Please can someone tell me if they just understand what I'm saying?
Yesterday I had a meeting with a very trusted person. She asked me if I had been hoarding a particular object and in my head I automatically thought 'no, not really (I had some but I wasn't a hoard)'. The rest of the meeting went really well, I came away feeling a little more positive and eager to get on with the new plan we'd devised.
Once I'd got home I started to think about the whole question of hoarding.
I'm my head, when she asked me the question, I thought to myself 'hoarding would be an intentional and conscious collection of the object'. So my reply was correct and honest in my mind because I had not intentionally (or particularly consciously) hoarded the object in question.
I was aware that I had some of these objects, and that may have been why I kept thinking about it, but to me that wasn't what she asked.
I'd purchased or acquired the objects separately over a period of weeks and in some cases months. Some were partially forgotten about.
In my mind they were not linked together in a 'hoard'.
However, I kept thinking about her hoarding question. I understood why she asked. She was assessing whether I had any of these objects and, if I did, if they were at a level to be classed as hoarding (which would mean more than 8-16 individual objects)
(This is where trying to explain gets a bit difficult)
I realised that if this is what she wanted to know, then yes, I suppose I had enough to to be classed as a hoard.
So a little reluctantly I informed a different person (as she had left work by this time) and told them the precise number of objects I had. In my head I hadn't lied. I felt terrible at having so many but I didn't think I'd lied. I had tried to explain to her how it was subconscious. I didn't really realise they were all there.
When I spoke to the trusted person the next day I think she may have been angry or frustrated or something similar. She said I'd lied to her about the hoarding.
This upset me greatly because I hate lying and always try my hardest to be completely honest even when it's really embarrassing. I was also hurt because I felt like I'd broken her trust in me. I told her I'd thrown the objects away, she didn't believe me and asked me to give them to her.
I felt I needed to desperately explain everything to her.
I apologised and tried to explain how I didn't think I was or meant to lie. In my head if she'd asked me if I had any of these objects I would have said yes before having to have a think about how many (because until I started to think about her hoarding question I hadn't realised that I had quite that much).
In my head she was asking me a different question about my intent to collect rather than how many I had and to me that's a completely different question.
At the time I didn't perceive what she was really asking.
It was only after reflection that I realised her 'full' question.
I sometimes get stuck when people ask me something and they are actually asking me to tell them a lot more than for what they are asking (e.g Question: "have you eaten today?" Answer: "Yes I have". What they're really asking is if I've eaten enough rather than at all). This seems to get me in to a lot of bother.
So does anyone else understand how I've got myself in this colossal mess?
Is this just me being quite incredibly stupid or it is me being autistic?
I don't want to find an excuse for my hoarding but I really want her to understand how I didn't mean to lie because trust is really important.
Does anyone understand how I just don't link things like that together like she would?
Any help would be brilliant.
Thank you.
(Sorry it's so long)
