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Last month, I posted a couple of friends-only entries. (If you're one of my LJ/DW friends and you saw both of those already, most of this entry won't be new to you so you can probably skip this paragraph or so.)
About what?
Well... for anyone who doesn't know (i.e. anyone who has never read an entry in my journal other than this one): I have autism, had somewhat of a sheltered childhood, and spent a lot of my life not being able to word things very well. As a result, many times I've said things that unintentionally came across as rude or were misunderstood, and this led to me becoming crippled with fear that everything I say is going to eventually turn out to be stupid or offend someone. Since I'm still not much better at writing, here is how my sister describes it: "You are always worried about doing something wrong/being hated, even when it comes to what movies or games or books you can like." (I'd add shows, and characters, and fonts, and art programs, and web browsers, and comics/webcomics, and websites, and numerical constants...) "And you can add that I said it's because you take everything you read in internet comments for truth (if someone says hate you think it means literal real hate, or that they will hate YOU for liking the thing they hate). That's really what it all boils down to. Everything is exactly the same in that it is always that, and always nothing to worry about, but something you worry about anyway."
Here are some examples of how much my anxiety about offending people deeply affects me:
- Sometimes I lose sleep or get onto a very irregular sleep schedule worrying about being hated.
- When I was in college, sometimes I would be so paralyzed with fear about something that made me worry about being hated, that I would be late for class or have trouble focusing on homework because all I can think about is the fact that there's something I might be hated over. To an extent, that still happens today when I'm at work.
- Sometimes all of these worries gets so intense that it becomes depression that I can only overcome by posting to my journal about some of the things I worry about being hated for. (usually in friends-only entries because it's bad enough having to worry what people who DO know me already will think!) Essentially, if it's true what my sister has told me about how I have trouble seeing things the way they are and that it's "obvious" to most people that most of my worries are nothing to worry about, then posting entries such as these is the only way for ME to see things the way they are.
And my two recent friends-only entries were basically that - yet another instance of me being so consumed with worrying about what people will think of me if they know I like X/dislike X/X thing about me that the only way I could feel even a little bit better about it was by posting about it. Despite being TERRIFIED of what the comments I would receive might be.
Well, the result was better than the anxious part of me expected.
So it helped.
A little.
But it wasn't enough now that we live in a world where online discourse about boycotts, separating the art from the artist, and differing opinions about ANYTHING has gotten to the point it's at.
So I'm going to have to up the stakes a little.
Things turned out alright when I posted about some of the things I worry about possibly being hated over in a friends-only entry... now let's see what happens when I post it again (with a few minor tweaks), but in a PUBLIC entry!
( *dramatic music* )
About what?
Well... for anyone who doesn't know (i.e. anyone who has never read an entry in my journal other than this one): I have autism, had somewhat of a sheltered childhood, and spent a lot of my life not being able to word things very well. As a result, many times I've said things that unintentionally came across as rude or were misunderstood, and this led to me becoming crippled with fear that everything I say is going to eventually turn out to be stupid or offend someone. Since I'm still not much better at writing, here is how my sister describes it: "You are always worried about doing something wrong/being hated, even when it comes to what movies or games or books you can like." (I'd add shows, and characters, and fonts, and art programs, and web browsers, and comics/webcomics, and websites, and numerical constants...) "And you can add that I said it's because you take everything you read in internet comments for truth (if someone says hate you think it means literal real hate, or that they will hate YOU for liking the thing they hate). That's really what it all boils down to. Everything is exactly the same in that it is always that, and always nothing to worry about, but something you worry about anyway."
Here are some examples of how much my anxiety about offending people deeply affects me:
- Sometimes I lose sleep or get onto a very irregular sleep schedule worrying about being hated.
- When I was in college, sometimes I would be so paralyzed with fear about something that made me worry about being hated, that I would be late for class or have trouble focusing on homework because all I can think about is the fact that there's something I might be hated over. To an extent, that still happens today when I'm at work.
- Sometimes all of these worries gets so intense that it becomes depression that I can only overcome by posting to my journal about some of the things I worry about being hated for. (usually in friends-only entries because it's bad enough having to worry what people who DO know me already will think!) Essentially, if it's true what my sister has told me about how I have trouble seeing things the way they are and that it's "obvious" to most people that most of my worries are nothing to worry about, then posting entries such as these is the only way for ME to see things the way they are.
And my two recent friends-only entries were basically that - yet another instance of me being so consumed with worrying about what people will think of me if they know I like X/dislike X/X thing about me that the only way I could feel even a little bit better about it was by posting about it. Despite being TERRIFIED of what the comments I would receive might be.
Well, the result was better than the anxious part of me expected.
So it helped.
A little.
But it wasn't enough now that we live in a world where online discourse about boycotts, separating the art from the artist, and differing opinions about ANYTHING has gotten to the point it's at.
So I'm going to have to up the stakes a little.
Things turned out alright when I posted about some of the things I worry about possibly being hated over in a friends-only entry... now let's see what happens when I post it again (with a few minor tweaks), but in a PUBLIC entry!
( *dramatic music* )
