Asserting yourself

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Does anyone here have trouble asserting themselves?

I try but either:

a) people over ride what I am saying and ignore me
b) they keep pushing and pushing until I run out of energy and give in
c) they label me as selfish because I won't do exactly what they want in the way that the want me to do it, even though I have clearly said that doing what they want me to do makes me unhappy.

Its often for this reason that I do not want to bring people into my life any more. I recently lost a number of online contacts because I was behind with my studies and wanted to catch up and they were pissed off that I didn't have the time to talk to them. Someone also told me to get lost because I would not have sex with them the moment they demanded it. I was in the middle of studying global warming but was not feeling hot enough myself to get it on at the time...my mind was on other things. I like sex, I do, but expecting me to perform on demand is just not sexy.

People seem to think socialising and making pointless chit chat is more important than learning fascinating information and education.

If that is the general attitude, how in the hell did anyone ever learn anything and how did society progress? Someone somewhere must have been learning otherwise we would still be living in the stone age with everyone just sat around nattering and shagging all day. God help the future of this planet and human society...it's all going to hell. And the human solution?

Socialise and make pointless chitty chat about nothing important at all and then have sex, breed like rabbits and over populate and pollute the planet with our garbage in the process. After all, actually wanting to use your brain cells to learn something is not normal and it must be avoided in favour of pointless social games. Oh and as you are female you are also expected to spend an excessive amount of time worrying about whether your hair is in the right place or you have broken a nail. Now now, all this wanting to learn about things is really not right for you. Your only purpose in life is to look pretty, smile, have sex and breed.

Yeah right! <<<<<that is me being as sarcastic as a person can possibly get...

I think you lost sight of the point you were trying to make there bumble

Anyway, to answer your question, no I have no problem asserting myself. It didn't used to be that way and up until some time around my thirties I suppose I was something of a walkover. Eventually I tired of being everyone's doormat and started looking after number one.

Yes I got side tracked by a pet peeve, which was kind of relevant as my assertiveness question was brought about my trying to assert my need to get on with my studies and failing to be able to get anyone to understand that I didn't want to go out and socialise right now, I wanted to carry on learning about global warming.

Species are becoming extinct due to human activity and all people think is important is making social chit chat?

How do you get people to listen to you and accept your decision when you assert yourself?

It has taken me awhile, but I've come to learn two things about social interaction myself: If you mesh with people, thereby developing general relationships, there is dynamic that demands you be there 24/7 for them and with them. Either you sell your soul and are 'absorbed,' or you don't. There can be no middle ground half way to this.

The crowd owns you and you are in, or you are out and tread solitaire.

I am beginning to think the same. The problem is that having to follow the crowd makes me absolutely miserable where as when I tread solitary I can get a little lonely at times but feel much more content, as I can do the things that really genuinely make me feel happy (ie studying, its all I think about at the moment I love it so much and it is so fascinating!). So when pushed to make a choice, I always choose solitude. People keep trying to force me to follow the crowd but all that results in is my fleeing from them.

I feel so unhappy when I am around people

I seek refuge in my studies these days. As I said in a blog post I made about them:

It is the passion that makes my heart beat
It is the joy that makes me feel alive
It is the first thing I think of when I wake in the morning
It is the last thing I think of before I go to sleep
It is the one thing in this world, that my soul wants to keep

It is the only time I really feel like myself. I am at my happiest when I am studying.

-----

It is the same for all of my interests. Previously it was sequin art for 2 years, cross stitching for 5 years, nutrition and mental health for about a year, jigsaw puzzles for 3 years, museums for several years, madonna for several years, archaeology was another for a while and so on, but now it is the Earth Sciences and Mathematics (particularly palaeontology and marine environments both modern day and prehistoric...but all areas of earth sciences hold some fascination for me)

Around people though I just don't fit and I feel miserable. I don't enjoy the same things as them, such as this constant need for making pointless chatter. I am expected to drop my hobby time in favour of this chatter and it upsets me greatly. Then I get majorly stressed out. When I try and tell people I am upset, they can't understand why I am upset and they invalidate my feelings by telling me I am being silly or selfish because I want to tinker with my hobbies and not socialise...at which point I always end up having a major meltdown Then I end up with a migraine, which I have now because I got mega upset and had an emotional overload because people were pushing me to socialise and I ended up having no choice but to delete them from my friends list.

I tried explaining and they just kept insisting I should socialise when I really wanted to study.

My head is now thumping...and I can't study.

It's partly my fault, I shouldn't get so upset and scream at myself until my brain hurts. I know this, but it's hard to stop when I am over loaded. Breathing it out does not work, actually that seems to make it worse!

Nobody understands. And they don't want to. And why should they?

I find it so hard to be assertive that I've found myself better off being non-verbally assertive, and it then makes me feel better about myself and reminds other people that I'm not as daft as I look.

By saying ''non-verbally assertive'' I mean I kind of try to give off a ''I am not going to let anybody s**t on me'' vibe in my intentions. Like when I was at my last voluntary job, I felt they started taking advantage of me by putting me on the till whenever it was convenient for them because they knew I wouldn't retaliate, even though they knew I disliked going on the till and would prefer to stay sorting out in the stock-room because that was what I was confident in doing. I wouldn't of minded them putting other people on the till and taking it all in turns, but just having one person go on the till for the duration and being lumbered with demanding customers (which is overwhelming for me) and not even getting a thank you when I came in extra to help out, isn't really fair. But they thought I was stupid enough to not think upon it like that, so I decided to up and leave and see how they liked it and see if it made them think ''oh maybe she did realise how unfair we were treating her... Maybe she ain't that stupid after all.'' And not sure if they did think that after I walked out, but I know it's made me feel a bit better.

Also, the other day the bus-driver was nasty to me, and because I have a fear of being told off by someone in authority, I always get emotional after the incident, so I went to a seat and had to hold back tears, otherwise I will look weak. Normally most people (including me) say ''thank you'' to the bus-driver after coming off, but I decided not to say thank you to this w*ker. I will just walk off and make him think how upset he made me. So I walked off without no eye-contact or any thank yous, and when the bus pulled off I saw him looking at me, probably thinking, ''I wish I hadn't upset her.'' Hopefully he was thinking that. If he wasn't, that means he is a grumpy git.

So usually being non-verbally assertive seems to work better with me.

That sounds to me like you already are asserting yourself.



For the most part I can't control whether or not other people will listen to me. If people attempt to talk over me I will carry on regardless until I have finished. Don't ever be submissive. But most importantly, what I have learned to do is not to feel guilty about my decisions; if other people don't like it that is their problem not mine.

Most of the time I can assert myself just fine, but that doesn't mean that other people are going to listen or understand or accept it. Sometimes I think they are just being intentionally dense to see if they can still get their way. I can't make them accept it. All I can do is state my case, and if they refuse to accept it I have no choice really but to part company with them. People who don't take no for an answer, are people I don't want in my life.

Explaining and trying to get other people to accept your choices is more likely to have the opposite effect. If you are trying to get them to listen, it actually comes across more like you are asking for their permission. They think you are still seeking their input, and the more information you give them about why you're doing what you're doing, the more they will try to counter it with their own reasoning. They view it like a negotiation.

The times I have trouble asserting myself, are when I don't even know exactly what it is I'm being asked to do. If people ask me outright "do you want to do xyx?" then I know what they are asking and I can say yes or no. But sometimes it is not stated that way, they just keep hinting around at things and I don't know what they want.

The other thing I have trouble with is ending conversations, especially on the phone. It's absolutely ridiculous how bad I am at it. It only becomes a problem when the other person likes to go on and on talking.

Just give them a flat "No" and hang up the phone/shut the door in their face/walk away. Ignore their whining about how selfish you are for not wanting to ruin your studies for their sake.

No offense but I'm starting to think autistics simply don't have the time for the "little people" of this world ' I've been lead to believe by Autism TV all autistics are college educated superior people you see.

You''ll have to lower yourself (fact of life) or clean toilets* if you can't handle the office politics (I can't) so that's what I'm going to do.

I can still go home at the end of the day and read a book I suppose.







* thanks to stupid NT's, (11 years on disability ) means that's a "practical reality" that is life I suppose.

Why not admit it the little people of this world are not worthy of your time, one of the reasons I am ignored around here which suits me just fine.

The human brain actually began to shrink when populations got denser, because you could rely on group work and didn't haveta use your noggin so much. The opposite is true for me. I feel like I'm always using my brain because in order to get anything done it's best I do it myself. No wonder I get mental burnout so easily.

I've always been assertive or avoidant. Lately I've decreased that but I'm kind of feeling because people just expect me to socialise whenever that the old very stubborn me is coming back.

It's not the fact that I don't want to socialise but that most of the people I meet I'm so different to and I want more time to work on my projects. I get support for my writing so I can just easily say 'If I was always socialising when would I have time to work on my novel?' Lately I've just been sitting there bored because I can't join in and just wanting to get away.

When I feel strongly enough something to be assertive about people tend to be afraid of me (in person at least).

It doesn't really click in my but apparently I shout and start to get physically violent if I'm pressured too much.

I'm having to try to be assertive these days, as I'm Mum to a girl with suspected Aspergers, who attends school. In order to get teachers to see your point of view, you have to push. But, I don't feel it's working out. At the last appointment I had at the school, I felt like the underdog, yet again. Additionally, they seem to be trying to make my daughter into a submissive type too. She's quite a confident character (like I was until I was about 7yrs) and I really hope she stays like that. She has an action plan with 6 targets (3 at home, 3 at school), most of which are quite good, like 'getting dressed within 10 mins'. But, the teachers have written down 'no tale telling'. My daughter doesn't tell tales and certainly doesn't lie. What she does do is tell the teachers when other kids are being particularly mean (just like some of them do when she says 'Hi' and they claim that she's annoying them). What they are wanting her to do is put up and shut up. I'm not sure how this will help her to become an assertive adult. At the next meeting, I'll need to conjure up some assertiveness in myself again, to let them know that I'm not happy about that target.