musicalman
Well-Known Member
Hey everyone!
So this just entered my mind oddly enough as I was writing an e-mail to someone I hadn't spoken to in a year, and trying to decide how to write the message.
In short, I'm not really sure how to think. My childhood thinking patterns don't help me function in the world. When I was a kid I snapped into a thought pattern that x = y. If z happened, x or y might change and work out to a different solution, but I had to understand how. If the relationship between x, y, and z wasn't straightforward enough, or if nobody could explain it, then I would be extremely perplexed, and, depending on my perceived severity of the situation, I would be pretty distraught for a while, and or be emotionally on edge and snap at people unintentionally because I was frustrated at the lack of an answer that would work every time. And for the record, I don't treat it like an algebra problem, in my head it's more fluid. Lol
I'm like that with a lot of things, but where it makes my life especially challenging is when socializing, because while I do like meeting different types of people, I begin looking for those xyz relationships too quickly. I'm one of those people who, if you seem to contradict what you said before, I'll have one of my aforementioned reactions trying to figure you out. It doesn't have to be direct contradiction either. For instance, if you and I both like a hard game, but then another hard game that's somewhat similar comes out and I like it but you hate it, I'll actually go crazy trying to figure out why you don't like it. At least I would have a few years ago, now I'm slowly getting better at just accepting that I can't process things so concretely. But it isn't easy.
I'm also very submissive, and I don't quite know why. For example when a friend of mine thought I had Aspergers, I believed him pretty quickly. I looked it up and was less convinced, but now I'm back to believing it again because of how different people on the spectrum really can be, and it's a spectrum after all.
But that aside, it bugs me how easily anyone could say something and I just believe it's true. I used to think doing research would make me better at that, but it only makes it worse because now I will likely get contradictory evidence and I don't know how to handle that. And the research analysis stuff they teach you in school doesn't help me too much unless it's something I have some hands-on experience with, then I can think through it nicely. But if it's anything else, I am too easily overloaded by different perspectives. How do I balance the contradiction to have a definitive answer? Of course I can't. Even if I somehow do come up with an xyz way of processing it, there's no telling just how many outcomes would be possible.
Also when I meet new people, I often find myself emulating them, almost subconsciously. Sometimes I feel as though I don't really know who I am, so I try to find myself in others. In truth, I do know a little bit about how I am, what my morals are, what my preferences are, what my primary interests are... But I still have a lot to cement into place. I find it difficult to find my own personality when interacting with different people, because just when I thought I found something comfy, I end up changing it, either because I feel I have to, or it just subconsciously happens. It's exhausting for me trying to find myself, but the only alternative is to consciously try to be what I'm not which is worse.
All my life I've been told that I need to get out and try more things, take more opportunities, and so I take them completely literally and do that with every chance I get (I'm submissive and try to do what I'm told. But now that I'm 25, people are shifting their story now: "You're an adult, if you don't want to do something you don't have to, just say no, stop being so nice to everyone, you can't keep doing that." I know it's true, and I want to be like that. But because I haven't found myself for lack of a better way to put it, I have a hard time deciding when to say yes and when to say no to favors. That bothers me more than anything else.
I've been told that these are common struggles in my age group, so part of me wants to believe that, but I think mine are more severe. While people don't often say it, I sometimes get subtle or not-so-subtle clues that I am just a little or a lot more awkward, indecisive and sensitive than they would expect. I think there are many contributing factors to it, but I'll just leave it at this: Are these traits common with aspies, or people with anxiety or something else or what? I know I won't get a definitive answer on this one, or a definitive way of knowing how to deal with it, and I accept that. I'm just looking for some perspective from others who may share some of this with me or can relate to it to some degree.
So this just entered my mind oddly enough as I was writing an e-mail to someone I hadn't spoken to in a year, and trying to decide how to write the message.
In short, I'm not really sure how to think. My childhood thinking patterns don't help me function in the world. When I was a kid I snapped into a thought pattern that x = y. If z happened, x or y might change and work out to a different solution, but I had to understand how. If the relationship between x, y, and z wasn't straightforward enough, or if nobody could explain it, then I would be extremely perplexed, and, depending on my perceived severity of the situation, I would be pretty distraught for a while, and or be emotionally on edge and snap at people unintentionally because I was frustrated at the lack of an answer that would work every time. And for the record, I don't treat it like an algebra problem, in my head it's more fluid. Lol
I'm like that with a lot of things, but where it makes my life especially challenging is when socializing, because while I do like meeting different types of people, I begin looking for those xyz relationships too quickly. I'm one of those people who, if you seem to contradict what you said before, I'll have one of my aforementioned reactions trying to figure you out. It doesn't have to be direct contradiction either. For instance, if you and I both like a hard game, but then another hard game that's somewhat similar comes out and I like it but you hate it, I'll actually go crazy trying to figure out why you don't like it. At least I would have a few years ago, now I'm slowly getting better at just accepting that I can't process things so concretely. But it isn't easy.
I'm also very submissive, and I don't quite know why. For example when a friend of mine thought I had Aspergers, I believed him pretty quickly. I looked it up and was less convinced, but now I'm back to believing it again because of how different people on the spectrum really can be, and it's a spectrum after all.
But that aside, it bugs me how easily anyone could say something and I just believe it's true. I used to think doing research would make me better at that, but it only makes it worse because now I will likely get contradictory evidence and I don't know how to handle that. And the research analysis stuff they teach you in school doesn't help me too much unless it's something I have some hands-on experience with, then I can think through it nicely. But if it's anything else, I am too easily overloaded by different perspectives. How do I balance the contradiction to have a definitive answer? Of course I can't. Even if I somehow do come up with an xyz way of processing it, there's no telling just how many outcomes would be possible.
Also when I meet new people, I often find myself emulating them, almost subconsciously. Sometimes I feel as though I don't really know who I am, so I try to find myself in others. In truth, I do know a little bit about how I am, what my morals are, what my preferences are, what my primary interests are... But I still have a lot to cement into place. I find it difficult to find my own personality when interacting with different people, because just when I thought I found something comfy, I end up changing it, either because I feel I have to, or it just subconsciously happens. It's exhausting for me trying to find myself, but the only alternative is to consciously try to be what I'm not which is worse.
All my life I've been told that I need to get out and try more things, take more opportunities, and so I take them completely literally and do that with every chance I get (I'm submissive and try to do what I'm told. But now that I'm 25, people are shifting their story now: "You're an adult, if you don't want to do something you don't have to, just say no, stop being so nice to everyone, you can't keep doing that." I know it's true, and I want to be like that. But because I haven't found myself for lack of a better way to put it, I have a hard time deciding when to say yes and when to say no to favors. That bothers me more than anything else.
I've been told that these are common struggles in my age group, so part of me wants to believe that, but I think mine are more severe. While people don't often say it, I sometimes get subtle or not-so-subtle clues that I am just a little or a lot more awkward, indecisive and sensitive than they would expect. I think there are many contributing factors to it, but I'll just leave it at this: Are these traits common with aspies, or people with anxiety or something else or what? I know I won't get a definitive answer on this one, or a definitive way of knowing how to deal with it, and I accept that. I'm just looking for some perspective from others who may share some of this with me or can relate to it to some degree.
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