2 Worlds Collide

For me having Aspergers Autism is kind of like living in 2 worlds at the same time ... one half of you lives in the real world and the other half of you lives in a parallel world and you can never be completely in both worlds.

Its like trying to play tennis and swim laps at the same time.

Its like living in France and not being able to speak more than 2 or 3 words in French and no one else speaks English.

While I understand some things, like that NT people like to talk and so therefore like to phone each other or text each other or message each other a lot and they expect their friends to want to talk to them as much as they do.... Its only human nature to want to connect to other humans ...

Yet just because I know this it doesnt mean I feel the need / desire to talk

Not having that need means people end up feeling that I dont like them or that I dont want to talk to them and friendships that are just getting started tend to end with no longer being in contact with each other.

Of course just because I have no desire to chat it doesnt mean that I dont like responding to messages, I may not always know what to say or even feel a need to respond, but just like everyone else I want to be connected to people.... its frustrating that I can not feel a connection like other people do.

Sometimes the way I look at things is kind of child like / innocent ... yet I have been hurt so much in my life by others that I know the world isnt always a nice place, yet I cant help looking at it the way I do...

Sometimes my view is obviously unrealistic ... such as how saying Please and Thank you should be easy for everyone ... But I also understand that humans are rather selfish on the whole and think mainly only about themselves ... people seem to think its their right to walk through a door being held open by someone without having to say Thank You to the person holding it open...

Obviously not everyone is that self centred, but a majority of human beings are self centred, which is why when disaster strikes and you hear about strangers helping each other, they become hero's because putting others above yourself is a trait that is limited these days.

You often hear now on the news about things like how someone who went to the help of someone being attacked was in turn attacked and either hospitalized or killed for going to help .... and that is why people are getting less and less willing to put themselves out for strangers.... As an example, people are scared to pick up hitchers now in case the hitchhiker attacks them...

People walk around these days texting on their phones or talking on their phones.. it keeps them connected to people but at the same time it also isolates them from the world around them..

A couple of years ago I sent out a Facebook invite for people to come to a party this year, and we needed 60 people to come, yet having asked over 100 people through Facebook and having given then all 2 years to organise time off, only about 6 people said they would come.... Hardly anyone has replied to posts asking them to let me know if they are coming....

I sometimes wonder what is the point of these people having me on their friends list if they can not even bother replying to things when I ask them.... and people wonder why I dont feel the need to talk to people... maybe if they talked back when I needed them to talk it would be better...

I honestly dont understand how to deal with people... I am totally lost when it comes to interaction...

But that is where it can be confusing for people who know me as they have seen me interact with people, seen me being like everyone else... but what they dont understand is that while I appear to be "normal" I'm so stressed inside and not really understanding what I am doing .. not knowing if I am saying the right things, talking too loud, laughing at the wrong time, looking too intently into someones eyes, not being sure of what is the right thing to reply ... basically just winging it ... (I'm sure that is the right term I should use here)

I wish that I didnt live in 2 worlds, but I do ...

People have said to me things like.... I'm shy to but I just go out and talk to people, you can make friends if you just try as well...

But these people dont realise that my shyness is a different type of shyness ... mine is due to not understanding people, not feeling a connection.... and I think that people on a subconscious level pick up on that, which is why not many people want to be friends.

Of course I am not even really sure if people I do know consider me a friend or an acquaintance... If I dont see people for months and months or dont really have contact with them, are they still considered a friend ? As to my mind all the people I know are just acquaintances, they can not really be considered friends in the dictionary definition sense as in ( 1. person one likes and chooses to spend time with - usu. without sexual or family bonds - ) ... So as I do not spend time with people who may or may not be friends then that would make them acquaintances right? ...

Of course this is complicated as I realise that it should not just be up to the other person to come and see me, but for a friendship to work with me and other people, its the other people who have to take charge of the friendship... They have to be the ones who organise a day and time to visit, who invite me to visit them on a set day and time (preferably when David can come with me as I dont like to use public transport on my own) ... I know it seems like I am putting a lot of the responsibility of the friendship onto the other person but because I dont have a connection to people and dont understand social involvements the way others do, then I really do need to take a passive roll in that part of the friendships.

I once had a friend in early 2000 who would organise to come and pick me up or have David drop me off at her place and then we would either stay at her house or we would go out on errands, she would drive us wherever she needed to go... It was really nice, until she started to use me as a cover for her affair, that started to get to me, especially when I became like a third wheel at lunch meetings between them... So that friendship ended after my having talked with someone else ( an online friend I had never met in person, but felt comfortable to talk with ) about how upset i was at being used ... Well this person sent the friend who was using me an email and basically exposed her to her husband, I dont think that was what she intended, but it ended the friendship I had with both ladies. But at the start of my friendship with this first lady it was nice having someone who could be in charge and was willing to be the one who organised things about visiting or taking me places.
My Autistic world is one that is rather lonely as I tend to be the only one in that world, its a world full of books, imagination, fantasy... where a pigeon becomes a dragon, where a rain puddle becomes a lake, where a flower becomes a jewel, where animals are the only things who care about me and respect me and understand me.

The Real world is one that is rather confusing with people telling lies and being mean, being sarcastic, saying things like I wont hurt you like other people have and then doing just that... Where I understand something to mean one thing but in reality it means something else altogether, where being touched can make me hurt, where people invading me space by walking too close to me stresses me out so much, where talking to someone can become a mine field of not knowing what they mean and not knowing what to say or when to stop saying things, where getting a gift becomes stressful because then you dont know if the other person expects a gift back at some point, where as when you give a gift to someone you dont expect anything in return, but then people take advantage of that... Its where certain tastes or smells are too much for you, where being lonely even when you have family who love you is just part of life.

When you spend too much time in the Real world trying to be "normal" that's when it collides with the Autistic world... that is when you have meltdowns, get depressed or suicidal, scream, have a temper tantrum, become mute.... or what ever else happens with you when 2 world collide.