![](\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/J7d9_T9kZMa4v2UFmLdMQeATth4sM5JgPGeNFYvCIDleyemR6tZ1MbvhrEvlBmYJ5FvWDQgent42G4jHTFN_Tr2HM4wdBFRTPtaozIKuvZpliKRU9z6nb0ChcK71lwoCw19ljLKU\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nFirstly I\u2019d like to say I\u2019m not talking about Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) I\u2019m going to be talking from the position of an adult chasing an ASC diagnosis and with diagnosed and medicated General Anxiety Disorder. ASC can cause social anxiety due to the processing difficulties around social cues and while that can be paired with SAD there are many differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I said above I don\u2019t have SAD but I do experience a lot of anxiety in social situations, in large groups where I am uncomfortable I will often sit quietly and merely observe. This is not a helpful state as it robs me of agency and prevents me from forging new relationships. It also doesn\u2019t reduce my anxiety the whole time. Rather than actively listening to the conversations around me I am trying to work out a way to get involved in one or more, whether I should leave, whether there is anybody else there I might know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This gets worse if that social event is work-related when I feel a responsibility on me to be there. Social events like the world party (a big Just Eat gathering of all teams from all over the world) and sundowners (finishing early and sharing some beers on a friday) are events I worry about in the build-up and intensely during them. It\u2019s the same in networking events and at conferences, they all take a huge amount out of me and leave me exhausted. To try and explain why a party can be so tiring I have to talk a bit about masking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Masking is the term used in autism circles to describe the techniques people with autism deploy in order to appear typical. For neurotypical folk learning how to interpret the bewildering array of body, facial and verbal cues is something that becomes hardwired in early childhood. For people with autism this interpretation, if they are lucky enough to be able to do it at all, is all learnt and processed on the fly. By way of a brief example, I long ago learnt that if you meet someone in the kitchen at work you can remove the awkwardness of both being in a confirmed space and not talking with a friendly query. The fragment of pseudo-code to the left is literally what runs through my brain. Apologies to any coders reading it. It is the final proof, if proof were needed, that I am now definitely a manager, not an engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/SlMV1EeVr-rWftgsPvBSAZK_NAmjH-OedR2jcCXZMJFhvr4p1_q5agX3b2wlXVixu3q-jXVdJiWsxHdK8V8F0SrKIwJBxqBUFPr2PlEIgElanWBpDgBlxX8ojK1DqtBXcuYgPqpk\")
That little program was great and succeeded in undoing that initial anxiety. It needed some updates to add some variability into the phrasing but it\u2019s essentially unchanged after many years. However, there was a problem, I had to listen as well and even remember the response. You may well be reading this and think, well duh! But, for me, I had to learn that and make a concerted effort to make those plans stick in my head. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t care about your plans, it\u2019s just that the extent of my caring only goes as far as \u201cdoes it make you happy?\u201d. I don\u2019t care about the specifics unless you are (un)lucky enough to be doing something involving one of my interests. In which case brace yourself, you are about to receive a significant amount of information you never knew you needed and probably don\u2019t. Again over the years, I\u2019ve managed to train a little voice to yell \u201cpull up, pull up!\u201d in my head until I realise my victim\u2019s ears are now bleeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, a few years ago a wonderful thing happened: something that had long been a niche interest of mine, playing board games, became mainstream(ish). Since childhood, I have loved playing games, especially Risk (of which I have 11 versions), but suddenly it wasn\u2019t just those classics like Trivial Pursuits, Scrabble, and the dreaded Monopoly but a new range of different games as different as they are from each other as they are from those ancestors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This meant the world to me, I can now socialise and do something I enjoy with other people, which despite much of what I wrote above I really like and want to spend time with. While playing, the stress of who talks when or what I should say drifts away because we are all engaged in something I love. The interplay of the mechanics of the game, my position and that of my opponents are all fighting for space in my thoughts alongside the normal concerns about \u201cwhether I\u2019m liked\u201d, \u201cwhether I\u2019m talking too much\u201d, or \u201ctoo little\u201d. These puny concerns can\u2019t handle the competition and retreat, mostly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The relief of this state is bliss and through it, I\u2019ve made many good friends just by playing games with them. Over time these relationships evolve and we do other things together as well, but because I\u2019ve built up a relationship with them I feel less pressure to interject into a conversation and greatly eases that anxiety. Through these relationships and the not inconsiderable effort of my long-suffering wife, I now know a great many extraneous facts, partner\u2019s, children\u2019s and parent\u2019s names, birthplaces, other interests, holidays, plans and hopes for the future etc. This forms a virtuous circle helping me develop further things to converse about leading to a greater understanding and firmer friendships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, board games have done wonderful things for me and I want you all to play them so I\u2019ll never run out of people to play and talk games with, but there are many interests out there that might help you bridge those gaps. Choir (both show and traditional), football (both proper and American), badminton, cycling any many more, I now know, are participated in by my friends and provide a little structure around that social interaction which for me at least takes the edge off<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Firstly I\u2019d like to say I\u2019m not talking about Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) I\u2019m going to be talking from the position of an adult chasing an ASC diagnosis and with diagnosed and medicated General Anxiety Disorder. ASC can cause social anxiety due to the processing difficulties around social cues and Continue Reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1,"url":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/me\/brief-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":0},"title":"A brief history of me","date":"April 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A reflection on the links between mental health and neurodiversity and how both have affected my life. WARNING: Contains references to suicide","rel":"","context":"In "Me"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/IMG_5178.jpg?fit=407%2C395&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":34,"url":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/uncategorized\/rsd-and-the-traitors\/","url_meta":{"origin":18,"position":1},"title":"RSD and The Traitors","date":"February 20, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks ago, I finally caved and watched some reality tv. It\u2019s really not normally my cup of tea, but as a massive fan of social deduction games, \u2018The Traitors\u2019 seemed like a must-see. I can spot most of the typical reality TV manipulations, the emotional backstories and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fallen.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}