You see I'm also really uncomfortable in social situations. I hate, hate, hate meeting new people, I have no idea what to say to them. And whenever I'm around groups of people no matter how hard I try to keep up, I always end up feeling like I'm on the outside and I never really understand what has gone wrong.
I feel like I'm different. I feel like i often don't get people, don't understand social situations, social complexities absolutely baffle me. Many times I've commented on my dislike for the human race, how I prefer the company of animals.
Although I fear loneliness, I also can't bare to be around people all the time. I need alone time, I feel like I can't breathe if I can't get away from people.
I always had the grades and intelligence to land a really good job, but my lack of social skills, of confidence, has always held me back. I've seen so many people of equal and lesser intelligence stride ahead of me because they had the gift of the gab, great networking skills, didn't fill with dread at the idea of talking to people on the telephone...
It took me a long time to be able to pull off polite chit-chat. I'm now good at playing normal and fitting in on a superficial level. But it feels like an act. I'm much more at ease with my small group of carefully chosen friends.
Obsessive interests? As a teenager whenever I was interested in a subject I would borrow every book from the library on the subject and copy it out. I knew certain subjects inside out. I would write and write and write, I still sometimes get lost in other worlds when I write.
I don't like surprises, I like to know what is happening next. Whenever we're going some place different I need to have my "plan" and then my back up plan in case that doesn't work. I feel anxious doing new things (but I'm driven to force myself to do them anyway). I used to suffer from anxiety terribly, I've always been prone to panic attacks.
I find the idea of routines and rituals tremendously comforting.
When they said Taters was on the spectrum I felt like I was losing him somehow. It felt like I was being told he wasn't "one of us." He was "one of them", his brain works differently, he has this condition affecting how he functions... I was scared, would I understand him? Would he be alien to me? It made me feel like I would lose him to his own people one day.
I'm struggling to find the words to express this. But it all boils down to being told he's different. I guess that's why I started looking at myself, I wanted to find ways in which we're the same, I wanted to feel like he belonged to me again.
And actually, he's really not different at all, it might just be that he's more like me then I ever wanted him to be.
Not that any of those things are wrong, but I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be described as the "life and soul of the party", I wanted to fit in... All those things that society celebrates...
Guess we're both just different. Yes I need to accept him and love him for who he is, and I think I need to extend that to myself too.
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