Once in a blue moon, when I’m out for some medical appointment or whatever and not projecting enough “please leave me be” energy somehow, [a note is that people will sometimes start conversation if you are wearing an N95] people will approach me and try to strike up conversation. Once I had someone point out one of the stupid pins I wear sometimes, things like that.
I think I’m less afraid of getting stabbed than spontaneous conversation.
The best-case is that I will say one awkward sentence and then run the fuck away, but if somebody makes the mistake of trying to talk to me while I’m in line for something, or waiting for a bus, I can’t just leave. So I had someone try this today, and the secondhand cringe radiating off of me was probably lethal, definitely enough to enforce social distancing.
This probably seems stupid, since I spend large amounts of free time running my fuckin’ mouth online, but all of the basic knowledge of good conversation making just escapes my brain irl. I think the reason is actually sensory overload, which I first realised because I have like a 50/50 chance of just not being able to hear the other person. Any amount of ambient noise and you might as well speak to me with closed captions instead. Past that it just kind of snowballs; is my posture or body language weird, am I speaking at the right volume, on a scale of “mildly sore” to “fucking dying” how bad is my chronic pain right now, is the awkward mix of masking and conversational autopilot that the sensory assault forces my brain into working acceptably for this not to become painfully awkward or has it turned into weapons grade cringe, and that becomes a feedback loop pretty easily. So of course I’m not thinking about like, asking questions about what the other person is saying, for e.g., instead I’m fucking freaking out. Naturally this person today basically tried starting a conversation like six different times with me to little avail.
Take heed: If you’re on amitryptaline for anything at all then, congrats, you’re a victim of 
! I wish it helped.
As a result I’ve whiffed everything from casual chatter to potential missed connection situations routinely over the past several years. At this point I just don’t want to go outside anymore. If it’s gonna be that shit and that difficult all the time, just consign me to the internet forever.
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Based on how often random strangers ask me about the train schedule while I’m waiting at the train platform, I must look like I know a lot about the train schedule.
To be fair to random strangers, I do know a lot about the train schedule.
It happens to me too.
I don’t know what the schedule is but I do obsessively check on my phone
I give people the bus times semi often too, that’s not a big problem on its own…
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I’m really sorry you are still struggling with this so severally Ash. Wish I had more to say.
It’s whatever, the best path to get me to socialise irl is probably to load me up with a fucking boatload of barbituates. Loprazolam was so incredibly chill.
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Yea :/ I remember you liking being medicated. Sorry.
CW alcohol
It’s lucky that I have the presence of mind to go ‘I am not drinking booze, it is bad for you’ because I’m stupid lightweight and being even kind of drunk is an extremely pleasant lifting on the weight of suffering from my shoulders. Being sloppy drunk 24/7 in enchange for defeating anxiety seems like a really bad solution (alcohol kills) when there is weed though.
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“Ash have you been to the weed store yet” NOPE shit’s probably expensive + I am unwilling to look like a total fucking loser who’s never smoked or w/e even once + what if it gives me the paranoias
But seriously, “Hi I want to selfmedicate anxiety and I only remember that you should start with small dose cbd. I am a legal adult, sell me your vegan weed gummy wares, dispensary clerk” is gonna go so hard at the weed store.
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But seriously, “Hi I want to selfmedicate anxiety and I only remember that you should start with small dose cbd. I am a legal adult, sell me your vegan weed gummy wares, dispensary clerk” is gonna go so hard at the weed store.
in all sincerity that sounds just fine. weed stores are generally pretty chill and understanding that many of their customers are struggling with anxiety. i wouldn’t be at all surprised if the clerk is happy to help you select some vegan small dose cbd gummies.
Have you ever tried going into a new place though?
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I looking up pictures of a place so it’s general layout is less abstract
I can already see, they have glass windows…
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it’s always a rough experience, ngl
If it’s any comfort, I can assure that no one working at the weed store cares enough to judge you (or anyone else). You’ll be purged from their minds by the end of the hour.
I wish this knowledge did anything for me but I’m prone to spiralling anyway, partially because the issue is I’m not as worried about judgement from orhers as I am that the debilitating anxiety prevents me from doing anything useful.
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One of the most freeing thoughts to internalise is that nobody cares. It’s a generalisation of course, some people do care about you. But most of them? They will never give you a second thought, if they even bother with the first thought.
You can order cbd online. Not sure what the cost is like but that’s an option to avoid going in a store.
Coming off awkward and admittedly unknowledgeable is probably better than being clueless and able to pretend you know what you’re doing.
I accidentally bought a 20mg seltzer thing at a beer store once. Luckily I checked online before drinking he whole thing at once lol.
Once I had someone point out one of the stupid pins I wear sometimes, things like that.
If whatever’s on the pin is important or amusing enough for you to wear it, it’s not stupid!
It’s stupid in the sense that I have a bunch of pins with slightly obscure gay and trans related phrases on them, and when people approach to compliment them I completely freak out.
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Hey. Hey. Hey you
Nice pins
You joke, but they did not say much more than this. Literally “Sorry I was trying to read your pins. I like your pins” and then I had a classic dropped-my-spaghetti incident and fuckin booked it.
If I sit and think about the scenario for even like half a minute, there are a ton of reasonable replies I could have given, (what were you reading that interested you enough to speak, etc) but the higher faculties of my brain don’t function when people approach me.
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Taking compliments is hard!
I can do it when I’m not being approached in public, promise
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The entire point of the job of weed clerk is to help people who have never smoked get some shit that will be good for them.
People who already do weed just go in and say “yeah lemme just get one <weed jargon>” then leave. The budtenders are there specifically for “Hi I want to selfmedicate anxiety and I only remember that you should start with small dose cbd. I am a legal adult, sell me your vegan weed gummy wares, dispensary clerk”
SPOTTED
the term “budtender” in the wild!!!Also I will not actually be saying that on account I would make an idiot of myself. I dunno, if I’m lucky I’ll be forced into a weed store in a day or two and have to face true terror in the flesh, and stuff.
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That is the standard term for weed store clerks.
You would not make an idiot of yourself. Also, they tend to be an extremely laid back bunch.
FWIW: I wear headphones a lot, and I find that if I point to them and loudly say “I’m sorry, I’m hard of hearing. Can you speak loudly and slowly?” it often helps them realize that I have an audio-processing issue.
I realize you are dealing with a lot more than just audio-processing, but it’s a small trick that has helped me.
I think I would kind of feel like an asshole doing this to anybody. Maybe I shouldn’t and that says something about me, but Idk, imposing on people?
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I’m not sure that I follow how this would be imposing on someone. Do you mind expanding on that?
I think I’m deadly allergic to asking absolutely anything of anyone. An example is that when I first went to the local chronic pain clinic, the social worker was like, appalled that I had to bus all the way there and offered me a slip that pays for a cab ride home. This was cool, and she told me to always ask for one when at the clinic. Instead, eventually her and the other specialists there stopped offering them, and now I just bus home.
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Ah, understandable. I have similar anxieties. I usually only do that when people approach me, so I personally don’t feel that I’m asking them, they are the ones who are asking me.
I’ve met a few non-verbal people who communicated with an iPad using some kind of text to speech program, or a notebook and pen. It worked fine once I got used to it. Would something like that be helpful?
Also fwiw, ADHD meds helped a lot with my anxiety, which I think was mostly from sensory overload/overwhelm. Ymmv.
Either way,
It’s a chill thought not having to talk, though I don’t know if it would just lead to me typing out the same sputtering bs I usually say.
Should I try to get adderall?
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Adderall works pretty well for me, although sometimes the pharmacy runs out and I have to call like 5 pharmacies before I find one. And it caused some painful muscle stiffness at first.
Vyvanse also worked, but made it nearly impossible for me to sleep.
There’s also non-stimulant meds. Strattera worked, but had side effects.
While I have anxiety and I’m not overly confident around people I don’t have many people approach me to talk. It has its pros and cons being relatively non verbal but I can struggle to talk when I want to with strangers. Especially when caught off guard though it’s very rare for that to happen.
Most avoid me when I’m going about ny day which doesn’t help feeling invisible in more social situations.
I hope you can build the courage to try the vegan gummies. If they can help you I think it’s worth it to try. I know how difficult it can be, good luck!
At this point I think I might prefer total invisibility, which I can pull sometimes at least. Social situations…
Thanks, I’ve been putting off going inside a weed store as a theoretical for like five years, maybe this’ll finally be it.
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deleted by creator
The best-case is that I will say one awkward sentence and then run the fuck away, but if somebody makes the mistake of trying to talk to me while I’m in line for something, or waiting for a bus, I can’t just leave. So I had someone try this today, and the secondhand cringe radiating off of me was probably lethal, definitely enough to enforce social distancing.
I relate so much.
I used to be a lot better (I actually had friends and even the occasional hook up! But that was almost a decade ago now…) but I just find talking to people, let alone just existing in general to be exhausting
It’s annoying because I crave connection (I guess you could even say I’m desperate for it) but I just feel so shit about even trying. It’s all so tiring, I don’t understand how people do it constantly every day.
Idk where people get the energy either, I assume they just do not have the excessive sensory load which must be rad.
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What is JPEG-XL?
JPEG-XL, as the link in my sig (https://jpegxl.info/) says, is the jpeg consortium’s new image compression format, succesor to the original JPEG from 1992 and also the failed JPEG-2000 format. Primary benefits include better visual quality than competitor AVIF, much smaller file sizes than PNGs, progressive loading that’s light on internet connections and 100% lossless transcoding of JPEGs, which can be stored as JPEG-XL images with smaller file sizes.
I became slightly obsessed with digital image compression upon discovering Google’s stifling of JPEG-XL in favour of its own AVIF, and now I’m the unofficial spokesdork of JPEG-XL adoption. The future is now, and it involves image compression formats that aren’t 30 years old.
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Take heed: If you’re on amitryptaline for anything at all then, congrats, you’re a victim of ! I wish it helped.
Not the same drug but I got myself off seroquel crap.
Thought that would be the last time I’d ever have to deal with that bullshit again, but low and behold I go get my refills and ANOTHER BOTTLE OF THIS CRAP!
I’m not surprised, just incredibly irritated and personally insulted. Classic dysfunctional fascist shit hole doesn’t listen or someone went “Oi! You can’t allow someone to stop buying my crappy drug! Put my stuff back on that guy’s proscription!”.
Mnmnmmmmmmnnnn…
I’ll occasionally get a little paranoid over the guanfacine, although it doesn’t bother me on a physiological level, and it doesn’t have nasty daggers hidden up its sleeve. At worst it might “underclock” the heart. It’s a fairly well engineered drug all things considered.
But yeah fuck seroquel, that drug is insidious (and I think also subject of various abuse incidents). I feel bad for everyone who relies on it.
Oh yeah, antipsychotics I thankfully haven’t messed with. I altered that quote, it was originally stating that offlabel gabapentin use makes you a victim of the opioid crisis. But the most trouble getting off of any drug has given me is stomach aches and mood swings, so I’m very lucky.
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i really hate interaction with strangers.
I’ve been working on coping tools in therapy and trying to build tolerance, then this past Monday, some asshole stranger makes fun of me while i was out with my pet¹ cuz my pet doesn’t match me or some shit. like i literally did nothing but minding my own damn business and i have to get shit on by some asshole with inadequacy issues.
humans are not worth the fucking energy. i agree with telling the whole species to F off.
i still believe in taking in nature/outdoor air while avoiding humans. i have terrible pollen allergies though, so i can’t go out as much as i probably should.
footnotes ⬇️
Tap for spoiler
¹: i don’t like the term “pet” but saying “my animal” or “the animal i live with” sound just as bad or worse for other reasons. sorry for any offense.
humans are not worth the fucking energy. i agree with telling the whole species to F off.
Yeah but we can’t build communism like this :/ or functioning anarchist society for that matter. I find I have to believe in the basic tendency of people to be decent, regardless of any anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Because, like, if you find yourself taking up a fundamentally misanthropic position, you might as well just give up on people wholesale. Not that you aren’t allowed to on a personal level, given that it’s a hellworld out there, but y’know.
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i have separate feelings about society vs individuals.
that is to say, i can’t handle most individual interactions. i meant “whole species” in a hyperbolic sense of limiting interactions to mostly non-humans (dogs, cats, meerkats, sea otters, wombats… sorry but i seem to be a mammal supremacist, accidentally)
re: society, although i realize more and more each day how they have fucked me over (toxic masculinity, patriarchy, misinformation, pollution, pseudoscience, poorly done science, capitalism, etc etc), somehow i still have vague faith in the abstract idea of humanity. for now.
but i can’t join protests and stand in a crowd of sweaty yelling people. sending precomposed/canned emails is more my speed.
This sounds really awful and I am very sorry. If it is of any use to you: I love making conversation, I love meeting new people, I love just talking…Ive been told im a good conversationalist by a good number of people. If you’d like I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have about how it is on the side.
How does it feel not having your brain immediately at-capacity and ready to exode just from going outside?
The psychologist at the clinic (who is deeply funny) keeps telling me what a great listener I am and how flexible I am conversationally but that all instantly goes out the window the second anyone approaches me.
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I think I might be able to actually be able to answer this as I have ADHD and I have days where I am completely over stimulated and I find myself going non-verbal in some social contexts + I find some social contexts to be completely absolutely horrible where I do not know what to do.
So not feeling like that? Really awesome. If it goes well, then I almost enter a flow-state during conversation or participating in talks in larger groups or entertaining larger groups. Like the sort of hyperfocus you get when you do something and hone in on it and its just going smoothly. Everything just feels easy, obstacles are fine to deal with, I don’t overanalyse what I said, I dont feel bad if a comment is misunderstood, its just… Smooth.
Im sorry to hear about the listener thing. I get told by a lot of people that they think I am arrogant because I wont talk to them or I act akward when we talk. I wish they were adult enough to just ask me in the moment and figure out what’s going on, thats what I usually do. They’d come to find I don’t talk to them randomly because I dont know if they “know” me and i dont know if it would be rude to greet and I dont know if they want to greet, and when we are talking I can’t figure them out, I can’t read their vibe and that just makes it so difficult.
Ive come to a point in my life where I have just decided not to worry about that. I’ve found that the type of person that I find hard to read and who can’t also take some responsibility of ensuring a good flow of communication, is a person I don’t really have a lot of fun with.If it goes well, then I almost enter a flow-state during conversation or participating in talks in larger groups or entertaining larger groups.
That must feel good as fuck, closest I can get is getting really absorbed in an infodump, which is not usually conducive to conversation.
I get told by a lot of people that they think I am arrogant because I wont talk to them or I act akward when we talk. I wish they were adult enough to just ask me in the moment and figure out what’s going on,
This is crazy rude for people to just be telling you, imo. Sometimes it feels like talking to people is all the effort coming from you… Honestly though I rarely if ever get far enough to actually consider the quality of conversation irl like you do, I guess most of the interactions I have would be considered smalltalk, which ofc being autistic is not great.
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Sure you can. You’re communicating with people here online right? Does the anxiety come from fear of being judged on appearance? I used to be like you when I was a teenager, a lot of “exposure therapy” (not a a huge fan of that term) helped me a lot. Now I’m that sort of person who will make silly absurd remarks to strangers. The other day I said “hey, nice box of random cables, everyone needs one” to a guy running some ethernet cables. He was bewildered at first but then amused. There’s a few social media accounts out there of people who walk around complimenting people, maybe that can give you some motivation. Good luck.
Does the anxiety come from fear of being judged on appearance?
Nah, in fact when I was outdoors more I got hit on semi regularly, which was kind of annoying. But when I’m talking to you on the internet I’m not having to worry about hearing you properly, or the ambient noise of cars and shit, or worry about if I’m sweaty as fuck or any part of me itches, there just isn’t enough brain power to handle all of the physical alongside conversation stuff. You, beautiful lemmygrad user that you are, have been filtered into a textbox on the internet, and really that’s wonderful. I can sit and look at your comment and type out my reply and drink tea or whatever. It’s chill! Outside is not!!
The other day I said “hey, nice box of random cables, everyone needs one” to a guy running some ethernet cables. He was bewildered at first but then amused
This is true, especially of ethernet cables. Never want to be caught needing cat6 but only having cat5 for e.g.
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So I’m like 95% sure we’re on the same craptastic wavelength most of the time, and here’s a thing: you’re like crazy good at observing yourself and articulating how it all hits, yeah?
Warning: I’m about to say some bullshit I’m already rolling my own eyes at… It might not seem like you’re in a safe place with all the thoughts and feelings you get out of it in the moment, but you’ve got this self awareness superpower that can help you really dig into your emotional states to understand and maybe even diffuse some of the power the anxiety has. How you can do that might vary, but I have so much confidence in your emotional intelligence, please don’t sign yourself off!
I’m gonna sound even more cliche here, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing to cringe at yourself, and you are always your worst critic. Being able to just laugh at how ridiculous you feel sometimes can go a long way towards making it a non-issue. Not beating yourself up is half the battle or more.
For every bit the cliches surely aren’t helping, I hope you can see why I’d say you’re closer to on-point than you probably feel with emotion and social ability even though it seems to fall apart in person. You’re secretly a step away from crushing it, and that’s totally not projected cope on my part, I swear 😝
P.s. do consider ADHD evaluation as the brain and ears breaking at the audacity of things happening (how dare they) sounds all too familiar
but you’ve got this self awareness superpower that can help you really dig into your emotional states to understand and maybe even diffuse some of the power the anxiety has.
Making assumptions about my alleged superpowers of self awareness… I think the dire anxiety situation is proof positive that being too self aware is a really really bad idea, ngl. Also though, if I could think my way out of the grass-touching nightmare by this point, I probably would have. Big issue is that when I’m outside my brain is always at capacity, so there’s no ordered thought going on when somebody approaches me. Zero hope.
I could also just load up on THC-heavy edibles before going outside, which at this minute is looking like a strategy.
you are always your worst critic. Being able to just laugh at how ridiculous you feel sometimes can go a long way towards making it a non-issue.
A good thought to be sure, but it’s tough always being left wondering if you whiffed it somehow conversationally. Void you cannot be staring into.
P.s. do consider ADHD evaluation
I’ve done the rounds with evaluations and the autism assessment lady declared me “Nonspecific Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified” which is hilarious. I have one or two ADHD like traits (that sometimes clash badly with autism things) but score low on ADHD tests. Idk if adderall would do me good or not tbh.
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