I honestly don't know myself at all

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Hey everyone!

Over the last few seasons or so, I've kind of built up feelings that I've really lost faith in myself and find myself to be a complete derp whose incapable of doing anything because of the gift that makes me a good musician. I find it hard to relate to other people and how they feel despite having deep emotions myself, I find myself struggling with social skills on occasion and I keep showing symptoms of a compulsive liar because I'm scared of failing my own high expectations.

From a young age I've always struggled with fitting in because I was taken out of mainstream education until around the age of 8 because of the Autism and Aspergers levels I had. I'm just feeling generally really scared about everything. Yes, I know I need to get a grip but this is bothering me to death.

I think I've been through what you're talking about, including stupidly saying things that aren't true because I don't know what to say. You don't need to get a grip. You need to get some skills. It's tough but to get there you have to keep trying. You can read and practise on your own, you can get personal help, either or both, whatever works for you.

I've had a lot of confidence issues and depression in the past and i feel as a result of my talent in the arts, I've neglected myself personally. I find any situation that I'm not used to really awkward. For example the people on my course; a lot of them take drugs. I'm not into screwing my body up and my girlfriend at the time completely rejected me because I didn't want to go to a dodgy nightclub and score some speed with her and end up in a ditch the next morning.

I know I'm talented at what I do but I feel the personal cost is really starting to affect me. The social skills aren't bad, in fact they're quite good but I just suddenly feel so stupid and self conscious that I don't want to sleep. It's nearly 8am now.

Not wanting to take drugs doesn't make you stupid. Your girlfriend was the stupid one in that scenario. Personally, I would have dumped her straight away when I realised she was into that sort of thing. Most people with AS deal with confidence issues and depression at point, but then again, so do most people without it. I find it odd that you feel you've neglected yourself personally for the arts, because most people consider anything artist or creative to be personally rewarding and emotionally stimulating. When you say 'the arts', what arts are you referring to specifically?

But, I kind of agree with Ladarzak. You should try to oppose yourself to new situations. Not in new situations, you might go to prison. That's my attempt at a joke and it's about as good as they get, yet I cannot ever resist saying them. But it is slightly relevant, because what I mean is you should try your best to lighten up. Try to have a laugh, laughter is probably the best way to feel good about yourself. Better than any of those illegal drugs.

Josh:

I can relate to where you're coming from. One of the things that helped my self esteem was to minimize the amount of comparison I did between myself and others. Most of the time, I was comparing my weaknesses against others strengths. I had social problems as well as learning disabilities. I didn't find out I was also gifted in some areas until almost age 30. After quite a bit of ponder time, I've come to the following current conclusions:

1. If I compare my weaknesses against other people's strengths, I'm being unrealistic with myself.

2. If I compare my gifts against others, I set myself up for a hard kick to the privates from karma.

3. Everyone has a unique configuration, some of us are a little more unique than others, and unique doesn't mean: deficient, superior, stupid, ignorant, or undeserving.

If you can find a happy mix of celebrating your gifts, working on goals that may be in an area of weakness, and not beating yourself up if you stumble once in a while; you just might find you really enjoy your unique configuration.

Rock on, cause Joshs rule!
Josh

Oh we Josh's rule indeed!

The thing is that I always have problems with feeling acceptable for anything. Even the most slight occasion, I feel out of place instantly. I think the lying has probably spurred from that. How shall I go about sorting it?

Are you lying, or are you using a projection of yourself to appear more "normal" and that makes you feel dishonest? I'm not a natural at social encounters. I spend more time trying to figure out what I should be doing than most people. It's just not as natural for me. That's just how I am, and I stopped blaming myself for it. Some social occasions get even more complicated by sensory issues too. It's hard to be the life of the party if the party is at a bar and you can't hear what people are saying cause the environment is too loud.

I still use a projection or facade to fit in a bit (only a little bit, I don't project someone I'm not anymore). The normals do this too. People do it because they want to give others the best impression of themselves they can. It's what Cris Rock calls people's "representative". If a little too much of my oddness pops out and scares the normals, I chuckle now. That seems to make them more comfortable wit it too. If you're comfortable with yourself, others seem to be more comfortable with you; even if you're different. It's good to be able to laugh at yourself a bit, but not in a way that's putting yourself down.

I'd say it's a mixture of both. It happens on a daily basis though.

I don't even know if I am comfortable with myself or not, I'm usually a heap load better than this but it's when someone managed to pick out everything it really hurt me deep.

About a month ago, I was invited to a get together at the bar across from my work. It turned out that there was a huge social clique of people form my work that got together like this every Friday for the entire time I worked there (seven years). I wasn't aware of this cause I was busy gaming.

My first observation was that there were TONS of people from my work there that I never talked to before. They just weren't ever inside my bubble of people working close to me or for the same department, so I never really talked to them. I thought "wow, now I have two places to not talk to these people."

I found a few of the people I do talk to. One of them said "Josh, I just want to thank you... I mean... I'm not the most social person, but you make me look like a politician." So I thought "wow, you fn b**ch!"

I sit next to a group of 5 "post menopausal women" (their words) that tell me "Josh, you're so quiet" on a weekly basis or more. I've told two of them that I have AS, but they still make these comments. AS is just too dang complicated for most people to understand. They don't know their observations are about traits related to a disability. But... I know they aren't trying to be mean to me (they feed me too many tasty snacks for me to think they don't like me).

Some people will comment on things we have difficulty with, without understanding it's part of a disability. It just goes with the territory. We can't make everyone we will encounter understand, and we can't mask ourselves so much that they never notice. This odd situation means we need to let some of the things we hear "roll off our backs" and not take them personally. Taking it all personally would be unfair on both sides in many situations.