Talking makes me feel awful

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Im 18 and I seem "normal" to people but as soon as they start to talk to me, they think Im weird.

Talking is stressful and involves a lot of thinking for me. I hate eye contact and I look down or at their shoulders. I twirl my hair or squeeze my hands together. Its comforting.

I also sometimes sound scripted according to people. I dont know what that means. I like to move around when I talk. I cant sit still.

I'm selective mute. I can't help it and I feel awkward when I go mute, but it's involuntary. I'm sorry you're experiencing this because the world is very talk-centric. It was brutal for me growing up pre-texting or emailing when people actually phoned each other on the one phone in the house. At 18 you have had more opportunities to text and email without having to verbalize, but that's not necessarily helpful in building one's skills either. Don't feel obligated to look at people or it will make the anxiety worse. I gave up on that one long ago.

Yeah. Im sorry that you have to deal with that.I get so much anxiety from speaking. I want to run away. Dont even get me started on presenting. I had to do it once and I peed myself. Not fun at all. I hate my speech skills. Sometimes I just want to communicate clearly

Can you get an educational accommodation so you don't have to do verbal presentations? Or, if you do, maybe eye contact wouldn't be required?

I have an accomodation now. I dont have to verbally present. My verbal skills are bad. My voice is shaky and I stim

I have a learning disabled student (whom I will refer to as Bert which is not his real name) who has been making recent efforts to interact with his classmates. I think that part of the reason he's been doing this is because he's socially isolated. He has been sitting by himself before and after our kitchen hands on production. For the longest time he wouldn't talk to anyone. This eventually resulted in students not wanting to work with him in the kitchen which created problems for me as the chef instructor because I didn't have the time or resources to let him work by himself.

Although I have appreciated this effort, his efforts have also sounded scripted because he repeats the same thing to each person he speaks with.

"Hello Sam! How are you?"

"Hello Rachel! How are you?"

"Hello Manual! How are you?"

The students always say hello back. Some have said that they're fine and some have even asked how Bert was doing and Bert has always said that he's fine.

I think varying what you say to others would make you sound less scripted. Time and practice will help your interactions sound and feel more natural.

As a Career and Technical Education instructor (who is also autistic), I think that learning to interact with others is a critical life skill. Most adults have to work for a living and being able to interact with your colleagues and to be able to work as part of a productive team is critical for long term employment.

I don't enjoy having to interact with others but I've learned how to do this with time and practice. You can do the same. Stick with it and you'll be fine.

I hate having to interact with people too. I have a weird voice and people tend to not always take me seriously. I feel constantly judged for it. I was bullied constantly as a kid mostly because of my voice. I used to have a really bad overbite and I got braces for it in high school. Getting braces didn't improve my voice much at all. I work with kids an after school program and some of the kids like to ask me why I talk funny. I tell them that that's the way God made me.

I don't mind class presentations as long as there is an opportunity for to crack a joke or make a funny remark about my topic.

Sometimes I have brain farts and I forget what I'm going to say even though I have gone over it repeatedly in my head before I planned to say it. Sometimes I get words mixed up too.