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Unlovable, unacceptable, weird, shunable

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mumstheword

MyPTSD Pro
This is what I struggle with, exacerbated, I think, by my comorbidity, of being on the Autism spectrum. Because of my "weirdness" and growing up, it was such a bumpy ride, so many chaotic changes, homelife dramas and abuses and neglect in my homelife, I didn't really question my social difficulties, because we moved all.the time, I was always the new kid, so I just stuck my nose in a book to cope.

Now it still haunts me, this sense that people don't and won't like me or accept me, that something about me makes them resentful and hostile towards me or just ignore me or shun me. I despise pity and condescention so I am socially avoidant and I am ultra sensitive, thanks to ASD and the hypervigilance of our shared condition.

I'm not sure what part my own cognitive distortions play and what part is simply learned experience, and how do you reprogram beliefs when experience confirms those "negative" beliefs?

I do have SOME positive relationships, highly positive relationships, namely with my partner, my children and my therapist and a couple of (also Aspie) girlfriends, others who I can tell, think they would like to get to know me, but I'm too afraid. I think "they don't know the REAL me, when they find out what I'm REALLY like, they won't like me or else they will want to use me".

Exploitation has been a reoccurring theme in my life as well , and when I'm no longer happy to be exploited and used, I'm quickly discarded. I know this all had plenty to do with my ASD and this isnt an ASD forum, so, forgive me, if I m asking in the wrong place, but the ASD forum I frequent, doesn't have a cognitive distortion forum, so I thought this was better, especially, as I've noticed this kind of CD or experience is very common for fellow 'spergers and auties. They would probably just tell.me not to worry what other people think of me and that isn't going to help me, I tried that, and it has limited value, when one actually wants to find an "in" where I am comfortable and the other people are comfortable.

I'm not rude, insensitive, uncaring, unempathetic, at all, I am very intelligent, a bit odd for sure, pretty much feeling like a fish out of water everywhere when it's neurotypical land and %100 an.introvert, although I used to try to combat that with a performance career. I don't feel that confident that anyone here will be able to help me with this one as, truly, the ASD PLUS cptsd plus high IQ just makes this stuff unbelievably difficult to combat, but I'm just putting it out there, anyway. Thanks, in advance, to anyone that bothers to read this, or reply.
 
feeling like a fish out of water everywhere when it's neurotypical land
Something to maybe consider: is it really a neurotypical land?

When you get to know people, one of the things that I personally always seem to be confronted with is the degree of internal distress and struggle to get by in the world that seems to pervade people from all walks of life.

It’s incredibly easy to generalise - and that’s something our brain often does to confirm our CD’s. Mine does that all the time. I can find evidence everywhere of how completely and innately different I am to everyone else.

I have a bit of a pet project that I’ve been working on for years now - trying to find a person who is willing to say (while sober!) “I feel like I fit in in this world”. Haven’t met one yet. Not a single one.

It’s a difficult balance trying to balance validating the extreme abise you’ve been through on the one hand, and not ending up feeling like some kinda freak as a result.

I’d put it to you though, that as you’ve been moving through your own recovery and gradually learning (a) who you really are, and what your story is; and (b) coming to accept that person? Finding a place, and people, that you feel some sense of belonging to will naturally follow. ‘Belonging’ doesn’t mean ‘same’, yeah?

Back track on your progress to date: you started from a place of complete isolation, existing in relationships that were solely about exploiting and abusing you.

Currently, and still (always!) a work in progress, you’ve found this place, and people that you relate to and feel comfortable among. And you’re uncovering the degree to which you’re also on the spectrum, and by the sounds of it, you’ve found another forum that has some elements you relate to as well.

“I’m a complete freak” is a core belief (which is different by degrees to a cognitive distortion) that I’ve battled against for years. For a long time, my goal was to change my core beliefs about myself. At some point, I abandoned that crusade, and shifted my focus to healing smaller stuff.

Healing the smaller stuff, rather than trying to forcibly change core beliefs, is what helps us make slow progress in changing our lives. And when your life starts to change, the core beliefs become less and less consistent with our new lived experience. That’s when core beliefs will start to wane and shift, all by themselves.

I think your lived experience is changing? For the better? Your perception of yourself as a freak will become less and less persistent and present the more you become comfortable with who you now are, and the new life you’re defining for yourself:)
 
experience, and how do you reprogram beliefs when experience confirms those "negative" beliefs?

Is this not the basis of cbt?
You have to work to label the distortion and then find evidence against it to slowly change the beliefs.

It's been awhile since I've actively worked on cbt so I could easily be over generalizing.

Are the experiences that confirm the beliefs new or old experiences? Are your new experiences more positive? They seem so.

A spouse, kids and a couple friends sounds to me like a LOT of positive relationships, not just SOME. Maybe that's also a cognitive distortion?

If you moved a lot and hid in books on top of abuse.... are there programs or groups you can go to that will help you learn the socialization/life skills that you missed out on growing up?

Is it possible to join a book club or academics club of some kind? Hobby club?

Any of these plus the cbt work to overcome the cognitive distortions that might arise from them to give you some new positive experiences.
 
Thank you @Sideways and @Innordinate, you have both given me some great food for thought.
I want to answer you both in more detail, but it will have to wait. I just got back from a dinner-at-restaurant with 4 out of 7 of my children. Tomorrow is my group therapy for CSA and afterwards I'll probably be pooped, but, on friday I will have time to give both replies the consideration they deserve. :-)
 
As I read this post, I could not help but feel, you must wrote it while feeling down - a moment of self pity. Or to a response of incident that just sort of throw you out in a loop.

I personally love people who may have ASD. I just got a project in industry that deals with ASD as well so this is timely.

I will add fluffy words to your vernacular.

Learn how to be grateful. This will set off the unreasonable high expectations you have about strangers or "others" who are not in your life to like you or think you are not weird. We are all weird if we are looked at for couple minutes.
Learn how to sit still (if you can) and connect the brain waves to the body sensations. When you feel weird, where do you feel weird in the body. Your high intelligence is in the brain but emotions are in the body so you have a bit of disconnection going.

Try to find music that hits certain wavelengths like Ho'oponopono music which can relax the stomach brain much easier than average music. As far as I know I do not have ASD but always felt I never fit and weird. I learned the weird part belongs to feelings of shame which maybe you can also learn more about. Your core issues sound as if they are a result of extreme mortification or shame that got attached to your identity. You cannot see beyond your shadow and your shadow is dark.

wishing you well.
 
As I read this post, I could not help but feel, you must wrote it while feeling down - a moment of self pity. Or to a response of incident that just sort of throw you out in a loop.

I personally love people who may have ASD. I just got a project in industry that deals with ASD as well so this is timely.

I will add fluffy words to your vernacular.

Learn how to be grateful. This will set off the unreasonable high expectations you have about strangers or "others" who are not in your life to like you or think you are not weird. We are all weird if we are looked at for couple minutes.
Learn how to sit still (if you can) and connect the brain waves to the body sensations. When you feel weird, where do you feel weird in the body. Your high intelligence is in the brain but emotions are in the body so you have a bit of disconnection going.

Try to find music that hits certain wavelengths like Ho'oponopono music which can relax the stomach brain much easier than average music. As far as I know I do not have ASD but always felt I never fit and weird. I learned the weird part belongs to feelings of shame which maybe you can also learn more about. Your core issues sound as if they are a result of extreme mortification or shame that got attached to your identity. You cannot see beyond your shadow and your shadow is dark.

wishing you well.
Not really, its just a thing I identified. I am a musical person so I make music myself. It's more a result of experience. Maybe self pity, I don't think so though, just a cognitive distortion from experience, that I am learning to shed and working on shedding.
I grew up "hippy". I live in a drug town. Seriously, the only festival we have is a celebration of Weed called Mardi Grass. I am not kidding. I kind of reject so much about the culture I grew up in and am surrounded in.

(Afterthought, added Note)Maybe its just me who doesnt like? Not the other way around, yes, I think that's it)

I'm looking for a way to build my social confidence to integrate into some kind of healthy social dynamic. I don't think we are talking self pity, I've never had too much time for that, I'm just dismayed at a lot that people around here buy into and I'm working on putting the cognitive distortions of learnt social avoidance aside.

Australia is not like America, people don't appreciate people who demonstrate unique talents, individual thinkers or innovators much here, they like social conformity, self effacing humour, feminism (not a big fan, it's too sexist and victim culture power grabbing for me, I am all for women's liberation though) not intelligent Aspies, who don't fit any box easily and who think for themselves - that could be a cognitive distortion though? it doesn't sound quite right, very generalizey.

I (think I) don't fit in with middle class people, working class people, alternates the like that I grew up with, drug users (just about everyone I've ever worked with, musically speaking) ,

But, I don't particularly whinge or have a negative attitude in general, that's why I have positive relationships with my partner and children. Plus I CAN see beyond my shadow, I just don't ignore it like my family of origin (mainly my mum or my ex (he says he "doesn't have a shadow side"),

I am currently doing a lot of shadow work and yes, it is substantial because I don't really know what my new, transformed self is yet, I am still transforming, transmuting and in my chrysalis (metaphorically speaking), and I'm still very raw from a past of hardship and just about every trouble that a young woman can get into, for years; NOT hard drug use or stealing or hurting people or jail, just domestic abuse, years of homelessness, multiple pregnancies from teens, poverty, illness, isolation, slavery, entrapment, family abandonment, psychosis, (near) starvation, brain damage, being surrounded by criminals and weak, selfish, neglectful non caring people with poor morals added note (THIS IS WHERE I GET THE UNLIKED THING - rapists, pedos, child abusers, drug users who are lying sick people, untreated disordered personalities), living in a ghetto (now), didn't get to learn to drive yet, university SUCKED (see Jordan Peterson for why, he explains the problems in the Arts/humanities very well) stuff like that, so yeah, just trying to work through that stuff.

I think these are the dangers that women on the spectrum can experience or be at risk of, when they haven't been.looked after, even nearly adequately, in their childhood and teens and the culture at large is not too smart or coming from integrity (as Aspies are often in extra need of honesty and straightforwardness, not too common in most quarters).

I have a good heart but I was very vulnerable, ill treated, naive and in poor health for so long, and I'm book and free thinking and logic smart and highly sensitive, also deeply attuned to the natural primal world due to living a lot in the bush and having so many babies, in isolation and on the road and being a singer of feeling songs (my own) and poet, and having mystical, transcendant experiences. I am odd, unusual, introspective, also underconfident.

Australia is great, I just need to develop my true and new "thing" and some people who I can share "me" with, out in the world. Lots to work on, in myself, skills to build, health to gain.

I think I do have high expectations or maybe just want to be "seen" for who I am and appreciated, and valued, and acknowledged for my skills and what I can offer, but, I think that will come as I shed the self judgement and grief and dismay and fear and awkwardness and low confidence and bad self esteem and sense of failure and shame and poor health and hiding myself, that I am working hard to shed.
 
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that is a nice summary of your life. I think your strength and resilience shines through. I know people say these things but it truly is.

My feeling is your cognition is fine and actually may even helped you to survive in such environment and even maybe to give you the ability to see A is not same as B and kept on going on growing and not losing yourself.

I feel and I could be wrong that sometimes if we stayed where we are born forever (same culture/language/people) our growth is limited unless we strive to become super human way of seeing otherwise - this requires so much energy to live the same and be different. Of course if our beginning is good then it is good but when bad and we stuck...that is just bad luck all over.

I am not from US but I have travelled around the world to literally learn who am I in different environments to see the truth of me (oppose to what/who my family said I was). I know this is not practical for most of us but this has been my experience. What I learned was what who I was never shattered beyond repair even in chaos and craziness I grew up. Knowing my reality was there is a difference a gap between what I think of me and what others think of me and the longer I make that gap, the healthier I get. If they think of me this way and I can hold, I am closer to the truth of me. If I defend, jump, cry, run, avoid, obsess etc, yeah...I am nothing and this person is making me to their liking and the result will be exploited, hurt, rejected! I am disappearing at their prompt. I have nothing to hold onto. I am nobody!

All that was nothing until I went to therapy and actually broke down structurally. And I physically saw my own fragmentation and put it back somewhat - this is work in progress.

I do not know (and you may probably know this already or have this) but empathetic group therapy worked for me. It is challenging but beauty is after you let go of the defenses, the idea of self and see what is there.
 
People have mentioned various therapies and that may help for sure.
I can't begin to say I understand where you are coming from so feel free to take this as a grain of salt. I too am introverted, have been hurt, used and cast aside. I too have worried and obsessed over what people think of me. Honestly what helped the most is focusing not on all those issues but on the healthy.
Remind yourself of your GREAT relationships. Remind yourself of your great accomplishments and worth. Speak out loud to those things that are life-giving and affirming. The more time you build up and the less you spend on self-doubts and negatives, the better your outlook. I have had tremendous life change by stating all that the word of God says about me. I was created with a purpose. I am wonderfully made. I am able to do all the things I am called to do. I will have faithful friends and people in my life. I will walk in confidence and not fear. Continue to walk in safe and healthy boundaries.
I pray that you find just the right relationships that will build you up and edify you just as you are. I pray that your heart be comforted in the worries and the doubts of others and that you will have a peace and a knowing of rightness when valuable people come into your life.
 
Fwiw: I know the part of Australia you’re in pretty well. It’s not exactly a healthy, balanced community. Frankly, I think you’re doing pretty incredible work given where you live, the massive social issues in that area, and the general absence of common sense (nicest way I can put it).

So, I think part of your reflection of Australia is cognitive distortion (?emotional reasoning: I feel like a freak, so everyone else must be really normal and think I’m a freak for being different).

But ease up on yourself, because part pf your assessment of your surrounds is coming from the general obscurity of that particular part of the world. It’s not a corner of the country that exactly has the best reputation for great mental health!

There are huge parts of the Australian community, as a country, where people are a tonne more open, and you’d be as accepted as the next person. Ironic, given people in your area love to consider themselves to be free-loving types - in fact the communities in that area are possibly some of the most judgemental and “be like us or be condemned” that I’ve come across.

And, that’s coming from someone who has lived everywhere from Melbourne to Darwin, coast to inland, small communities to big cities. Where you live the people are tough, and have a disproportionate amount of psycho-social issues going on. We aren’t all thus!
 
Fwiw: I know the part of Australia you’re in pretty well. It’s not exactly a healthy, balanced community. Frankly, I think you’re doing pretty incredible work given where you live, the massive social issues in that area, and the general absence of common sense (nicest way I can put it).

So, I think part of your reflection of Australia is cognitive distortion (?emotional reasoning: I feel like a freak, so everyone else must be really normal and think I’m a freak for being different).

But ease up on yourself, because part pf your assessment of your surrounds is coming from the general obscurity of that particular part of the world. It’s not a corner of the country that exactly has the best reputation for great mental health!

There are huge parts of the Australian community, as a country, where people are a tonne more open, and you’d be as accepted as the next person. Ironic, given people in your area love to consider themselves to be free-loving types - in fact the communities in that area are possibly some of the most judgemental and “be like us or be condemned” that I’ve come across.

And, that’s coming from someone who has lived everywhere from Melbourne to Darwin, coast to inland, small communities to big cities. Where you live the people are tough, and have a disproportionate amount of psycho-social issues going on. We aren’t all thus!
That was incredibly helpful @Sideways. I think this might be at the root of my problem, the "hippy" extreme lefty subculture is actually incredibly demoralised and demoralizing. Having grown up in it, I can attest to its extreme failure and fabric-of-society-destructive slash self destructive nature. I am not someone who believes in this kind of post modern slash marxist with a dash of appropriated culture slash "spiritual traditions" from Asia, occultism and tribalism anymore.

The problem is that am a subcultural refugee now, neither part of my origin culture and yet to be truly integrated into the wider culture, so I feel like I am in a kind of transformative limbo. I am a part of a "walk away" movement from the extreme left aligned mind set of just about everyone around me. I live in a moral vaccum subculture, destroyed by drugs, irresponsibility and the lefty sense of entitlement and "activism" and having devoted myself to this culty immature and non-progressive hypocrisy, for much of my life, I find myself extremely disillusioned and disenfranchised.
I want out, but I need wellness, to get out. I know I will get there, I just have to keep working towards it.
 
Something to maybe consider: is it really a neurotypical land?

When you get to know people, one of the things that I personally always seem to be confronted with is the degree of internal distress and struggle to get by in the world that seems to pervade people from all walks of life.

It’s incredibly easy to generalise - and that’s something our brain often does to confirm our CD’s. Mine does that all the time. I can find evidence everywhere of how completely and innately different I am to everyone else.

I have a bit of a pet project that I’ve been working on for years now - trying to find a person who is willing to say (while sober!) “I feel like I fit in in this world”. Haven’t met one yet. Not a single one.

It’s a difficult balance trying to balance validating the extreme abise you’ve been through on the one hand, and not ending up feeling like some kinda freak as a result.

I’d put it to you though, that as you’ve been moving through your own recovery and gradually learning (a) who you really are, and what your story is; and (b) coming to accept that person? Finding a place, and people, that you feel some sense of belonging to will naturally follow. ‘Belonging’ doesn’t mean ‘same’, yeah?

Back track on your progress to date: you started from a place of complete isolation, existing in relationships that were solely about exploiting and abusing you.

Currently, and still (always!) a work in progress, you’ve found this place, and people that you relate to and feel comfortable among. And you’re uncovering the degree to which you’re also on the spectrum, and by the sounds of it, you’ve found another forum that has some elements you relate to as well.

“I’m a complete freak” is a core belief (which is different by degrees to a cognitive distortion) that I’ve battled against for years. For a long time, my goal was to change my core beliefs about myself. At some point, I abandoned that crusade, and shifted my focus to healing smaller stuff.

Healing the smaller stuff, rather than trying to forcibly change core beliefs, is what helps us make slow progress in changing our lives. And when your life starts to change, the core beliefs become less and less consistent with our new lived experience. That’s when core beliefs will start to wane and shift, all by themselves.

I think your lived experience is changing? For the better? Your perception of yourself as a freak will become less and less persistent and present the more you become comfortable with who you now are, and the new life you’re defining for yourself:)
This was brilliant. Very, very helpful.. I can feel the reality of this! :-). The "freak" thing is a CD I've had going for ever. I CAN feel and am glimpsing the "light at the end of the tunnel". I am "furling" my freak flag, and joining the ranks of the everyday people.
Born into "freaksville" all the while being a moderate and very middle ground human, I feel like I am finally finding my own centre.
 
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