Metamorphosis- Growing up with Turner Syndrome

6. Being the odd one out- Social anxiety

Would these two girls over there mind, if I sat down next to them? There is a free chair at the table next to them after all, but they seem to be having so much fun together right now- I cannot spoil it. I do not even know them, really. It would probably be better, if I just went to the empty table on the other side of the hall, or would it not? ...

If you amidst any given social situations find yourself standing in a corner, disorientated, frozen on the spot, overthinking your behaviour like that, you have thereby already officially outed yourself as a freak. For me, it can easily feel like others know instinctively, what to do and not to do in social situations. It hardly seems to matter, what exactly one does or says- as long, as they do it quickly and confidently. Their actions might rub some people the wrong way, sure, but there will mostly also be a crowd of others to defend them. Self- confidence always seems to be key. Now, part of that is self- evidently true-we humans are social creatures, therefore we should usually be able to interpret social cues correctly and act according to them more or less instinctively. And there are some pretty universal signs in body language, with which we communicate dominance or subordinance- so obviously, acting self- confidently does make a difference in whether or not you are taken seriously. Furthermore, we should usually, at least to some degree, feel confident while interacting with others. That is, why many, but not nearly all, neurotypical persons tend to have a very self- confident, as well, as "likeable" or socially acceptable way of behaving in social situations. At the same time, we must not overestimate others- far too often, they already overestimate themselves. I by the way am using the word "neurotypial" here for lack of a better one, but somehow also raising the question, whether or not people with TS who do not happen to have ASD or ADHD should consider themselves "neurologically atypical"(what else would be the opposite of neurotypical) or maybe "neurodivergent", which would be the commonly used term. The answer to that question is not as black or white, as one might assume, but contrary to what my usage of the word "neurotypical" might indicate, I personally would also count most women with TS into that group. There obviously can be some shared characteristics, so to say "mild" NVLD or "mild" autistic traits, affecting individuals to widely varying degrees, but most of them are as mentioned before also quite commonly found in the general population, especially, if you look at populations dealing with infertility, short growth or possibly various other medical problems. So labelling them as "not typical" may not necessarily be entirely correct or helpful, although "neurodivergent" is in fact a term trying to avoid any stigma coming with it. Still, I know some people who would certainly wrongly consider "neurodivergent" a euphemism for "cognitively impaired"- and the last thing I would have wanted in the time right after my diagnosis would have been to be made to feel even more "different" from everybody else.

Now, I am clearly getting a little off topic, because I started this by wanting to writing about not fitting in, "failing at normal" and social anxiety. Precisely describing the term "social anxiety" is incredibly difficult. It is characterized by someone craving social contact, yet at the same time being afraid of other's judgements and feeling insecure in social situations to a pathological, restrictive degree. One could in my opinion more subjectively imagine it as a constant, painful awareness of how inappropriately one is behaving, or has behaved, in certain social situations. And especially a well above average degree of unease when entering an unknown social situation. It should be noted here, that one on one situations are far easier, than big groups (where you have to speak up, not being sure about whether or not anybody is really interested in your opinion. Hearing problems might sometimes play into that, aswell, as they become more problematic in a crowded room with many people talking at the same time). Social interactions a lot of the time do not start easily, instinctively, as the constant insecurity, second- guessing and planning of every small action in one's head makes one act awkwardly and miss certain social clues. Not being able to rely on behaving socially acceptable or seeming likeable to others without trying might be the starting point for these problems. This, again,  can be learned behaviour- resulting e.g. from years of not being taken seriously-, or an inherently different brainstructure and poor coordination, or most likely some mixture of all of these aspects. The thing is, we get why we are bullied (although short statue in and on itself can cause a lot of bullying). We are more than aware, of how inappropriately and insecurely we have behaved in a social situation afterwards. It might be easier for me to understand someone's emotions, if they put them into words, but even if they do not, I will mostly be able to name everything I could have done differently after a social interaction.