I want to stop caring

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Not caring as in depression. I want to dress how I want, I want to stop caring if single thing I do is going to offend somebody.
Does this seem good or a little self destructive?
I've spent my entire life being knocked down for doing things "wrong" or being "weird" and I just can't care anymore. A large amount of my brain power is sitting around people anxious that I'm doing something horribly wrong.

It sounds like you are on your way to a more peaceful state of mind, honestly. The more comfortable I become with myself > the less I fit in > the odder I probably appeared to others > the less I cared about social oopes > the less anxiety I had > the better I felt.

Go ahead... grab a hold of your give-a-sh.. and toss it in the garbage. A life of discomfort for the (possible) sake of people that don't understand you (and probably never will) will always be frustrating.

If that sounds like too much of a step, then maybe try something simpler: give yourself some slack for mistakes in areas that don't come naturally to you.

-j0sh

I don't have the guts to stop caring. If I was more confident, more extroverted, and had the ability to make friends and keep them, then yes I probably wouldn't care if I upset one person because I'm popular and liked whatever I do (trust me, I know plenty of people who are like that). But because I only have a low choice of friends, and I mostly only make friends through luck really, and the fact that I try too hard, I am constantly afraid to lose friends by letting myself slip off the rails. Then I'd be afraid of isolating myself. After all, I am a human being with thoughts and feelings, so I don't really want to lose my dignity.

I could argue with someone for hours over this sort of thing. Like I never know what to say after someone says, ''well if they take you the wrong way then they weren't friends in the first place''. But I don't always follow that philosophy. I don't like to be too shallow. I'm a passive person, and I like to be open-minded and give people a chance. I'm not the sort to go around assuming that whenever somebody takes me the wrong way or overreacts to something, that they're not real friends. The only time I do start to feel a bit unsure about someone as a friend is when they do these things frequently.

I read an article once about people with autism lacking a sense of self awareness. I thought about this and I think it has some resonance in truth. Because we find it hard to define ourselves, because the outside world keeps telling us HOW TO BE, and we absorb it, and build a pattern from those expectations, we lose ourselves and so are constantly affected by the actions and words of others, even when it isn't meant that way.

It's taken me a really long time to even begin to accept and locate the bits of myself, particularly that I'm actually good at a lot of things that I've just dismissed as being "not good enough" because they aren't perfect. I used to mess around in school until I was told I was bright when I was 9, at which point I became a model student. But I had to have someone else tell me I was bright, because I couldn't tell. I didn't understand the instructions we were given for things, couldn't remember where stuff was kept and was constantly in trouble, so I thought I was stupid.

I'm sick of being guided by other people's expectations and judgements, but little by little I'm realising that the people close to me aren't judging me most of the time. I've created judgements of myself that I assume they have of me, and it's not the same thing. I think I am actually my own biggest critic, so I'm working on that...and trying to care less about the views of people who I don't know.

Also, I try to avoid conflict, because even when I'm right, I usually end up more upset than the other person...

I think there's this misnoma, perpetuated by ignorant media and a tendency only to post the views of "parents and carers" of those with autism as opposed to the views of autistic people themselves in mainstream journals and newspapers/websites, that people with autism have no emotional response. The reality of it, as I'm sure most people on here can testify, is that we have as much or more emotional impulse as anyone else, but just find it hard to process and show in a way the mainstream world understands.

That makes it worse on us and makes us "care more" I think about little things. We can't just shake it off and walk away. It eats into us because we can't let it out.

I always envy people who can cry easily.

Thanks for this thread. I'm 33 and dx'd Aspie last year. I'm really struggling with who I am - even what I actually like or dislike because I did such a great job of training myself to fit in for so long.

It's got to the point where I can't tell if I really think something, or if I've referenced my subconscious NT framework of how the world works to come up with my opinion.

Definitely wish I cared less.

i do not care about anything much, and as a result i have few persistent cares.

caring about something is i suppose a good thing, and i definitely do not want to steer people away from what they care about, but i just feel that it does not matter if i care or not about a circumstance. that circumstance will resolve itself and i will take notice of it again when it is rebuilt.
i do not involve myself in the social mechanizations of the the realities i immerse myself into intermittently (like when i go to a shop).

Depends.

If you want to be alone, it's great and peaceful.

If you want to have friends and such, it's prob self destructive.

The further I get away from my adolescence, the less I care about what people think. It's quite a relief!