Recently, at work, the conversation turned, somehow, towards my inability to be in large groups of people and my hyper-sensitivity to any sensory input. One co-worker quickly diagnosed me as having Asperger’s Syndrome. At first, I thought, “Cool, they have a name for what I have.” But upon further investigation, I found that even though Asperger’s—a form of Autism—can include a wide range of severe social problems, one deficiency that defines Asperger’s is the inability to read people’s emotions. I do have severe social disabilities, but I am very good at determining how someone is feeling, even when they are trying not to show it. I think it came with my hyper-sensitivity. I have had friends who were oblivious when someone was making fun of them or when someone was ticked-off at them. Many times, I have played the roll of emotional translator.

Now Sheldon on the TV show The Big Bang Theory has Asperger’s. Although I can truly relate, scarily in too many ways, with Sheldon, I am not like Sheldon. Sheldon is self-centered and rude because he cannot read other people’s reactions to his bad social behavior. It is a running joke that he is incapable of reading sarcasm.

What is it that I do have? I don’t know if they have a name for it. A friend of mine, who has a similar condition, calls it “People Claustrophobia.” I like this title because it adequately describes how I feel: very uncomfortable and claustrophobic around a lot of people. And when I say “a lot of people,” I mean “more than one or two people.” I am very uncomfortable when in the close proximity of other people. Even in my own kitchen, I cannot tolerate trying to do anything while there are other people in the kitchen too—even family members. I will wait for the other people to finish whatever they are doing and leave before I will attempt to enter.

Around other people I feel very claustrophobic and after a while I will seek an open space where there aren’t any people. I am not otherwise claustrophobic. Obviously, places where there are crowds of people are places that I try to avoid—from parades to parties. I don’t go to many parties, but before I was married I was invited to party at a co-worker’s house. I decided to go thinking, “Hey, maybe I can change.” After the fatigue of People Claustrophobia had set in, I retreated to a secluded corner where there was a bookcase and leafed through some of the books. I’m sure that the other party-goers interpreted this behavior as snobbish and rude (maybe I am a tiny bit like Sheldon). Even the host felt that he had to apologize for his guests—probably thinking that I thought that they were unsuitable to me.

From the mental fatigue of People Claustrophobia (yes, I do feel a physical fatigue from being around any people and eventually need to rest), by brain begins to do an emergency shutdown of may systems. The input and output of communication is one of the first to go down and I am unable to converse. For most of my life I could not understand why I was like this. For a long time, I thought that it was shyness, but it seems that it is much more than that.

It is interesting that I initially had the same inabilities in the virtual world of PS Home, but within a couple of weeks it did not bother me. It is also much easier to take the needed breaks. Thank God for BRB. I wish I could do this in real life; leave my body where it is and mentally walk away to regenerate. I am a bit of a social butterfly on PS Home, but I can still get fatigued when there are really large crowds talking all at the same time. It is not because my avatar is surrounded by other avatars, it is because there are too many talk bubbles to try to sort out and pick out those that are a part of your group of friends conversation; too much sensory input. More on that later. This past weekend, I saw plainly the contrast between trying to interact with someone in the real world and someone in the virtual world. Trying to hold a conversation with someone for 20 minutes was painfully fatiguing in the real world, but I spent the whole day hanging out with friends in the virtual world. I’m realizing the virtual world may be more suited for me and may even be therapeutic as an outlet for social interaction that I would not otherwise have gotten.