Seeking Guidance?

They can be tricky. So many factors play a part. There is nothing exact about any of it. Where is the manual? If there were such a book to teach us how to successfully navigate them, how large would it need to be?

How am I supposed to be in this context? No idea. Is there an expectation of my behaviours of mannerisms in this context? Who knows? And if there are, how will I ascertain what they are? If I look at how others are (often an interesting aid if one can get one’s fixation off self and one’s associated insecurity or anxiety), what will I see? What can I ask in this context? I don’t know. How should I respond to what they just said? Not sure. What do they think of me? It isn’t going to be positive. Are they negatively judging me? Probably.

It is well publicised (you can do the searching rather than me steering you. Google will lead you) that anyone autistically wired can struggle in social situations. I would suggest this is also true of many who are not autistic, but for us it is a difficulty that is often referred to. How can we manage this? There’s always the option of fully hermit-like living. I have tried that. The result? It didn’t pan out that well, weirdly. It turns out that being just with myself creates a whole other lot of issues. Who knew? I didn’t and now I do. Live and learn.

If a hermit-like existence isn’t the solution (although, it might work for you…just because it didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it’s not worth a try for you, if you feel the need), how are we going to manage the anxieties than can accompany any social interaction of any kind?

Maybe a starting point is to accept the anxieties exist. Maybe it is initially about accepting there will be some physical responses to social encounters. Maybe we need to stop feeling they shouldn’t be there. Maybe we should stop telling ourselves there is something wrong with us, as I’m pretty sure, that makes it far harder to manage, not easier. They are there, so that’s that.

There’s the twisted gut feeling, the racing mind where it becomes all an internal jumble, the sensory overload feelings, the tingling skin feeling, the flushed face or the face drained of all signs of life, the effect on breathing and heartbeat, the nose buzz, the jumbled word order (if any have come out) and the weird tone of voice, the inability to judge volume of speaking (again, if that's been achieved), the disabling impact on well-learnt skills around eye contact, the sweaty palms and the shakes (and this is not an exhaustive list).

Will we experience all these sensations every time we engage with another human? Probably not but depending on context and scenario (and maybe the time of the month), we might experience all of them simultaneously (and maybe others too), yes.

Will they lessen as we learn skills? Maybe, a little. And that is great, but will they vanish? Probably not. Okay. So, our choices seem to be that we either fight the existence of what is just there (as if by metaphorically shouting at it, it will cease to be) or we accept the reality that we might respond in these ways because of the social anxieties we have.

Like with any other fear, mini exposures to it will be helpful for us despite the fact we might experience all the physical sensations and associated emotional fallout. Is it wise to plan some mini exposures to social interactions even if the anxiety is of a significantly high level? Most definitely. It is a necessary thing unless we are going to choose (which is possible) to manipulate our existence so social interaction doesn’t happen, but as I mentioned earlier, that may result in a need to manage other fallout.

If one is approaching this from a starting point of crippling fear, an initial tiny interaction, is a win. Whatever is experienced during it or after it, it is a win. You did it. You faced it. It is a win. Forcing ourselves to do this every now and then will lessen the physical and emotional responses, even if only slightly. It will.

When there is enough internal capacity (after several navigations of planned small interactions with others) it becomes possible to then plan a social interaction but intentionally keep self out of it a little. At that point, we can (potentially) to begin to see a way forward.

Can we learn skills by what we see other people do? Yes.

Can we appropriately and positively mimic what others do? Yes.

Can we develop our own internal scripts for use in conversations? Yes.

Can we begin to notice that others also show signs of social anxiety? We most certainly can.

Does that help us? Yes, because we begin to see our social anxieties as not just being about us, or just about there being a fault in our wiring or make-up, but we become aware they affect others too, even the people who seem super confident. And we can begin to learn skills to more ably cope.

I would like to suggest that even after successful navigations of social interactions have been achieved, it is wise (I believe) to ensure there is time after it to be alone. Space away from people. Space away from tasks. Space to begin to process, to breathe, to not be in the stress of it, space to also relive the stress of it. Just space. Space doing an activity that calms or helps you as an individual. We will not all respond in the same way, but I know that if I don’t ensure I have space following any level of social interactions, my husband has to deal with the fallout. I tend to begin a mental and emotional dive of one kind or another, even without there seeming to be a trigger for that reaction. Usually, I eventually remember it is likely to be a post-social-engagement reaction. Do I have to understand why that happens? Not really. Will it pass? Yes. Will I go again with managing the next social encounter? Yes. Will my skills improve? Oh yes, they will…in fact, they are. In work, it was never an issue. Out of work, it has always been a ridiculously huge issue. Even that is weird, but it’s just real.

We will learn because we have the capacity to learn very well. We are also good at hardwiring that learning into our very being and into how we behave in future similar scenarios. To do that though, we must be prepared to experience all we encounter as an individual in this area of life even at the tricky times. But we can and will if we make that proactive choice. Coming out of any social encounter is a win. We did it. Now onto the next one. Oh joy! 😂😳😂