Problems with authority/feeling harassed

Hi NAS50557, yes, I can relate.

I recognised, after many years, and before I got my diagnosis, that I had this same problem and over the years, it got me either into a lot of trouble or like you, I would shut down and therefore block any opportunity of developing any kind of relationship with the other person, or even myself, because at that time, I simply didn’t understand it and I would feel upset with myself because of my reaction on top of the actual misunderstanding that I was feeling bad about as well, which I couldn’t fully understand at the time. 

Of course, being autistic, I thought everybody was like this, but I noticed, over the years, that most most weren’t like that. I would notice these weird friendly relationships between managers and workers and how workers wouldn’t take things so personally or they wouldn’t have such violent reactions to being told no. I was amazed at how they could do that and equally amazed that I couldn’t! It was a complete mystery to me. 

It wasn’t until I got into an intimate relationship with somebody who didn’t have the same problem, that I began to get some understanding around it and I was able to slowly, do something about it. 

I realised that no matter what my reaction was, the reaction was mine and I could see that it was an over reaction on my part but without awareness of autism, it was difficult to understand it, but even without autism awareness, I was able to do something about it. 

I could never change my initial reaction, but I did learn to not react so strongly to my reaction, if that makes sense. For example, if my manager said no to me, I would get that feeling of being trapped, like they had control of me and I would just tell myself that that’s not true, it’s just something in me that was reacting to being told no so I would sort of counsel myself, talk to myself. I would tell myself it’s ok, they just said no. It doesn’t mean they hate me and want to control me, it just feels like that to me.

I found ways of soothing myself and bringing myself out of it so that I at least didn’t make the situation any more difficult than it was and certainly now I have much more understanding and awareness of autism and how it relates to me, I can do more about it. 

Where there’s a will there’s a way so you can find ways of getting around this and I’ve found, that after a lot of practice, I no longer feel that initial sting of ‘they’re trying to control me’ as strongly and I can certainly bring myself out of it much quicker now. Although we feel different things at different times so I’m not always able to catch it so quickly. 

But because I understand it now, I no longer give myself a hard time over it. I’m much kinder to myself and as a result, even though I never got comfortable with the whole employee/boss easy going friendly type of relationship, I was able to manage the feelings in me much better, which of course, made the life better and more in harmony for everybody. 

For me, it boils down to self awareness and understanding and finding ways of soothing myself and being able to at least manage it to the degree that it wasn’t causing the huge problems that it used to cause for me.

Be kind, gentle, understanding and patient with yourself (and others) and you can overcome it. You might never take away that initial feeling entirely, but you can learn to recognise it when it happens and have strategies that you’ve learned in place ready, to handle it when it happens. It takes practice and time, never give yourself a hard time if you do react and it causes a misunderstanding. None of us reacts perfectly all the time. 

So yeah, I would say keep on learning about autism and understanding how it relates to you, get to know yourself better and find ways to respond to these situations with plenty of self soothing techniques and giving yourself time out etc etc. 

Good luck with it. The first part of coming up with any kind of solution is recognising the difficulty in the first place then looking at what you can do to address it. Are you getting any autism support from anywhere? And also, when you have a good understanding of autism and how it effects you, it’s easier to convey that or to communicate that to others and I’ve found that my autism worker helps me to find ways of doing that. She even gave me a rubber bracelet thing that is green on one side and says happy to talk and red on the other that says please leave me alone. So if I’m in a situation where I can feel myself getting upset or closing down, I can simply put it on the red side, show the person and then take myself somewhere quite so I can gently soothe myself and bring myself out of it and to feeling calm again. There are lots of tips and tricks and aids that we can learn and use to help us and we can find ways of bringing our managers and others onboard as well, if we treat them with kindness and understanding and patience and realise how difficult it must be for them, to try and get an understanding of what it must be like for us. We have to help them understand and sometimes we need help to do that and the government is currently keen to spend money on autism support in the workplace so there is help out there, you just have to look and be patient as it might take a while to get the help, but you’ll get it if you’re patient. 

Hi NAS50557, yes, I can relate.

I recognised, after many years, and before I got my diagnosis, that I had this same problem and over the years, it got me either into a lot of trouble or like you, I would shut down and therefore block any opportunity of developing any kind of relationship with the other person, or even myself, because at that time, I simply didn’t understand it and I would feel upset with myself because of my reaction on top of the actual misunderstanding that I was feeling bad about as well, which I couldn’t fully understand at the time. 

Of course, being autistic, I thought everybody was like this, but I noticed, over the years, that most most weren’t like that. I would notice these weird friendly relationships between managers and workers and how workers wouldn’t take things so personally or they wouldn’t have such violent reactions to being told no. I was amazed at how they could do that and equally amazed that I couldn’t! It was a complete mystery to me. 

It wasn’t until I got into an intimate relationship with somebody who didn’t have the same problem, that I began to get some understanding around it and I was able to slowly, do something about it. 

I realised that no matter what my reaction was, the reaction was mine and I could see that it was an over reaction on my part but without awareness of autism, it was difficult to understand it, but even without autism awareness, I was able to do something about it. 

I could never change my initial reaction, but I did learn to not react so strongly to my reaction, if that makes sense. For example, if my manager said no to me, I would get that feeling of being trapped, like they had control of me and I would just tell myself that that’s not true, it’s just something in me that was reacting to being told no so I would sort of counsel myself, talk to myself. I would tell myself it’s ok, they just said no. It doesn’t mean they hate me and want to control me, it just feels like that to me.

I found ways of soothing myself and bringing myself out of it so that I at least didn’t make the situation any more difficult than it was and certainly now I have much more understanding and awareness of autism and how it relates to me, I can do more about it. 

Where there’s a will there’s a way so you can find ways of getting around this and I’ve found, that after a lot of practice, I no longer feel that initial sting of ‘they’re trying to control me’ as strongly and I can certainly bring myself out of it much quicker now. Although we feel different things at different times so I’m not always able to catch it so quickly. 

But because I understand it now, I no longer give myself a hard time over it. I’m much kinder to myself and as a result, even though I never got comfortable with the whole employee/boss easy going friendly type of relationship, I was able to manage the feelings in me much better, which of course, made the life better and more in harmony for everybody. 

For me, it boils down to self awareness and understanding and finding ways of soothing myself and being able to at least manage it to the degree that it wasn’t causing the huge problems that it used to cause for me.

Be kind, gentle, understanding and patient with yourself (and others) and you can overcome it. You might never take away that initial feeling entirely, but you can learn to recognise it when it happens and have strategies that you’ve learned in place ready, to handle it when it happens. It takes practice and time, never give yourself a hard time if you do react and it causes a misunderstanding. None of us reacts perfectly all the time. 

So yeah, I would say keep on learning about autism and understanding how it relates to you, get to know yourself better and find ways to respond to these situations with plenty of self soothing techniques and giving yourself time out etc etc. 

Good luck with it. The first part of coming up with any kind of solution is recognising the difficulty in the first place then looking at what you can do to address it. Are you getting any autism support from anywhere? And also, when you have a good understanding of autism and how it effects you, it’s easier to convey that or to communicate that to others and I’ve found that my autism worker helps me to find ways of doing that. She even gave me a rubber bracelet thing that is green on one side and says happy to talk and red on the other that says please leave me alone. So if I’m in a situation where I can feel myself getting upset or closing down, I can simply put it on the red side, show the person and then take myself somewhere quite so I can gently soothe myself and bring myself out of it and to feeling calm again. There are lots of tips and tricks and aids that we can learn and use to help us and we can find ways of bringing our managers and others onboard as well, if we treat them with kindness and understanding and patience and realise how difficult it must be for them, to try and get an understanding of what it must be like for us. We have to help them understand and sometimes we need help to do that and the government is currently keen to spend money on autism support in the workplace so there is help out there, you just have to look and be patient as it might take a while to get the help, but you’ll get it if you’re patient. 

I'm so glad someone else has felt the same things and can relate, about shutting down and blocking any attempt at building a relationship.  When I step back from the situation I can see it's stupid, and it's only recently I've noticed that it's happened to me over and over and doesn't seem to happen to other people.  What you say makes a lot of sense, and I need to try and find my own way of working through it.  

I'm not getting any support at the moment from anywhere, but have just applied (last night) for access to work help.  I'm not sure I'm eligible as I'm on the waiting list for an assessment, but it's worth asking.  I said our occupational health company have said they can't help as they have no experience or expertise in autism.  Did you get help through access to work?

Thanks for your reply and sharing your experience.  Makes me feel better other people have the same struggles and don't just tell me to 'play the game.'