It seems that now that I understand I have Aspie traits, I tend to put all my trouble off to that condition. I have to quit doing that. Anxiety is one of those conditions that likely exists in almost everyone in one form or another. The other thing I am coming to recognize is that many of the Aspie articles seem to think that if you try to overcome an Aspie condition, you are copping out. That’s called “masking”, and that is something you shouldn’t have to do just because you are different. But, I am beginning to take a different view of “masking”, at least in some, but not all cases.

Masking to me just means that I am trying to overcome a feeling or condition to have a fuller life. I am not being untrue to myself if I want to get along with the neurotypicals of the world. One of those conditions that I think I am better off “masking” is social anxiety. Of course, the experts have given that condition its own name, called “Social Anxiety Disorder”. I am becoming more and more annoyed by all these traits that the experts call “disorders”, but that is fodder for a future post, so I will leave that for later. The rest of this post is what I learned from a recent article on social anxiety. If you want to see the whole article, click HERE.

Let’s start off with some direct words from the article:

You might be thinking: ‘I don’t socialize much, but I’m not bothered by it. I just prefer to be alone.’ This is introversion, and it’s different from social anxiety. Introversion is a personality trait that is more about your preference for socializing: how often, with whom, big or small groups, and so on. In contrast, social anxiety is about the fear of socializing. You can be introverted with or without social anxiety, and you can have social anxiety with or without introversion.

It’s interesting that uneasiness with socializing is different from fear of socializing.

Backing up a little bit, I am going to try to not put off all my inhibitions and shortcomings to my Aspie traits. Doing that is coming to sound like more like a lame excuse to put off making myself a better person. But then again, I kinda feel that my deafness has more to do with my social ineptness. Let me explain that a little further. I know that my speaking decibel level is at least 10db higher than the average person. I have explained that in past posts that that is necessary for me to have some feedback of what I am saying. Here in my RetCom (retirement community), that loud talking is the primary reason why I am persona non grata in the dining room and other social places.

In part 2 of this discussion, I will be getting to a list of concrete things that might help me with social anxiety. I think you will find the list very interesting and maybe even helpful to you.