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Sense of Alienation

Ethan

So I think I already know the answer to this one, and I think I'm just throwing it out there so I probably don't feel it's just me sitting with it.

Newly diagnosed (under 6 Months). I get that there's that general sense of being separate from NT's, some days better than others. That moment when someone goes quiet or doesn't respond to what you've said (oops! was I offensive, did I say something "off", did they hear what I said) or when people get all excited about stuff and I don't but - has anyone had an overwhelmingly weird moment when in a group of NT's they're all connecting, or there's that easy free-flow conversation back and forth and you have a sense of detachment from it all, and I mean detached beyond that resigned "not being able to join in" or "I don't get this" - I'm thinking of the kind of detached that is an overwhelming sense of discomfort and disorientation when you realise you occupy and live in a completely different world?

Reality gets a little shaky and everything starts to feel a little bit too surreal.

I don't get this often, but I've had it. And I think I get this when I run out of road (should get a bonus point for using an idiom). When people behave or interact in places aren't my usual setting (i.e. work/lectures etc) they're a little bit more unpredicatable  and the group dynamics are different I put it down to being panicky when I realise I haven't got the mental map, or emotional understanding, to operate in the situation. 

It's a bit of a rubbish feeling and I was wondering what other's experiences are. 

Parents

  • I've had quite a few experiences similar. A few years ago I met up with a group of guys I grew up with and hadn't seen for years due being out of the area for for a long time. Quite a lot had happened to me personally or internally if you like, on my journey since seeing them last. I guess what struck me most was that nothing much had changed in them in all those years and was pretty much as if I'd never been away. I felt like I had been transported back in time to an earlier part of my life and despite some of the hardships I had been through in between times ( it wasn't all hardships ) I didn't want to be there anymore. It all felt meaningless and pointless. Although externally I may have appeared to fit right in again as if I'd never left, internally, I was no longer comfortable there. In fact, I was extremely uncomfortable and felt like an alien that had landed on a very lonely planet.

    So much so that I could feel something happening inside me. Something that appeared not pleasant, like a never-ending solitude, a loneliness, sorrow or something I didn't understand at that moment. When I went to the garden to sit alone for a few mins, I only heard the noise of their voices, talking over one another, different conversations going on between them at the same time. I don't know if it was anxiety that kicked in, in hindsight it probably was but along with other feelings I couldn't determine at the time, one of my old friends popped up - Escape, also known at times by his nickname - Shutdown. In that moment I got up and slowly walked out of the garden unnoticed and went home. 

    Looking back now, as I write this, I realise that it was the chaos of a big group of people, talking random rubbish mostly ( and drunk ) with no sense of purpose or meaning that had triggered all those feelings of alienation etc like a fish out of water for me. It also occurred to me that I had put myself through this unconsciously many many times in the past just to fit in and to have participated unknowingly in talking random rubbish myself.

    I now know that these feelings/emotions were not my enemies but rather my best friends that I never listened to or what they were trying to tell me. They were trying to protect me and tell me who I was not and they always have done. I just didn't listen.

  • in reply to Turtle
    Turtle said:
    Something that appeared not pleasant, like a never-ending solitude, a loneliness, sorrow or something I didn't understand at that moment.

    That's it. That's exactly it. Turtle, huge thanks for this - and for taking the time to write it in this way. On topics like this I connect with stories a lot better. I'm going to take this away and have some time to digest it. Thumbsup

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  • in reply to Turtle
    Turtle said:
    Something that appeared not pleasant, like a never-ending solitude, a loneliness, sorrow or something I didn't understand at that moment.

    That's it. That's exactly it. Turtle, huge thanks for this - and for taking the time to write it in this way. On topics like this I connect with stories a lot better. I'm going to take this away and have some time to digest it. Thumbsup

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