How I think

Good thoughts/bad thoughts

I suppose this is just a very basic way of how my mind works. I’ve used ‘we’ and terms like that but if this doesn’t apply to you, or if you’re not interested in how my mind works PLEASE DON’T READ and if you do read this post, for whatever reason, please remember, I’M NOT TRYING TO LEAD YOU or get you to think like me, this is how ‘I’ think, these are ‘my’ thoughts.

I DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW HOW ELSE TO SAY THIS. I ALREADY PUT IT AS A DISCLAIMER VERY CLEARLY BEFORE MY OTHER POSTS BUT PEOPLE STILL THOUGHT THAT THE THOUGHTS I THOUGHT WEREN’T MY THOUGHTS AND THEY FELT THE NEED TO REMIND ME THAT THEY ‘ARE’ MY THOUGHTS. YES, THESE ARE ‘MY’ THOUGHTS, I THOUGHT I’D MADE THAT CLEAR IN MY PREVIOUS DISCLAIMERS BUT CLEARLY NOT.

I don’t want to make a disclaimer every time I comment so if people struggle to accept that these are my thoughts, that I’m not trying to get people to think like me, then I strongly suggest you just don’t read anything I write. Block me if you can, if that’s possible.

I have enough on with looking after myself without thinking I’ll get some other people to think like me, as well!!! And what would be the point of that??? I can’t even begin to think why I would want to do that?!?!?!?

I love diversity and reject the sameness of our society in the U.K. It just doesn’t tally with any part of me to want people to think like me, it goes against everything I believe in (please don’t give me s**t for using that word, most people seem to have a shared understanding of it so I’m using it for ease of conversation). I wouldn’t even let my son go to school if he had to wear the same clothes as the other kids. I reject the dominant societal attitude that we all have to be the same. I don’t want people to think like me and therefore I am not trying to make people think like me. This is how ‘I’ think.

I wish I could write a post and block certain people from reading it, because I would be able to post freely then, but I can’t (I don’t think) so I may or may not continue being a member of this group. I’ll see. If people can leave me alone just to post and not accuse me of being a witch or a magician or having magic powers or whatever, I may stay, but I’m not sure and I’m definitely not comfortable and I don’t generally stay anywhere that I don’t feel comfortable so I probably won’t stay.

It’s a pity you couldn’t still burn me at the stake. I might have been able to prove that way that I’m not a witch, I don’t have magic powers and I’m not evil and out to hurt people. I might be dead but at least I’d be a dead person and not a dead witch. 

So this could be my last post so you can get out the banners and flags, the witch/magician/evil disgusting person is leaving Tada Anyway, if I am so disgusting, so evil, so heartless and out to hurt people, maybe NAS will ban me and that’l be the end of that anyway, you won’t have to burn me.

So this might be my last post. DC, this might show you a little of how my mind is logical. AGAIN, THIS IS NOT ABOUT ANYBODY ELSE’S MIND. IT’S ABOUT ‘MY’ MIND. I’M SORRY IF I’VE USED WORDS LIKE ‘WE’ BUT I DON’T WANT TO EDIT. Just try and pretend there’s another person on planet earth who thinks like me and that’s who I’m referring to ~ NOT YOU. I might even edit it actually, it might save me some hassle.

Good thoughts/bad thoughts 

If I think good thoughts, I feel good. If I think only good thoughts, I feel good all of the time. My actions that come from the good thoughts will further make me feel good and they too will inspire even more good thoughts. In fact, when I feel good, I often don’t think at all, I simply bask in all the good feelings.

If I think bad thoughts, I feel bad. If I think only bad thoughts, I feel bad all of the time. My actions that follow my thoughts will feel bad and will produce even more bad thoughts and the cycle of bad thoughts/bad feelings/bad actions continues, with rarely a break from any of it.

My thoughts, whether good or bad, will eventually, if I keep repeating them, become my habitual way of thinking. Thoughts that have become habitual become the basis of my belief system or my operating system. If I think a thought for long enough, good or bad, it will move from my conscious mind into my subconscious mind where it is now habitual, I think it even without thinking it. Meaning it is no longer my conscious mind that is choosing the thought, it is now a habit and over time it will be a belief, it will form my invisible base value system, my operating system, my belief system.

It’s a bit like when we learn to drive a car or learn to play a piano. When I first start out learning to drive a car, I have to think of every action I take, I have to look in the mirror, put my foot on the clutch, move the gear stick into position one. The same with the piano playing (sorry, got fed up of editing ~ where it says ‘we’, try to pretend it says ‘me’, it’s about me, not you, me) ... we are consciously aware of every key we touch etc. But over time, if we keep on repeatedly practicing the same action over and over again, it becomes almost like second nature. The whole process moves into our subconscious mind and we no longer have to consciously think, look in the mirror, put your left foot on the clutch pedal etc.

When people learn to drive a car or play the piano, after some time, it’s almost as if they can do it without thinking. They might even be able to listen to a song while they’re driving, or sing a song at the same time as playing the piano. Or in both examples, they might even be able to carry on a conversation that has nothing to do with driving or playing the piano because the subconscious mind takes care of all the actions etc, all the things we need to do in order to make the car move or the piano play harmonious music etc, which leaves our conscious mind/our surface mind free to do other things such as carry on a conversation, look at the view or sing a song along with the music we can now produce, almost without effort.

Let’s say, for example, as children, we were told repeatedly that we were loved dearly and that we are great and we’re good at and can do anything we put our minds to, and that other people are good, helpful and kind. We would take those thoughts on and take them on as our own. We would think, I am loved, I am great and I can do anything I put my mind to, other people are good, they’re helpful and kind. These thoughts over time become our habitual way of thinking. Nobody has to tell us anymore and we don’t have to consciously choose those thoughts or keep bringing them back from our subconscious mind/our memory or keep repeating them consciously over and over again because they’re fixed (not permanently) but they are now well bedded in, they have become our belief system. Our internal belief system now says we’re loved, we’re great and we can do anything we set our mind on, other people are also helpful, kind and good.

As we go through our day, we’re not mentally repeating how great we are, we’re likely not even thinking about it at all but because this is now our belief system, our operating system, a bit like the computers operating system, windows 10 or whatever (if that’s even an operating system, I’m not so great with knowing how computers work), but every piece of information that comes into our lives, via any one of our six senses will be processed via this base line operating system.

So, for example, if we find something we would like to do, we would know instantly that we can do it. We wouldn’t consciously know how to do it, if it’s something new that we’ve never done before but our operating system, that is working below our level of consciousness, tells us, you can do this. So we know we can do it, we have no idea how, but we know we can and we just know that so long as we put our mind to it we will do it. We might need instructions from somebody else, we might only need to read a short instruction manual. We might have to study hard for many years. It doesn’t matter how we get there because we know we will, and it is that knowing that guides us along the way towards what ever help we need in order to achieve our goal. Which could be to walk, run, ride a bike, learn to drive, play the piano, learn to be an astrologer etc etc.

If we were told we can’t do anything and people are bad, our situations would follow to match this thinking. For example, we would come up against something we wanted to do and unless it was something we had done before and therefore had ‘proof’ that we could do it we would think I can’t do that and people are bad so nobody will help me. And we would mostly therefore not even attempt this new thing because we have already decided we can’t do it and that nobody will help us so there is no logic to trying, none at all. We know we can’t do it so why would we try? We’re smart, we don’t generally set ourselves up for failure.

As we grow up and go through different stages of life, our beliefs systems chop and change with new information etc but we are never without subconscious thoughts and belief systems, even though we are barely, if ever, aware of them.

Some people understand this to some degree and think that if they simply think good thoughts they will have good things happen to them which is rarely what happens when a person tries this. Because this is not the bigger picture, in fact it is barely any of it. If a person understood just a little bit more than that of how the mind works, they would know that simply thinking thoughts at a conscious level is not going to change much at all and often times it will simply produce more frustration and disappointment and further proof that their life is s**t, it has always been s**t and it will always be s**t.

You could argue that if a person thought good thoughts for long enough and hard enough, maybe after 20 years or so they might start working. But that depends on how firmly grounded in our subconscious mind are our previous thoughts which run contradictory to our new thoughts.

What I’m trying to say is, the mind is a pretty simple system but if we have only a little bit of an understanding of how it works, like anything, we can get it horribly wrong. It is simple (when you know the system, like anything else) but it’s not as simple as thinking good thoughts gets good actions. That’s a bit like teaching a baby to count to five and expecting it to work out intricate equations.

When I talk, freely, not when I’m trying to help someone, but when I’m trying to help myself, I don’t explain every step of my thought process just so people can understand me. But this is a very basic way of understanding my mind. If your mind works differently then that’s perfect, this is my mind and it’s just a little explanation of how my logical mind works, so in future, people might refrain from slaughtering me because my mind works differently to theirs.

As Temple Grandin once said, ‘the world needs all kinds of minds’ and it does, of course it does.

I don’t want people to think like me. In AA I was taught to share my experience and my experience only and it may or may not help somebody else but it will help me. I know this is not AA but it has a similar element, i.e. we all share the experience of autism in some way. My experience of autism will be different from others because I think differently, and that’s the same for all of us. But we have some similarities as well and sometimes another person’s experience, view point or whatever can help us in our experience.

I’m not a witch or a magician, I don’t have magic powers I’m just like anyone else here, I’m trying to get a better understanding of my autism so I can avoid further burnouts like I’ve been in for over 12 months. I’ve even got bed sores because I’ve barely moved in all that time. I’m not trying to get people to think like me I’m simply trying to help myself so I don’t have to spend any more years in burnout and if my efforts to help myself, help somebody else, great, if they don’t, great, but I’m not a witch and I’m not trying to hurt anybody but if that’s the way you all feel, maybe NAS will take the initiative and ban me.

It has been made clear to me that my thoughts, therefore, ‘I’ am disgusting and they can’t even believe that NAS has let me on this site. I’ve been told I am a witch, I have magic powers, I am heartless, insensitive, disgusting and they can’t believe I’m even allowed to exist in this world I’m so bad. Well you’re not the first person to say that and of course, I eventually came to consider it could be true. I thought I loved everyone, equally, but came to consider that maybe I am deluded, maybe I am bad but because I couldn’t stop loving all people, I decided the logical thing to do was to kill myself, so I couldn’t harm others, so that’s what I tried to do, several times. I might try again who knows, but not because somebody on here told me I’m so disgusting I shouldn’t be allowed to exist, but because I’d rather be in my world where people do love each other and don’t call each other names, just because they’re different and they would rather help and understand rather than kill them and have them burnt at the stake. I thought we ended all that witch burning a long time ago. Clearly not.

Parents
  • 'Schema can be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information.'

    Yes, I would broadly agree with this, too.  I think my own life experiences have programmed me with a mainly negative schema, which is why I have attempted to 'reprogram' myself by moving outwards and trying to help others.  Making a difference in others' lives, however small, is always a source of positive psychological nourishment.

    Getting my diagnosis also made a profound difference, because it adjusted the way I thought about myself: no longer was I 'wrong', or 'ill-fitted' for life in some way - I was simply different.  It made me feel so much better about myself.  Since that time, my journey in life has been with a more positive mindset.  After a lifetime of feeling myself being sucked down into a personal slough of Despond, and almost giving in to it, I'm now finding a second wind and am fighting my way back to the surface.  It's still hard, though, and I still slip a few times.

    I'm sorry about the horrible names you've been called, BlueRay, and I'm also sorry if you inferred any of that stuff from things I said.  I'm sure you must have.  I hope you will stay around.  The site needs diverse thinkers, as the world does.

    For myself, I know I can allow myself to go beyond the bounds of what I consider acceptable behaviour, and I've upset many people in the past - both on here and in other places.  I really need to take time out and take stock.  So I'll be giving this place a rest.  I think it's necessary from time to time.  We all get fatigued.  And I know I'm getting that way because I'm starting to feel it physically.

    Take care.

    Tom

Reply
  • 'Schema can be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information.'

    Yes, I would broadly agree with this, too.  I think my own life experiences have programmed me with a mainly negative schema, which is why I have attempted to 'reprogram' myself by moving outwards and trying to help others.  Making a difference in others' lives, however small, is always a source of positive psychological nourishment.

    Getting my diagnosis also made a profound difference, because it adjusted the way I thought about myself: no longer was I 'wrong', or 'ill-fitted' for life in some way - I was simply different.  It made me feel so much better about myself.  Since that time, my journey in life has been with a more positive mindset.  After a lifetime of feeling myself being sucked down into a personal slough of Despond, and almost giving in to it, I'm now finding a second wind and am fighting my way back to the surface.  It's still hard, though, and I still slip a few times.

    I'm sorry about the horrible names you've been called, BlueRay, and I'm also sorry if you inferred any of that stuff from things I said.  I'm sure you must have.  I hope you will stay around.  The site needs diverse thinkers, as the world does.

    For myself, I know I can allow myself to go beyond the bounds of what I consider acceptable behaviour, and I've upset many people in the past - both on here and in other places.  I really need to take time out and take stock.  So I'll be giving this place a rest.  I think it's necessary from time to time.  We all get fatigued.  And I know I'm getting that way because I'm starting to feel it physically.

    Take care.

    Tom

Children
  • Yeah, I agree with everything you say Tom and I must be up there at the top of the list of people who upset people the most. I think many of us autistics have experienced that in their liftetime. 

    But please be sure, this isn’t about you. Yes, it came about from our conversations, which other people also participated in, but it is my reaction to not feeling safe to be me. 

    I build up my confidence within this group and you Tom, have probably helped me more than most in understanding autism and my autism. You’ve been nothing but a source of great information, knowledge, support, friendship, fun, laughter and more and that includes our recent conversations. 

    I think it hit me so hard because these are the things people said to me before I stopped talking. And my initial, autistic response, is to say I don’t feel safe, I’m never going there again. 

    But I’ve reflected on that. I had a massive meltdown over this and an incident at my group which further highlighted my vulnerability. I ended up in the job centre crying so much I couldn’t talk and if I could, I would have said, get me to a hospital immediately, my head is hurting so much I can’t handle the pain. The job centre woman who has worked previously with autustic people for 7 years and has a step daughter who’s aitistic, knew what to do with me. 

    She helped me through it and she helped me to not think about it, which gave me the space I needed to realise that this is actually a milestone for me. 

    I not only survived the other incident but this one as well and it made me realise that this is simply a misunderstanding in communication. 

    You have helped me so much in my journey since my diagnosis at the end of October last year, or since I first came on here wanting to die. In my first post, I didn’t want to live, I wanted to die. But I’m still here, stronger than I ever was, and a big part of that is down to you, from the support you give to me and others on here and through sharing who you are and what you do away from here. I’m more grateful to you just being in the world, even more than I am for all the help you’ve given me. 

    If you need to take a test, I understand, but please don’t think I think any less of you or hold you responsible in any way for my meltdown, and I do understand the processes that lead up to what was said and my meltdown. I cried a lot and got a lot out through those tears, I’m very grateful they came out because they really needed to. There was a lot of deep emotion there, so if anything, I thank you for helping me to bring it out. I feel a lot lighter and clearer for it. I hope you find some strength and peace in it all as well. 

    Please take good care of yourself Tom and try and see even a fraction of what we see in you. Maybe our two worlds collided. You losing your mum and me losing my old pre-diagnosis identity. We both have some grieving to do and I hope we can continue to suppprt each other. Maybe in not such an explosive way. I know I care for you very much and I would say many others on here do as well. 

  • Hey Tom, 

    Not sure I fully understand what has been said on other threads which may have led to this situation so I will not comment further. Suffice to repeat I have always found your contributions very informative and well worth following. If you do choose to take a break I will miss you whilst I respect your right to make that choice.

    Take care, Laddie.