Being observed

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.

Parents
  • I've had this for as long as I can remember. It's the reason why it took me 8 attempts to pass my driving test and found working in open plan offices for years to be a complete nightmare.

    There is a name for it, 'Exposure Anxiety', first mentioned in the book by the autistic author Donna Williams more than 30 years ago. Despite this hardly anyone has heard of it. Try googling 'Exposure Anxiety' and all you'll get is pages of results on 'Exposure Therapy', which is something completely different.

    https://www.autisticality.co.uk/exposure-anxiety

  • Thank you so much for this. I am sad to have just learned of her work and her passing in one thirty second period. I just watched a YouTube video she made on the topic, and it is scarily apt for someone who has to this point had a really difficult time understanding and describing my feelings around being observed.

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  • Thank you so much for this. I am sad to have just learned of her work and her passing in one thirty second period. I just watched a YouTube video she made on the topic, and it is scarily apt for someone who has to this point had a really difficult time understanding and describing my feelings around being observed.

Children
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