Been watching someone connect with others lately and looking at how she does it. Being present as much as is possible for others and taking time. Not being concerned with how you appear to others and accepting them the way they are instead of fretting about how much they are different to you. I’ve learned so much from her and she has put me back in touch with things I already “knew” with my head but not with my heart. I don’t know how I will be able to continue without her but I need to be able to have this strong core without relying on anyone else to give it to me. Remembering what is important to me and staying in touch with myself. Connecting with myself. Not trying too hard. 3 years ago

Someone at work was talking about another person who we both knew in the past and who we had both worked with. She said that she thought this person may have some autistic tendencies as she felt that there was something stopping this person from connecting with people. She said that there had been lots of complaints about this person which i could not believe. Totally different to how I had experienced her.I said this – that I had really found this person, at the time I knew her, quite amazing and inspiring and had enjoyed working with her.

Then a few days ago someone said in a meeting that there are some schools of thought which talk about everyone being somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

Now this person we were discussing never seemed to me to have problems connecting with others. Not in the same way i did and still do. Which is how I come to be discussing labels and diagnoses.

Here I am trying to diagnose myself due to these issues I have had most of my life – I know this is not helpful and will not really help me address what is going on. I’m just trying to get to grips with this lack of connection with others and hyper-ness(lol)/anxiety thing.

Since the last time I posted and lots of people commented I have not written to many of you in post form – I am still not learning to connect. In real life too this happens. I am making new connections and they fall by the wayside as i don’t know how to sustain them. Well I do know but something stops me. Here I am expecting others to keep it going. I can’t “hear” things in busy conversations and everything moves too fast for me.

I then read something yesterday about adult ADD which seemed to describ me perfectly. Just the other day I was feeling down about my ability to deal with things on a day to day basis. I tend to be in a high state of stress just dealing with any level of tasks – so no matter how big or small a challenge something is I will cope with it in the same way. I told someone else that I wasn’t panicking this was just the way I lived my life. She asked me if I wanted it to be different. Yes I do but I don’t know how.

Then I got to wondering if it was ADD then this may also explain my inability to make connections. I did a quiz online and scored quite highly though I was quite balanced/restrained in my answers.

Of course it could be simply that I have always been juggling lots of things and this is ongoing stress and anxiety – coupled with social anxiety.

I am feeling a bit distressed about all this right now and don’t know quite how to deal with it. I don’t want to give myself a label really but this way I function, it can’t be just the way I am, can it? I suppose even if I had a label that would still just be the way I am, wouldn’t it? It’s not about fixing myself or changing the core of me – i know that is sound – it is all the rest of me that is just buzzing all the time or crashing all the time that needs balancing.

Ramble, ramble. 3 years ago

I wonder what it is I am doing out in the world that prevents this happening for me? This question is one that right now I have time and space to observe.

Just now, reflecting on an interaction I had yesterday, I was struck with a sudden possibly illuminating thought….perhaps part of the problem is that my expectations are too high. Of myself and of others.

Maybe also unconsciously I have been valuing certain interactions more than others instead of what I aspire to, which is accepting everyone for who they are. Oh that’s just ridiculous – as I wrote that I realise that what I am doing there is expecting myself to be perfect. I do accept others for who they are and I am a human being who sometimes makes mistakes!

So what happens?

Well I think it’s to do with my stress levels and anxiety levels. Here I am in the world and my interactions are often shaped by others and not by who I am as a person. My anxiety means that sometimes(and less so these days), it hasmeant that I am constantly searching for feedback in the other person’s face and if i see a flicker of boredom or a yawn or something else negative I would close down immediately!

So…

too high expectations of interactions
anxiety

What else?

Hmm there is also something that I’ve had for years and very pathetic it is. I tend not to contact people but wait for them to contact me – even people who I regard as friends. Due to my sometimes inaccurate reading of body language and my minute analysis of the words of others,my thinking gets distorted. I think… “won’t send a message, or call or suggest meeting up as the other person doesn’t want me bothering them.” I think this happens online also as I am not particularly wonderful here either.

Another issue is that I think I have nothing to offer. I am conscious of how emotionally needy I can be and don’t want to take all the time. I wonder if people sense this. There is all that stuff about in positive psychology writing about avoiding negative people. Perhaps that is how I am in the world?

And again another issue related to the anxiety is FEAR. That old thing! For example this week I met a new person at work and I feel that we are getting along like a house on fire. I am pacing myself, I’m relaxed and just being myself most of the time. Then creeps up from nowhere that old paranoia, that anxiety, that fear. I know that I often have this connection and then after a while something goes wrong and I cannot seem to progress it or maintain it. It slips away. Must be something to do with how I come across. I think I push people away as i have always felt that once they know the real me they won’t want to know me. Bits of my life just don’t fit sometimes with other bits of my life and I don’t seem to be very thick skinned. Too sensitive.

So

too high expectations
anxiety/distorted thinking
fear
thinking too much/worry and shame
sensitivity
too much focus on myself instead of the other person
thinking about the outcome rather than enjoying the journey

Right now I wonder how on earth I am here AGAIN writing this entry. I feel as if I am just in an endless cycle, repeating the same learning and not learning from it – years and years of the same failures.

Again that it too harsh – I am miles aways from the person who maybe wrote something similar 20 years ago or 10 years ago.It’s just that there is something missing and I can’t quite grasp that bit of the learning – maybe I never will.

The person I met this week. I absolutely love her and want to nurture the connection I feel there is. So what stops me? Just my own thoughts about not being quite her sort of person and my knowing that I am really not – or the outer look of my life does not reflect the inner. It’s not about changing myself into someone I am not. It’s about letting the person I am shine through and not being ashamed of any part of me or of any part of my life. Keeping my love for the other person and not comparing myself and finding I fall short. We are all different and all the same – it’s about balancing that. 3 years ago