(Apparently) I wear my insecurities on my sleeve

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This is a tough one for me to bring up of course, just because, as much as this is supposed to be a support forum - its really hit or miss in terms of the fact that when a person admits to any sort of weakness - people do tend to take it and run with it; which doesn't necessarily mean that you'll let em but it means that for the sake of getting some good advice or thoughts you also end up paying a bit of damage control.

Regardless, I think a lot of people could relate to this. AS/PDD-NOS/autism of course effects us all in different ways, no two people are the same, and its funny how you can see that much of the time a lot of the people who either have success in one area or another of social life - it kind of tends to rely on how the buckshot falls and which areas of their personalities, mannerisms, brain chemicals, etc. are hit by this and of course all in proportion to their looks, appearance, secondary sexual traits, physical size and strength, etc.

In my own case I'm of average build. I'm not huge, I'm not skinny. I'm 5'10" and now about 210 - most of it's quads and results of recent weight lifting, have a little bit on me of the other stuff but visually I still look thin. What I really notice about myself socially and what I'm finding that other people take on first glance - for one while I'm a good looking guy I don't visually look hard - if anything I kinda just look like a pretty christian-bred yuppy on a lot of angles - not horribly so all the time, just that I can look more virile than that or look like a computer nerd just based on how my chemicals are flowing and whether or not I'm feeling 'on'. The other bit - I have social anxiety, meaning when I break the ice with people I can have a good conversation and quite often show a lot of strength and be respected but when I first enter a room I look timid, I look shy, and if its a public place like a grocery store where I'm just seeing people in passing and the right to talk really isn't opened - I almost can't make eye contact with anyone aside from the cashier.

To rehash a quick story I was talking to a lady last night at a small family cookout where it was a side of the relatives that I knew literally 2 people when I got there. I was of course feeling the group and realizing that the way a lot of the guys are - I'd need to treat kind of carefully. The lady of course started talking to me, talking about life experience and a lot of things she was very interested in (NT but lived a very atypical life) - she really enjoyed talking to me and felt that I had my head on very straight but mentioned that I had seemed like I was shy, didn't break in in new settings that well, and its part of why she came over to talk to me. She'd mentioned toward the end of the conversation that I should be more assertive, show more confidence, and like I hear all the time - that I wear insecurities on my sleeve. When people get to know me, they usually say that in a way that reflects the fact that I am a much stronger person, have a lot more character, but that my gestalt, the way I vibe up, looking weak, timid, frail, or whatever - they're getting after me because they care about me and feel that I'm selling myself way short. If I want to be straight up and if I think they can handle it, I mention that I've been through a lot of very negative conditioning in my life and while I'd never use it as an excuse, it may take years if not decades to fully undo it.

Here's the nature of the situation from my own perspective. When your fundamentally different in terms of how you think, when you're in a spot where you'll very easily say things that are way out in left field unless you carefully analyze conversations, are careful about what you do and don't say - all these traits look weak, look shy, look unconfident, look like someone who's holding themselves back out of fear and its something that people unfortunately can't see any other way (and on a lot of levels, if we think of it eugenically, I'd imagine its supposed to be like that and its supposed to be a blind spot in logic).

What hits me, the way this is layed out, while I have some good processing power I tend to have very little energy to go around. If I don't make eye contact its because the calculus of it drives so deep that its like if I got any kind of facial reaction from a person I didn't know my facial response would be weird - extremely so, probably with my face doing something real twitchy and broken, just because my mind would be plugging away so hard - its not a conscious thing or choice.

Now, I realize these people who say this to me are right in one sense - if I don't get that handled my life will be very limited. I am the kind of person where I'll do what it takes to help myself, I have the guts and I have the passion when it comes down to it. What mitigates that from the other end is I know what makes me happy, what doesn't, and while I'm more than willing to augment my personality in ways I'm not willing to jump right off that path and do something that lets on to me being somoene else or puts me in harms way in terms of biting off way more than I can consistently chew (like on the days I'm feeling good - I establish a bond with someone where I know they'd want nothing to do with me if they saw me at other times; its a waste IMO); I'm willing to make changes though when my best self, when my emotions, and everything else are able to come into alignment and I at that point know how to make an 'authentic' change that works and doesn't sell me short. You'd probably say to me at this point that I'm HORRIBLY overthinking it, making it impossible for myself, and ultimately that its that very thought process that I need to scrap. Well, the rest of the time I usually spend trying to get all that into alignment and, unfortunately, when I try to jump any sooner than I'm ready on something like that it'll ultimately fail - I need an almost extraneous amount of internal back up and support before doing things and that part it something that I neither can change nor, when I really think about it, really would want to just because it really helps me sensor out things that would lead me in sappy directions or things that I'd look at down the road and really regret.

I'd be curious to know, aside from who else has dealt with this, if you had some of the same personal restrictions or operate this way - what helped you make the jump. Part of me is saying that at least working out, getting myself a lot bigger, that will help shift the paradigm a bit - even subconsciously, just because - I'll feel like I have more power and a lot of the anxiety over social clumsiness veiled by a thin mask will shore up; after all thinner guys have to be super-agile to really make it - or just be that namby pamby that they don't care about being the protector or don't see the need; I don't have the later luxury because something about me makes me prone to being messed with, its happened all my life and its one of those things thats probably had something to do with how rigid my standards of self can be.

On the other end I'll say something else - I know I'm weird, really weird, among aspies in the sense that I've never met anyone like me and likely I may never. So if this thread does drop off the page with 0 responses, it doesn't bother me at all as I don't emotionally need a response just for show of support. However, if anyone does have some wisdom to drop on this and you think it has the potential to be another puzzle piece I could fill in in terms of getting myself into that right alignment or finding that right definitive cerebral answer that'll inspire my emotions and help me gain resilience over some of the pitfalls and dangers - I'd love to hear it. If you don't have anything to offer I'd just say thank you for even reading this far, if you can take anything away from this post about yourself even - all the better.

Hey tech,

You're not as alone as you think, nor am I, as I now think about it. Trust me, you do have tremendous (how do you say) "balls" for coming straight out with this. Not to bash NTs but, in your own opinon, you are correct to believe people take your weakness and use it against you. weakness is looked upon as a sign of decay, a sense of inability. When you show this to people, they dont see it as a sign of showing trust in them but rather desperation towards them.

Honestly man, I've dealt with a lot of what you say. I was the nicest guy before I realized it wasnt worth it anymore. I started working out, not to be big, but for the strength of it. The power of intimidation. We're similar builds but I grew up overweight from 10 - 19. Starved for a half a year and joined the military.

The fact is, sometimes these people are right in saying you should change, and sometimes, it doesnt matter. you have to decide whether or not making this change will make your life better. Honestly, becoming friends with a lot of people, or having relationships puts a lot of stress on guys like us. You constantly worry if they feel the same way, or if that bro has your back.

We're the guys with the targets on our back. Blessed with outrageous abilities, yet cursed with ridiculous setbacks. You end up making a choice sooner or later. You either fold with the faults in your hand, or you play your best cards.

Remember this though, there's not a damn person out there stronger than you, not unless you make them. It doesnt matter your stature, it matters how you hold yourself. Who cares if you a lil thinner, or your hair is messed up or what not. You hold your chin up, shoulders back, and you walk like theres nobody on this planet who can mess with you. Because at that point, they'll believe it too. Trust me. That doesnt mean to walk all over people, or change your personality. That means be confident in who you are. There's nothing wrong with you, you're just different. If they cant deal with it, F*** Em

"Goody the veteran"

You could try looking at their mouth, or the small ridge between their nose and mouth.

And people say its easy being an average guy

I heard its 90% personality. I need to go buy myself some of this personality..

Edit: There is some guides online to changing the way you think. Got to sell yourself, like those guys in business suits who can get Eskimos to buy snow.

Have you ever tried setting up a camera and taping yourself as you walk around your home, talking on the phone or to other people...just leaving the camera running? I'm always surprised at how I represent myself, and it gives me a baseline to work from.

I noticed back in 2000 that I looked absolutely terrible, kind of like my voice didn't travel, I looked like I was mentally ret*d. I went all out trying to correct it. Strange thing was no matter what I did, I was able to fix it a lot of the time but I noticed that once my energy was gone - it didn't matter what I knew. That's slowly been getting better, don't ask me how, but as I've gotten better the level of demand for what I'm supposed to have and be internally and externally have gone up at a faster rate than what it seemed like I could provide physically in terms of changing myself - no matter how brutally I went at it or no matter how much I convinced myself that this was life and death of honor.

Yeah, as force of habit I'd made myself very aware of other people's power, mostly because I wanted to see what I needed to get myself to in order to really be where I need to be. Now, I realize that neurologically I won't be there - likely at least till I'm in my mid 30's, too much crap that goes on and like I mentioned it seems to be mending too slowly any other way. I know other people don't have to try this hard and if its sapping enough energy out to where trying gets to be more of a negative than a positive - I think the weights and if I can find a new job in the next couple years that doesn't involve travel, martial arts on top of that, it may help create a buffer where I'll feel that much power. I'm more of a quiet confidence person when I do get it but still, confidence regardless is mandatory - a man really isn't a man without it.

99% of the struggle right now is just changing the way I feel - love the way I think, just need a body that doesn't feel terrified of everything.

Revisiting this, after quite a few reminders at work, I do have to side this up realistically. My outward display of 'lacking confidence', in a lot of respects its such a physical problem that it'll barely matter what I'm feeling. It starts with gestalt that won't work right no matter how I've nailed myself on it and practiced through the years, combines and gets worse if I wear myself thin, gets worse in of course those little passing situation where not looking at someone you don't know and never have spoken to seems less damaging than messing up a nonverbal exchange.

I also realize, any anxiety involved, any show of fear or "I don't have it in control" - years of having very 'normal' social intentions and getting very weird and abnormal social responses from other people for effectively doing the same thing in the same context. When you can't anticipate a normal response in situations, things are in trouble.

I really don't know what I'll do about this, just because a huge stretch of it I can't govern. It could happen that I may find a way to straighten it out, most likely it would happen in such a way that I'd have no idea what I did and if anything it would be just something superficial, that I had no control over, that had nothing to do with anything I was trying to do in order to front myself better. If it doesn't happen, which is almost more likely, I don't even want to go there any further than to say that the types of struggles and humiliations I'll have will be things that I'll have to bottle up, tuck away, and never talk about (it literally won't be permitted) and if people do try to chat me up in my 30's and 40's on it - at that rate I think it'll almost be impossible not to blatantly and rudely blow smoke in their faces; it almost always feels like a vulgar display of weakness even letting someone get that much information who's met me somewhere (family or not) and of course that sense will just deepen with age - it leaves me feeling like the 12 year old who never grew up, never became a man, its a complete farce - I can't let myself think that, I know what's going on with me, and I can't let motivational speeches or peptalks hypnotize me.

First, I admire what you've said here. Shows a lot of insight and a lot of what you say, I can relate to but never had the guts to share with another.

It probably won't help, but putting it all together, you are continually believing that you should be 'other' than you really are. You're telling yourself you should look different, talk different etc. Perhaps this is what people sense? And looking at it another way, it hardly matters what other people think, it's you that's doubting yourself first.

Nobody else can really provide the answer for you. However, I do sometimes think that there are all sorts of shapes, sizes and types of human and most seem to get by without this crippling self-analysis. There have been times when I've felt good about myself, I look and sound exactly the same (just as awful) on the outside, it's shutting up that internal critic that makes the difference. However, he starts up again all to easily and, like yourself perhaps, I start to believe that the whole world is judging me negatively. Truth is I don't know (nor should really care) what the rest of the world thinks, I can only know my own inner self. And trying to view this through the imagined minds of others is crazy.

And you got to take what others say with a pinch of salt. Most of them will fully support any problem you say you have, 1) so that they can exploit it 2) so they can be the do gooder that helps you 3) so they feel good that it's not only them with self-doubt.

I did warn it probably wouldn't help.......

I think it all starts in this place - I feel I have worth, a lot of worth, as much worth as the next person. Much of my life, especially in my teenage and earlier, everyone aside from my parents, a few adults, and the rare friend here and there played to the exact opposite. At first I really thought it was everyone else, diving in deeper I realized that the only chance I had at asserting the person who I really was inwardly and asserting the reality that I felt I deserved was playing the game, if I wanted to be treated a certain way I needed to act a certain way to evoke that response from other people. I took the idea to heart (don't as much now but did in my late teens and early 20's as I'd detested everything about myself or most things until then) that whatever I looked up to in other people, what ever I was really touched by or really admired, that was my higher self trying to get out and that those traits were the real me that I wanted to push and manifest. It came on some angles, others of course I fought and fought until I realized that in a lot of ways AS/PDD-NOS is an elastic trap - you can push against the walls, stretch them a good ways, and the farther you have them pushed the more of a strain it is to keep them out there; and very unfairly, it doesn't get easier (its assaulting on your morale not to see your diligence pay off).

Part of why I'll analyze the flycrap out of pepper;when I wasn't like this, when I was living on emotion as much as anyone else - that's when I was under control, that's when I was giving people open game on me, I was a piniata. I had some really dark times from 11 to 19 on all the wrong medications, got myself off, swore up and down I'd live life exactly the way I wanted to, had 15 or 20 friends chilling down my basement 3 nights a week, went to raves on weekends, thought I'd scored it big. Went to a restaurant job with a bunch of yuppy college kids at a private school and the hardest part of it, I had people treating me just like they had in highschool and not only that I found out real easily that - just like in school,my nervous system just about puts a muzzle on my brain in terms of handling a lot of situations where people are out to deliberately degrade me. It lead me to realize that no matter what was going on, no matter who I thought I was or what I demanded of myself, the exterior would always be my downfall unless I could learn to fix it. Like a lot of people I have outward neurological problems, some people wouldn't see it, lots would - particularly pettier sorts. Being the word victim makes me nauseaus, I'd put it synonymous with b***h, any time I gave the right to people to treat me like that - on their terms, for the longest time, I beat the hell out of myself. Not that I care a whole lot about what petty people think, but on the other hand it seems like the rest are afraid of em and again - from my past I'm pretty vicious about my autonomy.

As far as trying to ram it into my subconscious with blunt force went - learned my lesson, backed off, stopped doing that when I realized that it was almost leading me to where I really felt like I could have a nervous breakdown or where I'd beat myself up so much that I felt suicidal - not being even close to where my efforts had taken me. Now I've cooled out a lot, learned to manage my outlook on life, tried to gain self assurance just for what I am. However, when people keep reminding me that the way I look - with my AS, the signs of my maintainance, in one way or another make me look week, its like a round about way of saying that I almost have no right to procreate. As a professional, as a guy who's gotten himself through and made something of himself in a lot of regards, I don't resent it if a highschool drop out who's in and out of jail has something on me in terms of virility or confidence but for me the lack thereof is inauthentic - as in the real me, like lots of people with AS/PDD, is trapped behind that neurological muzzle, its not social anxiety so much as a social nervous system that doesn't work and while social know-how can help mitigate it'll never be enough as the constant self-monitoring puts you pretty much out in no man's land and people can see when they talk to you even, you speak normal, say the right things, but something's off with your sense of self - like you've been jarred so many times and corrected that you have no idea who you really are aside from your logical constructs (ie inauthenticity, you show logical action but the natural emotional reflexes aren't there - people don't trust it or still find it weird).



I never really feel like its the whole world, not even most. I feel though that its usually the people who the less critical people are afraid of who end up having issue. Also, with a job dealing with clients, I worry - how it'll come off, hope it won't ill-effect business, hope that it won't eventually force my boss to get rid of me. I get along with everyone pretty well but I notice that just from a lot of outward signs, while I may have what it takes - people who don't know me may have trouble building confidence if they don't talk to me at length; maybe the biggest problem is I haven't actually lead engagements per say and established the rapport myself rather than whoever the senior partner is, that may make a difference, but for now its an uncomfortable span of distance where yeah, I don't know.

There really aren't any answers that work for everyone for sure. We're all wired so differently that it seems like with some of us the one very thing that could unlock things they've been struggling with for years would be the last straw on the next person's back. I will though, since being proactive is a need of mine - keep pushing and keep looking for my own answers, just as I know I need to be more socially/morally confrontational as an adult - warrior, protector, these male roles don't go away, they're still the gold standard, I may have it on the inside, communicate it like s--- on the outside though and I'll probably spend many years trying to resolve that one. Only reason I care, it restrains the quality of my life like it restrains my sense of self.




Yeah, nothing wrong with the last two either. I think for the most part though, in the future, when people want to talk about this with me, I'll let them know - its a crass topic in my book and as its my own affair its not something that I need to discuss; most people will at least see that sort of bluntness as being contrary to the inferred lack of assertiveness and they'll cut it off right there.

Hehehe, looking at this its hillarious. I realize how unlike so many other people, with a lot of deeply personal stuff and in the right environments, that part of most people's brains that tells em to shut the f--- up before it comes out; barely feel like I have it. It surprises me when I write threads like this or on general observations about the world, especially more esoteric and personal stuff, I keep going - it feels liberating but it really scares me that I'm like this sometimes.

I think if everyone where honest with themself, they'd say they were afraid of themself too. In fact, Im too the point where I no longer fear people, only myself. Im afraid not of what they'll do to me, but how i'll react. I've come to realize as well, through my years of hell, that I dont honestly need another person to know me. I want it, its desired, but its completely unneccessary.

i feel sometimes if I were born in a different time, maybe during the renaissance, or industrial revolution, I'd be way more productive. Too much of society now is based on how you interact with people. If you dont look the right way, if you dont talk the right way, if you listen to the wrong music, or you're just the wrong skin color, people will judge you for the shallowest of reasons. I came to notice that Iwas trying to follow a path that lead to nothing but dead ends and detours. I joined the military hoping to find a purpose, and all I got for it was a fractured neck and a year and a 1/4 of social torture.

Its amazing how alpha males can just smell the weak. Its like its instilled into thier extra senses. They see a sense of whole hearted effort and choose to use it against them, as an obstacle. They do everything with ease and wonder why its difficult for you, see as an anchor holding them back. They dissassociate from you and only speak when they desire to ridicule.

Whats been said so far is true, no one can provide you with the perfect answer but yourself. If only more people would offer thier resources tho, more would be known by everyone. We have a world wide net that is mainly used for self pleasing, instead of self educating. its amazing we're not all dead already(as a species). 6000 years or more of recorded history and we havent learned how to play nice yet?