blackchantilly said:
You betcha!
Having spent the last year working exclusively with children and adolescents with either Autism or Aspergers Syndrome, I am very intrigued by the test (thanks for posting it
nsa!). Right now, however, I want to focus my energies on responding to the symptoms you say you are presenting with:
blackchantilly said:
[...]i seem to have progressively lost my ability to feel comfortable around people, to have a conversation, to make new friends, to understand social interaction in general, or to make eye contact with people. I tend to look at more "biologically" now, and just observe and think about human social interaction rather than participate in it. Dissociation perhaps?
I found the latter part of the above quote very interesting especially because, for me, this was the "evolutionary" course that my life took, too. I would probably attribute it to illicit drug use and psychiatric medication, too, but I cannot pretend that I did not notice the same time of cerebral and relational growth happening to lots of people around me, many of them my very close friends whom I knew, or still know, quite intimately. My inclination is to consider it in terms of the nature versus nurture concept, whereby 'nature' would be represented by how people tend to grow and develop naturally, and 'nurture' would represent the possible lasting impact of introducing psychoactive chemicals into our bodies.
I (and those aforementioned people in my life) found social interaction much more prevalent in our younger days. I believe that it was easier to be outgoing, sociable and extraverted then because at that age, to do so was just
simpler. As a child, social constraints, social paradigms, and environmental/financial stressors have a lesser impact on one's ability to be open and care-free. Becoming cerebral is a product of development itself; our awareness of ourselves, of others, and of our environments becomes more acute and we in turn respond to that awareness with greater sensitivity. While I understand that what you are conveying is a stronger form of this process, I wanted to point out that the process exists in and of itself regardless.
Additionally, if I am reading your post correctly (and I hope that I am!), you began taking antidepressant medications at the age of 14? That is quite early in the developmental stages of your brain to have your brain chemistry tinkered with. I share a similar past; my parents, both of whom are clinical psychologists, put me on antidepressants when I was 10 years old after I became socially withdrawn as a result of being teased at school. I know now that they were doing what they thought was right, but I still have trouble looking past the tender age at which they decided to begin trying to "fix" my "broken" self with drugs. I also began self-medicating/recreationally experimenting with drugs when I was 15 years old - again, when my brain was still very plastic and responsive to chemical changes. That part of your past is important to this discussion; I'm glad you included those details.
What's missing from your self-disclosure, however, are some other things. Were there traumas you experienced that might have lead you to shy away from social interaction? Were there influential figures in your life, growing up, who may have cultivated in you the idea that you ought to be introverted? That you weren't normal? Weren't "worthy" of being like the rest of the people in your life? There is overlap, here, because my parents inadvertently cultivated that notion in my mind simply by placing me on psychiatric medications in the first place at such a young age. No one else I knew took pills to "feel right." I began to feel, as though by the hand of instinct itself, that I was an outcast. That I was different. That I was not like others, and that attempts to engage others had a high likelihood of failure. I credit my beginning to abuse drugs to those very feelings of human inadequacy - and, as I am sure that someone of your intellect understands, the combination of drug use and psychiatric meds during the developmental stages of your life will almost certainly have ugly consequences for your perceptions of self and others down the road.
As I read, re-read, and then read again the symptoms you describe, I realize a common thread running through them all. That thread is a deficit of being able to feel as though you have the
capability itself to relate to other people. To be around others, to exchange words and ideas by means of conversation, to acquire new people in your life and to understand why and how other people seem to be able to do it so effortlessly appear to be collective symptoms of a singular problem - that of having developed stable self-identification. Wouldn't you agree? I came to this conclusion after examining my own history, comparing it with what I see in your description of self, and noticing the striking resemblance between the two.
A learned deficit in self-identification most certainly will produce symptoms such as social anxiety and reduced self-esteem! You even mentioned them explicitly:
blackchantilly said:
These social problems could be related to self-esteem or social anxiety i suppose...
I don't believe that that was by accident, by the way. The act of making eye contact with another person takes a certain degree of self-confidence. Those with autism/Aspergers with whom I have worked that have the most difficulty making eye contact are those with the lowest levels of self-confidence.
Each and every one of us is, by virtue of being human and socially adaptive, a product of the sum of our past experiences. Our morals, beliefs, attitudes and world-views are shaped by our development. In every way does it make more sense - in my opinion, at least - to examine the causes for your current issues from this perspective, rather than from the third option you suggested:
blackchantilly said:
...or maybe brain damage.
I want to go further, but I don't want to delve any deeper at the moment than I already have. I may be incorrect in all that I have said, too. But I want to help. In that vein, I wanted to ask you something. Why was it you were put on antidepressants in the first place? Did you suddenly become depressed? All that I can ascertain from your original post is that you somehow suddenly went from a care-free and extraverted youth to being on psychiatric medications. My impression is that
something of significance had to have happened to facilitate the transition...
I'm glad that you want to come to this community and talk openly about this. I have no doubts that this has been a long-term and deeply disturbing issue for you.
Take care!
~ Vaya
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
