dealing with change

[side note] I have loved contingency and emergency-planning, I used to be quite the buff, it’s a horrific-thing when you realise how little contingency actually exists in the UK.. basically if there is an emergency that involves more than 1000 people, the UK is not prepared for it, in the sense that the King’s Peace is uneffected..

Fen said:

anyone else on here struggle with change? Especially changes in plans or plans gone wrong, and if you had any tips on how to deal with it?

I got a lot better at dealing with this when I started to plan more. Combined with mindfulness it gives a very solid base to let you plan for a range of reasonably possible changes and backup plans for it it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

For example a while back my employer said to me "we need you to go to the office in Moscow to help with a rollout of IT kit that has gone wrong. The guy in charge has bailed and you need to sort it out and you have to leave in 3 days".

I had 3 days to organise a visa for Russia, book flights and a hotel, plan how to pack (clothes plus work stuff) and get the addresses and transport option for each end of the trip.

I had to brainstorm it - work out all the tasks that needed organising, prioritise them then start working on them, calling in help from my managers secretary to do some of the flight/hotel booking for me.

By dealing with the high priority tasks first (visa) and detailing the other tasks I could get them organised quickly enough and then used my time to work out the steps to actually get there and deal with whatever issues I found. I planne what to do it each step failed and what my escape plan was if it all went wrong and a mob came after me with torches and pitch forks!.

Just writing this all down and trying to think what the dependencies are and consequences help me flesh out a decent plan in a few hours so I can then focus on doing the tasks that this list generates (good old post-it notes are a godsend here).

You get better at it with experience.

In the end it all went smoothly (it turned out Russian customs control had stolen a lot of the internals from the IT kit) and I was able to use the spares I packed to get the network operational and complete the roll out project in 3 days.

The one thing I didn't prepare well for was the weather - it was -19C and I was frozen walking to the office, but as failures go that was one I could live with.

So that is how I prepare - learning project management and risk management was a huge upgrade for me too - you learn what to do to manage different levels of risk - which things to avoid, which to accept and which to mitigate.

Having all that chaos trapped on paper really helps me sleep as I no longer have to keep it all in my head.

I am currently struggling ---BIG TIME since my retirement three years ago. Throughout my unsocial life I had depended on my work environment as my focus since beginning work here in the U.K. in 1971. Since my retirement I've  tried volunteer work and been rejected---you see, I am a Yank residing in a small  Norfolk town surrounded by three American Air Force bases. Despite being a townee since 1981, and raising a family, no matter how often I've tried to integrate socially, I experience rejection. I swear, an immigrant gets better treatment. I share responsibility for this with my ND condition with Asperger's (yes, I know it is now a redundant word)  . I don't feel comfortable with exposing my ND condition locally.  I know how the majority of NT people misunderstand and get it wrong. I've humiliated myself many times in the past by misreading engagements with an inappropriate or no response. As a consequence I believe these types of interactions protracted over many years have made me the town's pariah despite my recent attempts to volunteer my time. 

This new change in my reality is taking its toll on me emotionally despite trying to fool myself with acceptance of a status quo position. I do not get any respite within my marriage of 42 years with a wife who gives me constant rebuttal to anything I utter.  I had recently, in another thread, tried to console myself with acceptance of my reality. Who am I kidding? Only myself!  This is grinding me down!  I wish I could offer some tips on how to deal with my situation. Radical changes seem to be the only solutions but I've tolerated this for so many years and have reached a late stage in my life at age 78, where I simply need a rest from it and any further changes---radical or otherwise.

Depends on the type of change for me...and whether I have had enough time to prepare for it.

Change against my will is less tolerable.

Change against my will with little to no warning is even less tolerable.

Thank you for writing back, it’s also helpful just knowing you’re not the only one who struggles with these things. 

Will do. Thank you for sharing you experience too, makes me feel less alone and dramatic for struggling with change 

Welcome.

Definitely. It depends on the situation how I manage it. For example if a dental appointment is postponed a distance away from the date that gives me a sense of relief. However if something I don't want to do is postponed it can be a challenge as I have already got worked up, tried to plan and look forward to it being over, so I am exhausted, but gained nothing.

Sometimes as I overthink everything I have a plan for an unexpected change. For example one year I decided to book someone to entertain at my son's birthday to make things easier. As the time got nearer I dreamt they didn't turn up so started to work out what I would do if they didn't. The dream came true and I worked out something to do for a while and had fortunately asked a friend who was more confident to help so she came up with more ideas. After this however we were offered a repeat for free. I declined as couldn't face any more.

I guess my only recommendation is plan for a possible change of plan, so it is less of a surprise. 

Yes I struggle a lot, as many autistic people do.

I try to deal with it by planning in great detail. I think in advance what might happen and have a back up plan for when the plans change or go wrong, as they inevitably do. Then another back up plan for when the back up plan goes wrong 

However if it's a scenario I haven't planned for and wasn't expecting I am lost. In that kind of situation I tend to just freeze and not know what to do next.

I have dealt with them through avoidance, but these days, I like to think that I try to seek long lasting remedy, social resources, reasonable-adjustments. I try to accommodate my weaknesses or at least learn to.  

Want to be able to chiropractically-adjust my unhealthy-development, I feel a lot less depressed now that I don’t try to mask or appeased a standardised-policy.  

I feel better knowing that I have acknowledgement and adjustment in place, not only because it is useful, but because I was awarded that consideration..

I struggle with it a lot and have spent a lot of the last few years basically living in a vacuum to protect myself. 

So I have empathy but no useful tips :/