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Relief of being with my best friend

dunk-in-biscuit

Hi folks, I wonder if any of you feel similarly about yourself.

The full topic would read "being with my best friend or laothing going somewhere with me".

I've been thinking quite a lot about why I have built such a superb fake "me" for when I go to work or when I'm out shopping etc. I know it's fake because I have to get some "real me" time at the weekends to recover amd build up strength for the next week.

I also wait longingly for the whole year for the weeks holiday when I can go off with my best friend and do the sorts of things that I really enjoy. Would it surpise any of you if I said that it was a weeks holiday on my own in the wilds of Scotland. Because in the end my best friend is me. He's {that is I'm) the only person who really understands me or knows what I like and likes doing the same things. It's like having another person there to talk to or laugh and joke with. Like meeting up with a friend you haven't seen for ages (if I knew what that was like!).

But then to balance that there is that churning loathing dread of taking you with you when going to a social event. School BBQ, my sons birthday party, christmas at my wifes relatives. I just know I'm going to mess it up and ruin it because I will get stressed and agitated and hate being there. It's almost like having a corpse stuck to you. You would desparately like to tear it off and throw it away or get away from it. But you can't it's part of you.

So, best friend and worst nightmare. Tell anyone else that and they would think Schizophrenia split personallity or the like. I suspect though that most people on the spectrum experience this to some degree. Maybe it's normal for NT's too but they bury it and ignore it.

I'd appreciate some honest (and blunt) feedback. If it is not commonplace I may be well to bring it up with my therapist to check it out.

Appreciate you all.

Dunk

Parents

  • It's a real conflict.  You don't want to be totally alone as that would be lonely, being cut off for any length of time is unhealthy, but then when you are with people so many challenges and stresses are there.

    I feel stress at all the things NTs do that annoy me or upset me, but try not to show it.  But then that can have a counterproductive effect because then your stress levels rise and you can let it out in what seems a disproportionate way to others.  Then the judging starts.

    I don't like being totally alone, I want to be with one person who is on my wavelength.  Being around the multitudes that aren't, is exceptionally hard and exhausting.

    The mask is based on intellect and cognition and I think also which autistic subtype you are is relevant.  I am largely the passive subtype and was very much so as a child.  So I quietly people-watched and my level of intelligence enabled me to learn (without even realising I was doing it) what the normal way of being socially was.

    The trouble is, that this is an invisible disability and you feel the enormous unspoken pressure of others to be like them, and you pressure yourself to fit in with it too.

    That's why this is the wrong planet.  My husband said he does understand me, but he doesn't (he's just used to my reactions), because I told him he doesn't understand the why.

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  • It's a real conflict.  You don't want to be totally alone as that would be lonely, being cut off for any length of time is unhealthy, but then when you are with people so many challenges and stresses are there.

    I feel stress at all the things NTs do that annoy me or upset me, but try not to show it.  But then that can have a counterproductive effect because then your stress levels rise and you can let it out in what seems a disproportionate way to others.  Then the judging starts.

    I don't like being totally alone, I want to be with one person who is on my wavelength.  Being around the multitudes that aren't, is exceptionally hard and exhausting.

    The mask is based on intellect and cognition and I think also which autistic subtype you are is relevant.  I am largely the passive subtype and was very much so as a child.  So I quietly people-watched and my level of intelligence enabled me to learn (without even realising I was doing it) what the normal way of being socially was.

    The trouble is, that this is an invisible disability and you feel the enormous unspoken pressure of others to be like them, and you pressure yourself to fit in with it too.

    That's why this is the wrong planet.  My husband said he does understand me, but he doesn't (he's just used to my reactions), because I told him he doesn't understand the why.

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