Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi community
Just wanted to put this out there really as it’s something that I really have to do to survive in this Nt world. I am self diagnosed atm but seeking assessment (my son’s therapist says I’m extremely high functioning). I’m sorry if that HF word offends anyone but I find it describes the way I am quite well and I’m not sure how to describe myself any other way. My number one purpose all through my life has been to make others happy and feel good about themselves, I can do this with most people but there are some that I can’t even bare to speak to. I can exaggerate to people if it keeps me out of trouble particularly with my partner as she has a fuse that’s about a millimetre long. I can also do this if it’s pleasing people or to make them feel better about something, I think I do this because I was always taught as a child that what other people think about you is so important. My wife’s reaction to some of the different ways I do things or things I forget can be way over the top, I seem to pick up on this energy before anything is even spoken about. So for that reason to avoid negative energy or to aid my masking I do exaggerate the truth to survive, I hate having to do it but I can. I feel really quite sad even saying this on here and can say that everything I have posted on here has always been the truth 100%. I feel terribly guilty for doing this but how do I stay undetected without it? How do I not get in trouble at home without it? Does anyone else do this to get by? This is just the latest thing I have been beating myself up about since the reality hitting me that I’m autistic. Yesterday was a good day and didn’t feel like giving myself too much of a hard time but this is what’s been going through my mind in the early hours of this morning.
Thank you for reading this post
This sounds kind of like fawning to me, which is less of lying but more of a survival tactic to avoid conflict. Im not an expert on fawning though so I could be wrong. I think it is more common in autism and c-ptsd.
Hey Frozen
Really interesting reading up on Fawning, never heard of this before but what it describes is exactly what I tend to do. The only thing I can’t relate to is that it says it normally stems from childhood trauma and repeated trauma at that (so not a single traumatic event) I was lucky to have a good childhood as in how my parents were with me. Everything else though fits perfectly with me and it seems to be with over empathetic people pleasers. It also says as a result you attract the wrong sort of person, usually someone who would target this kind of weakness. Quite scary stuff really
Fawning I think is ussually talked about with c-ptsd like what you said you found. I know a YTer made a video on fawning and autism, I havnet watched it yet but I think it was Orion Kelly who made it.
Thanks for that Frozen…. I’ll go check it out!