Can’t cope with change or the not knowing. I also hate being called my full name.

Presumably you explained to your boyfriend why your full name is such a trigger for you? Assuming you have and he still uses it I can see why you would consider that disrespectful. However it may be a habit that is hard for him to break.

Sometimes autistic people can have unreliable speech, whereby what comes out isn't necessarily what they intended to say. I know I do when I try to say something and come out with one of my previous well used script responses instead. It may be that your boyfriend has got so used to using your full name that it just comes out automatically without thinking.

This article that I posted on another thread may be helpful to you, in understanding how your brain has created a negative association with the use of your full name. Once you understand what is happening then you can begin to try and replace those negative responses with more positive ones. Not easy I know.

https://www.barrierstoeducation.co.uk/autism-and-trauma

Changing plans is something that many autistic people do struggle with a lot (me included). I plan everything as carefully as I can and try and have at least one back up plan ready for when invariably things don't go to plan. Make it clear to people that you are going to need as much notice as possible if plans have to change. Something sprung last minute is likely to trigger a meltdown or shutdown.

If it's of any consolation, I used to have a strong dislike of my first name, possibly because of the way it sounded when my parents were angry or frustrated with me. I wanted people to shorten it, but nobody would... Well, not until I was in my teens. The funny thing is that as I've gotten older (middle-aged), I now don't mind people addressing me by my full name, and it's the name I give when I'm asked my name (as opposed to the shortened version of it). It doesn't bother me either way now whether people use my full name, or the shortened version of it.

What does infuriate me though is that sometimes people (often elderly relatives) can get my name and my mother's name muddled, and I think it's because our first names both start with the same letter.

I do understand how frustrating it must be for you when you have specifically asked people (including your boyfriend) to call you by your shortened name, and they continue to call you by your full name. If you were to legally change your first name, I'm inclined to think that you would still get people calling you 'Rachel'. I think all you can do is just keep reminding people that you prefer to be called 'Rach' - as frustrating as that may be.

As for struggling with the uncertainty of not knowing if plans may be subject to change, that is something that many of us here can relate to. Some more than others. Regrettably, I'm unable to offer any useful advice on that. Quite often, I find that I sometimes need to change plans at the last minute, which means having to be flexible. As a result, I do not consider it fair of me to expect other people to be flexible with me if I'm not willing to do the same in return.

Oooh that's awful stuff.

But that was then, this is now, and you only need to be shown (or figure out) your own power to re-define words and their associations, and that will be fixable.

Now I don't know how rude a letter a 14 year old CHILD can actually write, but I am surprised at your adult teachers reaction to it. I can't help but wonder what literary skills you possessed as a fourteen year old to make a trained teacher loose her cool, but it's hard to not to offer you a "high five!"..

Rachel is clearly your "badgirl" identity, it's just a part of you which you can own, control, and within limitations that you will have to work out yourself, eventually learn to get some harmless fun from. 

Thanks for sharing, it isn't always an easy thing to do, and I really do feel I get how you feel about the name thing right now, which kinda makes me feel less alone and weird but I'm sure that you have the nous to get past al that rubbish.

If you just give your self a bit of time and allow yourself (for example) to reframe that awful incident which occurred when you were 14 and awash with god knows what female chemicals & hormones your strange bodies produce (and still do if my other half is anything to go by) as perhaps far less serious than your teacher made it out to be at the time, you could even lose a lot of psychological baggage..

What do you think? Shall we ask the audience?

Sometimes I am horribly wrong and outdated in my thinking, it's always best to get a second and even third opinion before believing an internet stranger....

Caelus said:

im bad with names so i dont remember peoples names while everyone else seems to just remember names easy or repeat them to remember them. i dont bother, and i dont use names much, i try to stay as ...third person... or would it be fourth person... whatever avoids names, like you, him, that guy, just avoid name entirely and skip to the point. maybe just say "erm"

Yep......me too.

My parents only called me Rachel when I did something wrong and I would end up with the slipper across my legs, other than that it was Rach. I also remember I was in school and a teacher called me into this tiny office and she said now then Rachel I am concerned about this and showed me a really rude sexual letter I wrote I was 14 at the time then she started screaming at me. To me Rach means good but Rachel means bad. 

Very few people use my full name I'm L or lu to everybody mostly. What I'm called doesn't matter to me. I prefer it when people don't use my name because then I don't have to talk. LOL.

Rach91 said:

I am really struggling when a plan might change and the not knowing if it will or not. This has caused a lot of issues for my mental health

This is a big thing for me as well and affected my own mental health, leading to my first section ultimately. What I've tried doing is accepting that things can and will change, and to have a backup plan if something does happen causing change.

It doesn't always work but it does help.

im bad with names so i dont remember peoples names while everyone else seems to just remember names easy or repeat them to remember them. i dont bother, and i dont use names much, i try to stay as ...third person... or would it be fourth person... whatever avoids names, like you, him, that guy, just avoid name entirely and skip to the point. maybe just say "erm"

ofcourse then i take the piss out of it with others when i need to come up with someone elses name to someone... i make any name up... bob.... dave.. whatever... someone similar... as close as i can remember. there was this guy called "sikander" or something and i just kept calling him "salazar" lol close enough it starts with s, got corrected then it became a bit of a joke but that made me remember him more and thus then his name sunk in later, but even when his name sunk in i still called him salazar for a laugh.

then my process lead asked what this other guys name was and i didnt know... told him hes called bob... he started calling the guy bob for a week and one day he turned around and said "why do you keep calling me bob, im called..." forgot his name but he filled his name in, i started laughing then my process lead knew i tricked him. was funny. it can be a joke to get names wrong and even have someone believing someone is called something else and laugh as they keep using the wrong name themselves.

I have a very similar thing with "nicknames" and I recognise the deep sense of revulsion it engenders when people insist on using a name that THEY like for you.

It took me until age fifty one to find a psychological "workaround" so that stuff would stop annoying me...

I am old, I've got to the point that so many things annoy me that the very feeling of being annoyed is too annoying to endure. I can probably save you a lot of time being annoyed at being called by your full name if you are willing to suspend your disbelief.

But let's see what the more convemtionally minded, enlightened, younger people have to say first...