Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello
I'm 40 and I'm really in some trouble. I've always found social interactions difficult, and my personal life certainly doesn't look like most other people's. I don't know if I'm autistic, it's been suggested, but I've had some bad experiences and am a bit wary of the medical profession so I've considerable reluctance to finding out. Trouble is I'm also in some trouble and in my 40 years still haven't worked out how to deal with it. I've done some reading and it seems like maybe people on the autistic spectrum might experience similar things so here I am hoping you might have some ideas.
Work wise I've been quite lucky on the whole, I work in a job I enjoy, but I'm running into the same problems over and over and finding them ridiculously distressing over and over.
It's all about morals and truth. It is my thing. I absolutely cannot stand people lying. Theoretically I realise that people lie, for all sorts of reasons, but I've never managed to integrate the fact of people lying into my expectations, so every time I am shocked and confused. And then angry and upset. There is a pathological liar that I am senior to, and they lie when they've done something wrong, when they haven't done something they should, but also volunteer totally unnecessary lies seemingly to make themselves look more important. I can't cope with this at all. They have become progressively less valuable in my eyes over time and I have retreated to the position that I simply don't play them any attention, deliberately ignore them when they are attention-seeking, and discount everything they say as it seems to me there is no worth to be applied to them. Trouble is people are telling me this is too extreme and I'm getting irrationally upset, and I see they are probably right but I can't seem to temper my reactions. And once I've reacted I'm so damn upset I stay visibly annoyed and upset for hours.
I also am stunned into confusion by hypocrisy, which I clearly have no grounds to get on my high horse about, but it, and inconsistency, just bambozzles me. And then people are messy and inconsiderate and that enrages me.
The upshot being that I'm getting continuously upset by the people I work with. And I'm struggling to understand them, then getting angry with them and it is not a good situation at all. I have no poker face at all so when I'm upset they know about it. And I'm senior to some of them and that doesn't make for a great combination.
These things are quite specific so I haven't been able to find out whether these are things that autistic people also find difficult, but I've had these problems since I first had to interact with people when i was a toddler, so I was hoping someone might recognise my problems and have an idea how I might start to cope with them. If there is some sort of training or a plan or a type of therapy or anything at all that I can do so that I can cope with these people being people.
Hi - it's something I can't cope with as well - the more I detect their lies, the less I can interact with them. I have measured NTs and they skim through the world in a superficial way so they don't pay attention to details - this allows those around them to make promises they have no intention of keeping or tell them things that aren't true - and they all just accept it from each other. It's business as usual. I'd say they operate at a 50% BS level in general.
What's worse is if you're like me and are 100% honest and truthful with them, even if the information is something they don't want to hear, you're treated with suspicion verging on contempt. You're not playing the same game - so you must have ulterior motives?
It's really sad.
I had a manager who was totally incompetent and lied all the time to cover it up - I dreaded interacting with him because everything was a lie - and if I pointed it out, I had to forgive and put it behind me - just so he felt he had a clean slate to lie to me some more. One of the few people in my life who I could have happily punched in the face.
The only advice I could offer is get out while you have your sanity and reputation - I've played the management game and it's not nice. I preferred the 'boffin' role - let me do my thing, leave me alone and let me get on with it.