Thinking before speaking

Hey Sam

Dont feel so bad about who you are. I guess you need to find the right people that understand you and accept that part of you. From what I’ve read on here you are not alone on this subject.

Im afraid I can only partly relate to your situation, I only discovered I am Nd 6 or 7 months ago. I am trying to tackle years of masking which is a hard habit to break, maybe that is the reason why I don’t tend to offend others or maybe I just don’t. Who knows.

I can say the wrong thing quite often to people I know but I feel deserve it, if that makes sense? I feel that I’m conscious of what I’m about to say and try to keep it in but it ends up coming out anyway. Weather or not it’s meant my sometimes subdued voice can make it sound different than it’s intended. Anyway I’m going to stop talking now as I’m confusing myself.

Basically I feel misunderstood a lot of the time.

I do wish you all the best and please go easy on yourself.

Who knows I may be posting something similar on here in the future once I’ve unpicked my mask. 

SamMorrell1990 said:

or hurt myself somehow

We all know (to some extent) what you mean.  Accordingly, I think it is safe to speak for "us all" when I say that this is always a VERY VERY unhelpful mindset, and never a solution to explore !

SamMorrell1990 said:

apologise for my stupidity?  

Given the context of where we currently find ourselves (the NAS forum), I think it is reasonable to presume that you are not stupid, but merely different.  I REGULARLY apologise for my "difference" because I know it unsettles people - whilst I accept that this is deemed an 'unhelpful message to offer on behalf of the ND community"......I thankfully only need to answer for, and to, myself and my Guardians.  If I accidentally make someone jump....I apologise, because I'm English...even if it wasn't my "fault."

Dear Sam Morrell, I think you are at the start of a discombobulating journey.  Buckle up, friend.  Pushing people away is part of my default setting (or, to be fair, neglecting them to be more accurate)....but then I do that with MANY things.  The people who are important to me, know that.

Find your people.  It might mean a period of uncomfortable "whittling" - aka loss - whilst to get to "get yourself."

Good luck Sam.

Kind regards

Number.

It would help to know exactly what you have said when you spoke without thinking. However, apologising isn't always a good idea. From what I have read, an apology is used to heal the hurt feelings of another person (whether the person apologising actually feels sorry or not is irrelevant) but as you're autistic, you are unlikely to be able to read other people well enough to know if their feelings have been hurt. If they haven't, they are likely to have forgotten the incident and if you start apologising it may make you look "weird" to them.

I have sometimes said to someone at work  "I hope I didn't offend you yesterday when I said. . (whatever it was I said)" and they have replied "oh no, not at all" even though I had been worrying about it all night. 

Often we cannot understand why it feels like we are "pushing people away", because we do not understand what they expect from us, or why they accept some people into their circle of friends but not others.

NT individuals apparently judge others not just by what they say but also by facial expression and body language, so it's difficult to advise you. But what I have found with work colleagues is that once I stopped masking and copying and started to be my genuine self and not care what people thought of me, I seemed to become more accepted and have formed friendships. Perhaps it's because I feel more relaxed and they can read that in my body language - who knows?

I hope you find some strategies that help you.

As an undiagosed Autist (until I hit 60) I had exactly that problem. I partially but not fully solved it by a. learning as much as I could about what I should be saying, by observing others and trying to deconsruct what was really going on by leanring a bit of useful psycholgy.I read a lot of books that were informattive but not so helpful, but one in particualr and pushed by me relentlessly every chance I get is is :Games People Play by Eric Berne. GOOD psycholgy I find cuts across the neurodiversity divide and works for all of us.

Apologising unfortunately is seen by the normies as a weakness, and is largely ineffecttive unless the driving force in you is to signify that you've already made the changes and that you acknowledge your wrongness to be absolute. Since most of us don't really understand how we messed up in the first place, let alone having a strategy in place to prevent the error happeing again, you aint going to win people back with an apology.

People skills are pretty much an extension of driving skills, and there should be courses available for us to learn and improve them.

I have decent face to face people skills when I choose to use them, and it doesn't stop me being neurodiverse, it doesn't really ease the feeling of alienation, but it DOES make me quite popular when I need to be, especially when I simply forget I'm neuro diverse, and just remember to be me. It's a lot of effrot of course and the "mask" slips badly when I am tired or ill or overstressed.

JUSt remeber the NT's aren;t perfect either, outside of the social angle they are just as frigtened and insecure as you, (which is why they hide behind "games" and rituals). JUst becuse we are not innately wired up to play the same games and rituals "by instinct" does not mean we cannot learn enough to "get by" in their world. Ideally, whilst creating a littlle bit of our own world to retreat to when things get overwhelming.

It's never going to be perfect for us Autists, that's kinda the essential nature of the condition. But it can be "quite good", if we upskill enough to be useful and productive people.