Breaking out of my shell

Hi

I've spent at least the last 10 years lurking on various internet forums and usenet groups, but only contribute about once every 6 months. Partly coz I feel like posting under a psudoname is akin to lying, and I try to be truthful much of the time. At the same time I don't really want what I say here to be traceable back to me just yet.

I had a major panic attack last Tuesday while attempting to drive home from work in the snow, something I am not all that confident about. My mum persuaded me to visit the doctor the next day and he put me on Citalopram which is causing a strange tingling sensation in my head, but also appears to be opening up new areas of thought.

I've always been unable to relate to other people, crap at sports, going into my own little world and having odd habits.
From a very young age I was told I was lazy, I guess I started to believe it and lowered my expectations of myself.
I always used food to regulate my emotions, and never exercised, so towards the end of last year I reached just over 21 stone.

I decided that enough was enough, and I was really going to have to fix it instead of procrastinating forever, so I did the LighterLife program. I think that appealed as it was just a rule I could apply, (eat this instead of that, eat nothing else), rather than taking on a load of execise like going by joining a gym which involves all sorts of time management and social issues I can't really handle.
I actually kept to the rule pretty well, and lost 7 stone in six months. I started going walking about 5 miles several times a week.
I've kept to the same weight for the last six months, and I feel like I now have that situation under control. LighterLife involves councilling sessions and CBT, which I didn't really pay that much attention to, but some of it must have slipped though and made me start to introspect a bit more.

But after all that I didn't really feel any different. My BMI is down to about 26, which is not that far off "normal".
But its like "So you're not fat any more, so what?, You still don't fit in with the rest of the world".

I take things to literally, I trust people too easily. I let myself be influenced into making a fool out of myself. I constantly regret so many past experiances where I have got things wrong or appeared to be oblivious to other peoples feelings.

I put myself in some sort of box years ago, I decided that if I didn't reveal anything about myself then no one would be able to use anything I said or did against me.
I don't know if its possible to undo all the various levels of restrictions I have imposed on myself over the years, but I'd like to really try.

I feel like I appear and people treat me as though I am some kind of robot.
There are a lot more sides to me that I feel no one knows about.
I am a real person, and I want to be able to prove it somehow.

Theres quite a lot mode I'd like to say, but I'll start with that

breakingout wrote:Hi
............

I take things to literally, I trust people too easily. I let myself be influenced into making a fool out of myself. I constantly regret so many past experiances where I have got things wrong or appeared to be oblivious to other peoples feelings.

I put myself in some sort of box years ago, I decided that if I didn't reveal anything about myself then no one would be able to use anything I said or did against me.
I don't know if its possible to undo all the various levels of restrictions I have imposed on myself over the years, but I'd like to really try.

I feel like I appear and people treat me as though I am some kind of robot.
There are a lot more sides to me that I feel no one knows about.
I am a real person, and I want to be able to prove it somehow.
...

I felt and have experienced the same thing. Actually I'm still feeling this way.
If I don't show any part of myself I won't be used and people won't humiliate me. But the consequence is that I am utterly alone, and I will always be alone. but in a way I am somewhat happy with that. but then I see people hanging out with their friends, and posting pictures on myspace and facebook of all the adventures they have had. and I want that at time, even long for it. but I just don't know anymore, how to breakout of my habits. and that's why I'm going to a hypnotherapist about my eating habits...
Maybe this is how people with AS live and feel.
Welcome to the forum by the way.

Hi, good to know I'm not the only one.

I've been looking a lot of this psychology stuff and I think the Citalopram is helping with the "Central Coherence" aspect, but where I am still struggling is with the "Executive Function" side. In CPU terms I am lacking a branch prediction unit, and must execute in software emulation what other people appear to have in microcode. Side effects from the drug, aside from the tingling seem to be sleep disruption and loss of appetite. (Which is a bit concerning, as having spent the whole year trying to get myself not to eat I'm now having to convince myself the other way, my BMI is nearing 25 rapidly though unintentionally.)

I feel very rule driven, I will very rarely go into a situation until I have a clear idea in my mind what will happen. When events do not match my expectations I get very stressed, (going out to a restaurant, deciding in advance what you are going to order to avoid the stress of making a decision, then finding that it is no longer available)

A big part of my stress at the moment is with where I work. I got into software development, coz its logical and impersonal and seems to fit my way of thinking. However I am terrible at estimating how long something will take, or breaking large projects down into small pieces. I understand all the details, but don't know where to start with putting it all together.
I feel my company is totally disorganized, and no one is giving me the structure I need to perform effectively, consequently I spend hours worrying about stuff, and reading various blogs, forums and technical sites, rather than getting a lot of work done, unless I know it is something I can do in a few hours.

In an effort to find all the rules I feel I need to be as effective as I feel I should become I have developed a habit of buying all sorts of programming and computer books. I have just about every area covered from History (The soul of a new machine, Showstopper!, Dealers of Lightning), practice (Code Complete, Refactoring, Design Patterns), specific APIs (ADO, Linq, Silverlight, WPF).
But I never muster up the sustained concentration to actually read them. I go in thinking I'll read from cover to cover, so I've read countless forwards and author acknowledgements, but usually lose interest by the end of the first or second chapter, before I've even got to the meat of the matter.

I feel I really identify with the character Wall-E, he spent 700 years in isolation, collecting things he found interesting but having no one to share them with. When EVE arrives he is intimidated, she appears to operate at a much higher level than him, her "directive" is classified, he shows her all the things he has collected and tries to reach out but she doesn't understand him.
On the Axiom Eve instinctively knows her way about, she is connected to the central computer and knows all the rules, while Wall-E just bumbles around, accidentally setting off all sorts of mayhem. Eventually she comes to understand him and returns his affection, I'm just hoping something like that will happen to me some day. I actually have a Wall-E toy on my desk at work, though I never explained why to anyone.

Kek. Lacking a Branch Prediction Unit. Not sure if I entirely agree. Its more like that I get stuck because I fork a new process every time I need to Predict a Branch (which could be even worse performancewise).

Breakingout, you didn't say how old you are. That can be significant. You can change a hell of a lot between the ages of 20 and 30, between the ages of 30 and 35, and so on. I've made big progress in the past couple of years, and I'm 44.

I was totally convinced that I would never meet someone. That I would always be alone, that I was too dysfunctional to be able to know how to begin to function in a relationship. Then, at one of the lowest points in my life, I had this really wonderful girl who was totally out of my league fall in love with me, who decided that she had to make me fall madly in love with her and who wouldn't take "no" for an answer. She was a massive overachiever in life, was ridiculously intelligent, attractive, and 21 years old to my 36 years. As it turned out she was significantly more messed up than I was, having an extremely unstable form of bipolar disorder for which she absolutely refused to take medication. Long story. Wonderful girl, I stay in touch with her even now from time to time (8 years on). She is married to an Australian a lot closer to her own age, seems happy, travels a lot. That was a huge turning point in my life.

For years - a lot of years - people told me that I would meet someone and that the worst thing I could do was to actually make an effort to meet someone because I would somehow jinx myself in the process. Complete and utter bollocks (am I allowed to use that word?). As I pointed out to those offering such advice, I couldn't actually try any less to meet someone, and yet, while I was lying on the sofa at home watching Discovery Channel, the girls were not exactly queueing up at my front door. Nor were they ever likely to, just quietly. Don't take too much notice of what NTs tell you about how "you'll meet someone".

I have been "on the road" - working in a number of different countries - for nearly 12 years now. I always hated travel until I got lured to England by the big money associated with Y2K work. I was more "in my shell" there than I ever was, had almost no friends and pretty much worked or stayed home and watched TV for 2 years. Got back to Australia after that to the worst IT job market in living memory, and eventually had to go on the road again to get back into the workforce. It hasn't always been easy, but in the end it was the best thing I could possibly have done.

I just realized that I have monologued on about myself and offered very little helpful advice whatsoever. How ironic.

Or how iconic. Hows that.

Thanks, I'm now 27 and yes I've pretty much spent the last 8 years doing not much more than watching TV.
Actually I think it helps, you get to study peoples facial expressions and behavior without the stress of feeling like you should be interacting with them, of course they are somewhat artificial situations but they are trying to teach you something.
I recognize too much of my own behavior in some of the characters in "The Big Bang Theory", and learned how revisiting the past helps you better understand yourself in the present in "Being Erica".

I've decided to lay off the citalopram, it doesn't agree with me, causing tachycardia and nausea. I don't know if it really made the difference, or I just decided to let other people in organically, but I feel like something is different now.
I have to discover some other way to manage my emotions and stress level, be it exercise, music or talking to people, and I have to find some way to address my work situation regarding structure, and manage my life better perhaps by resorting to checklists and timers, (I'm always looking for some technological solution, but perhaps a simple notebook will do it)

This guy seems to have a lot to offer regarding how to manage social relationships with a group
http://iautistic.com/autism-theory-soci ... -model.php

Heh. My gf says I'm 1/3 of a Sheldon.

NOTE: The following, when I read back over it, sounds incredibly preachy and self righteous. Telling an Aspie just to "get out there and meet people" is about as helpful as telling someone with clinical depression to "snap out of it". Or someone with schizophrenia to "just pull yourself together". I know that as well as the rest of you do. The reality is that I currently don't actually have any friends, at least not in the same country as I am, and I spend all my time either going to the gym or hanging out with my family. So I'm not exactly a success story, but I have made some positive improvements in my life and found a little happiness from time to time, and I'd like to help the OP do the same.

Studying people on TV and reading about how to have social relationships is one thing, and you may feel like you are making progress in your own way. Acting on it is another.

I feel like I have similarities with most people on this forum. Sometimes those similarities are strong. In your case, just based on what I have read, you could almost be me at 27.

I found my EVE when I was 36 - I hope that you don't have to wait that long. The important thing to do is to get out of your comfort zone a little. Watching TV and thinking about what it would be like to interact with people is not going to help. I have done a huge amount of travel and worked in an incredible variety of environments over the past 12 years, and a lot of it has been tough and I have had plenty of problems because of various issues that I now know are most likely due to AS. But getting out there and mixing with people is important. And a lot easier said than done.

I remember that I had a lot of weird problems with a girl I used to work with - I often don't "get" people and sometimes I can develop a phobia about a particular person for no particular reason. Anyway this girl got a bit upset with me for teasing her about being small - I always thought that it was okay because I have been teased about being huge all my life. I found that after that I couldn't talk to her or have normal interaction with her at all. She waged a kind of evil campaign against me for treating her like that, almost drove me crazy (literally), I just couldn't deal with it. Things never really "normalized", but what I did do was make sure that EVERY SINGLE DAY I would go out of my way to talk to her, usually about something really inane, just so that she couldn't go around telling people that I wasn't talking to her. Forced myself right out of my comfort zone. That helped me a lot, believe it or not, and it ended up being a real turning point for me.

Another example was when I was out of work for a year and a half after Y2K. I watched TV and went fishing by myself, but eventually I had to bite the bullet and go cap in hand (mixed metaphors there) and beg for the last job on Earth that I wanted - at the very strong prompting of a good friend who told me a few home truths, like the fact that I would likely never work in my chosen profession again if I didn't. Anyway I got the job, and 3 weeks later I was in the Balkans on a nightmare of a project, working 7 days a week. I had something to prove so I went kind of crazy and did 3 times as much work as anyone else, my colleagues thought that I was a total freak and I made everything look easy. After about 6 months of this, where they wouldn't even give me a weekend off for fear that something would go wrong and I wouldn't be there to fix it, the wheels started falling off. I was telling my boss that I needed some time off and I needed to have the workload eased up, and he kept promising while piling ever more complex tasks on me saying "sorry, but nobody else would be able to do it". So right about the time that all my hormones were shutting down and my sleep patterns were totally shot and I was going out and getting drunk every night and having weird dreams and dropping a heap of weight even though I was living on beer and pizza and horse burgers.... I met my EVE. Actually the first word I ever said to her was "Crikey" (after she stole my seat at a pub). The first thing she ever said to me was "I'm never ever going to sleep with you, you know that". And we almost lived happily ever after. That pretty much turned my life around. It hasn't exactly been plain sailing ever since but I'm infinitely more happy and functional now than I ever imagined that I would be.

Look on the bright side: Most NTs have their "glory days" early on - you may remember the Bruce Springstein song about people looking back on their "glory days" in high school. Well, your glory days are ahead of you IF you get out of your comfort zone and maybe make a bit of luck for yourself. I can't think of any 5 year period during my adult life that wasn't at least twice as good as the previous 5 years.

I'm feeling pretty mixed up right now, this AS thing is still a lot to take in.
It's just over a month since the big AHA moment, and its still as though I'm finally working out whats actually going on in the world, and it isn't what I thought.

Firstly there is the perception vs reality thing.
For most of my life I have assumed that my perception was reality, so if other people didn't see things the same way they were wrong and I was right, couple that with the tendency to see things in black and white, and unwillingness to change my mind once I've decided on something, well it just leads to avoiding having difficult confrontations, thinking other people are idiots, and building up increasing resentment over trivial matters, which causes me lots of frustration that other people aren't even aware of.

But what I'm now struggling with is if my perception is not in fact reality, how do I work out what is in fact reality?
Like I decided for myself aged 7 or 8 that there probably wasn't a God, and pretty much took the Richard Dawkins approach that anyone who thought there was one was sadly mistaken and needed an artificial prop to give their life meaning. Since learning that basically I'm wired up differently than the majority it makes me wonder if they do actually experience some 'feeling' deep inside which gives them their faith, that I just don't have access to.

If I think I have reasons for thinking things are bad, but I take an antidepressant and things no longer seem so bad, even though nothing has changed, were all my reasons wrong? I think I'd rather fix the causes than just artificially fix the symptoms.

Another thing is I'm just beginning to understand is that I've never really had much insight into my own emotional state.
Meltdowns being just one example, its just something that happens when I'm sufficiently stressed, and despite being told for years that 'boys don't cry', 'don't be a baby' etc, it wasn't really something that I felt able to control.

The other side being food, since doing the diet thing, and getting some idea how little I actually 'need' to eat in a day, I've gradually reached the conclusion that all the times as a child that I said I was hungry what I actually meant was I was anxious.
Like I always had this feeling, and I knew that eating would make the feeling go away, but I mixed up the cure with the cause.
I now need to work out something else to do so I don't just cover anxiety up with food, but at the same time I don't just let it build up for months till I reach absolute breaking point and mental shutdown.

The other thing might be this GFCF diet. I probably started following it, or close to it back in May-June this year while doing the Route-To-Management phase of LighterLife. That was I got into a routine of eating pretty much just protein, salad and vegetables for several weeks. At that time I did find I was able to concentrate more at work, felt less fuzzy and tired, and also somewhat came to the realisation that a lot of the other people I was working with didn't seem to be very clever. I didn't attribute any of that to the diet though, and when I reached my target weight I decided I could start eating bread and pasta and everything else again. I now realise that it was about that time that I got more fuzzy and lethargic again, and didn't seem to be able to execute all the software designs I'd thought up when I was better, nor even to learn anything from all the books I had been planning to read when it got too dark to go out walking every evening as I had all summer.

It's kind of difficult to come to realise that all the time I was growing up thinking "some days I can think well, other days I just can't" without understanding the cause it was actually something relatively simple to fix. I wonder what I might have been able to achieve had I understood a bit more of what was going on. At least with regard to concentrating in class/lectures and doing exams. The perfectionism and executive function issues have probably been behind a lot of my failures with coursework.
Of course looking back, the times when I was most anxious I was most likely to seek out the things that would most cause the later problem, sandwiches, pizza, chocolate milk etc. In the last two weeks I have been trying to do GFCF specifically and it does seem to help, but I'm not entirely sure I want to just give up cheese and yoghurt etc. forever.
I do know now that I am pretty willing to fiddle with my diet, and eat pretty much the same thing every day/week long term, but I probably need a bit more guidance in setting up an actual diet plan to make sure I still get enough of all the basic requirements.

Right now it seems my primary interest has switched from software design/technology to psychology, AS etc. This is quite useful it terms of understanding exactly why I have behaved the way I have all my life, but it doesn't really help me work out what to do next, nor is it helping me really get a lot more done either at home or at work. It just means I can concentrate for longer reading AS related books and websites, and not feel so tired in the mornings.

For quite a long time I have actually had an internal mantra, "This is just not my world", and considered most other people to be 'real' and myself somewhat less so. I certainly don't take the attitude that NTs are just robots or pawns I can control, I feel like the inferior species. It always seemed so unfair that people who seemed to barely have two braincells to rub together could just fit in socially, at least among their intellectual peers, yet I was unable to do so anywhere. Like they just inhabit their bodies and feel things, and my mind is somewhere else controlling my body remotely without the signal bandwidth to simultaneously monitor all the sensory inputs and direct all the muscular outputs.

The advice people give, "Just get out more", "just talk to people", "just be yourself" never really seemed to help.
"just get out more" -> go where, do what/when specifically?
"just talk to people" -> what about?, I don't know anything nor am I interested in sports or celebrities, other people arn't really interested in computers, programming, technology or science much.
"just be yourself" -> underneath all the built in rules about how you should or should not behave in various situations I'm not entirely sure what my 'real' personality even is, certainly not how to express it in front of anyone.