Published on 12, July, 2020
My wife complains that I don't listen to her until things get so bad that she shouts and/or cries.
I know I can listen, and listen well. I used to be a listening volunteer for the Samaritans, and had no issues listening then. As far as I can tell, the difference is that at Samaritans, I'd put myself in "listening mode" before picking up the phone. We always let it ring a few times before picking up, and we'd use that time to prepare ourselves.
It seems that if I don't consciously get myself ready to listen, I don't really listen, which causes problems.
I've only recently realised that I'm autistic. I've seen advice about helping autistic people do things, but they all seem to revolve around writing down instructions and putting them where they'll be seen at the relevant time. But I can't know in advance when I'll need to properly listen, so that doesn't seem very helpful.
Does anyone have any advice or ideas?
Hyperfocus dude I get it to so focused on a task or routine I'm performing I just blank people or my brains usually thinking of multiple different thoughts all at once so I just zone out and don't recall what somones said to me then forget it it later cause I'm thinking about other random stuff