pretending to be NT

Post Reply New Topic

Spot on, chipmunk. This has liberated me too, and remember, it is never too late to make a difference - we have just started a little later than most!! I have known all my life that I was different than others. Now I know why and the relief I am feeling is unbelievable. My relationship with my mother has improved 100% as she always thought I didn't care about her because of my attitude - now she understands and it is helping us both heal.

I can do it pretty good but the down side is it is exhausting and I can't keep it up that long before I start to slip. After I need at least three to four times as much time I pretended to be alone some place quiet to recover or a few hours sleep

As I wrote before some of the biggest mistakes I've made were when I didn't understand AS and tried to act NT: it backfired big time.

Now that I know about AS I don't try to ape NTs exactly but 'choose my battles', acting normal but not pushing myself to do certain things (sales, playing or watching sports). I'd like to get to the point where I can have a small drinks and dinner party at home and have a circle of friends who'd actually come and at most even have an LTR or even be married but I don't think I'm cut out to be a dad.

In short being about as successful as NTs, meeting them partway. Living Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer: having the serenity to accept what I can't change (not being NT), the courage to change what I can (using my knowledge of AS to work with and around the AS to meet the NTs partway) and the wisdom to know the difference.

Some give this tip to do eye contact, don't look at they eyes look at the part in between they eyes, don't know if the slight eye angel change stops them feeling like your starring, don’t see why they so bothered I am only looking at where they see out of, they scared I might be able to read past they eyes and read they thoughts or something…

I do tricks like that too. Don't know how well they work for me; nobody's told me.

But I also have to make a point of not staring, looking away every now and then and to make sure I don't stop blinking ocasionally.

Wow.

I've not been diagnosed, btw. But I'm finding now a problem that is due to the fact that after high school I began to make a real effort to study and observe others and master effective imitation I've kind of forgotten the person I used to be. I think it's made me very unhappy, but on the other hand I can go a good chunk of time interacting with people, I have a nice smile, I've got a good system for eye-contact, and I've even mastered pauses in conversation and learning when to *shut the hell up*. But I still need a lot of alone time and I've recently begun thinking that my eye-contact has slipped a bit and needs to be tweaked. *sigh* I still think I come across as pretty normal, though, and can do well in job interviews, and work with people well. Now.

But there's a cost that comes with that--the more time you spend with people, the more the normalizing behaviors start to slip and your natural behaviors start to reassert, and all those things that are so hard--like taking verbal instructions--come up and slap you in the face and make your life miserable. It's a hard line to walk and probably explains why I've had so many jobs over the last 10 years. Best job was in the library--very quiet, an hour at a time upstairs shelving books by yourself, surrounded by an incomprehensible amount of pure information. Mmmmm.

True. Good point.



I'm, jealous. Did you know about the AS when you mastered those skills?



I hear you. It's why I had so many, and so many bottom-rung ones, in my first six years on my own. What a waste. I had two library jobs and one was much like you describe - I stayed a year and a half and should have stayed longer. My job now fits well like that - the people are cliquey and wrote me off a long time ago but I get unlimited use of the Internet.

If, by trying to be NT (or "normal"), one means working on my goals, trying not to do something stupid, or trying not to stick out like a sore thumb, then yes. That's not pretending; that is trying to act in a way that will further my achievement of important goals in my life. If, by pretending, one means not ever engaging in special interests or talking about them in an acceptable place, such as here or on my cat site, I'd say no.

I didn't know anything about anything...it certainly never occurred to me until just recently that the reasons for my being...er, the way I am, may actually stem from something physical or organic instead of just my being a weird freaky person who lacks social skills and is hyper-sensitive. But what I *did* know is that I couldn't continue the way I had been going, since it made things painfully difficult, and I just couldn't deal with it any more in that way. My ability to observe is fairly highly-tuned, so after that it was a matter of picking and choosing the characteristics I liked best and fitting them into a persona that I could use in day-to-day interacting with people.

I think I sacrificed a lot, doing that.

I worry about what kind of job I might be able to do in the future. I liked the library job a lot, but the trouble is library jobs don't, as a general rule, pay a great deal. I think the starting rate is 5.50 an hour. So this is a problem. But I'm too proud and stubborn to ask for help, so I guess I'll just make myself miserable until I can find a place to settle in.