Normal

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How do you carry off the appearance of being normal?

I am still trying and am thinking about giving up. Normal is too hard.

I try hard to maintain a normal social appearance but does tires me out, the truth is I hate every second of it. I've only become accustomed to acting as normal as I can to hold down a job, but at home a lot of the repressed stuff really comes out. I don't have much of a social life and I don't mind that, having to be on my toes at work is hard enough. I like to avoid a lot of unnecessary social events/customs to lower my anxiety.

Personally I gave up on that notion several years ago because, no matter how hard I tried, I could never really be normal, so I decided I wanted to be around people who liked me for me and everything, or most everything, that entails. Besides, Normal is just a town in Oklahoma.

I first realized the concept of "normal" when I was diagnosed, though I felt "not being normal" in a way on some moments, but only by realizing, that I did not "hit" the "adult milestones" in education, work, responsability, having children etc, because of pressure from people around me and realizing it I also forget it very quickly, until I realize it at another moment again.
I do not know how to be "normal", though I know about the "adult milestones", but I do not know how to achieve it, because I should be very different from who I am and my psychologist tells me, that I have to accept that "being normal" like the majority of people (meaning being "not autistic") will never be a reality for me.

I dress normal but my walk and facial expressions are a giveaway. They are just things I can't fake.

Yes, never felt normal and would feel even funnier when i tried faking it.

And normal is perpendicular to tangent (for those in geometry.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_vYFehoVIM[/youtube]

Make 'em laugh. Nobody questions a good laugh or joker, no matter what may lie beneath it (the autistic truth).

I think I can pass as "normal" a lot of the time (as long as afterwards I can go home, be alone and rest/recharge). I can act fairly "normal" as long as I have sufficient energy to do so, and I'm not too stressed or overwhelmed.

I often wish I had more recognition from others for the enormous efforts I have made to, and how traumatizing it has been for me to force myself into the NT mold while growing up (and it still is stressful and taxing).

I often think if I had been diagnosed as a child (rather than as an adult) I would not have invested so much energy into acting "normal"; I would have had the vocabulary with which to defend my aspie-ness. I also think I would have melted down less often because I would have understood myself better, and would have known how to articulate my needs and how to avoid triggers.

Part of the reason for my addiction to acquiring information was the conviction that I could become more normal by having a sufficiently large amount of knowledge about the world. I get a sense of security from feeling like I know about a lot of things. It also helps me to have something to say in situations when I might otherwise not know what to say (I can resort to facts/analysis).

A big part of "acting normal" is also voice modulation. When I am in "acting NT" mode (eg. on the phone to clients or meeting new people) I put on more of the voice modulation that society expects females, in particular, to have. On the phone I can sometimes fool people - for short periods of time - into thinking I'm actually the bubbly, extrovert type.

Sometimes a guy has tried to pick me up while I was "acting NT" and I have felt like a bit of a fraud, lol.

Agree. Though I find it leads to very shallow relationships with people. I find when I am more myself I have an easier time around the person. I like being with them more. Though it is a balance. Obviously in some situations the more NT you are the better, however it is tiring.

I dont think it is about normal v give up, I think it is more about finding a balance where in some situations you are more of yourself than in other situations. I'm still trying to work this out at the moment.

When I am trying to be normal I just watch what others do and try and do what they do, when I am more myself I do what I would prefer, what I find easiest rather than what a NT would do. E.g. trying to be normal if I see someone I know I will greet them, not trying hard to be normal I will wait for them to greet me, being myself I will not greet them or return their greeting. People who dont know me well, I think I need to try and be normal around or else explain me a bit, people who know me better it gives me a bit more leeway to be myself (like I know that they wont read into me not greeting them properly or me not noticing thier body language, making eye contact etc)

I'm realizing that this is how I have always dealt with NT folks and there NT world...if I could entertain them, they would not notice my weirdness. However, when they did notice some weirdness, they tended to accepted it as "quirkiness" because I was so damn funny.

You'd be surprised how much of being funny can be learned. I mean, my timing sometimes sucks. I can't always get it right...but sometimes I do....and if you have enough "good timing moments" people tend to remember those moreso than the moments you joked inappropriately.

I honestly don't even know exactly how normal 22 year olds dress.......lol, though I imagine my style probably does not match up with it as I usually wear band t-shirts with comfortable pants(nothing too tight though on occasion I wear tightish pants). So basically I look like someone who listens to rock/metal.

There is no such thing as "normal" there is only a narrow set of accepted behaviours. The issue we have I think is knowing where the boundaries are of these accepted behaviours. Escpecially because they change all the time depending on the people you are with and/or the social event, situation, even time of day.

Normal is a setting on a washing machine. I've never tried to be anything or anyone different than what and who I am, nor do I ever intend to do so.

A lot of normal is geographic. Normal Army is not normal commune, normal church is not normal rave. Still, they all use the same road markings coming and going. All roads yield to oceans where stop signs do not apply. I don't drive so I chose my geography carefully.

My Dad said to me that no one is normal and that we are all different.

He also said that society is too quick to classify people under certain things.

Go to an aspie convention, only thing that has worked for me so far.