metalab wrote:
Does anyone run into this?
I am well positioned professional this makes it so I interact with lots of 'normal' people because of this. Some people from time to time make comments on the assumption they think I'm high. Other people have told me that some people think I am always high.
I act a little weird, I am a little spaced out. I am also one of the autistics whose pupils are always a bit dilated, my body movements look slightly unnatural. I'm always thinking weird thoughts and ideas. I also have a lazy eye, and can think extremely intensely, to the point where if I really think hard about something my external expressions shut off, my eyes go a little crossed as my mind drifts inward, all of which seems extremely weird to some people.
I think most people might think I am just weird rather than 'on drugs' if I was always like this. But I am also one of the autistics who has learned how to act very normal, I can pull it all together and present myself very socially fluently and properly, but it takes a lot of effort, which of course my energy runs out frequently to do that. At which point I drift back to my more natural, weird, autistic behavior and mannerisms, which people think I went off somewhere and hit a bong or something. Which really bothers me.
I go through periods of time of having to shut down. It's been particularly bad these past few months because I broke up with a girl I thought was really perfect for me. It left me really heart broken, unable to focus, or work more than 4-6 hours a day, I've also been needing to sleep more because of it, and having trouble going to sleep because of it, so I've been showing up late places a lot. Of course some people make comments they think I'm on some drug binge. It really bothers me. I hate pulling out the 'Im autistic' card especially in like professional work places and meetings, you can't just go around announcing it.
Sometimes I think my efforts to be more normalized are really a negative thing, because its made me capable of dealing with normal people, and surrounded me with more normal people in the professional world. But I am still 'off' a little bit, and naturally everyone in those environments is always looking for ways to get a leg up on someone so rather than really asking me and finding out about me, they just think he must be on drugs. It's really bothering me. Today someone said something that really pissed me off, it was a client with lots of money so you can't really say anything corrective back to them, I came back from lunch into a meeting, I guess I was particularly spaced out and odd and he just said "must of been a good lunch", in a condescending tone. Really irritated me.
Has anyone else death with this?
I'm sure you all know that typically society has a tendency to 'neurologically normalize' people, which is where the whole neuroracist thing comes from. People with clearly presented, and intensely obvious issues have somewhat been given permission around this, because everyone realizes they are a huge as*hole for poking at it. But if your not that intensely odd, but on the functional more mild sign of autism, people want to stick you somewhere they can look down on you and shame you into neurological conformity. One of the things society still permits this for is people who are supposedly 'on drugs'.
Essentially part of being mind blind and missing that key human component of communication that we lack where neurotypical people can unknowingly communicate without words or gestures.
They can sense something is different or rather lacking in your case. They can tell something is off but they can't tell what it is. Non verbal communication is like breathing to them they don't have to think about it to do it so it's hard for them to narrow down what is wrong with you.
The way I've coped is I have learned to pretend sometimes without much effort in appearing to fit in so sometimes you can appear to be, normal. Try some acting classes.
Though eventually anyone who gets close to you will eventually figure out something is different about it. You can act all you want but eventually people will pick up the signs something is different about you
28 Jan 2014, 10:06 am
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