Feeling Spooky

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Tell me if this scenareo sounds familiar:

You wake up, it's arround 10:00 or so and you realise you need to drive somewhere with your dad/mom/sister/brother or whoever to take care of some things. Something's really bugging you though. You know you have a humorous and glib side, you want to let it out, but for some reason you feel like there's a real strong neurological cross current blocking you. What makes it worse is your standing there practically mute, semi unresponsive, and whats creeping you out is that you're gonna be going on a long car ride with this family member and you realize you're gonna be acting like something straight out of a psycho/horror movie.

You get in the car, start driving, they're talking to you, and you feel like your way less than responsive. They've been saying lots of things that you really wanted to give a like-kind glib reply to, you knew what you should have or wanted to say, but for some reason you knew you just wouldn't have been able to say it. Even though you know this person's known you all your life, you're feeling even more uncomfortable because you really hope your cold, choppy, and semi-silent behavior isn't giving em any thoughts that your gonna end up freaking out like Johnny Depp in Secret Window - or your really hoping they don't watch enough horror flicks to get to thinking like that (lol, if I ever get married I can see I'm gonna have a LOT of prepping and explaining to do, I just hope whoever she is that she isn't a lightweight about that kind of thing).

Yeah, in the end it's just social paranoia largely brought on by the fact that you weren't behaving like yourself. In the case that you a dude, you really felt like that social muzzle was making you seem like some eerie serial killer from an Alford Hitchcock movie. If your a woman, you may have felt like you were comming off like that girl from Ghost Ship. Regardless though you really aren't sure if the results of how you were acting creeped you out more or the people arround you more. In my case, this morning, I always make it a point to at least mention it off angle but still - it doesn't ease my own concern when this happens. It's wierd how I can go from being so damn near NT one night that you can hardly tell the difference to being like that the next day and then back and forth all over the map at other times.

So what are your tricks of breaking that up? I tend to be one of those people where I feel like I can manipulate the bloodflow to my head by just focusing real hard and kinda working my jaw in certain ways - usually it does help and it has me feeling like I'm putting the work in toward that end in the interem but it s kind of slow-acting.

I dunno, I (usually) kind of enjoy it when I feel like that. Perhaps you should try and change your attitude as to how you view that sort of thing?
I don't really have any other suggestions, apart from maybe mentioning to people that you are feeling a little odd, and you apologise in advance if you come across as unusual. (most of the time, they probably don't even notice anyway)

Nah, I'd really rather not. If I were in their place I'd feel the same way, I know that's something that really creeps NTs out, and IMO I think they have every right and reason to be creeped out by that kind of thing (if I were in their spot I know it would creep me out). Thats one of those cases where I think it would be inconsiderate realistically just to tell them to deal with it.




That's something I'll try to subtly work in, whether I try to write it off on not getting enough sleep, not getting enough coffee, and preceding that by saying "sorry if I'm a little out of it" etc. etc.. Yeah, if it's someone in my family I don't have a whole lot to worry about but I still feel like that's common courtesy. If its someone who doesn't know me real well, it would be a major liability for me not to try and play it off one way or another.

A few minutes alone with a CD player and headphones tend to work like a reset button for my brain, and most of the time I can program it to come out in whatever state I want. Failing that, a strong dose of adrenalin - ie. trick your brain into thinking it's in danger and must go into "conversation mode" for suvival's sake - can work.

I'd actually stay away from apologizing unless someone else brings it up first. Half the time, this stuff that's horribly apparent from the inside isn't even noticed from the outside.

If I'm going in a long car ride with my mom, it's almost inevitable that she's going to get on my case eventually about not having much to say. I do often worry about being "creepy", and the quietness probably has something to do with that. And as much as I'd like to say that I'm always being myself, there is indeed something holding me back a lot of the time.

Yeah, music does wonders for me too. As for that adrenaline 'this is life or death' thing, I did a great job of that from age 20 utill maybe a few months ago. Problem is those little Alanzo from Training Day self chats had to get harsher and harsher till I really felt like I was distorting my reality in some bad ways that just weren't paying off. Energy drinks the same way - I think I need to stay off the No Fear and Rockstar until my tolerance comes back down.



Yeah, you definitely have a point. I think the only times I feel realy wierd about it though is when the other person seems to be displaying that they're seeing a marked difference in personality and think I might be upset with em or whatever.

If I am thinking of the same phenomenon you have described...that is my normal state around people outside of my immediate family, so no one really thinks of it as unusual for me. I have no voluntary "conversation mode" that can be brought out by my will alone. Either I am comfortable with the people I am with or I am not; usually not. Generally when it happens that I cannot force my thoughts outside of the Glass Wall, I am too concerned with finding a perfectly correct answer that I can say to think about whether I am creeping people out.

I wear a lot of black with matching eyeliner anyway, so I consider the public fairly warned. =^_^=

I've never had a problem with tolerance - it works just as well now as it did when I was 13 or so and first learning it. But I keep at a pretty constant level of readiness, which comes with its own share of reality distortions and is probably bad for my health long-term. So I can understand wanting to stay away from taking it that far.