Why do I feel the need to be an open book?

Post Reply New Topic

I HATE when I do this! It's like a movie and I am watching myself just chat and chat and chat with no censor button. Just telling my whole life story to whomever. The funny thing is I get soo annoyed when anyone else does that to me.

Unfortunately, I have no censor button at all.

you are very insightful!

Some people with ASD over-reveal because of Theory of Mind deficits. The Autist does not always understand what the other minds know and even where the boundaries between mind are situated and how they function. If you haven't studied T of M, you should because we tend to make many assumptions about these issues.

Some people with ASD simply don't understand the social expectations and 'rules' of how much information is too much to reveal. Study what NT's disclose about their own lives and this will help you.

Some Autists have not developed healthy boundaries because they were abused. Abuse causes significant distortions in this area in all victims, especially if the abused occurred during childhood development.

As you can see, many of us are challenged by this issue.

Yes, in my case I attribute it to childhood abuse coupled with lack of ToM.

The two issues combine together to create exceedingly difficult challenges.

Be well.

Tell me about it.

I am most definitely an over-sharer. I hate being this way.

How I wish that I could share everything, I hate haveing to tiptoe around everyone for fear of saying the wrong thing and oh my f-ing god its the end of the world because I said the wrong thing, I like being honest, why should I fear being open and honest, but look out if you say the wrong thing to someone.

You feel the need to be an open book because that's your natural way of being.

Hiding facts/censoring yourself is basically a coping mechanism in our case, so it takes extra energy and is less comfortable. We were born to be open and honest because truth typically is more important for autistics than social demands. That's a part of the reason why being social can be so difficult for an autistic. We have to, among other things, consciously censor ourselves.

Everybody prefers to just be their true selves.

I tend to be an "open book" because I am blatantly honest. If asked, I answer. If i am interested in something, I just talk about it, etc. But I do not feel a NEED, to just blurt my entire life to anyone i come across, I am shy. Though I think I bombard people with my art pictures http://tempertempest.deviantart.com/art/Iris-385143524 see there I go linking!

so many things I wanted to quote and agree with in this thread! I don't know if I have AS, I only found this site a few days ago, but so many things are making sense to me now. I am a total over sharer. Its how I make friends so easily, the little old lady that starts talking to me on the bus knows my life story by the end of the journey. I have always thought it a good thing as I find out about social etiquette and often feel validated when someone agrees with me or tells me that the same thing has happened to them. The down side is that often things are used against me, or people will accuse me of being inappropriate if I tell them about how I have been treated by someone. They think I am gossiping, but most of the time I feel confused by how someone has treated me and so I need to discuss it with someone so that I can understand why they did it. When someone hurts me by using things against me I then stop sharing and this is also seen as bad. I often stop sharing with people mid way through a relationship as I start to worry that I've said too much as I honestly don't know when to stop and I can't always tell how they are feeling. I can get 6 months into a relationship and still have no idea if they like me, but conversely if they make it really obvious (i.e. one boyfriend tagging me in several statuses a day as his beautiful girlfriend) I freak out that they are getting too close to me and worry about what I've said to them and end it.
I can also relate to the feeling that I'm not going to say anything to someone, I plan the conversation out in my head where I am holding information back, but then as soon as the conversation starts I just can't stop myself from saying it...

I was just going to write about theory of mind, but your message is better; How articulate some people are here really amazes me.


I have this over sharing to an extreme degree, but in recent years have learned to temper and harness it a bit. People always commented on this quality of openness in me and were amazed by it. I knew something was going on with me but didn't really understand what they were talking about. A big breakthrough was when I started lying to my customers about the price of my craft products (but never about the quality).. The way people mark their prices up as they know they are going to get bargained down I could never do, and still cannot, but now I tell people everything is five dollars off today (or as many dollars as I feel like making up) when in actuality it is five dollars off everyday. This works really well:-) I do not feel guilty about it as this kind of tactic is kind of common and built into the economy.

Anyway, basically every person I meet, which is very many everyday, I feel like I have known all my life. I LOVE them, ha ha, and it is very thrilling and enjoyable, which is why I love to ride the bus. In the past I also used to hate some people, and build up bad karmic energy with them, but that is almost all gone...I had to do extensive work and suffering in order to reach this stage. Also, some things I will never tell people in terms of ideas involving human spirituality and brain transformation if I feel it is not their level of understanding, as if you tell them it takes away their opportunity to process data actively and discover for themselves. And for this reason I make it a general principle never to interpret allegory. It is on a personal level the theory of mind breaks down. I suppose it could also be a form of narcissism to share personal stuff with people. It is a form of impinging on their own individuality and autonomy. In this sense one needs to consciously work on that, and doing so will help one develop ones own individuality. Then sharing information can be a form of playing music, You can bring other people out of their shells by doing it.

I must add that in terms of lying to save my skin...never had a problem with that, and I do not think most people do, but in terms of lying to build myself up in the eyes of other people---never could do that and never have even once, though a few times I have been tempted. BUT in terms of subtle psychological lying to myself about myself, that is something else entirely. Most people do a lot of that including me, but, of course, are not consciously aware of it, as if so, then the lying wouldn't work.

In terms of a psychological way of looking at human behavior which is called object relations theory, there is also another possible explanation for this kind of naive theory of mind which is that a person is fixated at a certain stage of development where he has not completely learned to integrate both good and bad aspects of the external world into himself, so in this sense this extremely open and honest quality is a form of immaturity. This is not to imply that a person should not consciously cultivate such a wonderful quality, but that it is possible for it to be a buffer and so keep a person from developing to full mental maturity.

Me. I have the ability to remove myself entirely from events that have scarred me deeply and talk about them like I'm telling them about my pet hamster. These people would normally be anyone who is interested.
However, I almost never expose my mind to anyone. That is just too private for anyone to know about and I really don't think it would be an enlightening, positive experience for the viewer. I'm not a psychopath or anything, but honestly, I wouldn't show that part of me to people I know in real life. Plus I do not know how to describe feelings well.

My biology teacher said a couple of days ago:"Jamie, you do indeed possess a strange mind..."

I don't know what to say and what to hold back, don't hold back from saying a lot of things that society expects me to be ashamed of, and forget who I told what to a lot so it's better to tell everyone the same thing.

It's not really that I like to be an "open book", it's just that I can't understand the difference between things that I should keep private and things that I could say to people.

I was often told by people that I say things that I should keep private, and that I don't say things I should say.

When I was a kid I was a lot worse; like, in elementary and middle school I said a lot of things that now, looking back, I understand that I shouldn't have said, and that maybe were the cause of others laughing at me.

I also tend to say everything that comes to my mind first. I was often told not to do it, but I can't control it.