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15-20 Years Ago, I Was Weird With Girls.....Very Weird

Daz5094

New Member
I have never been diagnosed with Asbergers, but i am self diagnosed.

In the last week, it has dawned on me that i was very weird around women.
It would be a long time ago, around 15 to 20 years ago. I didn't directly stalk them, but i would move closer to them for some reason that i cannot understand. I never had a real girlfriend and maybe i thought that this would be as close as i could get to one. Bizzare, freaky behaviour that only now, i am genuinely ashamed about. At my local bar/pub, i did that quite alot and people, including bar staff, would pull me away from them. At the time, i never realised that i was doing anything wrong. Even my work colleagues called me a total freak, but it went in one ear and out the other.

Looking back on it, i could have been in trouble with the law, but fortunately, that never happened.
Right now, i can't actually sleep because i am thinking about it, shamefull creepy thing to do back in my 20's.

I don't have any intention of doing this ever again and haven't done so in a long time, but the guilt and total shame has only just hit me now and is affecting me a lot. My heart rate is up all day, my stomach feels twisted and i have problems sleeping all week.

Has anyone had this problem or what can i do to get back to normal.
I live in a village outside town, so i am pretty sure people have labelled me a stalker, which is freaking me out.
 
I was similar, not quite in the same way though. But I was extremely awkward around women right into my twenties. I never believed anyone would even remotely fancy me. Now looking back, I have now realised that on two occasions I knocked back two genuine chances who said they liked me, and I'm now kicking myself over. I actually believed that they were ripping into me, trying to get me to admit I like them before knocking me back which has happened to me before. Also there was another I liked and I should have asked her out, I am sure now she would have said yes. Gutted now.

I have also asked out someone and was dramatically refused, I was later called a freak, I guess I shouldn't have asked her out in front of her own parents and brother. Talk about awkward, lol. That was hard to live down.

So the fact that you now recognise your own past awkward behaviour with a sense of shame and embarrasmemt suggests to me that you're already back to normal, never to act this way again as now you have become self-aware to it. Naivety is our greatest enemy.
 
Thanks for that. I haven't done anything like that in a long time, well over 10 years, maybe 15. I suppose it's a relief that that part of me is gone forever and i am somewhat normal. I never wanted to grope anyone or anything like that, just to be close, which is bizzare.
 
Thanks for that. I haven't done anything like that in a long time, well over 10 years, maybe 15. I suppose it's a relief that that part of me is gone forever and i am somewhat normal. I never wanted to grope anyone or anything like that, just to be close, which is bizzare.

Nothing bizarre at all about wanting to be close to an attractive woman. It's just how you go about it....
 
I do feel that it is part of being asperger, slower personal development and learning. Of course everyone is different, with different experiences. I think at least with us two that we have been maybe slower to mature. Some of my own odd awkward behaviour is very difficult to recall without feeling embarrassed, even right down to poor communication skills (regardless of my speech impairment). I also had no sense of fashion, and would often wear something either completely ill-fitting, scruffy with holes and rips in them or just plain awful and out-dated. I guess my own awkward naivety and characteristics made me a bigger target with bullies. I'm totally different now, yet only a couple of weeks back I still had a really bad brown trilby hat day, a bad purchase, lol.
 
Yesterday at 7:40 PM #3
Daz5094
It seems to be forgotten about by most people around here, but it's hit me now for some strange reason.

Yesterday at 9:33 PM #8
DuckRabbit

Daz5094 said: ↑
It seems to be forgotten about by most people around here, but it's hit me now for some strange reason.

I feel that the unconscious mind is directing what to present for conscious awareness and at which periods in our life. What else can account for why something that happened way back suddenly pops into our mind and we can't stop thinking about it? Nothing obvious in our daily life may have triggered this recollection, or something very tangential may have triggered it. Sometimes negative memories from the past 'come online' from some unrelated negative experience which highlights all our most negative self-appraisals. I view it as one negative experience in the present setting off the memory-synapses like a string of fire-crackers going back into the past - the mind digging up every bit of evidence for why we are inept, insane, worthless, unworthy etc. Every negative experience we've ever had gets heartlessly presented to us by our minds!

We can't really control what memories surface for rumination and reflection and which remain buried, but I sense the unconscious is rather like the hand of God presenting us with certain unpleasantnesses to face about ourselves at periodic intervals. When it chooses to do this is a mystery, but this 'forced confrontation' with ourselves is what leads to a greater level of consciousness - which might after all be the purpose of life: to become self-aware and learn to understand other people, if not love them. Confronting ourselves and what we have done/ thought/ felt in the past can be acutely painful, often involving self-loathing and suicide ideation. Some people feel it is so painful that it isn't worth the expansion of consciousness that results. Life does seem to want us to become more conscious, using things like depression, anxiety, loneliness and low self-esteem as tools. Suffering essentially 'wakes us up' aka 'dark nights of the soul'.

A constructive way of dealing with the guilt and shame you feel could be to develop empathy for others who've behaved in an ignorant or unconscious way in the past, and might be feeling the same guilt and shame as you. If we ourselves know what this experience is like (doing something dumb when we didn't know any better; being confronted with it by our mind later in life; ruminating on it and feeling anxious, depressed, worthless etc.), we'll know not to despise or devalue others for what they do in ignorance; we'll be more able to view them with comprehension and compassion. It seems to be all about trusting the process of life.
 
Good point. Hopefully this won't last forever, although it's gaining momentum over the last few days.

I think i have accepted that i will be alone forever, apart from family of course. But maybe that is all i really need in life.
 
Good point. Hopefully this won't last forever, although it's gaining momentum over the last few days.

I think i have accepted that i will be alone forever, apart from family of course. But maybe that is all i really need in life.

I would view it as a patch of bad weather - a storm, a cyclone, a horrific black cloud, or a 'dark night of the soul' - which will pass on eventually... when it's done what it came to do. The best advice about dark nights I've encountered is not to fight it but to go with it or 'be taken' by it - just go with whatever emotions and thoughts they throw up, without trying too hard to organise or control it. Using art, imagery, physical exercise, bathing and other non-verbal media can be a good way of mediating the tempest. It is working on you, reshaping you, even if you do nothing but feel what you're feeling or think what you're thinking. "A strong mood or an overpowering emotion might raise you up a level, causing a shift in your very nature," Thomas Moore writes.

As for being alone forever - often that very acceptance or resignation can be the very thing to "raise you up a level, causing a shift in your very nature". This shift could change things so that you won't necessarily be alone forever. The paradox is that one often has to accept being alone forever - completely embrace that as a solid, immovable fact - and build one's life around it e.g., as you say, getting and giving support, nurturing and pleasure from your family.

Being single has its challenges and being married also has its challenges - read some advice columns about people stuck in abusive or cold relationships where their spouse bullies them and cares nothing about their thoughts and feelings. Surely one would rather be alone in that case? The secret is not to force the issue but try to find small pleasures in today. As Benjamin Franklin said: "Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day." That would include small exchanges with shop assistants, taxi drivers, bus drivers, porters, postmen/women; listening to music; engaging in personal projects; or the company of a pet. It all boils down to the old 'gratitude journal'! - not as a solution to anything but as a coping device.
 
Maybe this is a storm that will pass, hopefully it is. Music is a good way of calming me.

Looking back, i can't believe i didn't end up behind bars or got a beating from some pissed off dudes.
although i never followed people round or home or anything like that, i feel like my Aspergers social awkwardness came over as a form of stalking.

Yeterday, i realised that my obsession with a barmaid was seen as stalking. We were on talking terms all along, but looking back it was an unhealthy obsession. I never followed her around anywhere or even had her phone number, it was only in the bar/pub. That is a new one that hit me yesterday.
 

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