"Just be yourself"

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I think the too nice and appologising stuff probably comes from poor judgement.

NT's do something, they have a pretty good idea if it is good or bad and how good or bad it is.

Aspies do something and, speaking from my own experience, sometimes are completely baffled by the reaction.
I get annoyed when heaps of praise come my way for doing either easy things or something that just happened to be good, it wasn't designed to be especially. The reason for this annoyance is it shows a lack of inderstanding and i know the flip side is the same lack of understanding when i'm putting huge effort in or doing something extremely self sacrificing.

So the other side is when people suddenly tell you you've done a really bad thing, or just start crying, or don't talk to you for weeks. You have no idea what you've done or said or how anyone could possibly have fallen out with you. But you know it happens a lot so you know the common denominator is you, so regardless of how you feel or idealistic sentiment, you did something wrong, so you appologise for the thing you're not really sure about.

Once you're in a position of accepting that you often upset people in ways you have no idea about, it's hard not to appologise for it or to stand your ground and assume it's the other persons fault.
Blame me for an error in my work and if i don't agree i will argue my point and refuse to accept the blame or appologise, becuase i am damn good at it and know my stuff, but tell me someome had an emotional reaction to what i said and i was kinda rude to them and i have little choice but to take their word for it.

I had a therapist say that once "Be yourself" IMO would you tell an alcoholic keep drinking alcohol? NO! They have a DRUG PROBLEM! Well IMO what separates me? Oh because mine is a "behavior" problem I can't get help! SHEESH! (I tried the "Be Yourself" advice and my behavior upset a coworker! GREAT!) I've also been told by a therapist "if I was you I'd just get over it" (referring back to the College issue. Well I AM NOT YOU AND IMO EVERYONE FEELS/THINKS DIFFERENTLY SO HOW DARE THEY SAY They'd "just get over it" I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT HOW "YOU'D DEAL WITH THE PROBLEMS I HAVE" I care about getting HELP! Lastly because I wasn't saying much during sessions a Psychiatrist yelled at me IMO this should get you fired stripped of your license and you have to go back to College and redo Psychology and learn the basics of HOW to treat someone!! !! It shouldn't all be about be yourself,get over it,take a pill. Anyway I wanted to vent so there.

The best quotes on the internet are on this site.

I don't think I have a personality. I don't mean I lack personality, I just think there is too much in me to have a certain persona. So when they say 'be yourself' I really don't know who they are talking about.

Jingo, this is why I question whether I genuinely have AS. I have very little difficulty understanding the feelings and reactions of other people, most of the time. I don't always understand it intuitively, but I can usually figure out the reasoning. People say emotions are illogical, but I think they almost always have some logic behind them.

I say emotions dumb down the rational reasoning ability people have.
This actually means it is more likely you do have Asperger's syndrome because the difference here is that you logically reason instead of intuitively understand.

"Just be yourself" is pretty useless advice.

Here's what it really means: "I can see you are anxious about navigating a particular social situation. I can navigate that social situation with ease but I can't put into words how that is done because I do it using subconscious behavioural subroutines I learned as a toddler. I assume you also learned those behavioural subroutines as a toddler and it is just a thin veneer of stress that is keeping you from accessing them. Let go of the stress and the subroutines will become accessable to your subconscious."

All of this assumes you have those behavioural subroutines buried in your brain and when you let go of the worry, they will float up to an accessable level since they are a part of "yourself" and have been for almost your entire life. As it turns out, this is not an accurate assumption.

When it comes to advice, I find the best advice comes from people who have faced something similar and have learned it/gotten through it with some effort. The effort forces them to be conscious of all the steps in the process which they can in turn teach to you. People who do something effortlessly (subconsciously), aren't aware of all the steps in the process and so can't teach them. IO discovered this when I was a kid who struggled with math. Teachers weren't much help. They were either too busy to help me or admonished me to "try harder" (and everybody knows that's another piece of useless advice). I went to the top students in math, the ones who got an A+ after turning the test in early. They couldn't help me either. They couldn't explain how they knew what they knew. They "just knew". After asking around, I found the greatest help from students who got "B"s on their math tests. They never "just knew" what the answer was. They had to really think about it (earning somewhat lower grades in that time consuming process). But since they really had to think about it, they could also show each step to me. I have found the same principle applies with many other things one might ask for advice about.

Upon becoming a parent, I started heaing the parenting equivalent of "just be yourself". It's "trust your instincts". "Trust your instincts" is no more helpful to me as a clueless parent than "just be yourself" is to you. And for the exact same reason.

Thank you, Janissy for your insight into the mind of someone who is non-autistic.
It is nice.
It also helps that you can be conscious of what other people do.

Now that I think of it, the irony is quite good.
When you tell someone who uses self-made programs to override their instinctual behaviours to act socially acceptable to be themselves, they terminate those programs and become even less socially acceptable which is in this case, the exact opposite of what the person telling the other person to be themselves was trying to accomplish.
Ohohohoho.

I have never really understood "Be Yourself" as a piece of advice and I'm not sure I fully comprehend the complex discussion of it's meaning even now.

I don't know how to be anything other than what I am. I have learned to keep myself to myself for the sake of survival, but I simply don't have the capacity to alter my methods of thinking, feeling, comprehending - I can adapt my behavior only to a very limited extent, but my version of acceptable is still not going to be the same as society's template for acceptable - just close enough to it to keep me free and alive.

Of course, that goes a long way toward explaining my inability to keep a job or maintain a long-term relationship, but I couldn't be different if I tried - I know this, because I have tried - many times - it just doesn't take. I can mimic other people's behaviors and mannerisms, right down to aping their voices, but I cannot be anything but myself when it comes to day-to-day living.

It actually creeps me out that "Be Yourself" is considered usable advice, because it implies that most of the people around me are capable of 'being' all sorts of things that they are not. Then, I suppose I've seen enough deceit and duplicity over the course of my life to know that. I just will never understand how that kind of mind works. The mind of a person who can appear to be something they aren't.

Apparently the real me is very creepy. (Think Data from TNG crossed with Goren from Law & Order: CI). So I keep it under wraps.

MyFutureSelfnMe - I hate routine and like to keep a lot of things on the go at any time. I have a job, wife, daughter, even some friends. My fine and gross motor skills are fine. I totally 100% have aspergers I'd focus on what traits you do have rather than worry about the ones you don't. I did nothing about it for years becuase i decided i couldn't have it due to the traits i don't have.

I'm also pretty good at working things out socially. I can decide the best method to pitch something to someone based on their personality better than anyone i know. I can also predict the outcome of that encounter pretty well. I do all this with intelegence and experience. Learnt behaviour inteligently applied from years of information gathering.

What i can't do is deliver the message myself, i get it wrong, it comes across wrong, even if i use all the right techniques. I also can't adapt to the situation without time to think if something i'd not considered happens. I also can't gather the information actively by being involved or asking questions or offering comments, becuase it comes across wrong or upsets people. I have to observe and analyse.

I'm telling you all that as a diagnosed aspie just incase any of it sounds familiar. I'm learning more and more that it's less about what we can do and more about how we do it and how difficult it is.

Willard - I totally understand about not knowing how to be anything else. As i've only just been diagnosed and realised i have AS, i've also only just started to look at my behaviour and recognise some actions as specific learnt mechanisms for coping and therefore things that take a lot of effort out of me and i want to try to address. The problem i'm having is for most of them, i've been doing it so long i dont know how to turn it off, or i don't know how else to act. I know i'm not acting naturally, i just don't remember doing it any other way and i'm not sure what my natural action would be.
Maybe it's different for people who were diagnosed younger, or maybe it's more about when you learnt your coping mechanism, either the first time a situation arose, or later when you became aware of your previous bad behaviour and decided to change it.

Jingo, to make a long story brief (I'm doing multiple things at once right now), my situation is relatively similar to yours. I try to make a pitch myself and it does not work out so well - I come off as not fully believing in what I'm pitching even if I militantly believe in it. I stumble over the words and cannot deliver a "smooth" message. It's been suggested that I take a course to help with this, but I think for me the best solution is to let somebody else make the pitch whenever possible. I have other talents. Almost all of it sounds familiar.

I am no punk. I do admit that.

Thanks Janissy for your excellent post.

I think 'be yourself' should be seen as equivalent to 'fine, thank you' - a polite non-answer, just words that should not be treated as conveying any actual information.

I spent 3 days in Paris on an executive training course for improved comunication. It was that course that was one of the major triggers to me deciding to look into my struggles more becuase i learnt almost nothing. Every single technique and every piece of information we learnt i already knew and did my best to apply, yet i still screwed things up. That was when i realised my challenges were different to everyone else in the room. I was the most educated and self aware comunicator there yet clearly the one with the most challenges.

The trainer even said he couldn't understand what i was telling him or envisage the problems i had becuase i was extremely articulate and engaging and descriptive... of course i was in that specific formal structured enviroment.

They really do mean just be yourself. If the person doesn't like you, then they are not for you.

When someone says to "be yourself," what they mean is to not try to act differently to make an impression on the people around you. Just act normally.

That's all the expression means.