Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi i am 34 and have recently been diagnosed with stage 2 autism which is love of routine,confusion and repeating myself and am finding it hard to cope and feel confused and really upset and cry a lot about it (even though that wasnt part of the diagnosis)and it still feels strange especially knowing ive had it all my life i have a friend in work that i may not always understand what she is saying and she keeps telling me not to keep asking the same questions and i have told her its part of my autism but she still thinks i can stop doing it so i just cant get her to understand when im trying to understand it myself and its all really upsetting me does anyone else feel like this if theyve been diagnosed recently? and does anyone have trouble trying to get people to understand?
Do you ask the same question again because you didn't fully understand the answer the first time round or because you don't remember that you have already asked it or what the answer was? Or do you just feel a need to repeat it?
If it's the first one it may be better to clarify it immediately (although I guess it isn't always immediately clear when we didn't understand something). If you don't remember the question or the answer then perhaps write things down when it is about important stuff? If it isn't really important but rather small talk I think I would now and then apologise for possibly asking the same question again but being unable to remember. Maybe explain why this is - like your brain didn't process it all because it was too busy with some little detail and now it's still stuck with the question, or something of that sort. I can see that it can be annoying to her because it feels like someone wasn't listening, but if she knows that this wasn't the case it should be a lot less of a problem. Like if you know someone has dementia then you are not going to have a go at them only because they repeat something, so I'd think she probably has the capacity to accept it.
If it happens when you tell her something rather than asking questions maybe ask her to simply let you know and not think too much of it - it is repeating yourself is something you do, you can see that it may be a bit annoying to her, but you don't intend to annoy her and you give her the chance to avoid it. Perhaps if you ask her for that it will feels less upsetting if she reminds you that she has already heard that? If you have an urge to repeat it even when knowing that you have said it already then maybe there are people that are better with this than her?
Communicating with her via a friend doesn't seem like a solution to me. It's good occasionally if there is some misunderstanding or so, but it sounds like this is more everyday stuff and it wouldn't really work for that and would probably be a bit weird for everybody, as if you can't talk for yourself when you actually can - not an impression you want to give in a workplace, and it may annoy her even more because she would perhaps feel teased by it or something.
Yes I usually tend to ask the same question 2 or 3 times if I don't understand the answer or forget and she's noticed I've done that with someone else so I've said it's part of my condition which she seems to understand a bit better now and she wasn't being funny with me when she's said I've said things the day before or last week so I think I've just been taking things to heart but if t happens again I will just laugh it off and say I forget what I say sometimes and at least I'm not asking her the same question 2 or 3 times in a row now so i will keep trying that and just be myself around the others that are more patient with me and try not to worry about it cos it's just part of my condition and who I am and I will see how things go and keep you posted x