DO people with ASD have poor self awareness?

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In relation to my other thread: Do people with ASD think slower than other people. I would like to know how terrible is your self awareness? Sometimes I don't know why but I always bump into door ways or other places like that. I would walk into a room not paying attention being in my own little world and suddenly bump into the side of the wall and I feel so stupid because of this. I also have poor coordination to like I always have to be reminded of the same thing over and over and I never learn from the mistakes that I made. People also would tell me to be quiet or something else and I would not listen and screw up and they would get really mad at me. I don't know how many times I have made so many people mad at me for doing something dumb or not paying attention. I would also would get distracted very easily to and I would not have the time to react and I would get hurt or worse. I would like to know do people with ASD or other problems have poor self awareness? I feel like I have this problem a lot and I want to know am I the only one like this in the situation?

i bump my arms on doorframes sometimes. or my shoulder. i stumble with while walking sometimes. it's not funny when i hit my funny bone.

I bump into things quite frequently, if there are things to bump into.

I thought this was the more abstract kind of self-awareness, and I was going to say that I had issues with that too.

For me, same problems as above, but also when I was growing up I always tried to get into candid photos people were taking because I had trouble imagining what I looked like or even if others saw me.

I bump into things all the time but I always blamed this on NVLD ( which I have along with AS) because I thought it had to do with my poor visual/spatial perception.

I thought of the abstract kind of self-awareness too...although I'm pretty good at that kind, I'm not necessarily aware of my body in relation to other objects, so I`m clumsy sometimes.

I've had problems with the more abstract kind of self-awareness, as well as body awareness, and body awareness seems to be what's being discussed here.

Based on my own experimentation, I mainly have issues because I don't ever seem to know precisely where my body is, unless I'm sitting down or applying pressure somewhere. That is to say, proprioception issues.

I lack any coordination, and have poor responses - it takes me longer to react to things, such as situations like when someone tells you to be quiet, asks you a question, and more physical things like putting your hand up to catch a ball. There is defiantly a bit of slowness with me.

I don't knock into things as much as I once did...although I do keep knocking into the latch on my bedroom door frame, which hurts like hell!

I have similar issues related to yours. I don't look at mine as being unaware so much as having clumsy motor skills which is linked to aspergers and autism. No matter how careful I am I end up falling or go off balance. At my job this was a constant problem and it worried people, this was way before I was diagnosed. I use to get bruised all the time. When I took up dancing I was very depressed about this problem no matter how much I practiced or tried to fix it.

As for self awareness in general, it's taken me years to find out how I come across to people both vocally, socially, and physically. Some of the things I've been able to changed and some of the things remain as they are. I use to walk with my head down and give little eye contact, I use to stem my legs and fingers in public not realizing how annoying it was to people, I had trouble with this social rule of smiling back at people or saying hello to be friendly. These small things that were brought up to me I now pay more attention to. I try to be more conscious when it involves body language and social interaction. But as I said, some things I just cannot train myself to do. I can't randomly make the first move when it comes to romantic interests nor read the between the lines, I still have trouble controlling the tone and frequency of my voice when I'm talking, I can't immediately pick up the unwritten social rules when it comes peers and people in different social settings. Even when I do pick up the social rules, it isn't easy for me to "fake it" so to speak.

I've been told I am very self aware.

Don't you mean spatial awareness? Yeah I got that too at times.

As for self awareness I have my interpretation of self and I'm not sure how accurate it is or how accurate outsiders are. But I do like my own interpretation of self. It seems accurate to me.

Spatial awareness, yeah. I wouldn't call this "self-awareness" because self-awareness mostly has to do with awareness of your mental self (personality, emotions, identity), not your physical self.

Anyway, yes, I do have issues with spatial awareness, so much so that I was not developmentally ready to learn to drive until my mid-twenties. One thing I credit with allowing me to learn enough to become a safe driver is actually playing computer games which involve spatial relationships, such as Tetris.

The mental self-awareness, I've never had issues with. I have always had a very strong identity and been quite aware of who I was and what I was feeling. This can however backfire, because it makes you vulnerable to anxiety disorders--knowing you are anxious makes you more anxious. Thankfully it is also a benefit when using cognitive therapy, because strong self-awareness means you are very aware of your thoughts and emotions and can consciously focus on and analyze them, which allows you to change them more easily. It also allows me to identify depression early. I have recurrent major depression, and my latest episode was much shorter than it would have been without my ability to identify red flags early on and seek treatment. It barely even got beyond the "mild" category before the antidepressant kicked in, and I really only lost about two weeks' worth of time to the usual "I can't get out of bed or concentrate or plan anything and I keep forgetting to eat and shower" depression symptoms. That was in February of this year--it's April now and I'm back in remission. I figure that when it comes back again (and this is the fifth time; by now I should know it's going to come back whether I like it or not) I'll be able to detect it even earlier.

I think I have quite good spatial awareness. I think it's a skill I developed, though, because I realized that I am a big person (6'2" and 260 lbs) and have had to be quite careful where I move my body. If I accidentally bump into something, I don't get hurt, I would more likely knock it over or hurt someone.

I've gone so far as to consider myself "graceful" in my movements, but looking back, I realize I'm only agile when I'm concentrating on being so. If my attention is on something else, I do have a tendency to walk into walls or trip on my own feet.

This is an interesting question for me, since the answer is yes and no. I am very self-aware, yet clueless of how to act at times, if that makes sense. I get very self-conscious about people looking at me, yet the next minute I found I've just done something to make people look at me.

I would never have outbursts in public, although I have been tempted - but I must be self-aware enough if something in my mind has stopped me from humiliating myself. If I got sensory overload (eg from a brat screaming), I wouldn't have a meltdown. I just glare at it with anger and frustration, or feel that I have to say something like, ''ohh that kid's screaming is going right through me!'' to whoever I'm with (eg a friend). Sometimes saying something calms me down. But if I'm on my own, sometimes I non-verbally show anger to the parent who is with the kid who is screaming, to let them know that they ought to get the kid away from me. I know in my heart that I would never do anything to it, but the parents don't know that, so if I'm lucky they take it away from my sight.

But anyway, back to the question - yes I am self-aware enough, but I am clueless enough to make mistakes to make it look like I'm not self-aware.

When I was about 14 I didn't seem very self-aware. I used to say weird things what don't need to be said and may offend people, and my mum used to feel embarrassed.
But - there's a big but here - I see girls of that age now, and they're doing similar things. Once I walked past a couple of teenage schoolgirls, and one of them pointed right at me and laughed really loud as I was walking by them. I didn't even know them, they didn't know me, and I wondered why she did it just like that. That offended me, so now when I think back to silly things I done as a younger teenager, it now sounds very typical.

I feel the need to separate this into physical and mental self awareness. With physical self awareness, I have no problems. I have excellent 2d and 3d spacial reasoning. I loved Geometry when I took it in high school and did very well with math problems that required 3d reasoning. I find that if I spend enough time in a city, or a room in a building I naturally develop a 3d map of it in my head that I can look down on from any angle I choose, or even rotate it in my mind.

As for psychological self awareness, I often am not clear on what I think and feel. Sometimes I may have to focus on it for around 24 hours or sit down and write a page or two to reach a conclusion. Other times I decide something is not worth the mental effort for me to analyze to that extent. I just ignore it and go on about my life.