People seem to cough around me..

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I can blend in with strangers and they aren't bothered by my presence.

It may happen if you're inherently weaker than them, and this may be the whole point: "weakling detected---weed them out". Natural selection.

Not necessarily. Not everyone who coughs is sick.

That's why you'd better recognize the signs in the first place. It isn't easy for everyone. Especially to recognize them in time, before they've escalated horribly and you've already gotten in real trouble.



I don't think of anybody as unworthy, because I wouldn't dare to call them that to their faces. So the right conclusion is that I am the one unworthy of their company. They are tough and can live just fine in their environment, whereas I'd last very little in one piece among them.

Are you OK? You seem to have serious self esteem issues.

Good for you. Really. I used to be like that until I was about 24 years old.

No I don't think so. As I said I suffer from this, too. But I found out, that it doesn't have to be negative against you. In my case, it's me who can't stop thinking about the people around him. I'm very uncomfortable in that situation and so I can't blend in. I feel nervous and these feelings can be detected by "normal persons". They mirror the awkardness and the coughing is an automatic reaction of irritation.
it seems to be hostile, and SOME are really hostile, but you can't generalize that. I had several occasions where I looked for eye contact after someone coughed and they seemed to look neutral or even smiled at me. It's just that I can't hide my fear in public.

Well, as hard as it may be, hiding your fear is a crucial survival skill. Signs of fear are the first thing predators look for to decide when and whom to attack, and human predators are no exception.

Of course, it's important to be actually able to defend yourself in case they challenge you anyway, but you'll never be ready for everything.

I can't agree on that. Everytime I looked at someone who coughed in my presence, I didn't get attacks or worse coughs. Most of the time those people seemed like they didn't care or in some cases, they even reacted positive to me. It was when I dug deeper into my isolation and my body tightened even more, that the situation got worse. So I'm looking for a way to relax in that situation, not get into a ready-to-fight position.
But I respect your opinion.

Yup, I've noticed the exact same thing. Literally everyone else on a bus or in a room will be quiet except for the person next to me who will be coughing. Once I got up and walked past a guy at work and he suddenly started coughing. A woman next to him says, "Oh no, Kyle's getting sick too." I guess he just started coughing when I was near him. I know it sounds crazy but I'm extremely sensitive to these things, not hallucinating them.

As for your friends scratching your nose, I've observed similar things too. People who sit across from me will fidget nonstop. It's almost as if they are nervous around me. All I have to do is look around and notice that no one else is constantly touching their face or scratching their nose except for the person near me. The craziest example of it was at work when a guy who sat across from turned his head from side to side for hours. It's VERY distracting and unnerving!

I actually mentioned this to a counselor about a year ago. I tried to explain how people cough or fidget around me. She laughed at me. She was an awful counselor. A lot of time has passed since I first mentioned it to her, and I still strongly believe that people near me just act weird. I agree with what you said in an earlier post that something about us is unusual and they're reacting to it. I have made a post about how I think facial expression could be the reason. But you know, it might be the way we move or talk as well. Whatever it is, it is very subtle and something that I can't detect but NTs can.

That is one of the worst aspects of it - not to be taken seriously by professionals who should help us instead. I was in therapy for over a year and it was helpful in some areas, but whenever I tried to talk about the coughing issue, the therapist said something like "Stop. This is paranoid. If you want to continue therapy, then accept that this can't be real." It was awful. The truth is simple statistics: Get on a train with me and count the coughing from people in my surrounding versus people without eye contact to me. Repeat this until you have enough data to prove a point.

I'm absolutely with you: talking, moving or facial expressions: any of those things could be a part of the mechanism. And it IS subtle and I can't detect it either - otherwise I would stop doing what I do wrong obviously, because I don't like living in hell.

I'm really on the move with collecting data and since I have studied, I can present my findings in a scientific way. I will try to talk to professionals who are more open-minded in the future, even if it takes me a long time. But i can only work 2 hours on this per week, otherwise it takes away too much energy.
Hang in there.

Wow I'm shocked and relieved someone else has had similar experiences. After my counselor laughed at me, I never brought up the coughing thing again. She only got more dismissive about other things unfortunately.

I like to collect data too, and also refer to my observations as "data." It sounds like we are both very logical and scientific. I wouldn't be surprised if that has something to do with us noticing things (such as coughing and fidgeting) that would be better to not notice. That doesn't make us paranoid though.

It is very stressful, so I try to remind myself that this whole coughing thing is only aggravating not harmful. Their coughing doesn't really impact my life or health. I wish you luck with figuring out exactly what it is about us that makes them cough, fidget, etc. I want to figure it out too (it's part of my nature), but I've decided it would be in my best interest to focus on other things.

Don't know how common it is, but I can verify that this happens, because I have had acquaintances do this in my presence when someone who looks 'different' or who they don't like for some reason is approaching or has entered the room. I used to ask (fairly loudly) if they were catching a cold or needed water - or I might offer them a lozenge or a cough drop. That's when I'd get the odd looks or the eye rolling. They'd then let me know in a whispered aside about the 'weirdo' or whatever who had 'just shown up'. Then, it was my turn to roll the eyes. Especially because I was *also* a weirdo, just a lot better at hiding it than many others.

I'd have thought most people would grow out of this somewhere between grade school and middle school, but sadly, many of them don't.

Thank you!

That's really nice to hear - you have a similar approach. And again I have to agree - focussing on other things is very important, and I decided to do so, too. But since this gets into may way so often, it also feels empowering to me to be able to do something about this. In the past I have thought hour after hour what this means and how I could change it. This isn't helpful, on the contrary, it got worse that way. Right now, I'm only dealing with it indirectly - and I really think there should be some scientific recognition of our problem. Over the years i've read numerous stories similar to ours. I'm really upset that there is no research - because I'm sure it would lead up to strategies or trainings that could possibly lessen the effects.

I can understand that figuring it out would be empowering since you could change whatever it is that might be "wrong."

There's very little scientific research when it comes to these sorts of things because it is more subconscious than logical. Otherwise, we could just ask people "why did you cough at me?" I would be happy if someone just explained why they act weird around me. Unfortunately people are not self-aware of their actions or motivations because they are not based on logic. It might be possible for you to logically explain the coughing but it would take a great deal of effort. I'm not surprised that it got worse when you thought about it. The more I think about being anxious, the more anxious I look, and the weirder people act towards me. It's a vicious cycle.

Sorry I do not have Aspergers or Austism, but in searching for people suffering from the same thing Im suffering from I came upon this forum. I definitely relate to this post and to some other responses I read on here (including Doug). This is not paranoia and not people reacting to show you that they don't like you or think you're weird. I constantly have people rubbing their nose and sniffing when they are near me. There's actually a whole community of people who suffer from something similar and a lot of people don't know the cause. My first instinct (and still what I think it probably is) is odor related. I know Doug mentioned that he doesn't even want to make the link to odor but I'm not sure why. People who smell usually cannot smell themselves. I've had people who ive asked tell me that I dont smell (but TBH i think most people would lie to someone if asked that.. people in the community can attest to the fact that people lie to them to avoid hurting their feelings, including parents.. Not to say that you smell, just a FYI). Anyway if you look up TMAU and PATM you will find a lot of people who suffer from this (TMAU being odor related and PATM may not be odor related.. not totally sure). I even came upon a couple of videos showing peoples reactions to someone with a similar condition which I posted below. I think its probably similar to what you're experiencing (please let me know if it is). Also, if you don't think it is odor related, why do you think that? Please let me know and hopefully we can figure out what it is we are suffering from!

Being that Im a new user I cant post links but the reaction videos are on youtube. There are 2 videos, both named "TMAU PATM Body Odor" by user "smllultr"