Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all, new to the forum so no doubt this may have been covered somewhere in past history but i'm in a bit of a 'stuck' place at the minute and have been so for the past 3 or 4 years and really looking for some advice as to how best get out of it.
I'm nearly 40 and on the face of it just a usual bloke who likes football and having a pint but i'm currently awaiting diagnosis for aspergers which will take anything up to 3 years. Initial interviews and questionnaires has confirmed i am on the spectrum and it is believed i may have high functioning aspergers which has allowed me to live a life that any NT could reasonably expect to live thus far. Trying to function as an NT all my adult life when you may have dominant aspergers traits has been an absolute nightmare but so far i've pulled it off. I have a NT partner and a young NT daughter and up until the past few years i worked in a public focussed role.
I'm paying for it now though, i have quite severe anxiety disorder (especially social and new situations) as well as being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other medical conditions which also tap into my positivity reserves. I am of the belief that the pure stress of trying to function effectively and in this world whilst at the same time being true to my strong autistic beliefs has finally caused my body to start cracking.
Anyway, my problem is simple. I have very strict and exacting standards of behaviour and conduct that i feel is inherent within me and when these are not displayed by others i get stressed, agitated and upset/angry. The problem is that the levels of poor behaviour, manners, consideration for others and common sense in our society in general is rife and i have no way of dealing with it. I cannot change it nor can i escape it. Therefore i need to try and find a way of dealing with it so that i may once again find the motivation to get out into the world again and 'tolerate' people once more.
As it is now i've given up. I have no interest in people anymore, they bore me and especially through working the past 20 years i have discovered that most are self preserving and disingenuous. I've resigned from jobs because morally what i was being asked to do was against what the organisation stood for and i wasn't able to do this. The rest of the staff and management decided their jobs were more important than doing the right thing.
Society is so alien to me. I often feel that i am an alien put on earth as some sort of experiement to see how i get on. Obviously that's ridiculous but living amongst many people day in day out and the banality of life i do have to wonder. Even people who you least expect will ask you if you are on facebook or some other pointless internet sharing website where we can see the triviality of others lives and as soon as they have said that i have instantly made a decision that i need to restrict contact with this person a much as i can because immediately i have decided we have nothing in common.
I go to the cinema with my kid and grown adults are sat with their kids flicking through their mobile phones. That's bad enough but it's the lack of consideration for others. I am sensitive to the light given off by the phones in the dark cinema as it's distracting but now i no longer am able to sit and relax and enjoy the film with my daughter but now i have been put in a stressful position by someone else's inconsiderate behaviour whereby i have to either sit and endure this or go up and confront them about it. This happens every time i go.
I drive the 4 miles to my mums house to take her to the shops and i drive calmly to reduce my stress and try to be mindful at the same time. I drive at the speed limit usually but during my 4 mile trip i find myself having to pull over 4 or 5 times in order to let some idiot go past who is drving bumper to bumper with me. Again, i endure the stress of others behaviour for the 4 miles or i am inconvenienced into pulling over several times during the course of a car journey.This happens every time i go out anywhere in my car.
I take my little kid to school and mums and dads are fighting for parking space right outside the gates where if they set off 5 minutes earlier they could park around the corner, walk and talk with their child until they get to school and in addition they aren't causing disruption or a danger to children. The school have to call in the police and parking wardens to do something about the problem even though parents have been warned monthly in school newsletters. My daughters school is in a reasonably affluent area too. This happens every school day.
Summer comes and the barbecues come out in force. Not a problem with that generally but then the rap music makes an appearance at a hundred decibels. Why? Why is it not enough to be enjoying the company of your friends just chatting and laughing? Why has a barbecue got to be turned into some sort of dining / outside rave experience? There are other people in your street who want to listen to the birds outside and not some blinged up neanderthal making grunts and coarse sexual references every 2 seconds.
Again, these inconsiderate behaviours and lack of any standards in our society as i go about my daily life aren't just amongst the stereotypical ruffian types (i hate to stereotype but i just wanted to try and get the point across that selfishness and ignorance is rife in all sections of society and not just amongst groups of people you might at first think of (perhaps unfairly though) but across all areas of society and i can't tolerate it. I struggle to form friendships because basically if the other person is not pretty much identical to me in terms of outlook, morals and interests then i dismiss them. Customer service in this country is appalling, cleanliness and attention to detail in a lot of things are appalling.
So many apologies as this is turning in to a bit of rant which i never intended but basically i have got to the point where my limited interests and severe judgements of others has resulted in me not wanting to do anything because no matter where i go or what i do there will be an overwhelming percentage of people who i have to interact with who show behaviours or interests that i just cannot accept.
I think it's a case of i'm right and others are wrong if they don't agree with me which obviously cannot be the case but often i feel that i have to bring my kid up to be a self obsessed, material driven, arrogant, social media junkie because these are the traits that most people i come into contact with display to me and by being kind, considerate, humble, helpful, selfless, respectful she won't stand a hope in hell in fitting in with the world as it is now.
Of course i wouldn't do that, it's against my suspected aspie nature but if there are very few people out there like me then where do i go from here? Sorry, all a bit doom and gloom i guess but i don't want for it to be like that. I welcome your advice and experiences and to be honest, with the way in which successive Governments have let autistic people and their families fend for themselves the past God knows how many years, your input will do much to help. Don't soft soap, if you have a view on where i'm going wrong and i could benefit then please tell me. Thankyou.
Some excellent replies thanks everyone! Much appreciated! There are lots of posts that have mentioned subjects that i myself have already tried to use to my benefit. For example getting interested in Buddhism, i like the basic premise of trying to 'let go' of all negatives and uncontrollable events and learning to accept but again with this my issue is that what does one choose to accept and what does one choose to accept as unacceptable and therefore act upon? I don't want to become a doormat for the general population if you see what i mean?
This ties in to my point about having issues with many peoples behaviour in society, for example the cinema example i gave. I hate confrontation but i also hate rudeness and somebody else's behaviour impacting on my life (with reasonable cause) and so the incident in the cinema makes me have to make a judgement call, do i accept it as 'just some ignorant idiot' and try and enjoy the film regardless (which, like Martian Tom has said, if you are distracted initially by something that is irritating then it's really hard to accept and continue as if the distracting thing wasn't even there. On top of that,i have burning inside of me the fact that what this 'offending' person is doing IS unacceptable and although it may on the face of it appear to be a trivial example ,i strongly believe that anyone who considers themselves a considerate and decent human being would realise that using a mobile phone in a cinema isn't considerate to others and therefore they need to be held to account.
Look, i'm not the gestapo, there are some people who use their phones before the film kicks in and i'm ok with that and they do then put their phones away during the film so no problems there but the probem of phone use during the film happens every time and with more than one person. This again is another issue, the frequency of bad / inconsiderate behaviour as you go about your daily life. As i have said to friends and family, the events that i find so unacceptable happen many times daily and in many different circumstances. It's not just the odd isolated incident. The way i feel it best to live life without impacting on others is not shared by so, so many and when you are faced with the onslaught of complete morons on a daily basis then it causes so much stress, disillusionment and unhappiness.
This brings me onto recombinantsocks's excellent point about autistic people being unable to understand NT's points of view. I'd not thought of it that way and it's a profoud point actually. That said, i tend to agree with Martian Tom purely because of my own experiences. I have a way of living my life that i feel causes nobody any distress or inconvenience, certainly not intentionally anyway. For example, i have a NT friend who occasionally parks in disabled bays / mother and baby bays in car parks despite not being entitled to much to my disgust and whilst you again might consider this as something to not even get worked up about, i happen to think that it's ignorant and inconsdiderate. He claims it's only for 5 minutes so he can nip in somewhere but in those 5 minutes someone with a genuine requirement for that space may need it.
So we have a situation whereby the NT may not see he's doing anything too wrong whereas i am annoyed about it and i my sense of what is right and wrong overrides my system and i have some issues to sort out then within my own head. Do i castigate him or just tut and say nothing? My points of view and actions are always generally for the greater good and benefit of others and NOT myself - whereas the points of view and actions of, in this case my NT friend were for selfish reasons even though he felt strongly he wasn't causing any real problems.
I went to the cinema one morning actually and saw this young girl park in a disabled bay and get her child out of the car seat and i explained to her that it was actually a disabled spot. She then proceeded to turn her daughter around to face me and then it became instantly clear that the child was obviously disabled. I was mortified! I didn't know where to put my face i was so embarrassed and apologised. She then proceeded to shout at me and get angry. This made me angry then because my actions were actually to stick up for people like her, to make sure that disabled parking bays are not abused by others so she would have space to park her car on another day to be able to get her child out with ease. It may look at though i am an interfering busybody but it's not the case. If it's wrong it's wrong and my points of view are based upon a framework that put others first which is where i am finding i differ from NT's in the main.
Also i hate it when i park at the very back of the car park in acres of space and then when i return to my car someone has parked right next to me and worse still so their door is nearly touching mine and i have to turn into a pencil to access my own car. LOL
I used to have a lot of problems with anger building and lack of assertiveness which i ahev had CBT for but now it's gone the other way now and i spend lots of time OVER - ACCEPTING things which has made me quite passive and apathetic. As though this is how it is, i can't do a damn thing about any of it and i'm just alive and have to navigate my way through it as best i can. I drive along just chuntering to myself "oh, another idiot" before flashing him for the 8th time that i'm letting him out of a junction then when he pulls out he ignores me. Par for the course on the roads. This i HAVE accepted that you can do nothign about.
Anyway, apologies for the novel i've attempted to write but just to say that you have all made some greta points which i can go away and think about and i guess it's more about getting a balance between not being too sensitive to others ignorance and arrogance and deciding when the appropriate occasion is to confront someone if on a minor trangression i could try and ignore it and not be stressed by doing so. Listen, i'm far from perfect. We are all human beings and all make mistakes and do silly things myself included but i know in my heart of hearts that if i was Prime Minister then everything i do would be for others. I wouldn't last 5 minutes though.