Social Outings

Social Outings

 

Social outings have changed significantly from March to July 2025 since I’ve been diagnosed to now. It used to be that I put up with the background noise, mostly lip-read my way through conversations, and prayed the night would end. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is now that we are all aware of my autism, I have more cocktails, might excuse myself abruptly, or might hurry along the goodbyes. Also, the crashing period looks different. Granted, the few times we have been out have been extreme compared to what we were in before, especially compared to the isolation I have clung to since “coming out.” It definitely feels like a coming out. New community, new paradigm, new things to follow or not follow. New freedoms to express yourself and be yourself.

Anyway, we went all out for my sister’s birthday. A weekend out in Pittsburgh with sights and sounds and craziness. Okay, there was an eleven year old involved, so it wasn’t that crazy, but I went inside a make-up store for the first time, sort of initiated a conversation with an employee, and asked several questions. I learned a lot… probably too much! But now I know more about the brands they like, the brands to buy teens and not teens. It was a fantastic learning experience. For my husband and sister’s husband waiting outside… not really. Hahaha.

It was a fantastic experience of a weekend, but I am still paying the price a week later. My husband misses me and probably thinks I’ve been replaced by an alien or something.

My point, before I run out of energy completely, is that it is draining for me to be social. I want to be social, but it comes at a cost. Now every holiday, every party, every gathering, every restaurant comes at a social price. And now I have to calculate it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Drunk Uncle Boundaries

Did That Seriously Come Out of Their Mouth? We all have that friend or family member who we wince when cornered by. They lock eyes, and it seems the conversation never ends. Worse, it seems like they have opposite views as you do, but they don’t care. They just nod their heads until you nod your head and pretend like you’re enjoying the conversation. Then they take that as their cue to continue for half an hour more. If someone tries to save you, there’s a 50/50 chance they will be pulled into the conversation too, depending on how skillful they are it could lean more heavily on the side of damage. I get you. There are fortunately many Facebook reels about this very topic. Just keep researching “narcissist” and eventually Facebook will point you to these very people. Some of them don’t possess empathy. Some of them have no idea what another person could feel or think besides themselves. They are stuck in their own corner of the world. I am no expert in this, but I took classes on bound...
Read more

Autism in My Own Words Part 1

Autism in My Own Words Part 1   I don’t know how we do it. Or how “normal people” do it… they gather, have parties, talk, drink, eat, “mingle,” etc. I find myself talked at while I find a person’s eyebrows or lips moving and try to lipread to help decipher through the noise what they are trying to say. I thought I was the only one contorting my face in a carefully practiced dance of lips, cheeks, and especially eyebrows to make level expert look what everyone else looked like what level easy looked like. I’ve been doing it my whole life, and I’ve been doing it so long that I’ve forgotten I’ve even been doing it. Until I got diagnosed with autism and found others like me. And my mask slipped. Suddenly I was “being autistic” and “not who I was before.” Everything was harder, and my eyebrows took more energy to move, my eyebrows could hardly stay awake, and so many more things took so much more energy. I have hardly been to a social gathering since then. But today I was talking ...
Read more

From A Candle

Let It All Burn To The Ground No, don’t let it all burn to the ground. Then you would be left with nothing but grief and nothing to start from. Change comes slowly and from using what you already have. I had a brilliant idea as I was falling asleep for a blog post, but of course I didn’t write it down or type it up, so poof it went! I needed some time by myself (which isn’t that difficult since I’m alone when my husband goes to work in the mornings as I’m searching for a job). I made it my self-care today to stare into a candle for five minutes and put on some music, hoping that would rejuvenate me. I was also hoping it would inspire me to write a post. I’ve been holding off on what I’ve been learning in Partial until after the New Year, making way this past week for change and hope and New Year stuff, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I felt like Christmas just went awry in my attempts at changing others. And I shouldn’t have been seeking to change others in the first place. So I’m sittin...
Read more