Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello
I was diagnosed autistic last October. Always known I was different. Spotted autism in partner’s dad and it fascinated me. Also experience of children as a teacher. More I read, more I realised I was on the spectrum and fairly certain my other half is. We’ve been married for more than 20 years. We don’t argue hugely. But all our arguments follow the same unhelpful pattern… Argue. I try to say what I think went wrong. I try not to blame and attempt to say how I feel, not criticise. Partner always sees criticism. Says I’m blaming him. Starts bringing in everything else that’s wrong in our relationship to then, often, point out I need to change. Dredges history. Says I can’t do this anymore. Gets overwhelmed (I think) and shuts down for a couple of days. I’ve learnt this pattern and know to accept it. I say I’m not blaming but trying to find a solution so it doesn’t happen again and I don’t care who’s at fault. I think he can’t get beyond needing to pinpoint who’s at fault and seeing it as me saying he’s to blame. Do you have tips for handling this as two, I’m sure, autistic adults?
Eg The latest is over partner continuing a conversation with my parents about politics. We have different views to them. We’ve discussed avoiding it and trying to steer away. I could see he was getting animated, enjoying the conversation, and kicked him gently under the table. He responded positively to that and laughed and said I know, we need to move on, or something similar. But the conversation swung round, including him saying God forbid if XYZ gets in. He then said, before we move on, I want to find out what you think about Israel. I have never done this before but was getting so stressed that I interrupted and said, no that’s enough, we need to change topic. I was shocked when he then said So I can’t talk about something I’m interested in? I said it’s not something I want to end our conversation on before we leave - he then agreed and dad changed subject to cars. I couldn’t think how to bring it up without it spiralling the same way but by the time I went to bed, he noticed something might be wrong. And it spiralled. As above! I haven’t bothered trying to force my point and he has not accepted that anything he did was wrong. Says my dad continued the conversation and I can’t dictate what he does and doesn’t talk about. I said I would rather see my parents on my own than have conversations like that. It’s not family conversation. He interpreted that as me telling him I don’t want him to visit my parents. I reiterated that’s not what I said.
What am I doing wrong? We enjoy lots of the same stuff, have similar values etc but he thinks he’s lucky that his dad’s gene missed him! I don’t need him to be diagnosed but I wish he would see some of his character traits. I haven’t said this to him. I feel like I’ve spent my adult life trying to understand mine and how to behave as an adult. I find it very difficult to express my thoughts in an argument. Last time we texted each other and I felt that was better. This time, I just can’t bear bringing it up again and we’re just 24 hours post argument and this one doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere.
Can anyone relate to this, ummm, rant! Sorry!
Hello,
Some thoughts.
- it's not about stopping the argument from happening again. It's about
- having set phrases, catch phrases, to use with each other when in that mode
- knowing that you trigger each other's adrenaline. That is fight or flight. There's no winning at this time. And ego is involved. People can only listen and love when fight or flight is turned off. There's a sort of posture for that, sort of leaning forward. Works better than breathing strategies. Ask a physio if you need tops on the posture.
- autism brain finds patterns. If something bad happens the brain links to all the other bad things! This is not someone being mean but it WILL make them feel negative. Maybe a rule is, if they stick to topic theyre 'regulated' and if they're jumping between issues they're disregulated and need time out.
...
Disregulation is when fight or flight is on. It's frequent. It's the nervous system being mangled. I suspect I need to meditate twice a day to keep the fight or flight off. When regulated, I don't yell back at people. Or get hurt by things my kids say.
I am curious to see what advice you receive as I relate to your post.
Disrugulation is a horrible term to me, it makes me feel like a faulty boiler or something. Why can't we just feel what we need to feel and then stop? Who do we have to be so controlled for? I don't think it's for our benefit, I think its because others are uncomfortable with what we feel and don't want to adapt or change thier behaviour, even when it's so obviously distressing.
TheCatWoman said:Why can't we just feel what we need to feel and then stop?
Dysregulation means you don't have control:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-dysregulation-5073868
emotional dysregulation, is an inability to control or regulate one's emotional responses
If you don't have this then no need to feel bad about the term. If you do have it then technically you are faulty - i find it best to accept this and own it. It is part of who I am. I think the control is useful where we cause hurt or offence to others through our insensitivity or abnormal reactions.
There are obviously degrees to which it applies so maybe you just have a faulty knob (oh, err madam) or the bit that warms up the water only works on alternate Wednesdays - referring to your analogy.
Personally my interface panel needs the buttons pressing really hard and then gives ear piercing beeps in response.
TheCatWoman said: I don't think it's for our benefit
It is a medical term to describe a condition rather than anything to give us relief of benefit. Just a way for our doctors to label our various traits or for us to understand one of the ways we differ from others.
Or Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall, 'we don't need no thought control, no dark sarcasm in the classroom...'
Parents will almost certainly have been through the school system themselves, but its very hard to get your children away from it, unless you have a lot of money and/or the ability to home school. Teachers talk down to parents and treat us like older naughty children, I remember when my children were of school starting age, the local primary schools telling off parents, many of who were teachers themselves, for teaching their child to read, they'd done it wrong! When a child is ready to learn to read and wants to learn and a parent teaches them, how dare a school come along and tell them they've done it wrong and complain that they're going to have to undo that learning to teach them to read in a different way!
Are the hundreds of young people leaving school barely able to read and write or do basic sums equiped for society?
I mentioned some well off parents, because I'm a bit sick of hearing about how some parents scrimped and saved to send their child to a private school at an average of £7:500 a term. If you have 23k a year to school your child, plus extras for trips etc, then you're well off. When I was at uni, I was friends with a few people who'd been privately educated, and I was really shocked and surprised at how much they'd been spoon fed by teachers and how much they didn't know how to learn themselves, I think they were actually worse off than those who'd been to normal high schools.
I think that in order to home school your child properly then you need to be well off, well off enough for one parent to stay at home and teach. I knew lots of parents who home schooled, they were all well educated with partners in good jobs, who couldn't understand that some of us, me for example, didn't have the skills or the knowlege educate our own children.
I think were schools can and do do well, mostly, is putting children in an environment were they have to be with people from different backgrounds to their own and have to cope with people they don't like.
Surely encouraging individuality dosen't mean creating '..radical free thinkers..'? Just people who know what critical thinking is and how to apply it along with so many other things that people need in the workplace as well as in life in general.
TheCatWoman said:So why do schools say they want to encourage individuality when they don't ? Isn't this selling pupils and parents a lie?
It is what George Orwell referred to as being ‘Newspeak’ in his book about totalitarianism called '1984', with the infamous ‘War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery And Ignorance Is Strength’ slogan as being the three fundamental principles of the superstate Oceana, with the lead protagonist Winston Smith who works at the Ministry of ‘Truth’:
Basically ~ wanting people to be individual involves each person competing to be the best and either winning, losing or coming somewhere in-between, with the inspiration ultimately being not dying of exposure and malnutrition homeless on the streets or out in the wilds.
Individuals are then desired in terms of being replaceable numbers, actually being an individual though largely attracts however much or whatever type of violence will result in collective conformity ~ which of course will be strangely acceptable due to the nature of normalised abuse, in that almost everyone gets traumatically knocked or shocked into habitually unconscious, subconscious and preconscious compliance.
They (the educational system) are fine with pupils being individuals so long as they look the same and behave the same.
The purpose of the school is not so much to educate children to be effective adults but to train and condition them to be useful in society. This is why the governments are happy to fund them - they need more tax payers, contributers and baby makers.
If we produced radical free thinkers then this would disrupt society and the very model they are supposed to fit into so you can see why this has come about.
I don't think parents are sold a lie. They have been through the system themselves so know what it does and have no excuse for having illusions about it. They may not examine it critically but this is their failing.
All the care of vulnerable pupils such as neurodivergents is about getting them to integrate and cause least disruption while giving the schools the good PR of being "caring".
TheCatWoman said:I can only guess at the things policy teams come up with
I worked with plenty of people in the civil service who did this and the majority are certainly low on clues. Occasionally them meet with people at the sharp end of things in the field and their questions to these experienced individuals tend to be around how the policies are perceived rather than how effective they are - way too much vanity going into the projects.