Why "faking it" took a toll on my sanity.

Post Reply New Topic

June of last year, I was taken into a State Hospital following a major breakdown which nearly led to the taking of my own life, and after a week was diagnosed with Asperger's, and despite its possibility being brought up several times in my life, I never really noticed the signs.

That's where things changed for me, following my diagnosis I went and researched the disorder a lot more and realized just how much I fit the bill. I continued by looking through really old stories and social media posts I had made and realize just how separated, awkward, and potentially terrifying and even emotionless I could seem at times. Then reading other posts where I had odd shift to grossly overly enthusiastic behaviors, or absolute lack of self control in social situations.

Basically, throughout most of my childhood and teenage years, I was an outcast, I could never find the balance of how to properly act towards anyone.
I would often remain silent, stone faced, and keep to myself, as being around people I wasn't comfortable with greatly upset me, or I would shift trying to "fit in" by shamelessly going up to the more popular kids and trying to force myself into their cliques by non-stop talking about topics that never seemed to interest anyone else.

This social divide with my mind has also affected any chances I ever had at pursuing relationships with people I deeply cared for, as I could only either come off as a "shy friend" or blast hopeless romantic dialogue to a cringe-worthy and sickening point, making me seem very very creepy in my mind now. I can only assume others saw it the same way.
Right around the middle of my senior year of high school, I switched to a new school, and having been a massive theater participant for years, finally decided (not knowing I had any sort of disorder) that I would simply "act" like someone I wasn't.

I ripped off this new fake personality off of a blend of 80's teen movie characters from John Hughes films, the largest influence being "Ferris Bueller" of course, it didn't work flawlessly, but it was a start. I was more welcomed upon my arrival to a new school, I sat with the crowds I had always envied growing up in the first few days, teachers liked me more, students liked me more. So I kept the act up, building on the "character" I was playing for the next several years, dealing with tremendous internal conflict as a cause.

I could fake being normal and social, but it slowly took a toll on my sanity, as conversing with everyone and exchanging constant banter is not something I can easily do, and it terrifies me to this day. It always will.
Right around I'd say age 19-ish, I started slipping around others, I appeared normal, but would break down and flip my s**t at random moments, with people near me never really knowing what was going on.

Finally, I felt a sense of desperation due to lack of educational progression and decided to join the military. Seems like in my mind it would be an obvious bad move, right? It was, and I knew it. However, I didn't know I had a disorder, and I thought that with enough "mental scarring" from men in funny hats and clicky shoes, I could be broken down and finally, actually rebuilt as, what was in my mind "a real human."
What do you know, it didn't work.

It backfired completely. I lost my cool very quickly, more than the others seemed to, but continued my new ritual of "trying to hide it" eventually, following a discussion in which I found out I wasn't going to graduate due to failure to meet P.T. Standards (I know, pathetic, but I've never been able to properly grasp maintaining physical fitness. Despite years of trying to "bulk up" and appear less like a shrimp.) I had a major breakdown that I couldn't hide in the middle of the dorm.

For some reason they kept me anyway, maybe to save money, I'm still not sure.

Obviously staying in an environment not suited to overly sensitive, weak, pacifists like me, it took more and more of a toll, and I never spoke up for fear of being locked in the on base psych-ward.

I got separated after being there for nearly 15 weeks, and went home.
This is where things got really messy, in desperate attempts to try and find happiness in my life, I pushed myself to try and be with someone I greatly loved, and on top of that, I tried doing really dumb, unorthodox methods to try and "normalize" myself to seem like I was a "cool normal guy" again, mainly taking pills and drugs to "boost" my confidence, something I swore my entire life I would never touch.

Eventually this battle with myself drove me to the failed suicide attempt, as the police arrived finding me on my way to run into the highway into a the first semi-truck I dared to see.
They took me to the State Hospital, where I continued to try and fake everything about myself to brand it as a "misunderstanding" so I could leave the absolute hellhole I was in, as it reminded me of more disorganized, anarchist version of BMT dorms with people sleeping next to me, yelling out murderous threats in their sleep, fighting each other and the guards, and other fun stuff like that.

The doctors saw right through it and kept me anyway. I remember them mentioning that they wanted to keep me as my mannerisms "fit those of mass murderers" and they mentioned a sort of witch hunt (not the term they used) going on for people like me in response to the Orlando Shooting. I had help from family members and after a week the doctors finished their analysis and told me the news, I was officially on the autistic spectrum.

At first I just ran with it, thinking it was a misdiagnosis, but I looked up the symptoms and read a giant description of myself.

I got confused, and this post is already long enough, but essentially I then attempted to continue the very same actions as before, making both mine and others lives a living hell, all for the sake of a love someone like me could obviously never have.
So now, I embrace it.
I no longer will fake who I am.

Last edited by shoof on 17 Apr 2017, 2:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

Sorry, I can't read that.
Paragraphs would help.

Wow, that sounds like an awful experience, it's a pity you had to go through all that before you figured out who you are. You were very fortunate the doctors recognised you.

Remember to give yourself time to get used to it all. It sounds like you're going to have a lot of ingrained habits from when you were faking it. You probably aren't in a great place at the moment, but bit by bit, you're going to see who you really are, and the good things about that.

You might need to do a bit of explaining to loved ones as well, as they mightn't understand at first, if you've always been wearing a mask.

Sorry. It's a little late for me, I tried doing a quick edit to space them out a bit more but I'll look at it again tomorrow and re-edit if needed. I apologize for the inconvenience. I'm not usually that sloppy, but it was quick write.



I'd say its fortunate the psychologists recognized it eventually, but I remember there being a lot of hostility from the main one, Chris was his name I think.
He scolded me when I tried to explain the situation for "over-intellectualizing" everything a lot. He kept stating that he felt I should just say how I feel "like everyone else does" and said something about "stop trying to impress me by using big words." He also tried to get the person that called the police initially (oddly uninstigated, it was just impeccable timing that ended up saving my life) over the phone, somewhat manipulating me into agreeing to allow them to call. At the time I was angry with them and didn't want to speak with them at all, as the situations I was placed under by them were really shady at the time, but, yes. In the end it did work out for the better.

As for explaining it to loved ones, I've tried before. But they just don't seem to get it. They're under the impression that its something I can just "change" to make myself and others feel better. Not trying to mope around here even more but that's sort of how they feel. I have a pretty wide divide from my immediate family and many friends I lost over the last year due to the incident.

My mother who spoke with the police during the incident has "worked with autistic children her whole life" from her own words and goes between saying "I always knew you had it" and "I don't think you have it." She teeters back and forth with this because her sister's son also has Asperger's, and my aunt had tried to convince me and my mother I had it since I was a child. They don't get along well for some reason and mother always wants to prove her wrong, even if she's right. Her current new husband also blindly follows everything she says without argument.

Currently I'm staying with some distant family as I try and focus on my film-writing dream. It seems a bit silly at times and I feel helpless, but I had to sort of take something of a break if I plan on recovering from the last year. Its good for me. So the family I'm with now understands pretty well.

You sound like you have too much awareness of social stuff to have ASD.




BPD?

I don't think you need a diagnosis though to find yourself.

Passing is its own private hell with population: one. Now you can see that there are other people who struggle with the same things you do. It sucks that you had to hit the breaking point to get that knowledge.

From reading your story, one thing that sticks out to me is how willing you've been to put yourself outside your comfort zone. Whether that helped or hurt you more in the past, it will be helpful moving forward. Don't feel weak asking for the help you need. Recognize that it takes a lot of courage to ask for help.

Sorry for the tangent, or if it doesn't apply. I've been going through my own (though much more boring) realization about the toll passing's taken on my life, so I'm definitely doing some projection.

Autism is not about not understanding "social stuff, it is about not naturally understanding social stuff. Subtle, but big difference. Some autistics can learn especially if they hyperfocus on it 24/7. From his post he did not seem like he was "copying" all that well.

BPP? Maybe, you can be autistic and have Bi-Polar, depression which is a more obvious guess since he was suicidal.

Some people need a professional diagnosis to find themselves, others do not.

welcome to the spectrum!

I dunno, but the post on the whole just doesn't come off like writings by most AS people I've read so far do.

And, I was talking about "awareness", not "understanding". Subtle but big difference, too.




I meant borderline PD, not bipolar.

But I don't intend to diagnose here, it's simply a thought I had reading OP.




I just see the OP description of issues as more complex than that ASD diagnosis so I don't think it's a good idea for OP to try and identify with this new label so strongly.

Again, just my impression.

Many ASD people seem to "fake it" so there has to be awareness they have or else they wouldn't be mimicking. It takes awareness to fake it even if they do a poor job at it and trying to figure out the rules. I find it hard to believe ASD people lack awareness or else they wouldn't be copying people to fit in to be normal and to act normal. Unless they're all misdiagnosed as being autistic.

I mean, look. I could go on for hours about things I left out for the sake of crunching the explanation.
I spent a week undergoing different evaluations in the hospital, meeting various mental health professionals, some good, some not as good, but overall I trust the judgement of the board and the tests that were given to me, so I don't think it was a misdiagnosis.

When I put on an "act" it wasn't flawless. Not at all. People close to me saw right through it at the beginning, the new school I attended was thankfully in a much smaller "hick" town and the people seemed more gullible, also having never met me. Acting just happened to be one of my strong suits. Its been a passion of mine since I was 12. I spent a lot of time in theater because I enjoyed the concept of being someone I wasn't, and somehow it helped me cope with the frustration I always feel when people look at me, as it felt like they weren't looking at, well, me. I felt like I was in another life while performing.

I can't even being to tell you how I used to handle social interactions my entire life. The reason I have an awareness of it all is because it was so jarring and odd to people that I was constantly having it pointed out to me by peers, family members, and teachers in school. ASD has also been present in my generation of family, allegedly my own father I even, as I was told this year (he left everyone behind and went into hiding out of nowhere about 8 years ago.) has Asperger's as well. My little brother shows almost the exact same behaviors I do (although not diagnosed), and my close cousin was also diagnosed with Asperger's at an early age. That's just the immediate family as well.

Again, I'm really not trying to have a pity party, but call it a form of venting. I'm very alone and currently have almost no one to relate to, so I turned to these forums after discovery of them in an attempt to connect with others like me. I lurked for a while before making an account and saw a lot of people here are very similar to me (not in this specific post's situation of course, but in general.)

I truly apologize if I started even a someone small debate over "does he even have it"? that wasn't my intention. I just wanted to reach out to others. As I said, I'm very alone. When I refer to my "friends" its a bit of paradox to use that terminology. There's two I would count that I talk to regularly, and I do it over a computer. They're not diagnosed with any disorder so when I explain everything to them they can't exactly relate.
Perhaps even here I'm suffering from a state on confusion on how to speak or act. If I'm coming of as "unlike writings by most AS people I've read" its probably because I again, have guidelines ingrained in my mind of what's "acceptable" to talk like, and I'm possibly forgetting I don't have to use those mannerisms here.

As for the BPD, I was tested for that at the hospital as well, they didn't seem to think that was the case at all. My outbursts were more in response to situational frustrations, as opposed to "irrationally lashing out." There was always some form of justifiable cause behind it in my mind, typically related to panic or discomfort being in a social setting. There lash outs would typically build up at small parties I forced myself to attend at the time, or dealing with a mass of people in a public place. I don't like a lot of people around me. I don't like the noise they make. I don't like when people look me in the eyes, when they talk to me uninstigated by myself, etc.

As for the depression, yes. I was very depressed for nearly a year leading up to the hospital. I felt like a weak failure for not making past entry level BMT fitness standards (I missed the final test by one push up, and excelled in all other areas, which made me feel even worse.) and I was desperately trying to be with a person I loved very much, only to find out the feelings were not only unshared, but I was being used for their own financial stability, being falsely led on to keep me around. It hurt me very badly, its someone I'll care for till the day I die, despite all that happened. What hurt even more is that I believe I may have had a very good shot if I would have just known how to approach a romantic situation on that scale properly. I've only made smaller scale relationships work before, and even those were for very brief times, always ending in relation to "seeming distant."
Perhaps I had no shot and I'm still in denial, I'll never truly know.

Again, sorry if these posts seem cluttered or poorly written. I don't have a good sleep schedule and only find the time to respond extremely early in the morning.

Hey,

Tbh,i've scanned your post and replies and cbf,there very long and winded,just saying.

But you know,just accept that your different and stop going against the grain and trying to fit in.

Live life,how you want to and on your own terms and what your comfortable with.

Sorry,that's all i can offer.

I think aspies can get to a stage where they're VERY aware of their acting. I wouldn't worry about people suggesting you've something else, they don't know the bigger picture, and you do. And so do your doctors.
You might try The Haven part of this forum. It's a gentler and more supportive environment than General Autism Discussion!

Well the impairment in social communication etc. sounds like some lack of awareness to me. I might not understand the extent to which the mimicking can be done but it doesn't entirely make sense to me considering the diagnostic criteria and considering all the articles I've read online describing the social communication etc. difficulties and even "manuals" to help AS people to develop some of the skills. Much more basic skills than what OP talks about.

Anyway, it was just some thougths, I wish luck to OP in figuring themselves out but my impression is still that there is more going on than just ASD (regardless of whether OP does have ASD or not). Something else that I think would need treated too. I'm not qualified enough to say for sure what it is, tho', just talking from experience, I've known someone who's very much like OP with their attitudes to relationships, people and the world strikingly similar to how it's been expressed here by OP.

You don't need to prove anything. I just added my thoughts. Oh also in my post directly above this one.




Okay. Out of curiosity, what sort of jarring/odd stuff did you have constantly being pointed out to you by others?




Ok, well feel free to drop the mannerisms then on this forum.




Ok, yeah, I just want to say, if it isn't BPD then something else. Essentially, I don't think the AS diagnosis is going to solve all your problems with knowing who you are.

But, I hope I'm wrong. I hope the diagnosis helps you at least some.




This is an example of how you have more going on than ASD. I think focusing on how to solve these relationship related problems could help you. Sorry for being so general and vague but that's all I can see without knowing you.




For me it was pretty easy to read.