I meanwhile know that the line between a narcissistic disorder and the autistic spectrum, can be on the face of it, really narrow. And in the beginning I assumed that I’m a narcissist, because I’v seen by myself quite a lot parallels. Over the last two years I’v been dealing a lot with that fact and it still bothers me somehow. So I started writing about my problems, my diagnosis, the symptoms and all those things I’m struggling with. As a form of therapy.
But first of all, I wanna clear one thing out – this should not be an excuse for all the mistakes I made in my life. It should be an explanation why I did those faults and their root causes. Also I wanna underline, that I’v never been acting deliberately with the intention to shortchange or offend someone!
I think everybody who knows me better, will probably agree that I’m a really accommodating person, who tries to help as much as possible. Also the fact that I always felt really uncomfortable when I’v been in the center of attention. Best example: already as a kid I hated my own birthdays, be fêted by others. It was always really unpleasant for me. And I still don’t like to celebrate my birthdays – not even congratulations. Now people will think, well but I’v seen you shooting at big events or being at parties in a super amped-mood. That didn’t look so autistic to me. Yes that’s right and in autism this is called “overacting”. Over the last two years I figured out, that I’m doing that in situations where I’m confronted with many people or settings overloading me – than I’m totally overstrained with the situation and camouflaging my inner uneasiness with this hyperbolic behaviour. But in reality I’m feeling extremely queasy. In comparison to a narcissist who is permanently searching for attention and enjoying it to the fullest. I’m always extremely happy to be out of such situations and having time for my self. Being at places with many people is exhausting me. And everybody who knows me in person, also know that I really enjoy being alone and that I’m absolutely not the party-guy heading out every weekend looking for attention.
One of the mind-blowing moments during the therapy was for me, when it came to the concept of “masking”. I actually never realized that I’m doing that – but it explained a lot of my weird manners. Already as a kid I learned social behaviors through observing other people, how they been acting, what they been saying and I copied that. Like I heard phrases from other people or on TV and I’v been immediate using them, even when the situation wasn’t suitable for this saying or behavior. For me this was normal. Another deficit I never realized is, that I’m not able to rate facial expressions from other people. This was leading to the fact, that I rarely been able to contextualize a situation. Together with hardly be able “reading between the lines” and taking every spoken word literally, caused a lot of serious problems in my life.
Also my lack in self-marketing since the beginning of my career and that I been always overmodest regarding my work as a photographer is a matter of fact what excludes a narcissistic disorder. Likewise I been always over-strained and a little bit ashamed when people been complimenting my work. I never really liked that and didn’t know how to handle those compliments.
Another thing can be confusing the issue between narcissists and autists is the behaviour of being a “know-it-all” and a “faultfinder.” Yes guilty, I do act sometimes like that. But I’m not doing that because I want to be in the center of attention. I’m actually want to share my knowledge with other people with the intention to enrich them. That this can be misconceived I actually never realised. Now I’m starting slowly to understand that other people sense this in an other way. And still, in some situations I can’t avoid it. As example when it’s about my special interests, I’m still ending in a monologue where the cadence in my voice get’s this kind of overemphasise, I can’t control. I’m sorry! Meanwhile I try to prevent such situations, with bypassing conversations around my special interests.
Having the penchant for being overly dramatic. Ok this is a tricky one, what took a while to find the reasons why I’m doing that. I know that sometimes I show the tendency to be theatric and/or exaggerate things. Mostly in combination with alcohol. That’s also something I can not control in that moment and afterwards I always realised that I did that, but then it was already too late. To be honest, I feel ashamed about it. An explanation is that autists, in particular Aspergers are also in the need to be a part of our society, even tough they are basically withdrawn characters. During my therapy we been talking a lot about that habit and assumed that the flash-point lays in my childhood and the absence of notice from my parents. You see that every persons development and characteristic is different. So it’s also possible that a person in an autism spectrum can develop attributes non representative for a typical autist.
But what’s a typical autist? There is no incarnate type of autism and the whole spectrum is extremely multifaceted. I know that it’s easier finding a simple answer to complex circumstances. And I also understand that label a person as a narcissist is way more uncomplicated, than look into a subject. Because narcissism is incremental prevalent in this society, than the autism spectrum is.
To be continued…
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