Burning in the hell of 'almost (NT)'

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I seem like an NT to most people. But that's because I'm working like mad to give that impression, and I've been doing it for so long that I don't know how to stop. I'm continually worried that I'll be "found out" and cast into the UK's mental health wilderness. It's exhausting, putting this front on all of the time. WP helps, because I can be myself here, but it's the only place I can.

The big problem is that I get so stressed out trying to be an NT, so I can keep my job and my home, that eventually I crash and burn. When I lose the plot, I lose it in a big way. I've been off work for long periods (once it was 9 months) for stress and depression, but it was actually AS recovery time. It comes as a real shock to those who know me (particularly girlfriends, who tend to run for the hills) when I go from being Mr Slightly-Quirky to Mr Where-The-F@ck-Did-That-Come-From? By this stage I am not only being my true Aspie self but a very tired, emotional, withdrawn and depressed Aspie, which seems to magnify the normal traits x10. So I do the whole Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde thing and everyone b-ggers off.

When I was a child I had plenty of time to recover - I could push myself and then hide away in my room for a while to 'ground' myself and think things through. As an adult those chances don't seem to exist any more - there are always things to do and they're all down to me.

Sometimes I appreciate being able to think differently, and see things that other people don't see. But most of the time it wears me out and I hate the way I end up driving friends and lovers away with my unpredictable behaviour.

So yeah, sorry, but I'd rather be one of those ignorant NTs everyone seems to despise.

You would rather be one of those?

Wouldn't you rather be you and know that we, and surely many others love you for who you actually are!?

That way you dont have to worry about the meltdown because you're not holding anything inside ready to blow!

Scintillate, hard-aimed practice can make better and stop the need for meltdowns, after all the more capacity you have to meet things head on the less stress you have in general. The more you can act like they do naturally it becomes more believeable, you feel the dividers melting a lot more, you have far less friction with most people, life actually does start feeling easier - the only downside is you still end up hyperfocusing on what you still aren't doing right because your much more sensitive and aware to how its affecting other people, being percieved, and that in a world like this one they probably wouldn't be in their right minds percieving it any other way. As for all that warm fuzzy being loved unconditionally for who you are kinda stuff....lol....yeah.... wouldn't it be nice?

hahahah true it would be wonderful...

I'm learning every day how to relate better, the biggest lesson for me is learning RESPECT for opinions I find ignorant or biased... To me it's this simple, I've tried controlling my meltdowns, but the more I try to hold it in, the worse it gets, when I simply move with my passion, I tend to actually want to socialise, once I've satisfied my passion.. Also people that happen to feel music deeply I can connect with on many levels.

Since I've started simply being myself I'm finding it so much easier to have fun, to make people laugh, and occasionally make a whole conversation go dead silent

I understand a lot of us need to act and pretend to fit in, but for me its never been about fitting in, cause if I fit in as something I'm not, I get NOTHING out of it. When I'm accepted as quirky, a little different, and a very emotional thinker, It gives me one sensation..

awe

That's totally straight, roll with what makes you happy - I can respect that. I'm the same way, also have a deep connection with music, and it does help me get through the day - thats probably why I persue it as passionately as I do.

That's good advice.

Also, I can really identify with the love of music!

I know I tend to think too much about things, e.g. I'll worry in advance about a conversation and plan it all out in my head, and when in reality it goes a totally different way to how I expected I feel panicky and under threat. If I hadn't thought so hard about it in the first place, it wouldn't be a problem.

Confusingly, I seem to need a lot of support and encouragement from other people, even though (in their eyes) I seem awkward and sometimes confrontational. I've often thought about tucking myself away like a hermit and living a simple life.... but what if I remain unhappy and have no motivation and end up driving myself nuts? I need people, even if they don't always seem to need me. Although I can see the benefits of "just being yourself" I'm not sure it's entirely possible to act in isolation like that - although, fair enough, my current way of life doesn't seem to be working either.

I guess I need to have a think about who I really am, and what would make me happy. Neither is particularly clear at the moment.

hermit, what I'm starting to see with myself is that I went through a phase of being shocked and horrified by how people treated me and just how little respect they wanted to show me even only a year after the best time of my life when I had a huge group of friends, like 10 or 15 people partying at my house like 3 days a week, its like with this condition if people want to take the outside first and as everything and they can't see an enterage of friends behind me as social proof they'll do whatever they really want to based on their schema of things. It was really strange for me for the next few years after that to even have a group of friends who I was really tight with and then go into work and be seen as pretty much the village idiot or nut there but I started to realize things just weren't negotiable and if I wanted to get peace at work I just needed to chill out, say less, socially stick my foot out and trip them once in a while just to show that yeah I do have the social skills, and I started playing it just as fake as everyone else. To this day things haven't changed drastically there but the one nice thing - the more I realize people are really just monkeys the more its so much easier to really not wrestle with what they think of me, right now I'm at that point where if I feel like I'm doing well by my own standards then I'm completely ambivalent on whether people like or dislike me. Right now though yeah, I still have standards for myself that are a bit higher than I can always perform, still compulsively stuck with that and that may rain itself out too but I just wanted to say - as long as you put your effort in, are searching for a way, are well aware that your giving it your best, the emotions driving that kind of stuff will fade just because I think a lot of em are based on subconscious 'what if's like "what if I'd tried harder", "what if I'd said this instead of that - things would have gone better", and the whole point of the process is just to prove to that part of yourself that can't always be reached by conscious reason that those what ifs are usually wack and if you had followed through they wouldn't have done much, at best been a temporary patch for things.