Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all, my first post. I'm 55 and was diagnosed with a SpLD (Dyspraxia) in 2003, but it never fit. My daughter has been diagnosed with Aspies and me too just recently. It's helped a lot, but doesn't stop the pain. I had a meltdown today. I was trying to get my pigheaded colleague to authorise something but he kept throwing it back at me telling me things I already knew and what I should be doing but he didn't give me what I needed. The crazy thing is, I've been doing the job for about 3 years and him only a few months, so he's treating me like I don't know anything just because he's a senior grade. I couldn't get him to see logic. This isn't the first time and I know he doesn't respect me. I had a meltdown and couldn't stop. It's like acid brain and there's little me inside watching the tears and frustration, sobbing in the ladies' loos, and I have no control. I made my lovely boss cry as I told her to go away when she was just trying to help. I could her an upset wobble in her voice but I couldn't stop. I feel so guilty and devastated. I just want to curl up and sleep afterwards but, even if I could, I feel so ashamed afterwards I can't settle. I feel, even though I was justified in getting deeply frustrated with the lack of logic, it was still my fault I hurt people. Does this happen to you?
Alexandra
X
Daily, I avoid people because I can't ever gauge exactly what they mean with certainty, I upset people so easily but that is so against my wishes that I frequently feel more upset about what pain I may have caused than the person to whom I am supposed to have caused it.
I
And me, I never intend to upset, maybe I am not always at fault? It may just be that they are not in a happy place anyway?
Regardless it upsets me a lot more when I presume I may have been responsible.
I then go through that spiral of internalising the pain I sense and feel, when I feel I have really upset someone greatly I feel my whole body pulse with a wave of tingling pain flow from shoulders to toes, Inevitably if this continues and is noticed I become defensive and if any form of comfort or understanding is offered I reject it as I feel unworthy for causing such hurt.
A vicious circle of self inflicted internalised pain.
Yeah, I know what you mean about people talking to you like you’re simple. My work coach at the job centre has been great with me, she has a step daughter that is autistic and she previously worked with people with severe autism for seven years. However, she talks to me sometimes like I’m simple. I want to say to her, sweetheart, I have degrees, I used to earn in a day what you earn in a week, I might not be able to do some daily living activities but I’m not f*****g simple! Lol! But if I said that, it would be taken in a way I didn’t intend, so I don’t say it, and I’m not angry at her, far from it, it was her who organised my current help, she’s been brilliant and I’m really grateful to her and I really like her.
I choose now, to mostly not speak to other people too much. I’m good with my autism group but with other people, I acknowledge that we speak a different language and therefore there will always be confusion if one or both of us is not willing to stick with the conversation until we both understand what we’re both saying to each other. And quite franky, most people are unwilling to go to those lengths, which is fine by me, because I’m happy in my own little world, without the interference of other people coming into my sphere. People still come and talk to me of course, generally when they want some advice or something and they have all learned (apart from my son), not to come to me unless they want genuine solutions to their ills, and they always get them, so they go away happy and all is well. That’s enough social interaction for me, most of the time. I have no power over how I am perceived by other people and neither is that any of my business and to be honest, I have no idea how I come across to people so I don’t pay it any attention. Getting involved with thoughts about how I come across, what do people think of me etc, is a bit like a dog trying to catch its tail, it’l be at it forever but he’ll never catch it. I’ve got other things I’d rather be doing.
I'd agree with most of what you say there is the problem of the attitude of the person to whom you have communicated your need for instructions to be clearly stated, I had occasion to tell someone I share a house with that I was probably Autistic which was why I often seem confused by the idiomatic languaage that she uses so now she talks to me as if I am simple. So much so that I can barely stand being in the same room with her.
This is not something I feel I am able to get angry about because I can never be sure what the effect of the words I use has on the person I am speaking to or what thy understood of it, I might have over-stated my case or she might simply be a piss-taker, I don't know.
The blunder I commit more than any other is to reveal the chinks in my armour to people whose character I know I cannot gauge, this is often disastrous I am also aware that attempts at concealment of vulnerable areas are easily picked up on by some people who often turn out to be remorseless bullies so you end up trying to pretend that nothing is wrong, you have no hang-ups about anything but sooner or later, they catch an insight into what they ecognise as oddness and then the slow, downward slidde of self-confidence and what struggles to impersonate inner calm is hanging on by its fingertips.
Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
enough
If you never feel good enough or able to give people what they want, then the natural laws of the universe, the law of cause and effect, will guarantee that you will never give people what they want, no matter how hard you try. You will simply be trying in vain because you have already declared that you are not good enough to do so. You are not responsible for giving people what they want. If people want you to do something for them, then it is their responsibility to communicate this to you in a very clear and precise way, in which you can understand. No guess work required and the responsibility is on them to communicate to you what they want from you. If I want a dog to sit, I have to be able to communicate that to the dog in a way that he understands otherwise I’ve got no chance. If I sit the dog down and try to have a chat with him about my need for him to sit when I tell him to, he won’t understand me, no matter how elequant or articulate I am, he still won’t understand me until I communicate with him in a way that he does. It’s the same with people.
Why are we like this? I guess we’re just lucky that’s all.
Yeah, you said it Lonewarrior, a vicious circle of self inflicted internalised pain. And the definition of insanity, is to keep doing the same things with the same undesirable effects, again and again.
As you said, if it ‘appears’ that we have upset somebody, then we can simply turn to the truth and know that not only have we not upset them, but that it’s not even possible to do so. This is the truth. So the next time you ‘appear’ to have upset somebody, instead of going down the same well trodden path of self destruction, you can turn to the truth and declare, I am no more responsible for this person’s temporary unhappy state than I am for their temporary happy state or any other state we dance and float between during any given day. They are the cause of their pain, like we’re the cause of our pain.
I just never feel good enough or able to give people what they want...no matter how hard I try... continual guess work! Why are we like this! ..... arrrrgggghhh!