Feeling less afraid that people don't want to hear me

[sambellscoup]

I always felt ashamed to just talk in a group and have the group's eyes on me because I didn't deserve the attention. It still gets nerve-wracking at times. I used to blame almost all of that fear on being autistic, but now that I'm NC I've come to realise it's largely taught. How dare I speak? How dare I expect to be listened to? How dare I think I'll be heard and understood? Why don't I just shut up?

I sometimes have these sort of "daytime nightmares" as I call them, probably emotional flashbacks I guess, where I'm trying to say something and I'm being misunderstood and so I'm rephrasing the thing I tried to say and that's misunderstood only more aggressively than the first time, then I try again to rephrase it and I get more backlash, and it goes on and on and on and the anxiety and frustration builds and builds and I finally snap out of it to realise I'm just sitting in my house and there's nothing I'm trying to say and nobody I'm trying to say it to.

I used to assume that I couldn't be understood in social settings because yes, sometimes if say something in an odd way because of being autistic, but actually usually people are cool about someone communicating a little differently especially when they know I'm autistic. It turns out people have manners, the same as I do, and listen politely, unless they've got their head up their backside (in which case, thanks for showing me who you really are and bye bye now!!). And if they can decipher that I have good intentions it at least no bad ones, then they're happy enough with me to listen and respond.

I've taken on some new  work recently (I'm a musician) involving getting together roughly once a week for rehearsals, which are semi-work, semi-socialising. And I find I can say things and it's ok. They want to listen, they are interested, they treat me like an equal, and they are glad I'm there. It's kind of a thrill to be experiencing this for the first time - not that others hadn't tweeted me similarly good before, but I wasn't fully present in it iykwim.

NC had changed this for me. NC is my parents' behaviour and treatment of me, along with anyone who is inclined to do similar, into the Unacceptable category in my brain, much more solidly than when I was LC. So I feel safer around others because they're not like them. I feel like I am already starting to normalise general nice behaviour that normal people engage in.

It's still a bit scary a it's still new territory, but... what a difference a day makes!