'Small Chat Socialising' - and Swimming Underwater

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comment about 'Small Chat Socialising' - and Swimming Underwater.... 09-27-2008 03:22 am nhily's Blog

Apologies for the rough state of this blog - bad spelling and everything else. It's state is a reflection of where I'm at as an Aspie - being the real me and not censorimg or editing to artificially create a 'better' image. Ok OK so this ,this means i'm lazy ... lol

In my early 40's and married for about 20 years. Have a wonderful wife but at least in part she really married my fake persona. I was officially diagnosed about two weeks ago but had confidently self diagnosed about 8 weeks before that.

Finally developed a 'personality' under the pressure of being in a 'people intemsive industry' at about age 33 - although my mother was not fooled! Without the slightest hint of anger (the whole statemetn was made out of context and with a great deal of tentativity - completely out of character for my mother believe me - mostly like a bull at a gate although tempered with some 'people smarts') she said to me at the same age - 33 ish (this is almost word for word)" you are still like a small boy. I'm still waiting for your real personality to emerge. " The last of five (with signficant age gaps in spite of same parents) can state factually that my mother never made a statement like this or anything similar to any of my four older sibblings - ive asked them. None of us new about aspergers then - so her comment - so offensive to me at the time - was really quite diagnostic! Think I replied somewhat sardonically - "well dont hold your breath.... cant see it happening any time soon"

My father was - ill bet my house on it - an undiagnosed Aspie - probaly quite severe - though perhaps not as bad as mine. While I eventually learnt to fake a personality really well, (based on social invites - not a self assessment!) one insurmountable problem remained: after about 45 mins of faking - I began to feel desparate on the inside. After 4 hours (very ambitious - forced myself to keep going) I would liken the feeling to having swum (swam?) almost 2 lengths of a standard back yard pool underwater: you feel like their is a demoninside you and you have to get relief (air in this case) immediately. Actually worse - there is no quick fix for this feeling of 'Aspie' desperation. Whereas with swimming underwater - you can take a few breaths and start returning to normal within seconds, returning to normal generally required at least a day of solitude.

And the better my 'fake' personality developed, the more popular I became.... Now, I'm not going to give any prizes for guessing what problem my newly acquired peronality was creating - i mean they are supposed to solve the aspie problem - not excacerbate it - right?????

My poor wife could and still cannot bring herself to completely believe that such long periods of solitude after socialising were not aimed at her - she still beleives they are! With the diagnosis, she is making the biggest effort ever - while it dawns on me just how painful it must have been for her over the lenght of our marriage. Thats when I really start feeling like a winner... NOT!

Stopping now due to time pressures - beleive me I can relate to your [response to another member]'suicidal ideation' - and must shame facedley confess to having absolutely no constuctive and helpful suggestions whatsoever. If I do find one tho, I will send it to you at the first available oppertunity. But then, eerily, the response that springs to mind is the same as the one I gave to my mother upon hearing her appraisal of my personality......

Also, can i take a wild stab - are you strangely releived at the lack of 'quick fix' and cliched suggestions that NT's so 'helpfully' provide? Like 'get counselling'. Well yeeeah haahhh - can hardly wait to pour my heart out to yet another qualified medical professional who has absolutely no idea what i'm talking about. I mean its social interaction that really 'brings us out of our shells right?

I generally come away from counselling sessions feeling like ive done a couple of rounds with George Foreman when he was in his prime - in other words - beaten up and feeling like i've had all the stuffing knocked out of me..... Now, I avoid them like the plague!

Go on now - I bet you are....! Well I hope you at least chuckled - and hopefuly had a laugh at my 'sad story' - real laughter probably being the only effective antidote at this stage.

Hi, welcome to WP.

Who is this alter ego/fake personality? And, do you want to reveal your true nature?

Welcome Nhily

Actually, acting NT might gain us 'acceptance' - but it is all an illusion, so it does little to 'solve the aspie problem'. Rather, acting NT is EXTREMELY stressful, and most of us need periods of solitude to recover. After 8 hours at work, I would prefer to spend the next 16 hours entirely alone .

Has your wife done her own research, or explored any forums for partners of Aspies?

I need time to regroup after a get together. Family gatherings are the most stressful. I don't like to feel like I'm being judged.
Baths are a nice way to unwind after work.

I'm the same about socializing. Since I've become more popular, I get more and more exhausted, and need more down time to deal with it. In my last years of school, I used to pretty much sleep for 3 days straight at the start of each holidays cause I was so exhausted.

And I know what you mean about what your mum said. My mum has said stuff that's hurtful to me because of not understanding.

Once we had an uncle (who has cancer) come over to stay with us (must have been when i was around 13/14), and she asked me to lend him my reading lamp, and I said no could I please keep it because I can't sleep without reading at night, and she screamed at me and called me a "selfish b***h" and said my uncle was dying of cancer and I couldn't even lend him my light, and what kind of person was I, because she didn't really understand that I literally couldn't sleep without it (at the time). It was probably insensitive, but very aspergery, of me to say no at the time because she was probably feeling very upset and emotional and I don't think I picked up on it. If it had happened now, with how I've advanced, I probably would have leant the lamp without hesitation.

Stress causes mental exhaustion for sure. The whole selfish slander is a bit played out. People are selfish in their own ways and pointing out others flaws gets to be like a habit for some who would rather not recognize their own short sightedness. For me, shame is thee worst feeling in the whole world and it can wreck a child's psyche.

Sorry for the late response, i guess you could fairly describe me as one of those non schedule aware aspies - my time keeping skills are simply shocking.

The answer to your question above is simply - No. Being real as an aspie , genreally means being offensive to many people most of the time without even really knowing why. Well thats how it is for me anyway.

Instead I now limit social contact to those who fall into my special interest group. Family and other friends have been cut-off. This is no critisism of them - i realise the issue is with me - but that does not make socialising with them any more pleasant. So it really is the case that things are better this way - I much prefer it actually.

YOur thoughts?

Hey thanks for the response - pretty empathic too if i may say so and again sorry for slow reply. I suspect your mother did not ask you why you did not want to lend your lamp - is this right? If she had she might have been surprised at your answer and not had the slightest objection to your holding onto your lamp. I think this could be a case of the NT having about as much empathy for Aspie as we are supposed to have for them!

I have no doubt you would readily lend your lamp today - just as i dont think it was selfish for you to hold onto it then - but as you say your mother did not and could not reasonably be expected to know that you have aspies.

Cheers

I've also made a similar choice to take it easy and not force myself to interact with family and friends. I used to make up excuses all the time to avoid large social gatherings. Are you able to hold your head up high when you walk into a room? I can do that most of the time, but when it comes to family, I'm like a snail without a shell. I'd like to get over it.

I was like that as a kid too. There was no reason for me to be so uncomfortable around family.
It was like I had this suspicion that they were judging me and now it carried into adulthood. My aunts would say how cute I was in a dress or something and I would resent it. I'd think, "you don't even know me and you just pretend that you do." Their smiles seemed phony.

To be perfectly honest, I always thought my parents complained about me behind my back. They would hush when I walked up on a conversation.
My parents used to compare me to other kids and tell me how great they were. I hated that. I think sometimes I sabotage things when all is going well just as some sort of self fulfilling curse. I'd like to be healed of all that and be redeemed finally.

An amazingly honest response - can I seriously congratulate you? This is the kind of response I was hoping to get on this site - not phoney NT polyanna speak where everything is rosy and we all love each other to bits ... lol

I think I was effectively estranged from both of my parents when they died - still in contact - but with a strong sense that their was really no authentic liking or love in the relatinship - but respect, some gratitude but above all a strong sense of DUTY. And the feeling that no matter how strong, a sense of duty was not going to sustain our relationship.....

My famaily viewed me as a closed book - not because there were any great secrets - but because of my desire to avoid very boring and (to me) meaningless conversations about trivia..... But what is trivia to me is clearly not trivia to them ..... and as an aspie im the odd one out - not them!

So I can so relate to your comments about your parents - and the emotional distance implied. Sorry to rave on but i just cant get over the honesty of your comments - I think there are many more such parent /family relationships but as a society we just cannot be that honest with ourselves let alone each other....?

So thank you for your respnse - it is unexpectedly pleasant to discover that there are others who feel the same way

Hey there - thanks for the response. Yes she has - but a bit too late it seems ..... But most of the support groups urged her to get rid of me as quickly as possible lest she suffer the same fate as she had - abd she took their advice....! Your recovery time comment is so true of me too - much better not to learn social skills so that you are not put in that position in the first place. In short I take your point - stopped trying to be what im not socially and yes it is much easier now.

Oh and thanks for welcome.....