How to deal with people you're no longer scared of?

racheH

I thought seeing as some people here are recovered, someone might have some experience with this kind of problem:

I've been in a form at school with pretty much the same group of kids for four years and I'll start the fifth year tommorrow. Most of them know me to be a silent, disinterested, socially inept robot-girl with no knowledge or understanding of when she's being picked on. Now I understand myself properly I'm thinking that soon I won't be able to hide behind that image if I conciously try. The trouble is, though, as much as I want to show them the person my family see, they won't understand why I would suddenly change so much.

Saying I've had mental disorders will make them think I'm either even wierder than they thought or lying and faking a new personality to get noticed. Saying 'I don't REALLY have a bad personality I've just been tricking you because I was terrified of you but now I'm not so I can be normal' won't go down well either.

It's not that I still need them to accept me to feel worth anything (although when I get there and see their faces containing all the bad memories I may be humming a different tune). It's just that I've got at least two more years with these people and at least recluses generally just get ignored. If they think I'm a faker they'll think I deserve all the snipes and pranks they can throw at me, and it would be nice to have some friends to eat with at lunch, if not for my self-esteem anymore, then for someone to talk to.

Could anyone offer any advice on how to convince them of the real me?How can I explain SAD and APD to them in terms they'll understand? Verbalising the emotions I get from them makes it sound ridiculous even to me, but I at least know I'm not making it up or using something I've found on the Internet as an excuse for being unfriendly. (I've run through some nasty scenarios in my head about this, and I'm convinced they'll think one or the other.)
I thought of 'introducing' parts of me gradually, but they've thought they've known me for four years, so they'll notice that too.

Could anyone help me please or share some experience?
Apologies for the long post.

_________________
'Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else' ~ Liza Minnelli

nezzy · Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 8:20 pm Post subject:

i find giving my self an out from a conversation the best, either i'm in the middle of something, or 5 mins to a bell or lunch or something..... just so you dont get stuck there after the 5 min period if you run out of stuff to say.

i do it all the time, also if you think the person is a caring one, tell them you suffer from anxiety and thats why you dont talk much....

i have a friend at work who knows me well now and i work dead opposite him, we didnt speak past hello for 3 months when he started. now we chatter all day. common interests and generally being forthright when i'm not in a talking mood helps.

Guest · Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 8:06 pm Post subject:

One of the things of SP is that you picture possible, irreal scenarios...

So, what you have to do, is don't think and do it... and expect the real consequences, not the ones you guess

Jenna · Guest

I am amazed of how much alike you feel as i do... and it's happy to know i'm not the only one to feel this way. and it's kinda funny cuz, i could've sworn i've written that post myself. you see, just like you my real personality is being hidden by social phobic behaviour. it's about the fourth year at my new school. for all these years i've been labeled something else that i'm not and it really actually feels very uncomfortable because deep down inside i know it's not me. and that's the reason i feel so different... it's because of their false assumptions of me that makes me feel weird and awkward and different ...you name it...
people actually have given me chances... especially since the beginning of my first to second year at my new school. now i feel like an idiot since i didnt say anything or prove anything that i can actually be a friendly person, and everything that makes me...me..
but as i think of it's ok.. because back then i was inexperienced and now i'm smarter and mentaly stronger sooo if i ever get another chance somehow, i should be able to do what i was supposed to do before. and now i feel like screaming out to the whole world who i am so that they'll now stop thinking wrong of me. oh yeah it's very true what u said racheH about introducing yourself gradually into parts instead of all at once.. i think it's much better because if it were all at once it'd probably be harder to keep your real attitude, and maybe you'll fall back into being not as you really are. another reason is that, yes, these people would probably critisize you more with just a sudden change. i mean.. i dont know if all this is true but that's how'd i see it. it's so nice to hear that you don't need those people to feel like you don't have any worth. that's a tip i can use.
oh yeah and i also have a hurtful experience... in the beginning of this school year i made an effort to ask somebody that i never really talked to before a simple question... and she answered then she seemed disinterested in me and went on talking to someone else... i mean it still hurts me. but i tell myself that that's her problem. and i don't have to care much about that silly moment ever again. and that there must be some more people out there who would be interested in me.

Very Happy

well that's about it... another one of my not so short replies
and i hope it somehow helped you.

racheH · Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 7:31 pm Post subject: Thanks everyone

Thanks for the advice and stories, they've helped. Smile

Well I've been to school for four days now, and not much has changed yet socially, I mean I'm still alone alot, but things are definately better from my point of view. I keep asking myself 'why isn't this making me feel badly?' and the truth is I'm seeing things differently, more like how other people see them, and for anyone who feels like giving up let me tell you it feels great! Very Happy

Feeling 'normal' and at the same time like I have rights to be individual is something that had felt so far away, and now I'm just getting the occasional twinge of anticipation anxiety and bad memories come and go but it's still feels like such an achievement.

As to how other people treat me, it's just a case of remembering that the submissiveness was the phobia too and I don't have to take anything just because I have before. Some people will be shocked at my turnaround but I don't intend to put myself in a situation where any of them will have any affect on my life anyway - by the time I leave school it'll all be new people I'll be trying to impress for career purposes who won't have any presumptions about my character or ability. Other than that people can think what they like because I know who I am and don't need them to show me.

Thanks again; I feel more understood here than anywhere else. I'll be trying to put the advice into practise about showing people I'm genuine - and even if it doesn't work, the worst that could happen is looking less severe everyday.

_________________
'Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else' ~ Liza Minnelli

introvert · Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 5:46 pm Post subject:

yeh i felt like this, for the last 4 years of high school years 8-12 i felt this way. I didnt dare make a change, or else obviously the all seeing eye would register it, and then i would be declared a phony or something lol. Then i though in year 12, heres my big break, the move from high school to university. Well i screwed up from the beginning, no matter how much i wanted to change, and continued the same old routing. Here i am 2 years later, 20 working (dropped out of uni) and still have SP.... if I had to give you advice, I'd say try making those changes while you still can, don't think later you can change quickly in between schools... it wont work. Work on starting the ball rolling, and It might be a pain in the last few years, but then you go to uni and the old people you know are forgotten in the past, the only thing that remains is the new you.