Advice for how to manage social anxiety is not only spectacularly out-of-step with the anxiety I experience - I worry more about imposing on others and making others uncomfortable and *not* being told about it - it’s impossible to reconcile with social advice for people with “high functioning” ASD.

anxiety treatment: “open up about yourself, and watch how this builds into trust and acceptance.” ASD: “talk about yourself less; a common social error among autistics is to turn every conversation into your views and experiences”

anxiety treatment: “you can start conversations and small talk by talking about things you like and sharing that with others.” ASD: “your particular interests are unlikely to be interesting to others; let others drive the conversation topic and stay very brief about yours.”

anxiety treatment: systematic training to divert attention more towards positive social stimuli than negative stimuli / “worst case seeking”. ASD: training in how to notice that other people are bored, irritated, and disinterested in what you say

etc.

So it seems like every behavior of healthy social interaction in neurotypical people is expressed in an offputting way in people with ASD and therefore must be stopped or restrained lest other people become uncomfortable or hostile.

I wonder which set of advice is more harmful: the advice for ASD people advising intense hypervigilance, scrutiny, and inhibition over all of your actions and behaviors so you can sort of pass for tolerable to allistic people, or the advice for people with social anxiety that goes the complete opposite direction and encourages pushing through inhibition so you can see first-hand just how kind, tolerant, and accepting people are. (I will let you contemplate what people with autistic social patterns typically discover in this regard.)