resistance to change? what about a need to change?

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Do you guys think that since most things in AS either manifest in a hyper or hypo sensitivity level, that this could too? For example sensory issues and routines. People can be super sensitive to touch, or need to be touched all the time. They can be really routine oriented or totally disorganized ect. Do you think it could be that way with resistance to change as well? Instead of being really distraught by moving furniture, I reorganized my room in every way possible and then started from the beginning again. Usually changing things 5 or 6 times in a year maybe more. Is that a lot or is that normal? I moved around a lot as a kid growing up (changed schools 14 times) So now when I spend about two years somewhere, I feel the need to leave everything behind and move somewhere new. This is also a trait that runs in my family. After moving for like the fifth time I started to enjoy moving to new places, because I would think that it was like starting over. Like maybe I'll would get it right and finally have friends. I also really started to enjoy moving into a new room. I would get really excited when I first saw my new room. Then I would obsess over every possible way to put my stuff. Anybody else like this?

Last edited by dustintorch on 05 Oct 2009, 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yea, I used to like rearranging my room all the time, I'd even draw up plans in CAD for it.

Not so much any more, though I think that's more a pain thing than anything else.

Yea I don't rearrange my furniture anymore either but I do move every two years. It's almost like a routine to move every couple years and start over.

Tetris with your stuff. Not something I do, but it kinda sounds fun.

Good question. Yes I do think that this trait is there in some degree.

I too love to rearrange a room. I will do so with unconscious abandon until it is perfect. Then I will notice, as if awoken from a trance, that I've spent 3 hours moving furniture about. Certain small-scale change is something I revel in. I enjoy very specific freedoms within well-defined parameters. In this way, I think that I do express a definite need for change.

I'll give you a musical example. I really love experimental and improvisational music. I can appreciate the random noise type stuff, as well as jazz and jam-band style off-the-cuff instrumental explorations. Those are very free and open types of music. So much room for whatever kinds of changes come along. They practically are nothing but change. No singable melody or danceable rhythm? No problem.

In daily life, I am very resistant to change. I like my routines. I like my familiar places and familiar people. I like a predictable world. But of course, it's not a predictable world, and lots of things throw me into fits of anxiety because they deviate from my plans. But that's life isn't it

So yes, I agree. I think AS people do thrive on extremes in this way as well.

I hit both extremes. As much as I like my daily routine to stay the same, I crave radical change every now and then. I suppose once you've done all there is to do in your regular routine, you feel the need to do a new routine to break the boredom.

The same here. I like my daily routine but every few week I need a break from it. A radical break.

Yea I do that too. I love my routines but I do get bored ocassionally. Little things like eating something different for luch will get me really excited.

I do it too... it's funny, in a way, because even if I switch up things majorly, everything, in some way, still remains very routine for me.

I may branch out and decide to try something new for dinner besides the same thing I've ordered the last 20 times I go somewhere... but I still like to sit at the same table, or see a familiar waiter/waitress, or go at the same time when I do so.

I used to move furniture around... and I thought it was a pretty big change... but one day I realized, I just move EVERYTHING from one wall onto another wall, all the way around the room-or as close as I can get it to still resembling basically the same thing, just in a different order. I can move furniture around every single day if I wanted to and it would not bother me one bit as long as everything stays in the same room... but moving in a new piece of furniture? It winds up in the basement for 2 years and I eventually forget about it, because as far as I'm concerned, there just is not a place for it in any room of mine. If it's small, it goes into a closet, lol, where I cannot see it and don't have to somehow make it "fit in" with the rest of the room.

Same if I move... I love moving into a new place... but the rooms all look the same from place to place, lol. Maybe a new set up of the building to get acquainted with, but I know exactly where something is once I make it into the room of which it "belongs".

So I suppose I'm extremely routine... but get bored and try to trick myself into thinking I've done something new... but when I really think about it, it's not all that different. So I do other things, like get my hair cut in random styles from time to time...

I don't really do more than rarely move one or two things. So I guess I'm the opposite of you.

Cross-country trips where I methodically plan out every step of it. Daily routine that you can almost set your watch by.

The more I "change," the more I stay the same.

With things in my house I don't think I really change things to much, but I'm not home much so there isn't alot of time for it. I do have crazy spontaneous ideas to change things once in a while. I decided I should get rid of my old 1 car shed/garage and build a new 2 car garage, so I started to tear down the old one so I could start the new one.. it's been 6 months and only half of the old one is down.

Change in a structured plan bothers me. If we go on a trip or plan to go out somewhere and I have it in my mind that I need to leave at a specific time, or hit a milestone, and something messed it up I get really frustrated and borderline tantrum.

With work, I have a job where I travel the country. I meet with people who can't schedule things more than a few days ahead or else it typically changes. So I stopped scheduling meeting and things, and just kind of draift around and let things happen so I don't have to deal with the frustration. Luckily it works.. If a plane gets delayed or cancelled.. I can get a bit upset..

It does help a lot to just try to avoid plans for me as well... unfortunately, it's hard to stay in that mindset, and I'll find myself making plans in my mind that were never officially made.

I still have to go to my 'office' part of the time and it's amazing how uncomfortable it is sitting at a desk, having to go to meetings, working structured hours.. I used to do that years ago, but I've been free to make my own for so long that I not dislike a desk. I don't know if that's really AS or just a habit that has formed over time. I'm sure there at NT people that also don't like sitting in an office either!

If it's somebody else making/dictating the changes, I hate it as a rule, even if it eventually turns out to be a good change. If I'm making the changes myself, it can be a different matter entirely. I guess the difference is that when I make the changes myself, I know exactly what those changes will be, and I can tailor them to suit me, and time their introduction to cause me the least trouble - and if I get squeamish, I can always cancel the change. Other people simply can't be expected to appreciate the problems they'll give me if they switch my environment around.

Nonetheless I'm still pretty conservative when I contemplate changing things. Life gets boring without some change, but that has to be balanced with my need for things to be reliably fixed down so that the complications of change don't get too much for me. In that sense a certain amount of boredom is probably inevitable. I once changed practically everything in my life in one go, and the result was disastrous. I'd been in a lot of emotional pain anyway, so I had to change something, but I wish I'd taken things a bit more gradually.