Social Anxiety and Autism

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Autism can often bring about social anxiety, because you're weird - and people don't get it. Not because autism automatically causes social anxiety, but because the social environment can make anxiety a pretty understandable adaptation.

This last point is important: autism doesn't automatically cause social anxiety. In fact, if you manage to get rid of it completely, you may turn into some kind of super hero that everyone wants to talk to.

Getting rid of social anxiety doesn't necessarily remove the underlying social mismatch, but traits which looked awkward under anxiety can become unusually compelling once the fear is gone. Directness becomes confidence, intense interests become enthusiasm, unconventional thinking becomes originality, and reduced concern for social convention can read as authenticity rather than awkwardness.

That said, exposure therapy can cut both ways. The more important lesson is to accept that you're weird, and realize that you only want to keep people who also accept that weirdness anyway. f**k the rest.

The goal is not to become socially normal; it is to stop being governed by fear of being abnormal.

^Well said.

Thanks. I hope this helps someone.

I don't know what my issue is. It seems above and beyond autism though. Basically, for me to meet people, I need to be able to interact with them over a period of time on a shared project or activity. I need to get to know them this way to learn if they're someone I want to get to know more by talking and engaging them in conversation. It's backwards. Most people talk to people first to get to know them.

For me, I need to have something to talk about. If we're working on a project/activity together, that provides a valid subject and by observation, I can tell if that person is someone I'd like to get to know more. This makes it extremely hard to meet people.

My church is having their annual church picnic in a few weeks. I've been a member of the church for several years and I don't know anyone. Even though there will be hundreds of people at the picnic, it's not a viable way for me to meet anyone as I would have no valid reason to talk to anyone there.

If your church is going to have a picnic, then you should volunteer to help in some way. Churches offer lots of opportunities to volunteer, I would think.

I figured out that my issue was being transgender. People routinely perceived as female, despite being assigned male at birth. There wasn't anything I could to to change that, so I figured it was far easier to dress as a small petite female with an hourglass figure. I think I look good in a two piece bathing suit without any medical intervention.
Now I could easily have positive social interactions instead of awkward ones with poor communications.
Now I have random social interactions several times a week.

The goal isn't to be normal. The goal is unapologetic presence. And that is achievable not by fixing yourself, but by deciding - over and over - that your way of being is not up for debate.

Too much cognitive and emotional empathy plus RSD can cause social anxiety. I feel other people's actions and feelings, and I pick up on tone, facial expressions and body language very quickly without conscious effort, which stings my nerves, just the same as a loud noise might. And RSD, maybe caused by past social trauma and a natural NT desire to fit in and be accepted (something I mostly didn't get to experience in my younger years), can also contribute to social anxiety. So, unless I start masking myself into a different person, my social anxiety ain't likely to go away. I care what people think, they matter to me, and fitting in and interacting with people is what I love most. But social anxiety is sort of like a protection for me, it protects me from making a fool of myself, it protects me from being taken advantage of, and it protects me from the unknown.

@Tamaya

That's fine. My point isn't that you should stop caring what people think or feel. Caring about people is different from making their acceptance a condition for being comfortable as yourself.

If you know you're acting in good faith, you can still listen when someone dislikes something you did without automatically treating their rejection as evidence that there's something wrong with you. You shouldn't have to beg to be accepted.