Cost of fitting in

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I have learned that to make others comfortable, and to survive in a neurotypical world, it seems to be important to minimize my intensity, to generally act calm, and to be supportive toward other people.

What is the experience other people have of the cost of learning to give people what they ask for along these lines?

There's very little cost if you know how.

For most of us we haven't known how and the methods we try are usually very costly.

I have had similar experiences as you. I am generally told by people close to me to "Calm down" when I'm really just talking normally about something. So I've been doing the same thing, toning myself down and acting "chill" which seems to come across better to people.

When I'm exhausted and can't focus this is hard to do... On my bad days I just close myself off to the world.

I did not know until very recently I had Asperger's so I always thought I was just weird as hell and that the way I acted naturally was wrong... over time I trained myself to be what I thought would make me seem normal. It was a long, terrible and crushing phase of self-denial - I really think it stopped me from growing as an individual (through that period of my life) and reaching anything near my potential.

I still hold on to many of these habits, they have made up most of my life so they are not easy to shake.

In recent years though, still before realising I has Asperger's I decided to make a kind of shift - I noticed trying to act the way I thought people wanted me to was incredibly taxing... and that for most people if I let the mask slip and acted the way I wanted to, it became strange and taxing for them... but whereas me restricting myself made me closed-in and miserable and restricted my creativity, me letting go and being weird seemed to open other people up, break through social pretense to a degree and inspire creative thought in them!

Even when it goes wrong and they just find it awkward and get tense, at least you can put that on them instead of on yourself. I don't mean that in a selfish way, giving many people each one passing awkward moment is less terrible overall than yourself enduring the tension in every social interaction.

After I realised this and embraced the weird, and feeling like an alien I began to make a joke of it - I would greet strangers by saying "greetings!" (in my mind it was more like greetings, earthling! ). And what I noticed was... if you start a conversation with a stranger (not something I often do mind you, but I experimented with it) by saying hi, the conversation would drift to the same boring topics I hated discussing. The weather, sports, people's job or school... small talk. But if I said "greetings stranger" it would almost disarm that reflex in them and we would go on to discuss our opinions on things or more abstract concepts and ideas more often.

What I'm trying to say here is, the cost of trying to meet people's expectations for me has been huge, and not a cost worth paying... and conversely the reward for choosing challenge those expectations has also been great in it's own way! Give people a fresh perspective! I do still try and tone myself down but I try and limit it as much as I can to just the things I should do to be courteous, I tend to have conversations that should be had quietly in an inappropriately loud voice and tap my feet and hands annoyingly as a stim, so I try to remember to be a little quieter when it's important and stim by rubbing my fingertips together or something less annoying to the average person when in public.

Embrace the weird! Many people find it quite refreshing!

I too ended up paying the price for trying to be someone I wasn't. What made matters worse for me was I never knew or would have ever thought that my inability to fit in was cause by autism. I assumed that the others felt the same pain fitting in like I felt trying to fit in myself and just like a hard physical labor job, once your body gets into shape, it becomes a lot easier to do. but for some (unknown)reason. It wasn't getting easier for me to fit in no matter how hard I worked at.

It costs more than I can pay.. True, it's like a hard work day in day out. It's not exactly the most enjoyable life.. You can endure it only for so long. I suppose that's the ultimate price.

Once you recognize self as dying or even dead from cost of fitting in, is it possible to survive the world's rage against difference by choosing not to, or is it too late?

I think it got tougher for me to get back my full weirdness the longer I waited but it's never too late to embrace who you are!

My belief is: One should embrace one's "autistic side," while adapting to the neurotypical world in a way which will enable this person to realize their potential to the fullest. The Spectrumite and the NT must meet halfway.

I am not 100% convinced that NTs have significantly less pain/suffering/stress/whatever in fitting in to the group.

I don't know any other people with autism in real life so I'll just compare myself to my impression of what it's like for NTs.

When NTs are in groups of friends they have known for a long time and fit in well with, I still see a lot of tension in them and in the social situation, still looking for each others' approval or acceptance on some level? It's like they want to make sure what they're doing is the correct social response... especially when it's something which relates to the social hierarchy of the group.

I do that same thing but I think about it a bit differently, the emphasis is on different aspects... I couldn't care less about the social hierarchy for example.

The thing I think differs a lot more is when I am going to see a group of people who I fit in with well enough, who know me and accept me... I freak out. A lot. Sometimes I try, I get most of the way to my destination and I just stop and turn around. I sometimes make extra sure they know when I will be there just so I can't back out. NTs don't seem to have anywhere near this degree of anxiety in the same situation from what I've seen?

Difference between social issues:

NT: striving to play the game

spectrumite: not knowing the rules of the game and/or having social needs that are not met by the prizes.