Published on 12, July, 2020
For essentially my whole life I've hated doing things where people can see me doing them. I noticed it a lot during school, because I would hate doing work around my peers. The hating doing work where people can see me thing particularly came to light in sixth form, where during "study periods" I would never study because I felt like I was being watched, and it made me super uncomfortable. If I ever needed to get any work done I had to go to the isolated study booths in the library where people couldn't see me, but there was only a few so they often weren't available. I think this is part of why I underperformed in my a-levels.
Now that I'm out of school, I notice more that it manifests in literally everything else I do. I hate cleaning when people are at home, I can't cook when people are in the kitchen, it took me months to be able to shower when people are home because I can hear the shower from anywhere in the house and therefore people will know I'm showering, which my brain doesn't like. I also do everything super quietly all the time, even stuff like opening the fridge. I just don't like that people can see or know what I'm doing ever, and I feel as though maybe it comes from being told I'm doing things "the wrong way" so much growing up. Or maybe it's just an autistic thing. Hence this post. Does anyone else feel similarly? I feel like this isn't something I see being talked about a lot, and so I'm curious as to whether it's the autism or just me being "weird" in some other way.
I'm exactly the same. As a young child I used to beg my mother to stop watching me on the playground as I couldn't play while being observed.
As an adult, I can't clean while there are people around. I can't work in an office because there are people who might interrupt me at any moment - and I think that's at the heart of the issue. If I know there's a chance that the person watching me might say something to me and startle me out of focusing on whatever I'm doing, I can't get focused in the first place. I think I've learned from experience that being startled is so unpleasant that now my brain won't allow me to run the risk of it happening, so refuses to switch out of "people mode" and into "real me mode" if there are people around. I can, to some extent, and with the help of my ear defenders, work in the silent study section of the university library (I'm not a student but got membership) if it's not too busy, as I know that strangers are very unlikely to approach me in that situation. It's best if I can get one of the individual desks tucked away between the stacks, rather than being exposed on the main floor.
I got burnout from my ex working from home during the pandemic. I couldn't relax for a single minute of the day because at any moment he might speak to me or walk close behind me. By the end I was so exhausted that most days I couldn't do anything but lie on the bed repeating "I'm so tired" over and over again. As soon as he moved out, my energy came back and my weekly income went up to seven times what it had been as I was able to do my freelance work again.
I don't think I have a problem with being watched if I can guarantee that the observer won't interact with me. Like I don't care about being on CCTV or whatever.