De-escalation of situations

Hi, All

Many kind thanks for your responses.  It's hard to explain what;s happened but the error is on my part.  I will write more later but just wanted to acknowledge your kind and helpful replies.

Kind regards,

DBCD

There's a whole bunch of stuff that you might need to unpack here, possibly with some form of counselling.
Communication is a two way thing - so you may want to explore/google the double empathy problem.

These issues don't sound like yours to fix on your own.  I've spent a lot of my life thinking that everything is my fault or that I needed to try and fix everything.  However, everything is not my fault and I can't fix everything.  For sure, take responsibility, be self-aware, work on improvement.

Another thing to look at, may be the circle of control - you can really only control how you behave, not how others like your family react.  

So if there is a will between all parties then explore how you can communicate and understand each other better.  An open and honest conversation about trying to make things better - not apportioning blame.  Depending how bad it is, you may need to look at some form of mediation.

DBCD said:

how to de-escalate situations I've created

I am a bit uncomfortable with the "I've created" part of the situation description - as things are not always as straightforward as that statement might at first glance suggest.

I feel that conflict implies that at least two people are involved. 

I am not sure it is necessarily helpful for either side of a situation to apportion or take blame for how the "thing" started.  What can be useful; is for either / both sides to admit when they realise they misunderstood or got something wrong - ideally, before it escalated too far into a "thing".

Arguments within relationships can be initiated by both sides too often using sentences which start with "you ..." instead of "I ..." when making their points of view known and responding to each other's retorts.

Considering and understanding the origin of the necessity for someone to have deployed a lie during a situation is really important. 

Lies can stem from: fear, shame, a desire to protect someone, or other motivations (such as delaying tactic; to afford the person more processing time to properly consider the information presented by the other person, or, when a person is genuinely too hungry / exhausted / overwhelmed to address the situation in that precise moment).

If the "stem" of a lie can become better understood there is an opportunity to explore a different way to address the issue (explain the historic worry context, agree time to reflect upon things in their new context, allow the depth / breadth of emotions to moderate before another conversation to work towards a consensus resolution).

What triggers one person may not be quite the same for the other person (or not to the same level).  For example, some relationship members may hail from much more "as normal for them" a louder, shouty, passionate, demonstrative family background style - compared with that of the other person's family background habits.

Sometimes conflict arises when circumstances remind adults of having had to deal with a related traumatic scenario from their childhood or youth.  The person's response (now) may echo their lack of a suitable (available to them at the time) coping and resolution strategy for that much earlier in life situation.

Keeping to a suitable response strategy and management of the "now" situation may require acknowledgement (at least, to the self) that an earlier issue's echo might be clouding judgement and fuelling emotion levels in the current conduct of addressing a situation.

By the way, when someone has experienced trauma as their much younger self: that is not their fault. 

More important; is how a (now) adult resolves to learn about, seek help with, practice new strategies in a safe environment and then conduct themselves more appropriately in their revised forward environment / situation and it's resolution.

DBCD said:

I've caused these situations either by lying or by ignoring how other people are feeling, or both.. The situation then escalates because I say nothing

It is good that you realise you are at fault and understand the reasons for it.

For a way forward I would (if I were in your shoes) write and apologise. Tell them you know what you did was wrong and now you have had time to reflect you realise that you were ignoring their feelings because you could not process it in the moment.

I would also say that this is no excuse and you ask their forgivness.

In essence apologise, admit and ask to be forgived.

Also consider how you are going to avoid it happening again. Ask if you can give a sign when you are getting into the situation where you feel the need to lie or ignore their feelings. This self awareness is an important step as sometimes it can help the other person realise that it could be your autism that needs them to adapt a bit to help the interaction.

As we have learned from press events recently about BBC Masterchef, it is unacceptable to use autism as an excuse for bad behaviour. We need to learn we are doing it, stop it, understand why we do it and get help in developing ways to be socialy acceptable.

Society will not care if you are autistic so expecting them to accommodate you will not work. It has a very long way to go (decades at best) until we start to see more acceptance I suspect).

So get in front of the issue and own it - you made an important step in realising and asking for help so good luck with the rest of it.

You can only fix something you recognise.

I have sometimes appeared to ignore things but it was because it just did not occur to me, or I only realised later what was meant. In this case all you can do is say something when you realise. Just a short text message is better than nothing. Don't think it gets easier if you leave it, or it will go away, it gets worse and harder if you leave it.

If you've lied intentionally then you need to look at why. Lying is almost always awkward as it prevents trust. If you made an honest mistake then it is best to correct it. Although people worry about losing face and looking weak or foolish, admitting mistakes is a sign of strength and confidence and is normally looked on favourably.

If you can recognise these things at the time, then it is best to resolve them at the time, or the next day when people have cooled down.

Honest communication is the only solution. But it does take both sides to do this.