What kind of stims/behaviours are you not comfortable doing in front of othere people? Are you comfortable doing these things infront of partners?

[jason8682]

I Have had quite a traumatic life. But I have learned behaviours along the way which have in a sense protected me from that life. I have a pretty high iq, I am quite gifted at logically and systematically working my way through complex problems. So knowledge has always been my weapon. And within the framework of my knowledge i always hang on and find a way through. In a real crisis moment or preriod of my life. I have learned the ability to turn off, everything and just do what needs to be done. Essentially Im blocking things out. Things hit a little harder these days. Theres been too much. But these things don't just go away, they are postponed. And it builds. On top of that, i think another, useful but potentially damaging thing i seem to do; is see past events as though they were happening to someone else. I cant just process things normally. I literally have to do it manually. Internally this is kind of like replaying events but my head often kind of takes detours and zooms into situations where i am not happy with how i acted or something i said and i can get stuck replaying something slightly different to create a different outcome. A conversation i need to have, or something i should have said or done. As i am doing this im very absorbed in it. I can kind of half act it out, i may say things out loud. Its like a video in my head but it takes over everything. i can look very manic and im really not comfortable doing this infront of anyone. I did my ex partner. She eventually worked out she could use this state to her advantage. To basically get things i may have been hiding out. She would try to rouse me and bring me back to lucidity and ask me things repeatedly and in my confusion, sometimes i would answer.
Also when i have no answers, something is coming and i cant think my way out of it and I know it. I have a similar sort of effect where my head may kind of runs through situations, often they are over dramatic and probably not an arcurate representations of what is likely to happen. In there somewhere ive probably predicted the actual outcome and something on a normal level. But it tends to centre in on the worst. Its kind of semi lucid i can exert some control on it but i dont control its flow or where its going. I can just try, steer it.

I have mild tourrettes, which i can supperficially hide. But when levels get high it can actually get quite bad. I can get really sort of twitchy and jittery, and obviously i struggle with saying things in my head out loud. When im like that though the flood gates are open. I need much more privacy when im very stressed.

If i let levels build too high without taking time to properly process it or a lot of negative thjngs happen that i cant control in a short space of time, my anxiety levels rise and i will struggle to control tourrettes. And my head will constantly drift off into running through situations. Its like i can not deal with uncertainty. And i think its a definate control thing. I have to feel like i have control of whats happening to me. If i dont i do not deal well.


As a child i was electively mute in many situations and especially with most children who werent, safe i guess. And certian people and behaviours can sort of induce that in me. I really struggle around authority figures, who exert some control over me so like a boss at work. My old boss was particilarly, i dont want to say aggressive, but strict i guess. And i feel like every time i happened to come accross him i was like a deer caught in headlights. I felt like i looked like id just been caught dong somthing i shouldnt have. I would often say something stupid if he asked me about anything. I would go into fight or flight. More often than not i tried to avoid him. It must have looked suspicious. Even though i wasnt doing anything. I felt like i turn into some.sort of comedy rendition of myself around him and many other bosses.

So yea those are some of the extrememes of my behaviour outside of meltdowns. Though some of those things are kind of like a meltdown i internallise many things. Dont get me wrong, can and have externally exploded. But its a lot rarer than stuff like that. I shut down more. I dont tend to stim much i do stim and many repetative things but ive always been slow an methidical, i pace more than often these days. But i have always tried to hide everything because i was punished and beaten for many of my autistic behaviours as a child.

So yea i have never had much chance to speak with anyone else whos autistic. Its highly personal and if anyone doesnt want to share thats fine. Just curious what other people struggle with.

 

[Aspychata]

At some point in my lifetime, l remember being extremely shy, to the point of freezing up or fleeing. But then l had so many varied life experiences over the years that my shyness was painfully let go. I now just stop and think about what the question is, and if l chose to answer. This falls into boundaries. You need to have boundaries. Don't answer things you don't wish to answer. My father used to say, let me get back to you on that and simply walk away. Quite a few of us do deal with ruminating. If you catch yourself in a endless loop, just recognize it and stop. Focus on something less obtrusive.

 

[Neri]

I struggle with leaving the house, on my own. I don't drive a car (yet) and I'm 51. I struggle with feeling super awkward around new people and a lot of people I don't know. I struggle with home maintainance. I can't work a day job. I hide a, lot of my childishness, in public. I struggle with most of the relationships I need to have, like keeping in contact with all my adult children (I have 7) and my siblings and parents. That's some of my struggles. I do small stims in public a lot, tapping my toes and fingers, stroking my fingers with my fingers, swaying sometimes, and yes, I do have private stims.

 

[SusanLR]

I relate with the things @Neri wrote about.
Struggle to leave the house on my own.
Driving very far from the house on my own. I wouldn't drive alone until I was forced to when I was 53. I was alone and moved in with a friend who didn't know about my autistic struggles. I didn't want him to know either, so I made myself do things alone that I had never done before in my life.

Out in public places, I feel very awkward, and that people are thinking I am odd.
I avoid eye contact in these situations and try to ignore that I am surrounded with
people.
I feel much more comfortable if someone is with me. A couple that are together and interacting is probably less noticed than someone alone that avoids contact.

One of my stims is to take deep breath sighs when nervous and I try not to do it in public.
I tend to rub my thumb with my forefinger a lot. This is probably not noticed in public or rolling my ring around on my finger.

 

[Chailatte_]

I don't know how to define it, but I also tend to predict and analyze situations, evaluating every single variable exhaustively. I take a variable, create a hypothesis, and finally envision the possible outcome related to that variable. I do this for everything that needs to happen, but I've learned to do it less for things that have already occurred. Many times, I dwell on worries and paranoias about things I've said that I wish I had phrased differently. I analyze when and how I said it, the perception/reaction the other person had when I said it. Then I think, 'Ah, perhaps it's due to Asperger's, and you've misunderstood the entire context, launching hypotheses based on nothing. Maybe you're combining data that's already inaccurate, leading to inaccurate conclusions.' But, in the end, it's all perception, and our perception is too intricate to fit into any analytical schema. Since multiple perceptions come into play, the matter becomes even more complex and intricate.

So, I obsess, but then I try to cut it off, working to analyze my perception but on a more superficial level. This is based mostly on my general and universal perceptions of how I see and perceive myself and others. By doing this, I avoid falling into overly catastrophic loops. It might be imprecise, but it keeps me away from excessively catastrophic thinking.

Adopting a method of 'superficial, present, and selective perception,' I have more precise and, above all, current data that serves me in everyday life and not in the past, which had its own variables and perceptions. Specifically, I use:
1. My self-image
2. My weaknesses/weak points from past traumas that I still carry superficially and contextually (some examples: always thinking I offend, not being able to read general facial expressions but being able to discern anger because, unfortunately, angry faces were something I saw frequently as a child; hence, this perception is crucial when analyzing the entire context).
3. I pay careful attention to 'separate' my 'child with developmental perception' from the current 'adult in metamorphosis.'
4. I put everything together and have a somewhat more realistic hypothesis of the situation.
5. I write everything down and avoid digressions.

Yes, I do this in front of my partner to:
1. Avoid misunderstandings.
2. Gain awareness of my mental processes.
3. Receive feedback from a neurotypical person.
4. Adjust my perspective (I do this because I trust him, but it's a rational feeling of trust, not emotional; I know he wouldn't exploit my weaknesses against me).

I follow this routine when I'm feeling well. On the contrary, if not, I don't separate anything and move to absolute catastrophism. Everything becomes my mistake, and I start obsessively apologizing. I don't create a distinction between my 'child' and 'adult' selves; I either mix them, or the 'child' prevails, irrational and at the mercy of its weaknesses and past traumas. I dismantle and rebuild castles, creating my own mental prison. I fixate on a point and obsessively grind on it without a shred of 'realistic optimism.' I see only the negative side and sink into it abruptly. I lose my dignity, take on blame not mine, and revert to when I was a child, where it was always my fault, and I had to apologize, period.

Currently, I'm working on myself to become a more aware person of my vulnerabilities, to avoid falling into catastrophism and self-pity (self-imposed in the current reality).

Note: The current text was written in Italian; it might have lost some meanings.

 

[jason8682]

I relate with the things @Neri wrote about.
Struggle to leave the house on my own.
Driving very far from the house on my own. I wouldn't drive alone until I was forced to when I was 53. I was alone and moved in with a friend who didn't know about my autistic struggles. I didn't want him to know either, so I made myself do things alone that I had never done before in my life.

Out in public places, I feel very awkward, and that people are thinking I am odd.
I avoid eye contact in these situations and try to ignore that I am surrounded with
people.
I feel much more comfortable if someone is with me. A couple that are together and interacting is probably less noticed than someone alone that avoids contact.

One of my stims is to take deep breath sighs when nervous and I try not to do it in public.
I tend to rub my thumb with my forefinger a lot. This is probably not noticed in public or rolling my ring around on my finger.

I don't know how to define it, but I also tend to predict and analyze situations, evaluating every single variable exhaustively. I take a variable, create a hypothesis, and finally envision the possible outcome related to that variable. I do this for everything that needs to happen, but I've learned to do it less for things that have already occurred. Many times, I dwell on worries and paranoias about things I've said that I wish I had phrased differently. I analyze when and how I said it, the perception/reaction the other person had when I said it. Then I think, 'Ah, perhaps it's due to Asperger's, and you've misunderstood the entire context, launching hypotheses based on nothing. Maybe you're combining data that's already inaccurate, leading to inaccurate conclusions.' But, in the end, it's all perception, and our perception is too intricate to fit into any analytical schema. Since multiple perceptions come into play, the matter becomes even more complex and intricate.

So, I obsess, but then I try to cut it off, working to analyze my perception but on a more superficial level. This is based mostly on my general and universal perceptions of how I see and perceive myself and others. By doing this, I avoid falling into overly catastrophic loops. It might be imprecise, but it keeps me away from excessively catastrophic thinking.

Adopting a method of 'superficial, present, and selective perception,' I have more precise and, above all, current data that serves me in everyday life and not in the past, which had its own variables and perceptions. Specifically, I use:
1. My self-image
2. My weaknesses/weak points from past traumas that I still carry superficially and contextually (some examples: always thinking I offend, not being able to read general facial expressions but being able to discern anger because, unfortunately, angry faces were something I saw frequently as a child; hence, this perception is crucial when analyzing the entire context).
3. I pay careful attention to 'separate' my 'child with developmental perception' from the current 'adult in metamorphosis.'
4. I put everything together and have a somewhat more realistic hypothesis of the situation.
5. I write everything down and avoid digressions.

Yes, I do this in front of my partner to:
1. Avoid misunderstandings.
2. Gain awareness of my mental processes.
3. Receive feedback from a neurotypical person.
4. Adjust my perspective (I do this because I trust him, but it's a rational feeling of trust, not emotional; I know he wouldn't exploit my weaknesses against me).

I follow this routine when I'm feeling well. On the contrary, if not, I don't separate anything and move to absolute catastrophism. Everything becomes my mistake, and I start obsessively apologizing. I don't create a distinction between my 'child' and 'adult' selves; I either mix them, or the 'child' prevails, irrational and at the mercy of its weaknesses and past traumas. I dismantle and rebuild castles, creating my own mental prison. I fixate on a point and obsessively grind on it without a shred of 'realistic optimism.' I see only the negative side and sink into it abruptly. I lose my dignity, take on blame not mine, and revert to when I was a child, where it was always my fault, and I had to apologize, period.

Currently, I'm working on myself to become a more aware person of my vulnerabilities, to avoid falling into catastrophism and self-pity (self-imposed in the current reality).

Note: The current text was written in Italian; it might have lost some meanings.

I find the flip side of this ability, something i actually cherish is, coupled with my iq, my ability to visualise systems and models in my head. And the emcyclipedic knowledge ( in a few personal areas) to back them up. Put me on a machine in a factory. I will get to know everything about it. What settings do, how it can break down. Ill learn it inside out. In programming i have an ongoing project of a chess game im writing and various computer opponent and i can see the whole thing executing. The intricate tree of system calls and how the values change. I can dymically visualise it. And its the flip side of that horrible thing my head does when it cant work out or control whats happenening to me. Then i have such a narrow range high but targetted iq. I struggle with deficits in many other forms of intelligence. Im absolutely useless at general knowledge and celebrities. I get so obsessed with projects. I havr troubke with symbol manipulation. My physical intelligence is none existant. Im really dozy and forgetful. And my heads is always in the clouds. If something isnt in my bubble i often miss it. It can also get very lonely have such, complicated ideas. I study astro physics. Particle physics. Nuclear physics. Quantum physics in particulal. Computational and medical Neurology. General medicine. Quantum computing, programming and technology. I have an idea for an artificial general intelligence. Aproaching the subject from a biological standpoint so moddelling the brain. There is absolutely no one in my life right now i could discuss those ideas, my reseach with. Hold a conversation on my level.

 

[jason8682]

Its so cool someone actually does that too..the running through situations. I hate it. What sensory issues do people have? Certian frequencies really cut through me and can be quite painful and strong light i get dazzled really easily. But then wierdly, low light levels when im trying to work make me feel uneasy and agitated. Think thats to do with visual stress though. Thanks guys for answers so far!

 

[Chailatte_]

Here are some of my challenges:

Sunlight/light : rose-brown glasses that I can use even inside the supermarket to alleviate discomfort from fluorescent lights. I use the same glasses when I struggle to handle my visual contact well, causing anxiety and discomfort, especially when I have to stand still among several people. These glasses are very subtle and spare me the discomfort of questions like "Why are you wearing sunglasses or similar?" – phrases from nosy people, and they are also relatively affordable. I have various salt lamps around the house and other soft lights (I turn them on to relax my sight).

Sounds and music: I have a great sensitivity to music and sounds in general, and I can perceive their "shape" in my head and modify what I hear as I please. I "see"/hear the notes and can reproduce them in my head, break them down, and recreate them with the instruments I know (auditory synesthesia).
I have excellent headphones that I use both to cancel noise and to create my bubble with music. Moreover, they have a mobile app that allows you to manage/adjust various functions comfortably according to your use. With these two measures, I've eliminated a good portion of what causes me daily problems.

I'll add the strong point of this combination: if people see you with headphones and glasses, they are unlikely to approach you.



Taste and smell: This has allowed me to recreate many dishes I try around (also just by reading various recipe ingredients) (gustatory memory and taste visualization).

These "weaknesses," before the diagnosis, combined with self-taught lessons and various experiments, allowed me to create my own recipes (often creating various combinations of flavors and aromas in my head and then transforming them into reality). So, I created a vegan takeaway and registered my brand when I was 20. I didn't continue because, as I managed customers, I overloaded myself daily without knowing the reason, but one day I would like to resume it (with awareness).

Smell: I manage it by wearing my favorite perfumes that give me a feeling of comfort and protection. This allows me to concentrate/focus on a "positive" smell, creating a sort of personal bubble.



Bonus:
I can't stand people screaming; arrogant individuals unsettle me and cause anxiety. People who chew with their mouths open, bodily noises (like burps and various flatulences), people who call me and shout my name from the other side of the street as if we were at the market (I don't like being the center of attention).

I also have a form of agoraphobia that worsens when I'm unwell, so I don't leave the house. I dislike the noise of the oven indicating the end of time, the sound of the house doorbell (usually, I stop breathing and pray that whoever rang leaves). I don't like queues, people talking to the cashier for what seems like an eternity, individuals who always act like jesters and don't take anything seriously, those lacking depth in conversations who expect you to do the same. I don't like overly expansive people who try to invade my space at all costs and get upset if I don't reciprocate (I find it disrespectful and it creates strong discomfort).

I'm not a great dancer because I lack coordination, and my mind can't copy and emulate the movements of others. Once I participated in a zumba class at the insistence of a friend, and I danced the whole time in my own way – no grace or sensuality.
P.S. The original text was written in Italian, there may be errors or sense losses due to translation.