Being so self-aware that you can't enjoy the moment, that you can't even enjoy the conversation or interact properly speaks volumes!!! Never alone! cheers
Having rejection sensitive dyphoria as a result to ADHD made me hypersensitive to what people thought of me throughout my entire childhood, so I became hyperself aware at like 7 years old as with my behaviour being policed I had to constantly think about what I was doing wrong
This is a fascinating topic, thankyou Dana! Being "Too self aware" definitely sums up my anxiety pretty well. I'm constantly preoccupied with "How do I come across to other people" to such an extreme that I'm overthinking every single little last thing I do and say. I find myself so cringe and deal with self hatred too. I've had my walk commented on by 3 separate people in my life too (as I never forget an insult/negative observation). I do find it so hard to stop myself once I start on the topic of a special interest! I've gotta remember to actually take a breath, listen to the other person, reply specifically to what they said and not just say the next thing in my head that's dying to get out (which is getting in the way of me listening to the other person 🤦🏻♀️) and not monopolise a conversation. I do manage to control myself lmao, but I think that's possibly down to this hyper self awareness.
I've had my walk commented upon too. It must be a thing. I did work on it though, doing things like using shop windows as mirrors to observe myself, to develop a nice fluid style, arms moving in sync etc. It is a bit like a dance (something I'm also really crap at doing). I've since had people comment positively on the way I walk. Mind you, if I forget myself, I still get comments about the way that I just hit high gear and disappear into the distance.
@@Daniel-vl8mx Ohh I power walk too 🙈 I figure with how anxious I am I need to just get out, get on, get in (home) (instead of get in, get on, get out 🤦🏻♀️). It's so stressful just being outside It's like I wanna hurry up and get the whole thing over with
It's always such a relief to see you comment with the most relatable things while relating to what I've said! The amount of conversation I miss trying to not say the next thing and interrupt, but also not forgetting the thing, and ah crap I didn't listen again! I agree that so much of my self control, especially in social settings, comes down to the hyper self awareness and the anxiety it brings, but at least we're aware of it and can work on it!
I think I grew up on too much stop motion to figure out a fluid style, but I'm constantly checkin my walk in windows and the like to make sure its not too 'get out of my way now I'm coming through'!
@@DanaAndersen I'm glad it's always a relief 😌 and once again very relatable! Just walking I feel like I'm overtaking people left right and centre 😅 Just gets you from A to B quicker, yet I tend to freeze in shops and struggle to be quick 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️ And Daniel I always look at my walk in big shop windows too, and I never feel great afterwards 😅🙈
When I was young I had very little self-awareness. This meant I sometimes did very stupid or potentially embarrassing things but due to my lack of self-awareness I generally didn't feel embarrassed. While lack of self-awareness is damaging in such ways it also meant I was much more confident and had higher self-esteem. My self-awareness has developed as an adult and made me less prone to some of the mistakes of the past but at the cost of a crippling lack of confidence and poor self-esteem. I think we can swing from almost total lack of self-awareness to almost total self-consciousness and both are unhealthy in different ways but hyper-self-awareness is probably worst for mental well-being..
Omg this is so true, I tried researching this specific subject bc of its impact on my mental health but there was just nothing out there. Only papers on us having "no self awareness" and I was so dumbfounded🫠
My own experience is that, far from lacking self-awareness, I am constantly, consciously self-aware. It is an essential part of successfully passing or masking: the constant, conscious monitoring of one's whole presentation, and how it is going over. My performance may not always be perfect, but it is not for want of self-awareness. Indeed I spend much of my time either preparing for my performance: planning and rehearsing conversations in my head, perhaps "gaming" a few different approaches, thinking about delivery, facial expression, gestures etc., or replaying interactions afterward: how did that go, what clues do I have from the other participants, areas for improvement, mistakes. And, in the moment itself, I am actively monitoring myself, acutely conscious of facial expression, eye contact, gesture, tone etc, and searching the other person for cues. I am not always hitting the mark, and it is sometimes hard to keep it going and to keep up in real time, but it is not for want of self-awareness. I usually am painfully aware for example of when I've missed the mark - it just might not be immediately.
I absolutely relate to this, I think you've said it better here than I managed to at any point in the video! Plus so many of those things were things I thought EVERYONE had to do in order to make it through the day or social interaction.
@@DanaAndersen Thank you. I really enjoy your videos. I think one great thing we have with conversations like this is that we can realise that others have the same experiences and inner world we do.
I'll restrain myself from a wall of text. It really took me decades (literally) to catch on that the way people reacted to me, was me. I've grown so sensitized (or self aware) that I avoid human contact. If it's someone I like or is friendly, I forget myself and start talking. I don't realize I've crossed the line until they're scurrying away from me. Then I back up mentally and cringe. Did it again. Aaaaagh. Oh!, I walk like a marionette, so I've been told. Thanks Dana. Edit: specifically, I was told like I walked like someone from "Fireball XL5" a show from the early '60's. It's on RUclips if you're curious.
My initial reaction is to want to argue with you and say its not you at all, but I'm sure you know more about your own experiences than I do! I will say I think there are 'people' for everyone out there somewhere, it can feel pretty soul crushing waiting to find them, but there's definitely people that would listen to you and enjoy the conversation rather than scurrying away! Oooh I do love a good show from the 60's, I'll have to have a look!
@@DanaAndersen thanks, I'd like to believe that. I wouldn't necessarily say FIreball XL5 is a good show. It was for kids, mostly mocked but it had rockets and was space related, so I watched.
I think it'd be more accurate to say you have blind spots in your self awareness and you become overly aware to compensate. It's like being blind, you never know when you're about to hit a wall so you're always trying to assess so you can catch yourself before slamming your face into something for the thousandth time
Thank you so much for saying this. I've been struggling with being way too self-aware for a long time now, but every time I tried looking into it every single aritcle and specialist said autistic people lack self-awareness. And it kinda freaked me out because I haven’t gotten a diagnosis yet and I stated wondering if all of it was in my head. When I first brought it up to my therapist, the very first thing she told me was that I was "too self-aware for it to be autism" before she even listened to everything I had to say. But by the end of the session she was setting me up for a screening lol
Great video again Dana. Such an interesting topic. self perception, self esteem and self awareness indeed are loaded and could be talked about for years. lol. often they are more complicated than we'd like and they overlap in weird ways. Indeed, therapists do seem to respect folks for self awareness, but when is hyper self awareness problematic? how does self esteem interact with self perception. Does our self perception become skewed from an age we were too young to do anything about it?! oof. lots to think about here. thanks for another great discussion starter!
Therapists seem to often decide something is 'good' and don't consider you can have too much of a good thing, not to mention if they think too far into it they'll start asking the questions you are and that's one hell of a rabbit hole to go down!
I was just asking myself. self am i too self aware of my autism and behavior. well that led me to you. Its good to know I'm not alone. I now believe that being 53 that ADHD has snuck up on me to. I never knew what i had growing up Autism wasn't anything i heard of. I t wasn't until my son got diagnosed with Autism that realized what i have. I really do love and have excepted that part of me its just the cogitation and poor memory And A.D.D that i hate. I always wondered why i was always so supper self aware now i know. You are first person I've ever heard that describe how i am. Thanks for the video.
You might like the work of Damien Milton who has a theory about a double empathy problem I forget the exact name but as I understand his theory is that neurotypical people can’t empathise with us and we struggle to empathise with them but we are perfectly capable of empathising with other autistic people and Nt’s are empathising with each other but there’s a barrier we don’t cross easily. I am aware that this is not directly related to the self awareness issue but it’s perhaps why you hated all the papers that you read probably by NT researchers. Dr. Milton is however one of the increasing number of autistic researchers who are trying to treat autistic people like humans not lab rats. Thank you for the video, I’m sorry you had to do it twice.
I've seen the name about in other discussions, but I'll have to do the deep dive because this sounds very interesting and, in my experience at least, quite accurate!
Coming up in a severely toxic environment, I think that I have the missing factor. The intellect that we may nievely, openly display through our language, ideas, and profound insights are taken offensively to a large percentage of ND's after a given duration of time \interaction with high masking NT's. It's akin to how it isn't socially acceptable to laud one's self over others as 'smart' or 'genius'. We tend to be oblivious to the fact that we may be talking above peoples heads or being the constant professor and sharing our depth of thinking due to (normal for ND's) deep dives, while also being slow on the realization to the more often than not, negative emotional toll of others. I've wondered internally if there might not be a little bit of jealously. Walk a mile in their shoes; would you be secretly or subconsciously jealous of the high IQ, self awareness, tendency towards logic and away from emotions, while also getting a disabled plate & a good parking spot 😂. Don't forget, we're not the only people that mask up subconsciously and consciously. Masking is a survival technique. Thanks for this video, I've contemplated this topic numerous times!
I think a lot of autistic people are overly self-aware because they receive a lot of criticism, and then try to "act normal." I gave up on acting normal when I was about 13 and I'm now 75. I make a lot of mistakes, lose friends, lose work, but I'm basically a confident, non-neurotic person. In high school, I had contempt for "conformism," which I saw in the desperate attempts of almost everybody to copy everybody else. I was undiagnosed, but being able to blame everyone else rather than myself was actually pretty healthy. So I leaned into my weirdness, became a class clown, and just didn't worry about it all that much. Anything and everything was better than the total isolation of my younger years. I do realize when I am oversharing and boring people, but it's like a car with poor brakes going downhill. Sometimes I can stop it, sometimes I can't. But if they think I'm weird and talk too much, SO WHAT? There are repercussions, but in the big picture it's not that important.
my self awareness is a grey area but I feel now I have enough experience to notice more but with it going off experience it doesn't necessarily play out the same way?
I think it's a bit too black and white to make the argument that those with higher support needs lack self awareness. I know plenty who have a high level of self awareness. It can actually be incredibly damaging when you are self aware, but also powerless to do anything to be able to advocate for yourself or change your situation. We need to presume understanding and competence in all of us, regardless of how well we're able to manage on our own.
Absolutely. You just explained a very difficult concept very clearly and succinctly. ✅🙏 (Obvious to me as an autist, but seemingly difficult to explain to NTs 😉
That's certainly not an argument I was trying to make, so apologies it came across like that! I was trying to say that NT's, medical professionals etc. tend to assume that of those with high support needs, not that it's what I think or how it is!
Being so self-aware that you can't enjoy the moment, that you can't even enjoy the conversation or interact properly speaks volumes!!! Never alone! cheers
Having rejection sensitive dyphoria as a result to ADHD made me hypersensitive to what people thought of me throughout my entire childhood, so I became hyperself aware at like 7 years old as with my behaviour being policed I had to constantly think about what I was doing wrong
This is a fascinating topic, thankyou Dana! Being "Too self aware" definitely sums up my anxiety pretty well. I'm constantly preoccupied with "How do I come across to other people" to such an extreme that I'm overthinking every single little last thing I do and say.
I find myself so cringe and deal with self hatred too. I've had my walk commented on by 3 separate people in my life too (as I never forget an insult/negative observation).
I do find it so hard to stop myself once I start on the topic of a special interest! I've gotta remember to actually take a breath, listen to the other person, reply specifically to what they said and not just say the next thing in my head that's dying to get out (which is getting in the way of me listening to the other person 🤦🏻♀️) and not monopolise a conversation.
I do manage to control myself lmao, but I think that's possibly down to this hyper self awareness.
I've had my walk commented upon too. It must be a thing. I did work on it though, doing things like using shop windows as mirrors to observe myself, to develop a nice fluid style, arms moving in sync etc. It is a bit like a dance (something I'm also really crap at doing).
I've since had people comment positively on the way I walk. Mind you, if I forget myself, I still get comments about the way that I just hit high gear and disappear into the distance.
@@Daniel-vl8mx Ohh I power walk too 🙈 I figure with how anxious I am I need to just get out, get on, get in (home) (instead of get in, get on, get out 🤦🏻♀️). It's so stressful just being outside It's like I wanna hurry up and get the whole thing over with
It's always such a relief to see you comment with the most relatable things while relating to what I've said! The amount of conversation I miss trying to not say the next thing and interrupt, but also not forgetting the thing, and ah crap I didn't listen again! I agree that so much of my self control, especially in social settings, comes down to the hyper self awareness and the anxiety it brings, but at least we're aware of it and can work on it!
I think I grew up on too much stop motion to figure out a fluid style, but I'm constantly checkin my walk in windows and the like to make sure its not too 'get out of my way now I'm coming through'!
@@DanaAndersen I'm glad it's always a relief 😌 and once again very relatable! Just walking I feel like I'm overtaking people left right and centre 😅 Just gets you from A to B quicker, yet I tend to freeze in shops and struggle to be quick 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️ And Daniel I always look at my walk in big shop windows too, and I never feel great afterwards 😅🙈
When I was young I had very little self-awareness. This meant I sometimes did very stupid or potentially embarrassing things but due to my lack of self-awareness I generally didn't feel embarrassed. While lack of self-awareness is damaging in such ways it also meant I was much more confident and had higher self-esteem. My self-awareness has developed as an adult and made me less prone to some of the mistakes of the past but at the cost of a crippling lack of confidence and poor self-esteem. I think we can swing from almost total lack of self-awareness to almost total self-consciousness and both are unhealthy in different ways but hyper-self-awareness is probably worst for mental well-being..
I relate to this
My self awareness has always been excruciatingly high too
Omg this is so true, I tried researching this specific subject bc of its impact on my mental health but there was just nothing out there. Only papers on us having "no self awareness" and I was so dumbfounded🫠
My own experience is that, far from lacking self-awareness, I am constantly, consciously self-aware. It is an essential part of successfully passing or masking: the constant, conscious monitoring of one's whole presentation, and how it is going over.
My performance may not always be perfect, but it is not for want of self-awareness. Indeed I spend much of my time either preparing for my performance: planning and rehearsing conversations in my head, perhaps "gaming" a few different approaches, thinking about delivery, facial expression, gestures etc., or replaying interactions afterward: how did that go, what clues do I have from the other participants, areas for improvement, mistakes.
And, in the moment itself, I am actively monitoring myself, acutely conscious of facial expression, eye contact, gesture, tone etc, and searching the other person for cues. I am not always hitting the mark, and it is sometimes hard to keep it going and to keep up in real time, but it is not for want of self-awareness. I usually am painfully aware for example of when I've missed the mark - it just might not be immediately.
I absolutely relate to this, I think you've said it better here than I managed to at any point in the video! Plus so many of those things were things I thought EVERYONE had to do in order to make it through the day or social interaction.
@@DanaAndersen Thank you. I really enjoy your videos. I think one great thing we have with conversations like this is that we can realise that others have the same experiences and inner world we do.
I'll restrain myself from a wall of text. It really took me decades (literally) to catch on that the way people reacted to me, was me. I've grown so sensitized (or self aware) that I avoid human contact. If it's someone I like or is friendly, I forget myself and start talking. I don't realize I've crossed the line until they're scurrying away from me. Then I back up mentally and cringe. Did it again. Aaaaagh. Oh!, I walk like a marionette, so I've been told. Thanks Dana.
Edit: specifically, I was told like I walked like someone from "Fireball XL5" a show from the early '60's. It's on RUclips if you're curious.
My initial reaction is to want to argue with you and say its not you at all, but I'm sure you know more about your own experiences than I do! I will say I think there are 'people' for everyone out there somewhere, it can feel pretty soul crushing waiting to find them, but there's definitely people that would listen to you and enjoy the conversation rather than scurrying away!
Oooh I do love a good show from the 60's, I'll have to have a look!
@@DanaAndersen thanks, I'd like to believe that. I wouldn't necessarily say FIreball XL5 is a good show. It was for kids, mostly mocked but it had rockets and was space related, so I watched.
I can relate to this
I think it'd be more accurate to say you have blind spots in your self awareness and you become overly aware to compensate. It's like being blind, you never know when you're about to hit a wall so you're always trying to assess so you can catch yourself before slamming your face into something for the thousandth time
Thank you so much for saying this. I've been struggling with being way too self-aware for a long time now, but every time I tried looking into it every single aritcle and specialist said autistic people lack self-awareness. And it kinda freaked me out because I haven’t gotten a diagnosis yet and I stated wondering if all of it was in my head.
When I first brought it up to my therapist, the very first thing she told me was that I was "too self-aware for it to be autism" before she even listened to everything I had to say. But by the end of the session she was setting me up for a screening lol
Great video again Dana. Such an interesting topic. self perception, self esteem and self awareness indeed are loaded and could be talked about for years. lol. often they are more complicated than we'd like and they overlap in weird ways. Indeed, therapists do seem to respect folks for self awareness, but when is hyper self awareness problematic? how does self esteem interact with self perception. Does our self perception become skewed from an age we were too young to do anything about it?! oof. lots to think about here. thanks for another great discussion starter!
Therapists seem to often decide something is 'good' and don't consider you can have too much of a good thing, not to mention if they think too far into it they'll start asking the questions you are and that's one hell of a rabbit hole to go down!
I was just asking myself. self am i too self aware of my autism and behavior. well that led me to you. Its good to know I'm not alone. I now believe that being 53 that ADHD has snuck up on me to. I never knew what i had growing up Autism wasn't anything i heard of. I t wasn't until my son got diagnosed with Autism that realized what i have. I really do love and have excepted that part of me its just the cogitation and poor memory And A.D.D that i hate. I always wondered why i was always so supper self aware now i know. You are first person I've ever heard that describe how i am. Thanks for the video.
You might like the work of Damien Milton who has a theory about a double empathy problem I forget the exact name but as I understand his theory is that neurotypical people can’t empathise with us and we struggle to empathise with them but we are perfectly capable of empathising with other autistic people and Nt’s are empathising with each other but there’s a barrier we don’t cross easily. I am aware that this is not directly related to the self awareness issue but it’s perhaps why you hated all the papers that you read probably by NT researchers. Dr. Milton is however one of the increasing number of autistic researchers who are trying to treat autistic people like humans not lab rats. Thank you for the video, I’m sorry you had to do it twice.
I've seen the name about in other discussions, but I'll have to do the deep dive because this sounds very interesting and, in my experience at least, quite accurate!
Yes I can usually infer what autistic people are feeling or thinking very easily
Coming up in a severely toxic environment, I think that I have the missing factor. The intellect that we may nievely, openly display through our language, ideas, and profound insights are taken offensively to a large percentage of ND's after a given duration of time \interaction with high masking NT's. It's akin to how it isn't socially acceptable to laud one's self over others as 'smart' or 'genius'. We tend to be oblivious to the fact that we may be talking above peoples heads or being the constant professor and sharing our depth of thinking due to (normal for ND's) deep dives, while also being slow on the realization to the more often than not, negative emotional toll of others. I've wondered internally if there might not be a little bit of jealously. Walk a mile in their shoes; would you be secretly or subconsciously jealous of the high IQ, self awareness, tendency towards logic and away from emotions, while also getting a disabled plate & a good parking spot 😂. Don't forget, we're not the only people that mask up subconsciously and consciously. Masking is a survival technique.
Thanks for this video, I've contemplated this topic numerous times!
I think a lot of autistic people are overly self-aware because they receive a lot of criticism, and then try to "act normal." I gave up on acting normal when I was about 13 and I'm now 75. I make a lot of mistakes, lose friends, lose work, but I'm basically a confident, non-neurotic person. In high school, I had contempt for "conformism," which I saw in the desperate attempts of almost everybody to copy everybody else. I was undiagnosed, but being able to blame everyone else rather than myself was actually pretty healthy. So I leaned into my weirdness, became a class clown, and just didn't worry about it all that much. Anything and everything was better than the total isolation of my younger years. I do realize when I am oversharing and boring people, but it's like a car with poor brakes going downhill. Sometimes I can stop it, sometimes I can't. But if they think I'm weird and talk too much, SO WHAT? There are repercussions, but in the big picture it's not that important.
my self awareness is a grey area but I feel now I have enough experience to notice more but with it going off experience it doesn't necessarily play out the same way?
I think it's a bit too black and white to make the argument that those with higher support needs lack self awareness. I know plenty who have a high level of self awareness. It can actually be incredibly damaging when you are self aware, but also powerless to do anything to be able to advocate for yourself or change your situation. We need to presume understanding and competence in all of us, regardless of how well we're able to manage on our own.
Absolutely. You just explained a very difficult concept very clearly and succinctly. ✅🙏 (Obvious to me as an autist, but seemingly difficult to explain to NTs 😉
That's certainly not an argument I was trying to make, so apologies it came across like that! I was trying to say that NT's, medical professionals etc. tend to assume that of those with high support needs, not that it's what I think or how it is!
@@DanaAndersen Ah, okay. I misunderstood then. Sorry!
self awareness probably means to know why you messed a conversation up too. not only your knowledge you did it.