What Society Says About Being Alone

[RemyZee]

Humans are social beings. Doesn't matter which culture or country from my experience. Humans have evolved to collaborate and socialize.
If you do a search on these forums, you'll find a lot of posts on this subject. You are not alone in your preference for solitude.
I prefer solitude. I've always preferred it but in order to "fit in" I've had to adjust myself at a considerable negative impact to my health (due to all the masking and scripting and trying to keep up with the speed of neuro-typical conversations, etc). Now I am very selective about when, how and who I socialize with.
I find many neuro-typical people don't understand there is a difference between solitude and loneliness. Solitude is a choice whereas loneliness is not. Furthermore, I find NT's generally have a "if your not with them then you are against them" mentality. However, it doesn't mesh with me and who I am.
For autistics, solitude is necessary for us to regulate, recharge and let down our masks. I do everything solo and don't intend to change.
Don't let the noise of the NTs distract you. Do what makes you happy. There is no right or wrong way to win at life, only what's right and wrong for you.

Interesting how so many people say going against the impulse for solitude when solitude is desired can affect people's health.

 

[RemyZee]

The friends I have made over time have been people who share one or more of my special interests. Even with them, a little interaction goes a long way.

I thrive on solitude. It's my resting/breathing/recharging space. For me, the ideal life would be a remote spot where only sufficiently motivated people would visit if they want for limited times, but I can have internet and Ham Radio access to remotely interact with people when I want.

I thrive on solitude as well, but spent much of my life thinking there was something wrong with me for it--I mean, normal people LIKE and ENJOY and THRIVE from being around other people, right?. Even introverted ones. But I find the whole process terribly confusing (much easier remote). But I just had like a self revelation reading this: that the periods of my life where I was regarded to have an anxiety disorder, OCD or whatever else they assigned to me--were all times when I was forcing togetherness. I would settle down when I became in solitude again.

 

[RemyZee]

school, I was bullied for not having any friends. My classmates avoided me, despite all my attempts to connect with them. Moreover, they could ruin my grades. Later, in my teenage years, those same people were surprised that I didn't talk to them, calling me arrogant and spouting other nonsense.

My parents constantly insisted that I socialize with relatives and try to make friends. My mom criticized me for being quiet around family, but I didn't know what to say, as anything I said could be considered inappropriate.

Yeah, the whole thing about parents who try to force their kids into friendships....on 3 occasions as a teen, because my mother wanted me to make friends, she threw giant parties for my birthday even though I did not want them! She just harped and harped on how much I needed to make friends. I've had to find some forgiveness for her: she really did want to help, just did not know how.

 

[RemyZee]

I talked about my hearing issues a number of times here. Yeah. Although it's not like most people's APD. I also don't know any more, hearing aids help and it feels as if the sound is deeper and richer. Apparently this is exactly what mikd hearing loss is like. But certainly I cope a lot worse than is usual for mild hearing loss. APD for sure makes it worse somehow.


Definitely not my experience. I have large issues with sound clarity. I can't tell the voices apart, no clue what they're saying, even though I should know in theory.

An infuriating experience, you have to be very assertive about any degree of deafness. People say that the disabled argue a lot and are difficult, no wonder if the default is that you have to request your needs all the time or have people walk right over your experiences and deny them.

I call it sound spaghetti, because it's like after the first sentence or so the words all get squished up and I can't tell pne word from the next. It can be sooooo embarrassing, and as a young person people treated me like I was slow, but I just couldn't tell what people were saying and the sounds all get mixed up into a big mess. I would ask people to repeat themselves, but I'd have to do that so much it wouldn't be doable. It is why it is so much easier, in my case, to relate to people online. Take away the confusion over what I am hearing and I seem halfway human.

 

[Outdated]

Also So many of us who didn't learn early about being autistic have tendencies to accumulate diagnoses, as people constantly see people like us as having something wrong with who we are, so they are always trying to find a cure for autistic people.

It wasn't all that long ago they just used to burn us at the stake for being witches.

Anyone that tries to "cure" me will quickly find out what happens when you combine ASD2 hyperfocus with anger. They really do not want to become one of my special interests. Fortunately those sorts of ideas are only exhibited in religious circles and they don't have much sway in Australia.

 

[Outdated]

I call it sound spaghetti, because it's like after the first sentence or so the words all get squished up and I can't tell pne word from the next.

I always liked the analogy of the school teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons. Just trumpet noises.

 

[vergil96]

and as a young person people treated me like I was slow

I had repeating ear infections as a child, so yeah, I'm unsure how much of that is hearing loss. For sure some hearing loss used to be there and it got treated as such. In hindsight, I was lucky to have some accomodations because of that and not much criticism.

 

[aubrx]

Would you all still prefer to be completely alone if you could spend time with someone who shared your most of your special interests?

I find this an interesting question. I will draw on my own past experiences to provide an answer. I had a neurodiverse friend with bipolar and 75% of the time we got on well when together. However they were always pressuring me to arrange times to hang out or meet up, which thanks to ADHD I have never been good at. We shared some special interests and most of our views were the same but I always felt there was an undercurrent of myself needing to "pull away" from being social ie. Having time to myself, not seeing that friend (I didn't have any others), and doing my own thing.

This was pre diagnosis and at that time I couldn't understand what it was, all I knew was that I was a bad person for not initiating time with the friend. This lead to frustration and the end of that relationship. So yes, in my experience I do really need times to be alone or pursue my own things even with a person that shares my interests. I don't actively seek out people to be around, and when I do it almost always is out of selfishness - can this person provide me with something like instruction, teaching, fixing something etcetera.

 

[Vesta]

In my school years, when the vacations came, my mother always insisted on communicating with my family - to visit, to visit someone. To be honest, it annoyed me terribly. Especially when I wanted to just crawl into a corner and take a break from school, from communicating with these idiotic classmates who pissed me off.

My parents didn't seem to understand how I felt at the time and what I needed.