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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?

  • just thought id add abit about me onto this

     

    I have ASD and regularly surprise people when i tell them... i generally get by by mimicing or learning and adapting... it takes an awful lot of energy and concentration and i get regular migraines from it...

    the best way to describe it is i have a number of spider diagrams in my head as to how conversations have gone in the past... and i just follow that... how i did that was through good ol fashion trial and error.. i upset alot of people but in the end i can now atleast appear to hold a reasonable conversation on the fly (all be it occasionally delayed at times)

  • What do you mean by  'label' obscuring actual symptoms'?

    I just feel confused most of the time about my self-identity, who I am, what I have repressed. I guess I hate having to conform and be something I am not; I never know what is an 'act' and what is me. Sometimes I hate my polite voice, it feels so contrived, it is pure mimicry. Sartre once said that 'hell is other people' and I can see that he was right. Other people tell you what they think you are, but they don't really know you, they just see your character mask and never the conflict that goes on within. I know that I act 'inauthentically', to borrow from Sartre; I act according to convention, I yearn for identity, for a role, instead of being spontaneous and uninhibited. I cling to  thingness instead of existing for myself. I probably need psychoanalysis Undecided

  • Hi Hope, I’m new here.  If I was told my social skills were good I’d (attempt) to take it as a compliment and accomplishment.

    Saying that an ASD individual ‘fakes’ social interaction is fairly a negative description; rather, it is more the case that an ASD individual has to put significantly more conscious effort in undertaking social interactions in order to get by, if indeed they can, through mimicry, clinically-informed exercises, self-help etc, but this doesn’t make these interactions any less sincere.

    I hear the term ‘Labels’ thrown around quiet readily in these forums, so perhaps this is the case of your ‘label’ obscuring your actual symptoms: you may have succeeded in managing some of your symptoms, don’t let your expectations of what constitutes yourself through your ‘label’ obscure that.

    Does that make sense?

    Personally I really struggle with social interactions, and put extreme ammounts of effort in to get through them, usually to end up exhausting myself by going on and on about facts and ideas that noone really understands or cares about finally to sneak off somewhere and fall asleep.