• Replies 24 replies
  • Subscribers 79 subscribers
  • Views 6818 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Socializing

Hope

I am confused. I have been told by my support worker that she thinks I am very good at socializing and am skilled in this area, but believe me I am not!. It is all a fake. I told her this, that I put on an act and am really clueless, but she told me that everyone puts on an act in different situations and behaves more naturally with the nearest and dearest. However, I really can't believe that most people (apart from those with AS) face the same stress that socializing induces. My support worker is really nice and understanding, and I know she told me this in order to compliment me, but it only adds to my confusion.

My question is, Aspergers is defined as a problem with social skills, so if you are told your social skills are good, what does this mean? I think all of us with AS struggle with social skills, BUT, some of us, like myself, simply fake our personality and come across as better at socializing than we really are. It is all superficial. I am really very egocentric, and I admit that I am quite arrogant at times and look down on people who don't think the same way as I do or who don't follow the rules. I am so pedantic it is almost painful. But I keep quiet and don't tell people what I really think, apart from my parents!. People with AS are often described as tactless, which I can be, but most of the time I cover up my AS and am very polite, doing the thing that people expect instead of speaking my mind. This is why I 'pass for normal', because I am socially motivated enough to conform, more or less. But deep down, past my social exterior, I am emotionally immature, extremely narcissistic, and cannot compromise - I have to get my way.

I am seriously confused - who  am I really?

Parents

  • Are you actually reading Sartre just now Hope? What you describe sounds like his 'spirit of seriousness' where people believe there is an authenticity waiting to be discovered in things but it is ourselves who are the real arbiters of what is meaningful...to pretend otherwise is what he calls 'bad faith' (I hope I haven't mangled this...) I don't know what I think about all of this. Maybe identity is not stable but always a struggle and maybe the more you struggle with it the worse the struggle gets. You always sounds like someone with a very strong self-awareness and forceful identity...if others are not quite so self-demanding perhaps it makes you feel frustrated. That's how I used to feel anyway...if I socialized more I probably still would feel this way.

    They say it is normal in everyone to question their identity and sometimes feel disgusted when they feel their inauthenticity. Normal but the experience can be awful. I would say that Freudian psychoanalysis is an interesting but potentially useless resource. A fine fellow Viennese writer, Karl Kraus, said that pyschoanalysis is the disease for which it pretends to be the cure (or something like that). You don't want to end up like Woody Allen questioning your identity until you're 80!!!

    I suppose I would add my voice to those of others who are seeking a better forum for people to contact each other to avoid the loneliness etc. A few people have said this lately. Maybe I'll take the idea to Dragon's Den...or fill the room full of carbon monoxide...it's a difficult choice (just a little joke Mr Moderator...cut it out if it's too provocative).

Reply

  • Are you actually reading Sartre just now Hope? What you describe sounds like his 'spirit of seriousness' where people believe there is an authenticity waiting to be discovered in things but it is ourselves who are the real arbiters of what is meaningful...to pretend otherwise is what he calls 'bad faith' (I hope I haven't mangled this...) I don't know what I think about all of this. Maybe identity is not stable but always a struggle and maybe the more you struggle with it the worse the struggle gets. You always sounds like someone with a very strong self-awareness and forceful identity...if others are not quite so self-demanding perhaps it makes you feel frustrated. That's how I used to feel anyway...if I socialized more I probably still would feel this way.

    They say it is normal in everyone to question their identity and sometimes feel disgusted when they feel their inauthenticity. Normal but the experience can be awful. I would say that Freudian psychoanalysis is an interesting but potentially useless resource. A fine fellow Viennese writer, Karl Kraus, said that pyschoanalysis is the disease for which it pretends to be the cure (or something like that). You don't want to end up like Woody Allen questioning your identity until you're 80!!!

    I suppose I would add my voice to those of others who are seeking a better forum for people to contact each other to avoid the loneliness etc. A few people have said this lately. Maybe I'll take the idea to Dragon's Den...or fill the room full of carbon monoxide...it's a difficult choice (just a little joke Mr Moderator...cut it out if it's too provocative).

Children
No Data