Acting me or real me?

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I'm fairly new to this Asperger business also so I guess this is a common reaction to this revelation in people who realize as mature adults.. On this site you are not an outsider. Acting here is counterproductive.

I view myself as the "Raw Me" and the "Refined Me". Just different states of the same element depending on the environment.

Water is ice, liquid or steam. Each state is not appropriate for every situation.

For human interactions I have to determine to what degree I reveal my base state (Raw Me).

I am unable to function as the "Refined Me" for great lengths of time. "Refined Me" navigates the social situations. "Raw Me" fully represents who I am (warts and all). People like the "Refined Me", "Refined Me" gets invited to socialize etc..., but it isn't my natural state so I have to decline. AS folks are more limited on how much time they can safely remain outside of their comfort zone. Pushing the limitations can be detrimental. It is individual.

Social skills are like keys. We have to make our visible behavior "fit" the norm in order to open social doors. We can't accomplish this in our raw state.

There is no real me.

Think about what the real you is when you are alone or around other aspies. That is when you are the most real. Also, as best as you can, think about your childhood from the point of view of a child with aspergers. Role play situations in your mind and think about how you, knowing what you know now, may have acted or said if you weren't playing a part.

Aspies are often good at analytical thought. Use it to your advantage and find the alternative paths that may have emerged due to saying or doing what your heart wanted to say, not what your mind told you to say in order to fit in. That's the real you.

I personally was diagnosed a couple years ago (30 or so) right around the same time my son (now 7) was. I look at him, a child who hasn't had the opportunity to create much of an alter ego, and find the similarities between what he says and does and what I want to say or do often. It's hard (memory issues and such) and it can be terrifying because you're redefining yourself, but it's also liberating to (in certain situations like around people you trust) just to say f**k it and not worry about being any alter ego. In these situations, ignore the part of yourself that gives canned responses and say what you want to (or don't say anything, if that's what feels right).

I was so good at creating these alter egos that my own mother thought the fake me was the real me. So did I. It's helped to also discuss situations from the past that you felt like you were faking it with someone who remembers it from the point of an NT. When they tell you what they saw from you, it will either feel right or feel wrong. If it feels right, that is part of the real you. If it doesn't, try to figure out what about it felt wrong. Share this with the trusted person and ask for their input on other similar situations. This will bring up more feelings, good and bad.

It's incredibly difficult to figure out who you really are again. I relate to it like Stockholm syndrome. You've been doing something that isn't you for so long that it becomes you. Finding the real you again is really hard and painful. But if you live through it (which you will!) you'll be better off.

I still use my coping mechanisms to fit in, but I'm aware of it when I do. Like I am an actor playing a part. I use these mechanisms sparingly (unless ay work, where a different me is necessary) and I return to my "normal" self when I can and do a retrospective on what parts were acting, and how to improve the character. This allows me to have another character without giving up who I am.

Just think of someone like Robin Williams or Jim Carrey. They've played so many characters in their life and embraced their differences and used them to their advantage. But they still hold on to the self that comes out in the candid times.

Embrace the ability to play other characters and use it to your advantage. If you start defining yourself as someone who plays a character delivering scripted lines certain situations when necessary (or when you just feel like it), then you will be aware of who you really are and it'll become easier to distinguish between them.

Being an aspie in this world is hard... Especially when you come with baggage from a lifetime of not knowing.

Why do you think that?


The past is an erroneous concept. Everything is mind, "heart" is a concept of the mind.


How do you know that this isn´t a new fake you that is posing as a real you having seen through a fake one?


There are no actors, just different roles.


Who I really am does not need the attention of thought or emotions to be. It does not need reinforcing to not fall apart and it doesn´t seek to be fulfilled, being complete already. Every character, believed or disregarded as pure fiction that does need all those things are bound to crash and burn sooner or later anyways. So why not sooner?

Disclaimer: This post is purely theoretical and has no basis in reality whatsoever. Any resemblance to real characters, living or dead, is pure association.

After many years of therapy prior to being accurately diagnosed as aspie, and years of being encouraged to "Act As If" and to "Fake It Until I Make It", I find that I am only just now beginning to discover the real me. At 59 I am experiencing "autistic burnout", meaning I no longer can keep up the fake front.

My years doing the act-as-if thing were productive in that I learned many new ways to handle situations, and which I can still draw upon as needed. I can just no longer keep it up 24/7.

Learning to recognize and let go of the fake me is surprisingly challenging, and taking much longer to do that I thought it would. But at the same time it is a very interesting journey of self-discovery and rebuilding my life.

I agree with one of the above posters. I've been known as a bit eccentric by peers about 20 times within the last three years, and that's saying something because I don't go out in public a lot - at least not at the moment. I act as eccentric and AS as I wish in my own room, for instance, but in public I at least try to adjust myself to not feel as socially awkward and isolated as I would otherwise seem. This sums down to a few things...I can't laugh at the word "m***et" in public, I have to tell people to have a nice day, and I have to at least say "hi" before engaging in a discussion with them. This is more "the learned me" than anything else, but if it's what helps me stay successful, I will use that "learned" me and go back to doing what I want to do when I'm in my own house. I'm a lot different in public than I am in my own house, and I'm nineteen years old. I say and do things that are deemed "inappropriate" by others, like laughing at words that I find funny, making up words, forgetting to say "hi" or "have a nice day," perseverating over things, not making eye contact many days, laughing at my own jokes etc. I just do those things to a lesser degree when I'm with other people, who I rarely feel comfortable with. Even my sister makes me feel uncomfortable, especially when she tells me I have awkward facial expressions (I'm actually glad she hasn't said that for a while). It also made me feel uncomfortable when I went with her and her friends and she told them that I might seem weird because I have Asperger's. That literally made me feel like...:/ It's actually really frustrating and exhausting trying to adjust to society's standards, but if that's what I have to do, then it's what I have to do. I guess I see the "adjusted" version of me still me, and that's a comforting thought. It's just a more -social- me. It's probably 80% me, which is better than 70% me or something. (over-analyzing this can cause people to feel corrupt, so I try not to analyze this too much) I'm sure I'm not the only AS (or possibly NT) who wonders if everybody else puts on a sham in public. Is anybody fake at least a little when they go out in public, and are there things they have to do that aren't natural for them? Many days, I feel like Temple Grandin and would like to hide behind things and never see other people ever again (depending on who they are anyways). I did one thing right. I was diagnosed as an Aspie at eleven, but at thirteen, I started getting help for it, learning to make eye contact (which I do a lot more these days than I did when I was in sixth grade, for instance), and my counselor at that age gave me wise advice: to accept, not reject (which I'm still learning a little bit to this day but have gotten pretty far with) my Asperger's regardless of how awkward I feel or make others feel.

As a general note: maybe "fake" doesn't exist, as anybody can become different versions of themselves, until those "versions" become add-ons as to who they really are. Anybody can "become" something they're not - until they are. It happens with actors/actresses all the time. Everybody can be an actor/actress, if even a bad one.

I think we are to some extent forced to act because NTs are so much more verbally communicative then us. Often I have no response to what people say, but you can only get away with saying nothing for so long. So I find myself saying things that I have no interest in saying just because something is expected.

I wish people would stop talking so much. So much noise and so little conveyed. People feel this need to emote over insignificant things. It's distracting and annoying.

What you are stating here is true but that is one of the reasons why I have a problem with society. The fact that others act and that I am forced to act as well sometimes. I don't like that at all because it becomes so hard to distinguish what is real and true or not. To me it is like living in a surreal and therefore slightly scary world.

Over the years I have built up a persona to show off, when I was looking for a job. In very short-term jobs it worked, so I was beginning to believe my own BS, but nevertheless I got fired. I started off fine, but after a while, I became more and more insecure and dysfunctional, - and I got sacked. again and again and I didn´t understand why.
During the last two job trials, I had become aware, that I am an aspie, so I could see clearly what was happening.
It is actually a relief not having to act. I couldn´t do it again, I think.
I wouldn´t.