Autism & Being a “Private Person”

Post Reply New Topic

I am trying to figure out exactly why so many autistic people tend to keep their lives to themselves. I honestly don’t think the factor is introversion alone. I know this one non-autistic guy who is a “severe” or a “nuclear” introvert, as my other friend said, but he can be quite outgoing online, and has no problems with having his picture up anywhere on the Internet.

We have taken several photos with my autism support group, and when I asked if they wanted it on Facebook, many people flat out refused. One of my close AS friends is that way, and I asked him why, to which he said that employers look you up online and he does not want any problems to arise. He doesn’t even have his picture up on Facebook. I said, I don’t see what the problem would be if you had your Facebook profile on private and still had your picture up.

I’m the opposite of a private person, and here are the reasons why. I actually strongly believe that having positive information about myself up on Google and on Facebook would be beneficial for my future prospects. I once even minimized my profile privacy settings on Facebook because I feel a need to prove to everyone that I don’t do anything that would be seen as repulsive in secret. I also really like having as many pictures of myself with other people on Facebook as possible… again, to show everyone what people I hang out with, and what I’m really about. I often feel like people are not grasping my full intentions and are misinterpreting my words and actions, and I feel a strong need to minimize the occurrence of such situations.

I see much more advantages to privacy, compared to disadvantages. Aside from the things described above, I also believe that the more information I disclose about myself, the more feedback and guidance I will receive from others. I know that I often have difficulty knowing when I need to ask for help, so I see this as a much more productive route to take. The only thing I am semi-hidden about is my AS… but even that usually becomes transparent after a while.

However, I often worry that the ‘private type” people get scared of telling me personal things because they worry that I might accidentally disclose something about them which they would not want disclosed. But in order to become more restrained in spreading information, I think I need to understand the purpose of being private first.

What exactly are the advantages of being private? And why do people on the spectrum tend to be private so much more than non-autistics?

Alot wouldn't want feedback, many find feedback to be counter intuitive and counter productive.

Others are insecure, do not want people to look at their special interests because many would think it is strange possibly because of prior feedback.

Feedback could be misunderstood by aspies leading them to not want it, or they did understand it and simply didn't like it.

How much negative feedback do you get? (Just wondering)
Or feedback at all?

I'm extremely private and extremely territorial.

I think it's a control issue. When the external world is unpredictable chaos, I like to be able to at least control my private life.

I don't even like people knowing what's on my iPod.

I'm a really private person, and the reason is something like this..
If a question has a discrete answer, I know that 99.5% of the time my answer is correct. The NTs often don't know if the answer I've given is correct so they think they have the right to challenge my answer. That makes me tired and frustrated.
If a question is a directional either/or type question, then I'm happy to explore the pros and cons of either answer, but I dont tend to have a vested interest in the result. Most NTs seem to have a vested interest or a need to win. The result is I bend to whatever outcome they want, so it was a pointless exercise.
I don't enjoy arguing.
At school I was often the only one in class with my hand up to answer a question. The teacher would ignore me. I thought the teacher didnt like me. It would have been so much more helpfull if they explained that we were giving the slower kids a chance to think.

I can be very open with some people and very private with other people. The things that I talk about on WP, with my friends or at work, I might keep from my parents. I'm afraid to talk to my parents about my special interests, because they tried to raise my special interests and my autism out of me, when I was a kid. I just keep them to myself out of fear. I've been keeping feelings to myself out of fear.

I've posted things here that I never said to anyone ever.
But you guys don't know who I am and I never use my real name online. I don't really know why I don't like to share myself with other people. I just don't. I'd say part of it is fear of people judging things that I cherish. But I think I also would rather just keep people at a distance, as I also get uncomfortable if people seem too interested in me in a positive way. Revealing myself feels like rolling over and exposing my soft underbelly. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe regardless of how they seem towards me, I can't judge their true intentions.

The more people that have contact with me the more I have to interact. It is too exhausting. And I dislike shallow interactions. So I prefer to keep a low profile.

As an extremely private person (you won't find anything if you google my name), I find your perspective interesting.

I've never really seen my need of privacy as a deliberate decision, reached after weighting the pros and cons (except for the situations in which I decide to block information form someone I don't trust). It mostly stems from my personality and past experiences.

It's also about boundaries - I don't like any intrusion in my life and see myself and my husband as the only people who will have a say or make decisions regarding it. I'm not very interested in general feedback, as I prefer to ask only those whom opinion I value. The other advantages you mention do not apply to my situation.

What I like about being so private would be:
- no intrusion, people rarely pester me or volunteer unwanted advice
- no unwelcome interruptions, people dropping by unannounced or inviting themselves over - I won't even answer my door or phone if I'm busy/unavailable and I always plan seeing my friends in advance
- much lower incidence of drama, gossip, backstabbing etc
- I prefer a quiet life and the freedom to decide what I do and with whom, without feeling pressured to return a visit/service or do something just because others would disapprove if I don't

The only disadvantages I can think of are that some people think I'm cold and arrogant before they get to know me better and that the rather reclusive life style I enjoy is clearly not suited for everybody.

On the other hand, my perception of "private" is quite different form the norm at times - for instance, I'm slightly annoyed by the usual "getting to know each other questions" (where are you from, what do you do, are you married, do you have kids etc), but I don't mind being asked how old I am.

i dont have a common profile pic on fb because most of mine are not up to date and i think its boring, so i put up an avatar. most of it is i dont care if im a private person or not. i admit that i am, but to friends that shouldnt matter. i used to blog my heart out on myspace and a little on fb but i think and find most of my "friends" have never really cared enough to comment on them, so i stopped. plus i burned some bridges here and there with my outrageous posts, and plus blogging is stupid s**t anyways. also i guess its hard for me to let my guard down, so im a private introverted quiet weird person. whatever. twitter, texts, and fb have somehow made it the norm now to disclose everything and anything to any f*****g person even if you dont know the person or even met the person. so if im being judged upon by my online private life, i could care less. all i gotta do is throw some pics up of concerts and drunk parties and i think i will fit right in with the normal pics of fb. and i dont feel its necessary to prove myself about who i am in the online world. it is not worth my time to be out and about being tagged in photos and typing every damn detail moment of my everyday life. if people want to care, they will truly care. fb is the lazy cool way of caring about anyone these days.

I have been fairly private all my life. Until the past three years, I didn't even talk about my offline life online. I talked about whatever the topic was in whichever forum or blog or LJ community I was reading at the time, but my own life was always off-limits. Now I do talk about my real life, but even that's compartmentalized as I describe below - I talk about the parts of my life that are relevant to whatever community I'm reading at the time. There is some bleed through because I do not love dividing my life into pieces to fit everywhere I go, but sometimes there are simply conversations I do not wish to have when I am trying to resolve or understand relevant issues.

I did use my real name online for several years, but I stopped in an increasing number of places until I cut ties with nearly all of my old nicknames that are connected to my real name. Right now I try to compartmentalize my online interactions by sticking to using a single name in places where I want to connect what I do. Say my livejournal account and twitter account both have the same name.

As a teenager I hated having my picture taken. I was better with pictures for awhile afterward, and several years ago I really regretted the lack of good photographs and managed to get a handful I liked taken, but now I hate cameras again. I would not be okay, for example, with someone putting pictures of me on facebook, and I won't use pictures of my real face as avatars or icons anywhere.

So my overall privacy has varied, but in general I am fairly private about identifying details, and prefer, except with close friends, to keep many details to myself.