AuroraBorealis
AuuuuuDHD
Recently, I started thinking about something.
One of the main reasons why I feel like an imposter about my suspected autism is that I didn't really feel like I have problems communicating with other people. Throughout my life, people have liked me - or at least I thought that they did. I am friendly to everyone, do my best to be polite, am interested in everyone and everything, and understand everyone's point of view. I am shy - that was the main reason for the problems I had with other kids when I was young. I was extremely shy, to the point that some could have called it pathological at some point. I am still shy, and people usually don't have problems with that, especially if you're a young woman.
I did often feel confused, or felt like I was stumbling my way through life when it came to friends and social stuff, glad if something worked out. At that work-related social gathering I had a few days ago, a situation happened where I asked someone a very random question, and the others around me laughed about it. It was a friendly laugh, not a mean one. And I felt this deep-rooted feeling, I was pleased to have caused a laugh, at the same time I felt unsure and a bit uncomfortable, like it was a house of cards that could fall any moment. In that moment, I remembered feeling that feeling many, many times throughout my life. Like I navigated this social situation, and didn't need a script or anything, as many autists describe - I can talk and interact and have body language without making conscious decisions during it. But I often feel like I am walking on a thin branch, and if I made people laugh (for example), I'm relieved, like "oh, I made them laugh, thank god". This is especially the case if I don't know the people well.
Also, I generally believe everyone. I like people, and I generally assume that everyone wants to be kind and helpful, because I want to be kind and helpful and I can't imagine otherwise. I am a very positive, optimistic person. I know rationally that there are people who are bad or mean or don't have your best interests in mind, but it never comes to my mind in that moment. Other people generally like me very much. However, the social problems I did have throughout my life were related to this. I had problems because different people told me their individual sides of a story, and I believed and agreed with everyone - so I got called disloyal, backstabbing or a gossip. This devastated me each time, because I didn't know what I had done wrong - someone had told me something, usually something emotional, and I had believed them, understood them and, if needed, consoled them. Rationally, their story made sense, and I didn't know why their story should be less valid than my friend's. This trait - being interested in and understanding every way someone might feel and behave, as long as it makes some sense, without judging it, might give me some advantage today as a therapist in training. But it made others feel like I was disloyal.
Some people took advantage of my helpfulness in school, e.g. by asking me to help them study or by asking me to let them copy my work, and of course I helped them, not realizing that they were never friendly to me unless they needed something. I got called naive because of that. Also at work/during internships, several colleagues or supervisors told me to look out because people took advantage of me, asked me to do their work for them, or took free days because I would cover for them. I never noticed this on my own.
I have never felt like people were mean to me throughout my life, or that I was bullied, or that I had any kind of social problems. But truth is, I might also have just missed many things. In the last decade, I have noticed only a handful of times that a stranger was romantically or sexually interested in me. I never, literally never, notice it when someone checks me out in public. I only know that it happens because my partner tells me so sometimes, and because I know that I am conventionally attractive and odds are, it does happen. So sometimes I wonder what else I simply miss, or have missed, throughout my life. Recently, my partner mentioned to me that, at uni, someone asked him why he was together with me, since I was "weird". I had no idea that there even were instances throughout my life that people thought I was weird. I just missed that.
I feel like this side of social difficulties, possibly related to autism, isn't talked about very often. Being positive and kind and empathetic and doing one's best to be polite - but getting in trouble nonetheless because people take advantage, or interpret your actions another way than you meant them. Being naive and gullible or non-judgmental to the extreme, and getting in trouble for it.
I have always thought that my social skills were great and I can't be autistic because of that - because most other autistic people's stories about social struggles were very different. But I realize more and more that there can be different kinds of social difficulties, and they don't all have to be the same.
I am very thankful that, apparently, I never experienced such open bullying that it made me hate and distrust all people, as I heard from others.
Thoughts? Did someone experience something similar?
One of the main reasons why I feel like an imposter about my suspected autism is that I didn't really feel like I have problems communicating with other people. Throughout my life, people have liked me - or at least I thought that they did. I am friendly to everyone, do my best to be polite, am interested in everyone and everything, and understand everyone's point of view. I am shy - that was the main reason for the problems I had with other kids when I was young. I was extremely shy, to the point that some could have called it pathological at some point. I am still shy, and people usually don't have problems with that, especially if you're a young woman.
I did often feel confused, or felt like I was stumbling my way through life when it came to friends and social stuff, glad if something worked out. At that work-related social gathering I had a few days ago, a situation happened where I asked someone a very random question, and the others around me laughed about it. It was a friendly laugh, not a mean one. And I felt this deep-rooted feeling, I was pleased to have caused a laugh, at the same time I felt unsure and a bit uncomfortable, like it was a house of cards that could fall any moment. In that moment, I remembered feeling that feeling many, many times throughout my life. Like I navigated this social situation, and didn't need a script or anything, as many autists describe - I can talk and interact and have body language without making conscious decisions during it. But I often feel like I am walking on a thin branch, and if I made people laugh (for example), I'm relieved, like "oh, I made them laugh, thank god". This is especially the case if I don't know the people well.
Also, I generally believe everyone. I like people, and I generally assume that everyone wants to be kind and helpful, because I want to be kind and helpful and I can't imagine otherwise. I am a very positive, optimistic person. I know rationally that there are people who are bad or mean or don't have your best interests in mind, but it never comes to my mind in that moment. Other people generally like me very much. However, the social problems I did have throughout my life were related to this. I had problems because different people told me their individual sides of a story, and I believed and agreed with everyone - so I got called disloyal, backstabbing or a gossip. This devastated me each time, because I didn't know what I had done wrong - someone had told me something, usually something emotional, and I had believed them, understood them and, if needed, consoled them. Rationally, their story made sense, and I didn't know why their story should be less valid than my friend's. This trait - being interested in and understanding every way someone might feel and behave, as long as it makes some sense, without judging it, might give me some advantage today as a therapist in training. But it made others feel like I was disloyal.
Some people took advantage of my helpfulness in school, e.g. by asking me to help them study or by asking me to let them copy my work, and of course I helped them, not realizing that they were never friendly to me unless they needed something. I got called naive because of that. Also at work/during internships, several colleagues or supervisors told me to look out because people took advantage of me, asked me to do their work for them, or took free days because I would cover for them. I never noticed this on my own.
I have never felt like people were mean to me throughout my life, or that I was bullied, or that I had any kind of social problems. But truth is, I might also have just missed many things. In the last decade, I have noticed only a handful of times that a stranger was romantically or sexually interested in me. I never, literally never, notice it when someone checks me out in public. I only know that it happens because my partner tells me so sometimes, and because I know that I am conventionally attractive and odds are, it does happen. So sometimes I wonder what else I simply miss, or have missed, throughout my life. Recently, my partner mentioned to me that, at uni, someone asked him why he was together with me, since I was "weird". I had no idea that there even were instances throughout my life that people thought I was weird. I just missed that.
I feel like this side of social difficulties, possibly related to autism, isn't talked about very often. Being positive and kind and empathetic and doing one's best to be polite - but getting in trouble nonetheless because people take advantage, or interpret your actions another way than you meant them. Being naive and gullible or non-judgmental to the extreme, and getting in trouble for it.
I have always thought that my social skills were great and I can't be autistic because of that - because most other autistic people's stories about social struggles were very different. But I realize more and more that there can be different kinds of social difficulties, and they don't all have to be the same.
I am very thankful that, apparently, I never experienced such open bullying that it made me hate and distrust all people, as I heard from others.
Thoughts? Did someone experience something similar?
