Journal entries from an undiagnosed autistic girl: Part 2 - The struggle with people interaction

Originally published on Medium

This is part 2 in a series where I share entries from the journal I kept while growing up. It’s nice to look back on old journal entries when I start to wonder if I’m feeling too happy to actually be autistic.

I already wrote about my struggle with eye contact. This post will focus on my ongoing struggle to interact with people.

Note: These entries will be abridged and only the relevant parts included because I tended to write long journal entries.

December 1, 2009

…And I am afraid I don’t know when to leave. I always try to leave a conversation early before anyone gets truly annoyed with me. Or really bored. And it’s usually an awkward exit so the person prolly thinks I don’t like them and couldn’t wait to leave. Which isn‘t true.

December 2, 2009

“Small talk“ is horrible for me. I don’t like it. Checkout counters, library, store, food place- all make me nervous b/c I think I’m expected to make “small talk”. But I don’t know how. And once I avoided doing an extra credit assignment this semester because I was too anxious — it involved talking to a few strangers at a career fair. I just couldn’t do it. I walked around meaning to go, trying to get up the courage….and then didn’t go. Silly, yes.

December 25, 2009

I missed saying “hello” to about 4 people today because I was scared to. And I didn’t really think it would matter because people don’t seem to notice whether I say hi or not anyways. I just slip in and out of conversations… Except, what if they think I’m being, I don’t know, snobby?

April 24, 2010

Ouch, I’m mean. Ugh. I hate that. This is another reason I don’t like opening my mouth too much, I can be mean without thinking about it. And I don’t realize how bad something sounds until it’s too late. And it’s not majorly mean stuff, but it’s still nonreturnable.

December 7, 2011

I think my thorn in the side is people. In this time I might never turn into a people person or ever really feel comfortable around them or be skilled at talking to them. That’s my problem.

Doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying, tho.

January 11, 2014

How am I supposed to have any real fun if I’m always working working working on people interaction???

Does it ever get fun????? Am I being overdramatic?

I suppose it could be worse but is it wrong to wish for better?

April 1, 2014

One-on-one with all but a few people, I freeze. I can talk yes, but it really doesn’t flow. Even at my best. It bothers me because I want to be the person with friends to just hang out with but when I do hang, I can’t wait to go home…The socializing one-on-one is super stressing…

Maybe if I do it over and over it will get easier tho.

December 5, 2017

Yesterday I discovered (rediscovered?) how I still don’t know much about socializing. Like, where does a conversation go when there’s no point? Is it a mercy to kill it eventually?

These journal entries give me further proof that no, autism isn’t something I decided I had after being on social media. This is an issue I’ve dealt with for a long time.

But if I need still more evidence, there’s my life-long research to figure out “Why am I so weird?” Read about it in the last part of this 3 part series.