First of all, i'm really grateful for any advice that I get, but if it's literally just 'be yourself!' then honestly, thanks, but I've heard that too many times for it to be efftctive.
My problem is that I found out about my Asperger's a fair few years ago, and it hasn't really affected how I conciously act, ie. I haven't deliberatly acted in a certain way just because of it.
But ever since I found this site, and I've started looking into the whole AS thing more (as it was never really explained to me and I never really understood it) it's always been in my head, at the front of my thoughts, and every thing I do now is like, 'wow, was that because I'm AS?', and everything I say is now 'I probably said that like I did because of AS'. And I really don't want to change anything about myself, except for the level of ignorance I have about AS, which I have now changed. But now I think I might be behaving differently, both conciously and sub-conciously... if that makes sense. Like I'm trying hard to be myself, maybe too hard because I'm being different now... It's like I'm trying to define the AS too much, that it's defining me, but not me, cause that's not who I am.
And when I post things on here, I'm always thinking 'will that sit right with everyone else, cause they're AS, so they would probably like something like this... *type type type*' as apposed to 'this is me, I hope you like who I am, shame if you don't'. It's like I'm stuck in this frame of mind where I'm constantly thinking about the AS and I'm constantly letting it manipulate everything I do and say, and even how I walk. And I'm scared that if I act a bit 'normal' in a situation, it means I'm lying to everyone, and I should behave a little differently....
I really don't know what to do, but I hope you peoples can relate to this and hopefully offer me some kind advice.
Sorry to rant on, but this is the first time I've let this off my chest, and it's been brewing for a while now....
Thanks for reading this.
Dom
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I am a caged bird - - -