Social Phobia

Feeling isolated from the world is a common feeling for those with Aspergers. The fear that everyone's looking at you and criticizing can get really intense. Social phobia can turn totally casual glances into the belief that everyone's looking at you, judging you, criticizing, even though they have no reason to judge you. Only people who are actually looking for "prey" (you know, a mugger looking for a target or a schoolyard bully looking for someone to push around) would actually be doing that kind of thing, and they're not the sort of people whose opinions matter in the first place. Anybody who is that critical is not somebody whose opinion matters. But that perception of being judged and watched by others...it's very real. The experience of it is real and can be very distressing. Fear isn't rational, and you can tell yourself over and over that the average person has no reason to be so critical, but your feelings can refuse to listen to your mind, and you're stuck with them. Someone with Aspergers can re-train their feelings through therapy; but it takes time and there'll probably always be a vulnerability that her or she will have to deal with

Here are some steps that can help:

1) Try to build up your confidence day by day

2) Set yourself a task of speaking to a new person. Before going ahead and talking to them, think what kind of things you would like to talk about. Think about a conversation that would make sense for you to start up. This will give you a better sense of how to socialize, knowing when to speak, make jokes, be quiet etc

3) Then after that set yourself another task, but you decide what its gonna be. Something that you feel comfortable with

4) I would advise that eventually, when you're ready, you join some sort of club, activity, volunteer program, or something that you're interested with. That way you wont feel so alienated