Losing Social Skills

YES - this is me exactly. I'm in a hermit period at the moment and find the idea of socialising so stressful; and yet at earlier points in my life its not been as hard...sometimes I feel that its a sense of momentum

I think I might have had a similar experience. Before I suspected I was autistic, I would do everything I could to try to maintain pace with those around me, to the point of being over-exaggerated. I started trying to drop the techniques but it's taken years to get to the point where I feel as though I'm reacting more naturally and in real-time. The payoff has been worth it though, as I feel more internally aligned and consistent. I do have different types of reactions sometimes, as some of the things I do including flapping my hands slightly or speaking in a way that can come across as 'childlike' in terms of sentence structure and tone of voice are perhaps not expected, but they are what my natural expressions are and are more truthful when it comes to real-time interaction.

NAS62563 said:

I always thought this would get better with age but it hasn't really

That's my experience, too. I spent most of my teens and twenties having it drummed into me that I just needed to keep putting myself out there and practicing - but I could just never get beyond a certain level, and always dropped whenever I had a break from it. It became a huge problem during my student years because of all the melt-downs and shut-downs that I pushed myself into, and I was driving myself insane with the frustration of never seeing any improvement.

I've been living independently for over 30 years now, and I still find myself repeating the rationalisations to myself over and over again sometimes; "I've done this literally thousands of times before; a few of those times I completely fumbled it; most of the time I got by; a few times I even surprised myself at how well I did - why can I not do it now?".

There is definitely an upper ceiling set by my perceptual and cognitive processes. Yes, my eyes work, but when my brain is swamped by information I can't see body langage or eye contact any better than someone totally blind from birth - my brain simply doesn't extract the right information from the sensory data that's coming in. Trying to teach me the meanings of more and more of these symbols is futile, as they simply don't exist to me, except when explicitly pointed out under ideal conditions.

The same with sensory integration. There are times when I have heard all of the words, and have identified all of the speakers voices, and can see the mouths move - but all the same, I simply cannot fathom which speaker said which of the words.

I have a reputation for being a much quieter, more introverted person than I really feel myself to be - but I can never get a word in edgeways because I'm always catching up from being a sentence behind everyone else, and with no processing power to spare to put my thoughts into words. As Rach has said elsewhere, simply slowing everything down would be an immense help, but it's rare that I would feel comfortable asking, and the odd times I've tried it, I found I had to remind everyone every 30 seconds because they forget the moment that I'm not the one speaking or being directly addressed.

I am similar to this and because I have just moved to a new area it makes it worse. I develop anxiety over "simple" situations such going for a haircut, making a phonecall or going into a shop I haven't been in before

I struggle to rehearse because even though I now have my own flat, I always feel like someone is listening which puts me off even trying

I always thought this would get better with age but it hasn't really as I always revert back to poor social skills. I think I do care less as I get older but struggle to improve

That's good advice, IMHO. I've been very slowly working on that over the last few years; around people who know me well at least. After 45 years of masking, it hasn't been easy, and I've had the odd bad reaction here and there, but like you, the people who really matter to me have been really supportive, and I feel like my relationships with them are slowly getting closer as I remove the barrier that I always put between them and the real me.

Absolutely. What I'm trying at the moment is to ask people if they can speak to me more slowly, and also release a little bit of my natural behaviours at a time more continuously throughout the day instead of suppressing them, such as occasionally flapping my hands slightly during conversation or letting my voice stutter and follow its natural cadence more. That way I feel like I'm reducing the pressure of forcing myself to keep in step with those around me when I can't without faking, and the people who know and understand are patient and supportive. I do get quite apprehensive about showing the behaviours, but little by little it is helping immensely.

I have this as well. Like others say, I have to warm up first if I'm seeing my cousins or in laws. I practice by going to a small shop like the baker or the Turkish grocery shop where you have to talk to the owner. On the way home I use the real interaction to try and make a fresh imagination of how it will be.  Sometimes I get asked to come for a coffee or lunch by someone at work. I always make an excuse not to, because there is no time to practice.

When I've been in one of my regular hermit phases, I quite often get into a bit of a panic when I realise I may have to interact with other people. I start to have serious doubts about whether I'll be able to remember how to do it; even simple things like nipping to the corner shop for a pint of milk. I try to recall previous situations which were similar, but the memories are always a bit blurred; except for the ones about some past balls-up or other. My scripting goes into overdrive, and I have do a bit of rehearsing alone out loud just to make sure that I can still make sentences come out of my mouth.

I put a lot of it down to masking. I feel like I'm an actor who's been asked to appear in a sequel reprising a role that I haven't played for a long time, and I can't quite get back into character. Since that character's words and behaviour aren't spontaneous reflections of the real autistic me, they fade from memory if I haven't read the script and stage directions for a while, and I become consumed by stage-fright. What if I can't remember my part when the curtain goes up? And of course, I know that the director will be rewriting the play as the action unfolds, and that my performances are always reviewed, even if only just by me, as cliched and wooden.

Don't have any social skills to lose. I only figured out a few years ago what a date was, by looking it up on the Internet.

Yes. That rings a bell with me as well.