Do you feel only YOU understand yourself?

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zeldapsychology
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08 Nov 2009, 5:53 pm

I'm coming to the conclusion the only one that understands my life and what I've been through or am going through is ME! and ONLY ME! Does anyone feel this way? Sadly lately I've been MELTDOWN CENTRAL where you have to be VERY cautious of what/how you say something to me or I'll be in tears can anyone relate to this? Thanks. :-)



sgrannel
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08 Nov 2009, 6:25 pm

I had a day-long meltdown when I reached this realization, too. I was a bit younger then than you are now when that happened.


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zeldapsychology
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08 Nov 2009, 6:27 pm

Thanks. :-)



Willard
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08 Nov 2009, 8:05 pm

I feel isolated inside my own head. My body can interact with the human world, and I can speak to them, but its an inadequate form of communication. They don't have words for much of what I experience, so they can't understand. Even the things I can explain using words they do have, don't fully communicate my experiences.

I stopped trying to communicate emotionally with humans ages ago. They misinterpret, they judge, they get generally ugly if the truth is other than what they want it to be.

Best to say nothing that might disappoint or confuse them, and speak of innocuous things, like television or the weather.

That's why it gets so lonely here. Its how you know you're a changeling on the Wrong Planet.

'Alone in a crowd'...what other life is there?



Shebakoby
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08 Nov 2009, 8:18 pm

back when I was a kid I was positive NOBODY 'got' me. I mean sure, there were people who were friends with me, but they didn't completely 'get' me.

Nowadays it's not so bad...with internets, there are a couple people from far away that so far, seem to understand me quite well.



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08 Nov 2009, 8:37 pm

I do believe in my case that only I understand myself. But since my diagnosis of AS (exactly one year ago today), I have come to believe that we with AS/autism have the potential to understand each other a little better than NTs understand us. But, we are definitely different thinking individuals. I believe that autism is considered as a mystery to the world. There are many researchers and lay people alike that would love to know what goes on inside our heads. I enjoy being a part of this mystery. "You've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism."


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TuDoDude
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08 Nov 2009, 9:26 pm

I don't understand myself for the most part. However, I am as close as it gets to understanding me.

zeldapsychology wrote:
I'm coming to the conclusion the only one that understands my life and what I've been through or am going through is ME! and ONLY ME! Does anyone feel this way? Sadly lately I've been MELTDOWN CENTRAL where you have to be VERY cautious of what/how you say something to me or I'll be in tears can anyone relate to this? Thanks. :-)


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Booyakasha
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08 Nov 2009, 9:37 pm

Willard wrote:
I stopped trying to communicate emotionally with humans ages ago. They misinterpret, they judge, they get generally ugly if the truth is other than what they want it to be.

Best to say nothing that might disappoint or confuse them, and speak of innocuous things, like television or the weather.


I have given up as well. Even across the cyber space, on some other forums - people stay around for a while and then suddenly disappear for reasons only known to them. Whatever I might say that I truly feel I know it will only alienate me even further, so why bother? I'm fine on my own - no need for any kind of emotionally draining relationships that inevitably end up badly because I know I will screw up at some point and they will look at me as if I'm from another galaxy yet one more time.



Blindspot149
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08 Nov 2009, 11:41 pm

I definitely do NOT understand myself.........yet but I know I am getting there.

I am recognising things almost every day about me and my behaviour, current and historical, that are glaringly obvious but which I am seeing for only the first time.

My wife knows me very well and since my AS discovery, and me getting to know me, our relationship has moved up to a new level.

If I understand anything about AS (and me), it is that my life to date, personal, professional and financial is an absolute miracle of success.


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DarrylZero
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08 Nov 2009, 11:44 pm

TuDoDude wrote:
I don't understand myself for the most part.


This.

However, I will say that I have one friend, and she seems to get me better than anyone else does (or has).



Blindspot149
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08 Nov 2009, 11:59 pm

zeldapsychology wrote:
I'm coming to the conclusion the only one that understands my life and what I've been through or am going through is ME! and ONLY ME! Does anyone feel this way? Sadly lately I've been MELTDOWN CENTRAL where you have to be VERY cautious of what/how you say something to me or I'll be in tears can anyone relate to this? Thanks. :-)



Hello Zeldapsychology,

I just responded to the thread question but I didn't respond to the remainder of your post.

I can relate to you quite powerfully at the moment.


I have been crying regularly for the last 2 months and sobbing for the last week or so for two reasons.

One of my children has been diagnosed with quite a severe learning disability. While she has never been a high flyer at school, the report from her recent academic evaluation was quite a surpise/shock.

I think that it has taken some time for the full significance of this to sink in and a recent meeting at the school was.............unhelpful.

Coupled with this, my very recent discovery of AS has been a roller coaster of emotions;

Intially happiness that the riddle of my life had finally been answered and the fact that I finally 'belong' somewhere.

Then probably a sense of pride.........

This was followed by confusion at the lost years.............

I then rationalised all of this by looking at my achievements DESPITE (undiagnosed) AS

This resulted in HOPE and faith that the best of my life is yet to come..............

Then comes an absolute avalanche of grief and saddness, for the little boy who had to battle in a world that he never understood.

Enter the crying................................

and then.......................gratitude, that I am here at all and that I now have an opportunity to live a life that has meaning and a life worth living.


I hear you :)


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TheDoctor82
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09 Nov 2009, 12:45 am

yeah, pretty much



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09 Nov 2009, 1:03 am

I think I am the only one to understand myself mainly because I have never let anyone else close enough to understand/know me. Everything I do or say is measured based on the company I am with. I can't expect people to understand me when I hide who I am. WP is the place in which I am most exposed (as exposed as you can be in the anonymity of the internet) because I connect so much with the thoughts/feelings expressed here.


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ToughDiamond
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09 Nov 2009, 9:57 am

Generally, yes I'm the only one who understands myself, and even I find myself rather a mystery a lot of the time. I think other people understand some things about me....maybe sometimes they even understand things about me that I don't know about myself. If you mean do people understand what I say to them, generally I suppose they do, but these days I limit what I say a lot so I can focus on making sure that what I say is clearer....I feel a lot gets left unsaid because I don't have the skills to communicate it all properly. That's with the spoken word - writing seems to go a lot better for me.

It was better when I was hanging around with lots of alternativists and we all seemed to have similar aspirations - push for a shift in governance to the Left, and try to set up a living environment as independent from straight society as possible, and to try to run it on left-wing community principles. With so many like minds around, I felt included and better understood than I've ever been before or since.

The Aspie thing we have on WP is the nearest I've got to that feeling since those times. It seems that here we try to understand each other more often than most places do.

I have a lot of trouble getting sense out of people, I'm reluctant to ask them to repeat or clarify what they're telling me, in case I try their patience, so I often just try to stay under their radar and let them assume I know what they're talking about....I can usually guess my way through what they might have meant. But I'm mindful of the large degree of uncertainty in my understanding of people. And even if they've been clear, how do I know whether they've been accurate or not? Other minds are very much black boxes to me, and I tend to think that my mind is also a black box to others.



b9
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09 Nov 2009, 10:39 am

Quote:
Do you feel only YOU understand yourself?


no.
even I do not understand myself.

i do not need to understand myself.
i always wake up the same way every day and do the same things, and i do it all with no "understanding" of myself, so i find i do not need to understand "me" because i am as i am whether i understand it or not.

i do not much care about understanding where i am "coming from", or why i say what i say, or think what i think.
i just do what i do from simply reasoned impulse and it is inevitable that i do so.
i need not chaperone the matter with any agonizing as to why.


there are so many things that happen in the universe that i am not aware of, and could not fathom if i was made aware, and they all happen exactly true even though i never knew.

i do not need to scrutinize myself because i will be me even if i do not know it.



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09 Nov 2009, 12:09 pm

I don't understand myself either. I'm sure nobody understands me. And I'm thinking most people don't understand themselves either.