How do you deal with Asperger-related social anxiety?

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You are worthy of a medal in my book! Way to go!

Longshanks

I can't deal with it. I'm a social recluse.

Longshanks wrote

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. By the sheer number of people who can relate to feeling anxiety in social situations, will hazard a guess that it is more common among people on the spectrum than the average.

I don't really know how to, I kind of just get really tense and quiet.
I can walk out in public etc but I get really bored of it all cos i got no friends.

sometimes i do go running, but am currently "recovering" from depression (again) and I've been feeling real tired the past few days (happens when depression is "lifting" etc) so haven't been going at all.


cheers,
skribble

Not very well. My anxieties are so illogical that nobody understands. It just causes arguments, like ''but you don't mind X so why don't you like Y?'' sorts of arguments. And most of the time even I can't find the answer as to why I'm anxious about a certain thing. So when people ask why I'm anxious about this, I usually find myself saying, ''because I just am.''

Anxiety can cause outbursts, mood swings, tiredness, anger, and even severe paranoia and self-consciousness. And it then goes round and round in a vicious circle, and I cannot seem to break out of it.

I think I know what the problem is, though. It's because I fear being different, yet I struggle to be like everyone else at the same time. And so that's why it causes great stress and anxiety. And it causes arguments like this:-

Me: I don't want to move out of my home
NT: Why not?
Me: Because I can't cope with the change and the stress of it
NT: But you have your heart set on moving out with a boyfriend
Me: But I'd be living with somebody then. I don't want to live on my own
NT: But social services can sort out a flat or bungalow for you to share with somebody who also has a disability
Me: But sharing somewhere with another person with a disability might causes us to clash. I can't cope with the stress of it
NT: But sharing with a boyfriend can be just as stressful, if not even more. Men and women often have arguments and disagreements

Ohh, just nobody can win in this situation! I just want to move out with a boyfriend because that is what most girls do, or they move out with their mates, but mostly with a boyfriend. I don't want to live with another girl with a disability.

So having answer-less goals all the time causes great anxiety because I just don't know what I want to do with my life. I just can't handle anything properly.

Longshanks is right, don't blame the soldiers. If the country gets in a war that is illegal or something, blame the freaking politcians who sent them there!
And please avoid sterotyping vets. Most people with PTSD do not go around killing people.
*******
(Back to the thread topic)
As far as my coping with social anxiety. Well, alcohol can help, but I still have issues, like meeting new females, etc. Or crowds. I can still get panic attacks, even though I have worked in retail for years. I do not think I will ever be rid of it.

Sincerely,
Matthew

I can relate to everything you've described. Also, I'm going to go ahead and apologize for my wall of text. I don't do it on purpose, but it's sort of my trademark.

I have a hard time turning acquaintances into friends and usually wait for people to make friends with me (instead of the other way around), but somehow I managed to find myself a NT husband. He is both a gift and a crutch for me in social situations. While he's not a very empathetic person, he is trying more and more to understand why I act the way I do and what he can do to help. He first made friends with all of the friends I have now. If I worry that something I said was taken the wrong way, or if I don't know how to interpret the way someone acted, I ask him. He's a crutch because I use him to order food for me, call customer service, and bring up subjects with friends that may be sensitive (usually I just imagine they would be sensitive topics when they're not). While I realize this doesn't help you in your current situation (you said you had no one to practice eye contact with), it does partly answer the question posed in the thread title.

I have been hurt a lot in the past by people that I trusted, all because I acted "weird" socially. That's what taught me to not speak, always worry about what people think about me, and second guess everything I want to say, but all that is wrong. People worth being friends with don't act that way, those were just insensitive, self-centered adolescents. I have learned that, for the most part, NTs don't go over what someone said, how they said it, and what they meant by the words over and over in their heads long after the words have been said(though flirting situations are probably different, but in another way). They just roll with the conversation and interaction. If something I say bothers them, I can pick up on more obvious cues or they may bring it up and I can fix it then, but other than that there's not much to be done besides staying away from politics, religion, and other touchy subjects. Knowing this, I still replay conversations constantly and edit what I want to say three or four times before I say it, but sometimes I do it less.

Eye contact: I taught myself how to do this a while ago. You say it still makes you anxious. Start off looking near the eyes (right under the eye, bridge of the nose, corner of the eye, as close as you feel comfortable) or try unfocusing your eyes a bit so you don't feel like you're looking straight into someone's eyes. Once you start to feel anxious, even just a bit, drift your gaze off to the side, maybe resting somewhere just behind them or on their ear. Once you start to feel more easy, you can drift your gaze back to the eyes or around the eyes. Most NTs drift their gaze and come back to the eyes while talking anyway. I read a thread on this site earlier where someone said he felt comfortable looking a person in one eye, but not both. Like millymollymandy said, practicing on cashiers is a good idea. That is actually how I practice(d) greetings, with which I still don't feel completely comfortable.

Again, sorry for the wall of text. I hope it helps you more than it annoys you!

I'm here with you on this one. It's hard being awkward and odd because it makes you feel weird. People already make me feel weird enough, but combine that with feeling awkward and weird in you're own skin and you have a pretty shaking social setting. I always ended up saying the weirdest stuff because I was nervous, anything to hold unto a conversation. As a kid it be a simple statement out of the blue out of nowhere and nothing related to what people were talking about such as "the sky is blue" just that clear statement. And people just thought the heck was wrong with me and would ignore me. Now as an adult, I feel awkward. Like I don't have the right timing, I don't know if I am continuing a conversation on to long at the cashier. Like today I go to get my credit card out of my wallet, but realize I put my card in a different wallet pocket, I apologize I must have put it in the wallet pocket, they laugh say they do it all the time, I said yeah it's annoying, then I slid the card and paid for my stuff and said let me put this in the right pocket since I'm here. But I think the conversation was over after I paid. I feel so awkward in social situations, like a bumbling idiot.