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How do you guys explain yourself to other people?

Einfallspinsel

I just recently realized that what I think of as buffer overflow is officially called sensory overload. I mean noisy busy babbly situations that "drain my batteries", so I leave. If I stay, my perceptions sort of... stop adding up to a meaningful whole, and eventually I "forget" what talking and moving is. (Luckily it only rarely gets to that point because I stay away from these situations.)

But for example last week I made the mistake of trying to go to a concert (being over 30 I thought I could handle it by now!), and I just barely escaped. ;-) I paid, unsuccessfully tried to be invisible for half an hour, and fled before the band arrived. I didn't sleep that night and my knees were still trembling the day after (no drugs!). I couldn't explain to my friend why I walked out on her ("because everything was wrong"?).

And now I heard my company is planning another "team building" day. I don't want to go, or at least I want to be left alone, but how do I explain that to them? (I'm glad as heck I have this job, I don't want to jeopardize it.) What if I go braindead there too, or stop talking or look away? It just makes my colleagues try harder to "cheer me up" (Like last year, where I eventually left the campfire and stayed away from the madness in a sleeping bag at just above freezing)

Do you have some advice how I can get the message across, do you ever have this problem? 

It's not against my colleagues and (potential) friends that I prefer to be alone. From my point of view, it's rather a compliment that I invest the bit of energy I have in them sometimes. Guess that's not much of a compliment. 


I have no excuse not to go, other than that I hate pretending to be fine while I'm not. I am not even officially diagnosed with anything -- I just see quite some overlap with your list of ASD symptoms, and was hoping for some advice from people who might at least understand what I'm talking about.
Parents

  • Teachers would no doubt have had concerns even if they could not put a finger on them because AS has only entered common parlance very recently. No-one mentioned Aspergers when I was at school, although my parents speculated that I was 'a bit autistic', and my Dad found out about Aspergers during  his teacher training in 1998, but the teachers called me 'an enigma'. Also, I do not mince my words when I say that all children with AS would have had some difficulty at school even if those difficulties did not bother the child. I had difficulties at primary school, but the fact I could not socialise properly did not bother me at this stage. However, I often got into trouble due to my odd behaviour.

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  • Teachers would no doubt have had concerns even if they could not put a finger on them because AS has only entered common parlance very recently. No-one mentioned Aspergers when I was at school, although my parents speculated that I was 'a bit autistic', and my Dad found out about Aspergers during  his teacher training in 1998, but the teachers called me 'an enigma'. Also, I do not mince my words when I say that all children with AS would have had some difficulty at school even if those difficulties did not bother the child. I had difficulties at primary school, but the fact I could not socialise properly did not bother me at this stage. However, I often got into trouble due to my odd behaviour.

Children
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