Never know what I do wrong - can't seem to get feedback
Hi,
I'm female, 50 years old and live in the US. As yet I haven't been diagnosed with AS but am going to try again soon if I can find a doctor here that I haven't already gone to.
I started reading about AS in about October of 2001. I'd been diagnosed before with Social Anxiety Disorder/Social Phobia and also Avoidant Personality Disorder. I always believe that I can't make friends, have low self-esteem, and expect to be disliked. I din't really have any friends now. I had a lot of trouble making friends in school and was teased, and have never really gotten over that in all the years since then. Anyway, before learning about AS, I'd been going to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety, and it seemed to be working, though slowly, but I thought that something I'd had nearly over 40 years (at that time) wasn't going to go away overnight.
One of the things about CBT for social phobia in people presumed to be non-autistic, is that one's social skills are probably better than one thinks, and the person is probably needlessly worrying about doing things wrong, being looked at, doing something weird, seeming weird or dorky, or whatever, and in some cases the behavioral part consists of doing something that might seem odd or clumsy (like dropping something in a harmless way) to get used to feeling dorky and realize that most people probably won't pay that much attention and if they do, their thoughts on the person who was slightly clumsy would probably be neutral.
However, with AS in many cases we are told that we're probably worse than we think we are---one of the reasons, I've heard, that it can be hard to diagnose adult Aspies is because we might think we are better socially and interpersonally than we really are!!!
So after reading about these things, I immediately started questioning everything I did and believing that I probably: offended clients on my job, made my co-workers hate me, that people on the street or on buses probably pointed me out right away as a weirdo, but that I just hadn't realized it before. I had to believe then that I must not be reading social cues correctly and when someone seemed friendly, either there were ulterior motives or they felt sorry for me.
I ended up having to quit my job that I'd had for 12 years, in early 2005. I was able to live for a year and a half without a job, though I spent money I really should have saved. I got a job in July of 2006 which I still have. The reason I quit the job in 2006 was because I was so sick of second-guessing myself all the time, and I just wanted to be totally away from people. During this time I asked my boss and a couple other people I knew to describe my social and interpersonal and communication deficits, and they said that I needed to have more self-confidence. I know it's more than that.
I've been to nine doctors trying to get diagnosed--4 of them were experts on AS and autism, and none of them would diagnose me. 3 of the experts even seemed emphatic that I didn't have AS, and the other suggested a neuropsychologist (the 4th expert I saw) who said I didn't have AS. The diagnoses I keep getting are still SA/SP, avoidant PD and generalized anxiety disorder. They also add OCD because they believe I am obsessed with being diagnosed with AS.
I know there is more to it than this and I do have AS and multiple deficits. Getting diagnosed would help me to believe where I was and what I am, because most of the time I'm in denial about really having AS and I keep attributing my problems to anxiety disorders (when the only reason I developed these disorders was due to all the social trouble I had which must have been due to AS). I keep expecting my boss to tell me that I suck at parts of my job that deal with clients, that my co-workers don't like me and that I shouldn't attend company gatherings such as the holiday ones we had recently. This should have happened on my prior job too--one person there really didn't like me, for instance; and on this job there have been incidents where I haven't been invited to informal things.
I'm not really sure what to do about any of this. I'm seeing a psychiatrist for meds, and have asked her if she could find someone I could see to be diagnosed for AS because she herself doesn't have enough knowledge of it to tell one way or the other. I would think that I'm so odd that, now that people know about AS, they'd be coming up to me and telling me I might have it and should look into it. I keep expecting this.
The problem is I'm sometimes afraid to be diagnosed and I think that when I'm in a doctor's office I seem normal because I"m so afraid tot be diagnosed, and probably at my age I can seem normal for short periods. But this doesn't help me to have friends or to be able to have supervisory positions at work or even tell anybody how to do anything. It doesn't help me to have dates or connect with people in any way. So my "normality" is obviously very superficial.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
no need to second guess.
if you think you have AS you should try writing down the reasons why you think you have AS and look for a psychologist that is familiar with it.
and try not to tear yourself to bits about things that happened in the past. no need for it and it is not fair on you.
Being Yourself
I personally believe that we "are" better at socializing and getting on with people than we think. From what you say I think you have done better than you feel.
Slowly, I am coming to the conclusion that I try to have too many friends, when what I should be doing is focusing on the 3/4 close friends that I genuinely have and who do so much for me.
I was discussing this with my wife only two days ago. She is from overseas and has "only" four close friends in her home country.
Since being in the UK for 12 years now, she has made close friendship with 5 people. Other people sometimes say that she is not overly open to others. However, she doesn't care. She is wary of people and always says to me don't openly trust them. She has valued friends and concentrates on them.
In a work context it is not important to be liked. I know that we like to be liked - and it unsetlles us if we aren't - but the important thing is doing the job well. At work true friendship is difficult for people to deliver because of extenuating circumstances.
The one exception is where you have someone who clearly dislikes you. I have experienced this.
However, subsequent knowledge made me understand that it was largely not my fault. Though I contributed to it slightly, it was not my responsibility initially (I have recognised the lessons going forward). If I was faced with this again I would confront the person sooner to try and nip the problem "in the bud".
I know its easier said than done and most people say it but "have confidence". If I was to ask you how many colleagues "dislike" you I would suspect you would say very few.
NT's are often to blame you know!