Dr. Aziz responds to a viewer question about social anxiety compounded by Asperger's (or other seemingly permanent social-detrimental traits). He argues that brains and social skills can change through learning and practice (citing epigenetics and growth), describes a practical model (four levels of connection: superficial, safe personal data, realm of emotion/meaning, authentic vulnerability), and shares a clinical anecdote of a client with Asperger's who improved social fluency and entered a long-term relationship. Major recommendations: study social skills (courses, books, group trainings), practice deliberately, counter learned helplessness, and cultivate unconditional self-acceptance.
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What if you experience social anxiety and something like Asperger's or something that. That is interfering with your ability to connect with others and something you might see as permanent, as detrimental, as really stopping you from having the social life and the connections that you really want. And you might even tell yourself that, well, look, there's something wrong with my brain. I'm permanently broken. And so, of course I'm anxious around others and I'm never going to have what I want. If. If you have anything that you think is permanent, anything that you think is going to stop you from really connecting and having the love that you want in your life, whether it's Asperger's or something else. Watch this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, and this is a show for you if you want to maximize your confidence in every area of life that matters, and that includes your social confidence. And that includes, even if. Especially if you have something that you think is a objective, real reason why you have low confidence, why you have social anxiety, why you're not capable. And the question I'm going to read from and answer today is about Asperger's. But that can apply to someone who thinks, well, I can't have confidence because I'm short, because I'm bald, because I stutter, because I'm fat, because I'm from this culture, because I'm this color, because whatever, because I'm ugly. Therefore, I can never have a partner. I can never have the life that I want. You know, whatever our beliefs are, and we have ones that we think are more legitimate, more real. And therefore, I can't have what I want. And so let's talk about Asperger's. So I got a great question recently. I'm gonna read it here. Says, hey, Dr. Aziz, what about people with permanent, socially detrimental mental issues? For example, Asperger's is your advice for getting past social anxiety and stuff. The same for people like us. I'm tired of being lonely and hating myself and for not being able to make friends and keep romantic relations interested. And that's a painful place to be. And I get it. And I've actually have worked with clients that do have Asperger's and different levels on the autism spectrum. So if you don't know what Asperger's is, you can look it up at another time. I'm just going to speak to you, assume that you know what it is. But so let me tell you about the client. One of the Clients that I worked with with this. And so one of the challenges with Asperger's is, like, I don't get the social nuances, the facial gestures, the emotional undertone of the conversation is more challenging for me. It feels like a foreign language almost. So, therefore, am I doomed? And no. And I worked with this client who basically his primary goal was, I want love, I want a relationship. I've never been able to have that. It feels mysterious for me. And on top of that, I love to be funnier and. And have social connections and just feel more at ease in myself. So it was like social anxiety and Asperger's he wanted to overcome. So here's the thing. You can absolutely change and grow. Nothing about our brains is fixed. Nothing about you and your entire body and your whole cells and everything. Nothing is fixed. But especially in your mind. And we know this now, like the story that your genes determine your reality, and it's just this machinery that's set in motion from your parents. Parents, Parents. Dad, dad, dad. Sperm determines your reality now is total bullshit. And there's like a huge field of study around this called epigenetics, which at this point is probably the most accepted form of that science. And the old deterministic view of genes evolving is bunk. So the truth is you can change, and you can change rapidly, and your genes respond to the environment and the inputs and all this stuff. So whether someone has Asperger's or ADHD or something, and they talk about themselves like they're permanently broke, like, hey, listen, over time you can change. Now, does that mean that you can snap your fingers and not have these challenges, or snap your fingers and all of a sudden understand emotions and get all the subtle undertones and facial expressions? No. But you can train yourself, you can grow, you can learn, you can evolve, and you can get this. And so I'm going to tell you a story about a client who did this exact thing. So we're working together on this, and he's like, okay, how do I figure this out? And you know what? Honestly, in working with him, I ended up creating the most valuable content in teaching social mastery because I had to sit here and break down the most basic stuff. Okay? A conversation. Why does someone feel emotionally connected in a conversation? And we broke it down. And in that, I came up with a model of the four levels of connection, which I talk about in Confidence University, in the Social Mastery course. But basically, there's superficial. There is safe personal data like, oh, I work here and I have kids and I Live on Beaker Street. It's just information about you. It's safe, personal data. Then there's more. The realm of emotion and meaning. How you feel about things, whether you like them or dislike them, what things mean to you, what's meaningful to others. And then the last core level is authentic vulnerability. We might share a challenge you're having or something deeper, more personal for you. And so we came up with. I came up with this as I was teaching him because I was trying to figure out, how do I get him to understand these things that he just doesn't quote, just get. So definitely study the Social Mastery course, Inside of Confidence University, and anything else you can get your hands on. I'm not the only. There's probably books out there that are specifically designed for social skills for people with Asperger's. And in fact, I know of a guy locally here in the Portland, Greater Portland area that I came across many years ago when I was doing my clinical work who did this, like these group trainings with teenagers with Asperger's. And he also works with adults, too. And it's like social training and practice. And you know what? People get results from doing that. The biggest obstacle is not the challenges you have. The biggest obstacle is avoidance, is pessimism, is helplessness, is hopelessness, is learned helplessness. Well, this is just how I am. I can't do anything about it. So you can absolutely learn that. And it's slightly different for you, though, right? Maybe you have to understand and study what. What do emotions look like? How do people express emotions? You might have to do a little more work to get your emotional intelligence built up. And look, you might. This client that I work with, he always kind of like, was interpreting the world through. Okay, that's what's happening. They're making a joke now. Okay, I'm making a joke now. Like, he kind of had to decode it a little bit, but he got really fast at it. And then he was able to just play right along and interact with people and be funnier and be more. Connect better. So he might just have more of a rational awareness of what he was doing. Like, he'd have a conversation with someone, he'd come back to me and say, well, here's the. You know, I brought it down. They were talking at level two, social, in the levels of connection, so I brought them down to level three, you know, so he's very aware, but it works. So you can learn this stuff. That's my answer for you. And a huge piece here that I'm learning from your hearing, from your question as well is I'm tired of being lonely and hating myself for not being able to make friends and keep romantic relations interested. So that's going to be a big part of your problem as well, is hating yourself. You can never hate yourself to change, to grow, to progress. It does not work because when you hate yourself, your energy contracts, you get negative, it does not emit anything attractive to others. And so then even if you are improving your skills, if your energy is like, I suck, people aren't going to respond as well. So I would also look at working on unconditional self acceptance and self love. There's also a ton about that inside of Confidence University. But other things. Tara Brock's book Radical Acceptance would be a great one to start with and probably just read that and go through that. Check out Confidence University and find other books, find other resources. There's probably specific training and coaching out there for this exact issue. And study it, practice it, commit to it, dedicate yourself to it, get to a level five commitment where you're like, fuck this, I'm going to do whatever it takes. And no diagnosis, no condition, no whatever is going to stop me from being me. I am unstoppable. Don't buy into any story. And guess what? I know people, specifically that client and other people who have diagnosed as if that's like some stamp or something that really means anything. You know, psychological diagnoses, you know, they're not like blood markers. They're not like they can test this. It's just a collection of experiences and symptoms and someone looks in a book who studied it like the dsm and they're like, yep, yep, that's what you're saying is on this list. That's what you got, right? It's like, so let it be. It's not this death sentence. And just know that you can create the life that you want. And I know the clients that I've worked with and other people personally who are in relationships. That client I was mentioning earlier is in a long term romantic relationship, loves his partner, she loves him. And I've seen that again and again and has friends. So the biggest issue is not the Asperger's. The biggest issue is the helplessness, the hopelessness and the stories you have around it. Awesome. Share in your comments below what you're learning from this, maybe even how it applies to you outside of Asperger's. What's your story? What's your reason why you can't have confidence and why you can't have life that you want. Let's all learn from each other and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are, to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
