Being observed

jellyrabbit said:

I'm glad this post might have made you feel a little bit less alone

Your post has done that, thanks.  The further I dive into this forum,  The further I am convinced of the possibility I could be Autistic unless other people also think and feel these things?  I perhaps should have these discussions with my friends to see what they think....  None have a diagnosis but then I do make friends with certain types of people so they could well be the non diagnosed Autistics of the world.....  I feel it's much too hard to unpick but I feel more affinity with those who have mental health challenges and now as I am discovering Autistic people or those who feel shunned from society.  I did always make friends with the kids who were picked on at school as I felt sorry for them and I didn't like certain types of people who could be cruel and bullying..... Hmmm it figures...

I have that a little (not to the extent that you do). 

My first job was as a news reporter, in a very large newsroom, with the news desk (the people who direct reporters) on a raised dias where they could see everyone.

It was before computers and you would type stories on 'copy paper' - short sheets which only took a few paragraphs. 

If you were writing something deadline-critical, a 'copy boy' (often in his 60s or 70s) would literally rip completed sheets from your typewiter and carry them over to the news desk one by one (you had a carbon copy to keep track of what you were writing).

Sometimes, on a big story, assistant news editors, deputy editors, and occasionally even the editor would gather behind you and watch over your shoulder, quite often offering critical comments as you wrote (that only happened when I graduated to bigger stories much later).

I was fine writing news stories under horrendous pressures of time - didn't worry me at all.  But having people watching over me whilst doing it was incredibly difficult.  I was decades away from knowing I was autistic so I just told myself not to be stupid and get on with it. 

If you have these issues to an acute level that wouldn't work, but for me it's just a deep discomfort and though I loathed it I could just about deal with it, so I kind of scraped through (I left journalism before my 30s and never had that issue again).   

After the first edition deadline passed I used to go to a little sort of private place outside the building and stand in the dark night air breathing deeply for 20 minutes to get my head back.   

Yes!  Me too!  Not all the time now, but when I was at school I always stopped when everyone else had finished eating.

jellyrabbit said:

I would only eat while others were eating,

I used to feel like this when I was hell bent on restricting my food to control some aspect of my life.  It was difficult eating in front of others as I hated the whole thing.  The noise of other people eating, the fact I didn't want to eat but felt forced to and the fact that I felt people were looking at me and perhaps picking up on the fact that I didn't want to eat....

I have gotten better at this but today when it's just me, I have barely eaten because I have no motivation to other than my stomach telling me it needs food.  I need to do a food shop but haven't gotten dressed today and the thought of having to deal with the sensory overload of the supermarket is more than I can deal with.  I know I will have to go tomorrow as my daughter will be back so I will need to buy things for her lunches etc. Hopefully I will feel more motivated tomorrow after a hibernating bear day.....

Interesting! From the replies I am gathering that it seems to be quite common in autistic people, so I definitely feel a bit less alone about it now. 

I completely forgot how much I also hated eating lunch at school. I would only eat while others were eating, even if I didn't get the chance to finish my lunch. This is still often the case when I go out to eat with family, I cannot be the last one still eating! 

This theory makes sense actually. I do find that often small things I'm worried about doing around people are things I haven't been taught do to, but I'd never considered that it's the sort of thing neurotypical people just sort of... figure out? I have always had to follow steps to carry out tasks as closely as I can, so in a way not being given those steps makes me feel as though I'm doing something the 'wrong way'. I think until now part of me just assumed that other people have been taught to do these things and I somehow missed out on the lesson. Thank you for the insight!

It's always comforting to hear people are experiencing similar things, and to be able to put a possible reason to your experiences. I'm glad this post might have made you feel a little bit less alone, and thank you for making me feel that way too

Driving is a big issue for me too, I can do it when it's necessary but I try to avoid it where I can (especially driving to new places, eek) but the feeling of everyone watching what I'm doing and the possibility of a very serious mistake make it very difficult. Phone calls are hard as well, especially because I find myself not knowing what to say and when. I tend to script things where I can, and find it very uncomfortable when I feel as though someone can overhear me talking  

I really appreciate your advice here, and will definitely try to take some of it on board. I'm glad you pointed out that it's okay to take things at my own pace, too, because I often feel like I'm being pushed to do these things before I feel like I can. Thank you very much! 

I have this, too.  Used to hate using the phone at work if there was anyone around, and even now I’ll go into a different room if I have to ring for a doctor’s appointment or order takeaway.  

I remember someone commenting once, when I was eating my lunch at work, that I looked as though I didn’t want anyone to see me - and they were right!

Could probably come up with more examples if I thought about it…so, yes, I definitely relate to your post.

I think that it is autism-related. I have it too, I get very nervous when being watched when doing anything intricately difficult, or that has the possibility of going very visibly wrong - like carrying a tray full of drinks in a crowded cafeteria. It made my job quite challenging, as I often had to teach PhD students by example how to carry out very complex and demanding experimental methods, involving expensive and delicate equipment or hazardous material.

I suspect that it is rooted in autistic difficulties in communication. We often do not know when we are doing things in the 'correct way', and are often corrected by neurotypicals when they have not fully explained things to us - they expect us to know things subconsciously, like they do. This creates an expectation in ourselves that we might be incorrect even when we are entirely correct. This then causes a loop of reinforcement that makes us apprehensive of  anything we do that is overlooked by others.

jellyrabbit said:

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.

Hi JR,

I am glad you posted this.  I feel like this in certain places and in specific situations but always thought it was me being paranoid.  I don't like others hearing me in the toilet as I get embarrassed so will never use public toilets and because I don't know what they have been cleaned with (I have chemical allergies) plus the unbearable smell factor.

I also didn't like it when starting a new job and having people standing over me watching how I was learning something.  I am similar with studying because I don't want others to copy me because they used to at school.  I also like the space to concentrate without others distracting me.

I used to feel embarrassed when I had a boyfriend when I was in my 20s as I thought others would "know" if we had been intimate together which I found really awful at the time.  I know this isn't the case but it's interesting to look back and see that I used to think this way.

I think it's mean that others told you were doing stuff "the wrong" way but that could be due to them not being insightful enough to realise they are being tactless....  I've worked out that I have a lot of self awareness of how I come across to others because my GP told me that not many people have this....

Thanks for being brave and sharing this.

H.

Yes!  I have had this throughout my life and, especially in my teens and early 20s, it prevented me from doing a lot of stuff that I otherwise might have enjoyed or taken up to enrich my life or earn a living.  

Examples- In my teens I found it VERY hard to ask for things in shops, almost as if the very asking would detonate something in the vicinity and the whole situation would explode.  In my first office jobs I was terrified of using the phone in front of others so had to wait until they went to the loo, took a tea break or were so obviously engrossed in their own conversations that no attention could come my way.  It was also a major impediment to learning to drive - I understood what to do but doing it in a large metal box in front of onlookers made me feel excruciatingly conspicuous and my anxiety went off the scale!

What helped? :-

- Understanding how this whole thing began, how some very negative automatic thoughts became established and how they kept going.  Yes, I kind of CBTed myself to take the heat out of some of those thoughts and did some reality checking to defuse the situations that were most challenging.  I found that a LOT of this had been installed at school (often by bullies but also by the whole marks-out-of-ten performance ratings and constant evaluation which are endemic within our education system) then compounded by, for example, aggressive drivers, rudeness and swearing from people in the (very rough) area in which I grew up, and no recognition of my difficulties because at that time I had no idea about autism and neither did the people around me.  So I developed some better "self talk" to take me away, bit by bit, from those negative messages.

- lots and lots of practice.  Basically graded exposure but at my own pace and working on my own choice of activity, without any external expectations from, say, an employer, a parent or other onlooker.  I wouldn't general recommend formal exposure therapy because any non autistic practitioner is unlikely to have the true empathy and experience to understand the extremity of the feelings (and I wish I hadn't taken the early advice to "seek help" in that way) and it also, in effect, introduces another person with another set of eyes and expectations.  But going at your own pace and focussing on what you can manage might help.

- increased self knowledge, including my eventual autism diagnosis, which basically made me more aware of my hypersensitivity and which felt like an extension of the eye contact thing.  Things were all too intense for me, I could not hold the gaze of others for long and, in addition to the negative judgements I added were coming from others, being the subject of any attention just felt too uncomfortable.  This meant that I could make adjustments, pace myself, and limit any "limelight" to what was essential.  

- understanding that I didn't start out that way. It all started when I went to school and others' neuronormative standards were foisted upon me at every turn.  It wasn't my fault and it wasn't at all surprising that I ended up feeling the way I did. So this took away my sense of shame and feeling somehow blameworthy, freeing up more mental space to deal with the problem in hand.

Overall, given the background to this, I'm left wanting to reverse the question, throw it back out there and ask, "Given the ways in which people behave, especially within groups, how come more people don't feel this way?". Because I was surely not picking up on something that wasn't there.  It very much was!

I personally didn't really do those things. I was one of the children who didn't really care about what people thought and just got on with my day. I'm not on the spectrum but it could be due to the autism. My daughter does some of those things you pointed out. She won't shower when anyone is home, go to the toilet, tidy or get ready if anyone is upstairs. Certain things she can't do when people are around.