This is less me asking for advice and more me complaining and wanting to know about you guys' struggles with the same thing.
I find it so hard to work out people's intent and it is incredibly frustrating when my NT friends can figure out what is most likely happening just through a phone call. However there is a limit and that is the fact they cannot help with facial expressions as I cannot replicate them. When I'm stressed this just gets worse and, having an anxiety disorder, its a big old mess as I believe the most negative interpretation and become a mess about a two second encounter for a week. I'm getting a little better with the repetitive things but what I really find hard is jokes at my expense.
Luckily I'm slowly but surely making friends as people who do my subjects tend to be a little awkward/weird so sympathise but I am very slow to tell when people are trying, taking everything very much at face value. I even hadn't fully connected people asking for your details is an invitation to contact them. Sounds obvious but as I'm stressed my brain is barely functioning.
I'm an awkward person and hate silence so when it falls I tend to blurt out random things. It's worse when I'm stressed because then my brain doesn't even pick appropriate things to say and hence I one day blurted out the number of kids I want in the future. Wouldn't have been too bad had it not been for the fact the guy next to me made a small joke about it at my expense and since then every time we've spoken I've said something stupid and had a small joke made at my expense. I believe it is a friendly thing because he smiles but I don't know what the face he makes before that means and my anxiety loves this. Then it gets worse and I do more/get caught doing more stupid things and it just spirals.
The thing is I have no idea how to know what the reason for these jokes are or how to respond either way and it drives me crazy. I know when friends do it its OK at least...
In addition to this I seem to be very perceptive in some areas and completely clueless in others. For example I can tell when people are stressed or upset when no one else can and pay more attention to those who feel lonely/uncomfortable when other people don't realise, just ignoring them instead and to some extent can tell the levels of connection between people. All this I know because I observe people (not in a creepy way but if I see them I analyse things way more than normal people do and remember things in great detail bc research) but is someone trying to talk to me, am I annoying them, are they subtly trying to get me to be quiet because I can't control my volume?? No idea!
That was a bit of a mess so TLDR I can't understand people's intent when they talk to me and it drives me crazy. What are your experiences with this and will it get better with age?
16 Oct 2019, 7:15 pm
