend to use a lot of inferences to imply what they mean and joke around a lot. Their philosophy to me, seems to be "Give 'em strokes and tell 'em jokes!" When I do that, I get along great, but I don't feel like they connect with me like Aspies do. You know? If I am getting along with non-Aspies, it is at the expense of being myself. I just can't do that anymore. It's not worth it to me. Making them can be difficult now because I can tell pretty quickly that I don't relate. I can, I just know what I have been having problems with my whole life, so I don't want to make friends at the expense of being myself. I used to, thinking I had to, now I know I don't, so I don't : )

 

[Mis-fit]

Hi @Mis-fit

Welcome to the Forums. Glad to have you with us.

Thank you! I am overwhelmed with happiness and joy being accepted. I didn't even say anything I didn't mean : )