Intolerance of Uncertainty and Managing Emotions

They also operate in a strange vacuum of vagueness. Someone commented on how reasoned out my position (on a random work issue) was today before ducking all of my points then countering them with things they couldn't back up.

It was funny. But I was very, very annoyed first.

Ethan said:

I find regular folk really hard work.

Yesssss! They can't make the simplest deductions or inferences...

M said:

Logic eludes a lot of neurotypical people, and they generally lack any independent thought. 

I was once with a certain energy provider and because I had a smart meter from another company had to give a manual meter reading. I didn't know how so contacted the company.

The company basically said their customer service team wasn't "smart meter trained" so couldn't help me and then in the same breath said I was perfectly capable of finding the information for myself.

So they were expecting me to figure out how to do something they couldn't do themselves!

I lost my sh*t, made a complaint and got an apology along with £50 compensation for crappy service. This is after I tore into the first tier complaint system for not addressing the problem after they claimed  they'd done nothing wrong.

I find regular folk really hard work.

I've reached the point where I simply will NOT tolerate that level of fuckery in a job.

I've been largely unemployed, or on short term contracts ever since!

I would be exactly the same. I'm currently having a meltdown because of poor customer service at Nintendo over a £6.50 payment so I'd be a mess if it was something that really mattered to me and took up all of my energy like a work situation. I nearly CRIED over the inability of the customer service to do which to me seems like a very straight forward transaction between two consoles and two accounts on the same family group. Logic eludes a lot of neurotypical people, and they generally lack any independent thought. 

Was it really 4 months ago since I did this course?

I'm very angry and I feel completely let down today.

I'm currently in a temporary managerial role which lasts until the middle of next month. Generally I've found it ok, the feedback has been good and it's been enjoyable to get the wider picture of how the operation works. The daily meetings have been challenging (especially when there's a lot of back and forth between people) so I can leave those feeling drained. On the whole - I've been doing fine, perhaps sleeping a bit more than usual, a little more frazzled with the cognitive load but I thought I was adjusting well.

So what I'm about to write seems minor. Maybe it isn't. I don't feel I have a lot of perspective right now. 

I was asked to write a letter requesting something from another (very senior) person in another part of the organisation. To me, the ask should have come from a senior grade which I questioned but was pushed back to me and I agreed anyway. It was extra work, I took some time out, I stayed late, drafted the output which was shared and everyone agreed was ok, sent it .... and then...

and then.... it turns out that I didn't have to write it at all. Someone, somewhere else had not only written out about the same ask, it had already been replied to over two weeks ago. The response had been sat in an in-box and no-one had thought to check.

That wasn't the worst of it.

This afternoon I was advised by the person who I'm covering for about what had happened -to which I replied with a mildly stroppy message - not personal but expressing frustration at the situation. It's been a long week. I've worked late, I feel tired - I was hoping to finish on a high (or at least content) and I dropped a line to a colleague, who technically I'm managing, who apparently not only knew about the email but also about my response - which had been sent, I thought, in confidence. It's no joy intending to share something with someone only to find out they knew already because of gossip behind the scenes.

And then I shut down (actually I shut down once I'd read the work wasn't needed), but I shut down even more when I found out about the gossip. And I'm still shut down. I'm not sure how to deal with this. 

I'm angry that my time was wasted. I'm constantly being asked for output but it either gets shelved or I find out it wasn't needed because the ask was either wrong in the first place or it's been duplicated elsewhere. More so I'm annoyed that gossip took place so someone knew something before I'd had opportunity to tell them. Now I'm wondering what else has been said and what other conversations have been taking place. Probably quite a few. And knowing stuff has been said about me leaves me feeling vulnerable. 

So how do I respond to this setback? I'm going to have to figure out a way to deal with it. I feel totally disengaged, but I'm seeing a cycle. I do a lower paid job. I get bored. I take an opportunity because it looks interesting - and the money helps. I get scraped, for whatever reason. I shut down. I disengage. I quit. I start again.

And it's when I'm angry. It's all the things I know go on, that I sort-of tolerate, that when it hits me this way my thinking becomes very rigid and I become defensive. I know this is how things work. It's how people work. If I read about this in a book there'd be some great anecdote to the story, or a "lesson learnt" or a moment of growth. But there is no book, no anecdote - and I feel isolated and dumped on. Three people who all have a hand in this project and the ask know about this - no-one has apologised. I logged off this afternoon without hearing from any of them (apart from the one who directed my attention to the you-didn't-need-to-write-that-email in the first place). It's now become an issue of trust - and I've spoken to people who've been down a similar road and decided to just do enough to get paid because to do anything more gets wasted. 

There's nothing more to say. I took this as a test to see how I'd react and handle to different situations now I know what I know from my diagnosis. After today, I'm really doubting if I've got the skills or the cognitive "space" (for want of a better word) to navigate this. I'm trying to think it through but my brain has switched off along with my emotions. 

Awareness is a great solution to emotions. Anything you're aware of you're in control of, anything you're not aware of has control over you.

"Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality.
Alter your thoughts, alter your reality."
William James

Unlearn what you have learnt.
When we first came into this world we were fearless, full of inspiration and joy. We were always taking risks, but in time we learnt to fear taking risks. Reality is no longer what it was ten seconds ago.

Feelings are conscious choices, in the past you may of been threatened, but that's no longer reality. You find yourself in a situation related and think the present situation will have the same outcome making you feel threatened even if you're not.
So the truth is people fear their perceptions, not actual reality.

Thinking about the future, trying to avoid the bad and accept what's good has the outcome of a duelistic perception. Then that duelistic perception becomes your reality whenever you leave the moment.

Awareness is a great solution to emotions. Anything you're aware of you're in control of, anything you're not aware of has control over you.

"Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality.
Alter your thoughts, alter your reality."
William James

Unlearn what you have learnt.
When we first came into this world we were fearless, full of inspiration and joy. We were always taking risks, but in time we learnt to fear taking risks. Reality changes moment by moment, reality is no longer what it was ten seconds ago.

Feelings are conscious choices, in the past you may of been threatened, but that's no longer reality. You find yourself in a situation related and think the present situation will have the same outcome making you feel threatened even if you're not.
So the truth is people fear their perceptions, not actual reality.

Thinking about the future, trying to avoid the bad and accept what's good has the outcome of a duelistic perception. Then that duelistic perception becomes your reality whenever you leave the moment.

Oh I agree, I deal with ENDLESS changes and I bounce back after an adjustment period. I do feel very intensely about a lot of things so I do get overwhelmed, but once that feeling settled down I get straight to adjusting my routines and expectations and a new normal (cringe) emerges. 

I'm afraid I've had trouble with my sane side as well as my executive side - but I get the gist of what you are saying.  I might not be diagnosed with autism in the end though.

As Autists we all ACTAULLY tolerate uncertainty very, very well I think. It's just that we perceive so much of it, that it is easy to get overwhelmed.

Remember 1. you have a technical issue with the executive side of your brain, not yer sane side. 2. Having said that truth, it is also a truism that the worst of nutters always think they are the sane ones! (and it's very easy sometimes in a room full of normies during lunchtime twittering on about the crap they do to become convinced that YOU are the only sane one. ). 

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

having an understanding of relationship and responsibility. The amount of parents who don't act like the adult-

I only just saw this. So true. I bought a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and it is SO helpful. I realised that my mum never really grew up, she mainly relied on me to be the parent after I got to about 18.

So I do the opposite, I hope, with my daughter.

It's happened in many jobs, each time I just stopped telling them my good ideas and watched them fumble around blindly with no sympathy

Interesting reply there Dawn. especially paragraph 2.

We are not alone it seems.

Drugs don't work. Well they do...

But there's always hideous disadvantages as well as the wanted effect, and we want a spectrum of effects anyway. The only drug Ive been able too tolerate and function reasonably well and safety under the influence of is illegal... But NT's DEFININITELY find me more acceptable of I'm a bit "baked".

I've done a lot of on/off studies of many of that substances effects on both me and my interactions with the outside world.

Prozac actually makes me more "classically evil" and dangerous. (But I felt great!)

Benzodiazepines, seem to just put reality further out of reach.

300mg of Methylone PLUS 200mg of Mephedrone taken an hour later made me stupid but happy for several weeks, tailing off into months, and completely broke a period of suicidal ideation that I was going though, for it "never to return" about 15 years ago. Probably worth someone looking into that one.

I wish I could get a clinically supervised course of adderal. I once tried amphetamine as a kid and felt "super normal", but given the dangers of amphetamine use, (and it's a way of going bonkers where you are the last to know, just like with cocaine) I'd only want to explore the benefits of that drug under supervision.

Remember Kids: People like me did things like this, so that you don't have to!

Seriously: Take heed, for every one like myself who has successfully experimented with drugs without getting engulfed in disaster there do seem to be more people who have come to grief. I've had the same experience with motorcyling I've got friends who have lost limbs trying to do the stupid things I seem able to accomplish.

Having said that, I have been struck repeatedly by how much more accurate and informative the "underworld" is when you go and by some drugs compared to your doctor or pharmacist, and how much easier it is to access timely warnings and plain english information about side effects etc, compared to teh medicinal drug pushers.

IN contrast to the illegal experience, No doctor I have ever described my prozac experience to has ever "validated" it, yet the internet is full of ex-patients who went berzerk in an orderly manner (like I did) on the stuff...

But to be fair, I've only ever participated at the recreational end of drug dealing, I understand that for the people who wish to use the really expensive and habit forming drugs the experience is very different, and much more like how it is portrayed on the T.V.. 

I underwent a course of one-to-one CBT for depression and anxiety with a NHS psychologist in the 1990s (which was about 20 years before I was assessed for and diagnosed with autism!)  After several months, when it was obvious we were getting nowhere, she refused to continue unless I agreed to take anti-depressants simultaneously.  I wouldn't, so she and her boss (who interviewed me separately) washed their hands of me.

I did try two antidepressants, prescribed by my GP, a few years later and neither of them worked any better than the CBT.  In fact, all these treatments made me feel worse.  Writing out and analysing all my problems, as CBT homework, only seemed to magnify and complicate them.  And the psychologist's recommendation that I relieve my anxiety in social or outdoor situations by silently counting in my head only made me feel I was losing my mind!

It's been worse than that actually... the whole of the MH services have written me off as "unwilling" when nothing could be further from the truth.  They seem to have a culture of 'blame the patient' if it doesn't work.  They even opened by asking me me whose fault would it be if it didn't.  I don't think that's acceptable really.

In hindsight, I think nothing's worked because nothing has ever been geared to a patient who is autistic.  I can't arrange to feel what they think I should feel, or think what they think I should think how they think I should think it.  I'd be knocking my socks off to explain my understanding of what I think is going on for me only to get: "I don't see why you think I need all this detail" (What? How can they help me without it?????) and to have that interpreted as NOT engaging.  (Go figure).

Obviously, you can't know what you can't know.  Nobody knew autism was in the picture to be fair, but you can't just write people off because the current approach doesn't work.  It more likely means it's the wrong approach for the situation, than the patient who won't co-operate. If I had a broken leg that wouldn't get better; they'd investigate further and not assume it was my fault.

Actually, I'm a bit disappointed it didn't occur to anyone, that my problems might be rooted in autism, though - I've had to figure out what's been happening to me all my life alone.

When I had CBT and found it useless it was just framed as me not trying hard enough or practising the techniques enough...

If that happened to me on several occasions, I probably wouldn't be able to resist writing a letter to the boss about it!  I think this is why I'm unemployed!

Plastic I'm just blown away by a lot of your posts. You read like you could be my somewhat, better adjusted, long lost clone!