Intolerance of Uncertainty and Managing Emotions

I totally agree with this.

Ever since I was diagnosed, the engineer in me has been measuring and analysing what I do and why I do it - and then assessing those around me in comparison.

I've boiled it down to two issues - sensory overload - everything is too sensitive to live comfortably - and the big one is a pathological need for certainty and predictability.    In the same way as the sensory overload, I am easily overloaded with uncertainty.     Luckily, as an engineer, I was able to design-out most of the problems in front of me.

I've noticed NTs don't seem to notice this stress - they blunder about with short memories so their task-anxiety dissipates quickly.

I've been watching young ASD children at a mixed ASD group I attended and almost all of their problems seem come from the chaotic lives of their parents - there's no grounding or basic stability - no schedules or patterns to latch on to for comfort.   There's no safe space or safe retreat area.    There's no logic in the random and arbitrary rules applied to them.   The kids seem to be locked into a permanent fight-or-fight mode.

Me, as a parent, thought it only logical to provide my daughter with every option to make her feel safe, (how I would have liked to feel) whatever the situation - little things like still holding her hand in busy places or arranging pick-up spots where she was under cover and me never being late.    it's meant that every life-challenge has been manageable for her because it is the only one in front of her - all the other risks have an escape plan and safety net in place to reduce any possible anxiety caused by external factors.

She's grown up to be a very well-balanced and mature young lady.

Well done Plastic. The same here. I grew up in an atmosphere of never knowing what would happen next, never knowing whether I'd meet Nice Mum or Nasty Mum every day or even every hour. So when I became a parent I put a lot of effort into being consistent, providing stability and acceptance of needs and wants.

I hope it is paying off because my daughter is far, far, far ahead of me in emotions, thoughts and probably other things. We always talk about emotions in this house, how to deal with them and any problems with anything, rather than squashing them down, pretending they don't exist and getting angry if anyone dares to have emotions.

Well done Plastic. The same here. I grew up in an atmosphere of never knowing what would happen next, never knowing whether I'd meet Nice Mum or Nasty Mum every day or even every hour. So when I became a parent I put a lot of effort into being consistent, providing stability and acceptance of needs and wants.

I hope it is paying off because my daughter is far, far, far ahead of me in emotions, thoughts and probably other things. We always talk about emotions in this house, how to deal with them and any problems with anything, rather than squashing them down, pretending they don't exist and getting angry if anyone dares to have emotions.

There are lots of us out there, Juniper! I was told about narcissistic mothers and looked it up. Bingo! A description of her on the page. I have been part of Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers groups on Facebook which helped, everyone said the same 'I feel like we may have had the same mum!' My local friend has the same situation with her mum.
It's a definite phenomenon.

I feel like we may have had the same mum! Though I used to hide my emotions from her... there was only room apparently for one. I've struggled with working out if she's autistic as well or just ADHD/NT. I can't make sense of her either. My fathers mother seemed to understand me but my mother never did. And yet, I have 2 half siblings from my mother who have clear learning disabilities, possibly autistic. 

This is another thing that doesn't fit. My mum was hyper-sociable when I was young, we lived a VERY sociable life with lots of friends. I had LOTS of social training and exposure to people and got very used to being around them. Yet I didn't learn anything and never learned how to make friends, how to grow a social life, how to make a social network for myself. I need someone to lead me, and my husband just isn't like that. He does his own thing, he has a great social life (or he did before covid) and I'm left at home babysitting. We have no 'couple friends' like my parents did.

Like you, I take people at face value and I had no idea about the social climbing until Plastic explained it. I have no idea of hierarchy and treat everyone the same, which they don't like.

So I also don't know if I'm autistic or just learned to never show emotions, problems or needs because they would be used against me.

Yep. In my case my psychologist says its both but there are days where I'm convinced that if there hadn't been as much dysfunction in my house and the family hadn't been so socially isolated then things would have been very different.

But then I've always taken people at face value and assumed they operated to the same set of "universal rules" as I did. When I think about some of the assumptions I made about people I think there's a wiring issue - I always thought things could be worked out rationally. I never grasped people were emotionally driven, and operated on the whole social climbing thing, or that they had different ideas about things and their rationale could be just as coherent and thought out as my own.

Think I wrote on another thread I've given up trying to unpick it. Although those instances where emotionally I feel grounded (or actually just feel good about myself and things in general) are strangely elusive. 

I realised some years ago that my mum is a narcissist. She is very sociable, loves to be centre of attention, is manipulative, a very high risk taker and has no concept of emotions. My friend suggested my mum could be autistic...but it just doesn't fit.

So I also don't know if I'm autistic or just learned to never show emotions, problems or needs because they would be used against me.

Snap. My brother recently said that he wasn't sure I really am autistic or whether it was the fact that we "skipped the module on normal social behaviour" growing up because our interractions with our parents were so erratic. Incidentally I have come to the conclusion that my mum is autistic herself and the emotional ups and downs were her trying and failing to manage her own anxiety which is still totally out of control.