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.
I completely relate to this thread and find this is one of my biggest struggles when it comes to work. I seem to be all good all the whilst everyone else is doing what they are supposed to be doing.
I wasn’t coping with other colleagues only doing half the work or making simple mistakes because they either didn’t care or were not paying attention and it would drive me crazy. I couldn’t leave it either I would find myself feeling like I had to do the tasks that weren’t done and correcting the mistakes because no one was and no one seemed to care and that was causing me more stress than a lot of things and I too was obsessing over it to the point where I knew it was ridiculous and I hated that it bothered me as much as it did but I couldn’t stop it bothering me.
I had a big issue with an injustice, I was a lot younger than the colleague in question and we worked for the same company similar role but different teams and we clashed heads when she refused to action an email I had sent her and I knew she was supposed to but there is some instances where I would have to do it depending on the task itself. She refused to listen to my point and I dealt with her talking to me like crap very well the first time and went to the managers for clarity and they confirmed I had been right (which I knew I was) and had actioned it myself only because It was urgent but it shouldn’t have been my responsible.
It caused major atmosphere and issues after as I wasn’t going to take the way she spoke to me without raising it and she lied! Acted like she had no idea I had an issue ect and that enraged me even more! I was working nights at this point and only one other staff member in the room and I couldn’t cope with the atmosphere so I changed my hours and worked evenings and weekends instead and didn’t make a huge deal out of it just knew I wouldnt have kept my cool staying in them at set up.
I had changed everything else and found a new job in an area I love small team great set up and perfect (pre lockdown) and the week before I left she actually had the cheek to argue with me infront of all of the evening staff too refusing to action the exact same thing we had disputed 6months ago! I still had the emails confirming the process from my manager which got sent to them too! I stormed out (need to learn to not get to that point where my blood is boiling!) and ranted like crazy on the phone to my manager (he knew all that had gone on and that I was going through the process of assessment for ASD too and if anything was pleased that instead of arguing across the room like I would have done before I took myself out albeit stripping like a child) once I had ranted I finished my shift and couldn’t stop stressing over it!
I ended up giving myself a severe headache for about 2 days and really wasn’t eating well couldn’t switch off on the night, I had to go in for the weekend nights and was with great staff for those two and after they had been great letting me rant and as much as I shouldn’t react like that they shouldn’t put me in that position either. We ordered a takeaway and come the morning before the day staff were coming in I had stressed out that much and destroyed myself I threw up all over the place. I then called my manager and suggested I gave myself more time off before I start the new role (was on a flexi contract with no notice anyway)
Now I am trying to learn how to manage this expectation and not let myself react the way I do- still currently struggling with that but as it’s still fairly early days in the new job it’s easier to not jump on those impulses as much as when I was too comfortable in the last role to easily highlight what is frustrating me. The role I have now got is one I see doing for a long time (last one was a supposed gap fill that lasted 4years with the help of altering shifts as easily as I did) and I know this is something I really need to work on but don’t know how to stop that inbuilt feeling of knowing your right and not understanding or coping with other people not doing what they should be.
Not sure if I can ever stop that feeling but want to try and not let it get to me as much as it does!
Well done for learning a method of coping! It is something I am trying to do, with varying degrees of success!
I wouldn’t say I have learnt a method yet! So far I’ve found if I’m keeping really busy at work then I tend to not notice as much what others are doing but in terms of actually learning to cope with feeling like I over react to people not doing what they should be I am far from figuring that out!
I only lasted as many years as I did in my last job because I was able to switch over my patterns and I find I manage 6-9 months before I start to crumble and can’t hide how I’m managing much longer than that and then I have had to make a change
i definitely feel happier with the work environment I’m now in and there’s less scenarios to get wound up over but I now have the panic of trying to not let that lead me in this new role. I’m furloughed at the moment and it’s not likely I’ll be back before early July it’s when I go back to work I’ve got to start worrying about this again and not sure how to help myself on it.