pretending to be NT

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most of my life I tried to at least appear NT <it didn't help that I didn't know that I wasn't NT for awhile, but there we are, life is life> fairly recently I had stress that just forced me to stop wasting time on that, and I feel much better now <well, I still have the stress, but I'm coping with it much better as AS than I was as pseudoNT>

anyone else have a similar situation at any point?

Ihave a higher resolution question to ask, but am having problems putting it into words, I am hoping responding posts will either help me form the question or answer it for me

thanks for reading

i don't pretend to be an NT but that is pretty much how i am perceived.. albeit a very shy NT.

Not really, same as mik very shy, extreme G o o g l e introvert

I was pretending to be NT for a while, from 2004 until late 2005. I've relaxed for a year and let myself be. Now I'm pretending to be NT, when ever I come to post here. It makes me feel sick, sometimes. All would be fine, if only I would post about what I call my first love. I can't take the risk.

As far as the world knows, I'm normal, but perhaps pretty shy.

I'm not exactly NORMAL, different interests, go out in the cold without a coat, very knowledgable, etc... but I am otherwise the same. I certainly have TRIED to act somewhat normal. I thought I was somewhat normal.

Steve

Last edited by SteveK on 18 Jan 2007, 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. Even here, I'm older, very mildly impaired, and have this uncommon spiritual streak.

I don't feel like I try to fit in as much as I try to help others feel like I fit in.

When in Rome... it helps if you can speak the language.

This is their planet. It's important to respect the local customs.

It' possible to interact with other cultures without sacrificing our own cultural identity.

I just recently learned I am NOT NT. It made my life difficult because I thought I was NT, so tried very hard to be and act NT, never understanding why I still wasn't like everyone else even when I thought I was doing everything that the others were doing. I was doing the same things, but I was still different, if you get my drift. I know now I was only spinning my wheels, trying to be something that I can really never be because I am simply not wired that way. It is actually really liberating to realize that my reality IS different and I no longer have to try so hard to fit in and be something I am not. I have been pretending my whole life!! It is very stressful to go through life trying to be something you are not and I have paid the price with my health. I really wish I had known sooner that I'm not NT. It would have made all the difference in the world!

Every day is conscious effort to be more NT. Some thing I do well, because I am resourceful, determined, rational, logic and do my homework. Sometime I feel surrey for the NTs at the bottom of the social pecking order; their situations will probably not change much, unless they get they get lucky.
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“WHAT WILL YOU DO TOMORROW” , “THE SAME AS WHAT I DID YESTERDAY, TRY TO APPEAR MORE NT”

Only fairly recently realised I was Aspie. Spent nearly all my life wondering why small things really REALLY bothered me that no-one else noticed, or why I loved repetition and collecting things and found social situations so hard.

When I first realised I wasn't NT it was a shock, but now it's a relief. Instead of worrying about things, I can take a "step back" and think "Hey, it's ok not to cope so well with doing things that way - I know why I'm finding that more difficult", and I can use strategies that work for me instead of criticising myself. Few other people know, though. I prefer it that way.

I've tried to imitate NT's facial expressions, voice, eye contact, emotions, and conversations in quiet situations while all the time trying metally hard to guess from the NT's face whether my actions were necessary and a NT norm.
When I try to act in a way that an NT might I always fail and end up looking more alian to them than if I acted as a aspie.

The worst part of acting as a NT is that it gives the authentic NT a false picture of your character and if it is a bad/odd character like mine was, then you become labelled as that character permanantley even if you have decided to return as an aspie.

In most situations I was convinced I had cracked the NT code and that people would like me, but unfortunatley while I was convinced I was being likened I didn't realise that other people were actually hating me and taking the p#ss out of me.
When I was aware I tried even more to be fake and NT like, but this only made things worse and I couldn't think of another NT's expression that might alter things ie smiling more or talking more about the weather in a harsher voice.

I was mentally tired and I can rembember becoming angry and defensive because I was concerned that people had labelled me in a character that I couldn't relate to and this gave me a big sense of insecurity and confusion of what my actions might have made my NT character into. Being unaware of how I would have acted out in the eyes of a NT was very traumatising.

I can recall becoming very insecure and lashing out of people who I presumed were being nasty towards me even though they weren't and apollogising to people who were being horrible.

I've returned as that odd miserable non engaging geek that is familar to my family, and with my original character gives me a sense of security since I no longer have to worry whether my false expression or response might have sounded or acted out bad towards an NT, acted in my normal self no longer needs that adjustment to become more accpetable to an NT, since I now know what I am doing I no longer need to question my own personality and aspie traits.

I always called it "trying not to look weird." I learned "tricks," like steering a conversation in such a direction that makes the other person willingly do most of the talking, and I can make eye contact. But it's not natural eye contact... it's sort of a lock-on, bore a hole through your forehead eye contact. So between the forced eye contact and the "tell me about yourself" technique, I think I sometimes passed. I don't know. I've gotten less and less able to do it over the past 5 years.

For most of my life I thought I was normal.

I had a classic bit of parental "help" when I was about 11. Before going to a school camp, Mum obviously had decided that I wasn't making enough eye contact (i.e. none) and told me to "Make sure I looked people right in the eye when they spoke to me". Boy what a disaster that was! I took what she said literally and made a real effort! I heard the older kids talking about me saying that I was really weird, because I kept staring at them. Thanks Mum!

After that I went through a whole range of attempts to avoid being talked about. This ended up with me staring at distance objects when walking by people just to make sure they couldn't say I was staring at them, after the embarrassment of the camp! Daft I know, because I wouldn't have looked at them anyway. Didn't work either - that was soon spotted as more weird behaviour.

Next out came the books on body language and I started training myself. Took a long time to get it to a point which I could get away with it, but had a lot of mishaps. Like the time a girl I really liked ended up telling me to stop staring at her - I was only trying to make the "required" amount of eye contact!

Now, I generally just do enough if I feel it's important. I've been more careful at job interviews and things, making sure my eye contact and body language is all "correct". Must get away with it now, because I can get through these - leaves me sweating with the effort though.

I used to pretend to be NT especially at work, but it was very stressful and I felt like a misfit. I liked my job but I hated the social side of it. I used to just grit my teeth and pretend. Now I don't. I try to be less obviously AS when I go out and blend in with everyone else but I don't think it works now, ironically, that I accept myself and my AS-ness. I don't care what people think of me as much as I used to but I don't like to draw attention to myself so I just tend to be very quiet.