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Greentea
Bull in China Shop par Excellence!
Joined: Jun 15, 2007
Posts: 2528
Location: Middle East
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 Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject: The mystery in the rejection |
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I'm old enough to have mastered the basics of what is acceptable and what is inappropriate in society. I do strictly what is acceptable in order not to be rejected. If I go over each and every move I made in an interaction, everything I did was within the "appropriateness" range. And yet.......I'm treated like I'm an evil idiot by everyone.
I'm interested to know if you Aspies in your late thirties and above, who have learned the basics too, get this mysterious form of rejection too and how you deal with it.
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"It is the wounded oyster that mends its shell with pearl" - Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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Grimfaire
Deinonychus
Joined: Aug 06, 2007
Age: 38
Posts: 346
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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When in trouble or in doubt... run in circles scream and shout!
Well actually I get that all the time also. I'm in luck now that over the past couple of years I'm up to 4 or 5 good friends who know about my issues and I'm able to go to and say hey... this is what I did... what did I do wrong?
I can't stress enough the importance of having a support structure. I'm all for neurodiversity, but we still have to live with all the NT and it is their world. As a general rule, we can't figure it out on our own (yes, I know there are exceptions)... so have some NT friends/family that you can go to is very helpful.
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When in trouble or in doubt; run in circles scream and shout. |
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ManErg
Velociraptor
Joined: Apr 05, 2006
Posts: 490
Location: Searching for diamonds in a sulphur mine
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| Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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Well, yes I think I do believe my social interactions follow a similar path to yours. I've been talking exactly about this with a psychotherapist for many months now. It's frustrating as I don't think she gets it at all, she says I can not be as unusual as I think I am. I reply "well why does everybody treat me as if I'm weird". Her response "perhaps you just imagine they think you're odd". My response "Then why do I not get anywhere near similar results to anyone else? I have no friends. It takes me huge effort to make one friend yet if I act natural, I lose them all without effort" etc etc etc etc
What I've noticed is that if I'm with one other person, I can concentrate fully on that person and feel that I've actually got on OK with them. If ever there's more than one person, then inevitably I will start to feel left out and will struggle to keep up. If feels as if if ever I'm with 2 or more people, I am always the odd one out. And I have absolutely no idea why.
I've suggested to my therapist that she should be wary of her opinion of my social skills when she has NEVER seen me in a social situation!
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CanyonWind
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 12, 2006
Posts: 1346
Location: West of the Great Divide
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 12:58 am Post subject: |
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I used to run into this all the time. Not much anymore, because these days I never have anything to do with anybody.
I think it has more to do with style than content, how we say and do things rather than what we're saying or doing.
Somebody else can say or do the same thing, and it's considered perfectly appropriate.
I never found anything resembling a solution.
ManErg, I believe your therapist has something in common with every therapist I've seen. They tell me they don't see any reason I should have trouble with social interactions, but they only interact with me when they're getting paid to.
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Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry, 'Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son.' -Yeats |
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BazzaMcKenzie
Wild colonial man
Joined: Aug 22, 2006
Posts: 3702
Location: the Antipodes
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:59 am Post subject: |
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Perhaps you try too hard?
And I am tempted to ask whether its harder to fit in in the middle east, me not knowing anything about cultural differences b/w the middle east and the WASPs around me.
However I have never, not from my earliest memory, expected to be liked by anyone I met. So that just usually means from time to time I am pleasantly surprised that a reasonable number of people actually do like me. But its always been a mystery to me how others so easily fall into social groups while I am standing on the sidelines. I am good looking, well mannered, quiet spoken, easy going. So how come? Its a mystery.
But I have rarely felt disliked or thought of as evil. Although I had one job where the office manager started treating me extra nice after he found out my hobby was shooting. I think he was a bit afraid I may "go postal" - lol
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I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
Strewth!
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ManErg
Velociraptor
Joined: Apr 05, 2006
Posts: 490
Location: Searching for diamonds in a sulphur mine
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| CanyonWind wrote: | | ManErg, I believe your therapist has something in common with every therapist I've seen. They tell me they don't see any reason I should have trouble with social interactions, but they only interact with me when they're getting paid to. |
I love that last comment - I shall say it to her next time!
Actually, that's pretty much how I use psychotherapy. Nothing deep and meaningful. No hope of a cure. Just somewhere to say what I feel to someone who has to listen for the money! Seems a little sordid when put like that....
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traveller011212
Velociraptor
Joined: May 27, 2008
Age: 28
Posts: 476
Location: Right here!!
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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| CanyonWind wrote: | | I believe your therapist has something in common with every therapist I've seen. They tell me they don't see any reason I should have trouble with social interactions, but they only interact with me when they're getting paid to. |
I had to go back because my therapist and I had good rapport and she understood me. How do I build that with others (rhetorical)?
Stop being so formal. Tell some clean jokes, smile, stop staring and work on getting your whole body involved in the conversation. Practice in the mirror. Every time I go to mine I am amazed at how wooden I appear compared to how I feel. People like to know that they can read what is going on inside your head. |
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Triangular_Trees
What is right is sometimes found on the left.
Joined: Jul 18, 2007
Posts: 2053
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:38 pm Post subject: Re: The mystery in the rejection |
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| Greentea wrote: | I'm old enough to have mastered the basics of what is acceptable and what is inappropriate in society. I do strictly what is acceptable in order not to be rejected. If I go over each and every move I made in an interaction, everything I did was within the "appropriateness" range. And yet.......I'm treated like I'm an evil idiot by everyone.
I'm interested to know if you Aspies in your late thirties and above, who have learned the basics too, get this mysterious form of rejection too and how you deal with it. |
I really think your taking this way to hard considering you yet to have any substantial proof that you will be fired |
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Postperson
The Daughter of Indifference
Joined: Jul 10, 2004
Age: 51
Posts: 2904
Location: Uz
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Rejection is usally a mystery to me too. I don't have the objectivity to see why it happens. One minute they simply gotta have you and the next there's a tumbleweed drifing down a street in a ghost-town. |
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thyme
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 06, 2007
Posts: 799
Location: Over the Hills and Far Away
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:49 am Post subject: |
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Everyone likes my boyfriend and he can't be bothered with most of them. I asked him how do you get everybody to like you? He says he just doesn't care if they like him. So if you just stop caring if they like you they will like you. It doesn't make sense I know  |
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Greentea
Bull in China Shop par Excellence!
Joined: Jun 15, 2007
Posts: 2528
Location: Middle East
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:06 am Post subject: |
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There's nothing I can do to avoid doing or saying whatever it is that causes the rejection. It's an invisible cause. This week I was fired, with a very hard to believe excuse, after giving the job my all and getting a prize for performance and dedication. The real cause is invisible to me, and nobody of course ever tells me what it is. They just disappear.
Therapists who said nothing was wrong wouldn't hang with me either, so I know what you are talking about.
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"It is the wounded oyster that mends its shell with pearl" - Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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zen_mistress
In Pursuit of a Peaceful Life
Joined: Jun 12, 2007
Age: 31
Posts: 1102
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:23 am Post subject: |
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It is very hard to understand what is going on out there... in a way I have kind of given up trying to understand... now I am just trying to figure out what the most important things are for human relations, and as soon as I have figured that out, work on the rest of my personality and see if I can make something of it.
Sorry, on edit I didnt read the first bit, I am only in my early 30s... but anyway that is my 2c .
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Glory be to God for dappled things,
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow,
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls, finches’ wings.
~ Gerard Manley Hopkins
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BoabDil
Sea Gull
Joined: Jun 10, 2008
Posts: 211
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:08 am Post subject: |
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I gave up some 10 years ago. I had never heard of aspergers, I just knew I was different and people didnt like that.
Accepting this to be a fact I tried to find another "type" to be at work that I could learn to imitate. I found that persons getting the prefix boring was accepted more than me. So now I am boring I never speak of personal issues, I only talk work. I smile and say hello but at office social events I stand in the back and after the first one I am seldom required to attend.
I may be a bit of a mystery to the others, but then I am too boring for anyone to really care.
I do my job to perfection, working extra hours and keeping all deadline despite a war against procrastination. The highest ive reached is manager of 9 workers. It is always my extremely messy private life that gives me the failiures.
The bosses respect me generally as I am that hard working and honest worker, but again seldom show any interest in getting to know me.
I am not saying this is the way for others to survive. But I feel that sometimes not trying at all has a better result that trying too hard. |
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ericksonlk
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Jul 11, 2008
Age: 29
Posts: 187
Location: Curitiba
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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| ManErg wrote: | Well, yes I think I do believe my social interactions follow a similar path to yours. I've been talking exactly about this with a psychotherapist for many months now. It's frustrating as I don't think she gets it at all, she says I can not be as unusual as I think I am. I reply "well why does everybody treat me as if I'm weird". Her response "perhaps you just imagine they think you're odd". My response "Then why do I not get anywhere near similar results to anyone else? I have no friends. It takes me huge effort to make one friend yet if I act natural, I lose them all without effort" etc etc etc etc
What I've noticed is that if I'm with one other person, I can concentrate fully on that person and feel that I've actually got on OK with them. If ever there's more than one person, then inevitably I will start to feel left out and will struggle to keep up. If feels as if if ever I'm with 2 or more people, I am always the odd one out. And I have absolutely no idea why.
I've suggested to my therapist that she should be wary of her opinion of my social skills when she has NEVER seen me in a social situation! |
I've been listening this crap for years of therapists... they often ask me "what is a normal person for you?"  My opinion on this subject is that they don't really care about us. Is very silly when you say that something is wrong, someone ask you "what is right for you?". They think they have a "great perception" about us, the retards...
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I talk to myself because I like dealing with a better class of people. - Tartakower |
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Azcate
Emu Egg
Joined: Jun 12, 2008
Posts: 7
Location: Arizona
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 7:21 pm Post subject: It doesn't get better |
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I read somewhere that as an Aspie got older and had more information and experiences, that NT behavior would be more doable. I'm 65, and it ain't. Just like you guys, I try to behave well, ask about babies, share very little personal, try not to bore people, do my job well, and still...there you go. Takes about 6 months, and I can feel the climate changing. Sometimes I wonder if I smell bad. Limiting interactions seems to help.
I've thought a lot about this for the last three years. I mean, I've even been rejected by a witch coven...too prickly. I never even argued with anyone! So, now I wonder, since I just got the dx and have done buckets of reading. Our brains are wired differently. Could it be that we don't put out the "right" wave lengths? Our electromagnetic fields may be just off enough for people to be irritated, like stroking a cat's fur the wrong way. Since they can't pin it to something specific, they make something up or blow a behavior that would be acceptable in an NT who "felt" right, into something they can use to get us out of their electromagnetic field. The people who have accepted me have either been a little aspie themselves, very bright, or very empathetic. Oh, and VERY secure and non competitive.
and as for therapists, if they don't know about Asperger's, don't go there. I found a clinical psychologist with a special interest in Aspies, and the difference was remarkable. It's the difference between a general practitioner and a neurosurgeon when you need brain surgery.
And ManErg, you do well with one person because your brain can manage it in terms of sensory input. When it's more input, the frontal lobe doesn't have enough connections to keep up. Think freeways (NT brains) vs two lane country road. We can concentrate better, I think. |
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