What stresses you out the most about your autism?

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StillStorm
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07 Jul 2009, 2:35 pm

What stresses me out most is not being able to sort out the jumble of stuff going round my mind, and communicate it with other people in a meaningful way. This for me is such a fundamental limitation in how I can interact and socialise with people, it constantly makes me feel helpless, inadequate, even handicapped. It totally stresses me out. It makes me feel inhibited, and that other people must think I'm unfriendly, aloof or completely spaced out - when in fact I'm desperately wanting to connect with them, just not being able to formulate the words necessary to do so.



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07 Jul 2009, 4:48 pm

I think that my attempts to communicate have always been a source of stress for me. My thoughts and my speech seem to get quite jumbled while I'm searching for the right words to say. But the words seem so often to turn back on themselves and then, invariably, either the conversation sputters to an end or the brain goes blank.


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Mdyar
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07 Jul 2009, 8:04 pm

My everchanging atypical self; it never fails ; after I establish a friendship/ relationship etc. my diverse moods and quirks stand people off in time.
Ive been told "I still dont know you" even after years of being known by others even including my spouse.
The ones that don't are neurodiverse themselves i.e. hi-I.Q. or bi-polar etc. otherwise it's doomed with time.
The best descriptor of me is from an n/t's viewpoint is : outsider



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07 Jul 2009, 8:29 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:
In college, I used to feel bad knowing that I never had the skills to be able to successfully pick someone up from a bar or a club. It's strange that this would bother me because the idea never appealed to me to begin with. Fortunately, though, that's no longer a relevant issue whatsoever, as I am very happily married.


Doesn't seem strange to me. Just because you don't want to do something, doesn't mean you don't want to CAPABLE of doing it. Especially something like that example.. picking up someone who is drunk is generally considered something that's not at all difficult to do, so even if you don't want to pick up drunk girls, seeing guys you know you're much, much smarter than able to do it, while you can't, would be extremely frustrating. (Of course, I'd think that's also part of who you are and why your wife loves you. :-P)



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07 Jul 2009, 9:11 pm

My social ineptitude and my CAPD.


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Homer_Bob
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07 Jul 2009, 9:28 pm

The inability to make friends and the lack of being able to pick up any social cues and have no understanding of the social world to summarize it up quickly.



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08 Jul 2009, 1:36 am

I often feel so completely detached from everyone around me...and in the rare event that I am able to "connect"..I might get all excited and then make a fool of myself..so the people I attempt to connect with think I am scary or annoying...but of course really I can't tell what they think...I just have a vague impression to attempt to interpret.
My "Theory of Mind" is so completely rotten..My impulse control is completely rotten...
There are so many things that I should automatically know...but every time I am confronted with certain types of simple problems..I have to work the equations out in my mind over and over again every time..

I alienate people by not properly going through the motions of normal social discourse...when in theory I know better...

I help run a venue...Hundreds of strangers in my house every month...I am the bartender....I feel connected to none of them.
Rule of thumb: If you do not smile, greet and introduce yourself to the travelling bands, they will think you are weird and unpleasant and will generally try to avoid you



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08 Jul 2009, 2:15 am

lack of social skills and the inability to make and keep friends.Picking up and "cluing in" to non-verbal cues is another.


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salamander
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08 Jul 2009, 3:56 am

poopylungstuffing wrote:
Rule of thumb: If you do not smile, greet and introduce yourself to the travelling bands, they will think you are weird and unpleasant and will generally try to avoid you


I really wish someone had told me something like this many years ago. I'm a very bright guy, but I never really put the pieces together until a couple of years ago. :oops: Just wish somebody had explained it to me just like this; would have made life much easier to figure out.



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08 Jul 2009, 7:02 am

The different set of standards that people have for NTs and people on the spectrum. If a young person of society has another NT friend of the same caliber who's had a bad day, she or he will call that friend over the same evening or the next day for tea or coffee. If their non mainstream autistic friend has a bad day, they phone them a week later and the two people go their separate ways. It's just recently happened to me. The musical question that I've been asking myself is, if a punker who's happily living in a UK 70s time warp get too close to a person around their age, who's really into the way that mainstream society works in 2009: Top 40, American Idol and America's Next Top Model. My answer is that though it was a good attempt, I'm not really quite sure, and I did learn something from all this. Though I am open to being a real friend to all types of people with all types of tastes, backgrounds and who have different challenges, that I'm not going to stay friends with everybody that I make a connection with. That's OK, because I now have the free time to get my crafts done, when everybody wants to stay home for the evening. I'm thankful for the two close friends that I do have, who have had the time to get to know me very well, over the past two and a half years, who know that I'm serious when I say I like the 70s, and everything else about me. That one girl might come around, or she might not. I'll take it as it comes. If she joins up with the group again, she can be my going out with the group buddy, but probably not much more. I still love her, and I wish her the best. The liking part just doesn't seem to be replenished, yet on both sides.


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Dianitapilla
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08 Jul 2009, 8:31 am

Feeling lost ALL THE TIME!

Cause I never understand anything. I can find the logics behind a lot of complex things, yet I'm not able to understand simple things like information signs with buses or trains routs (just to come back home) or even routes while cycling. And other thousands of things like this/

OH! understanding how I feel only after weeks of thinking about it.


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08 Jul 2009, 8:46 am

managing my financial life.

-----------------------------------
i work for myself as a contractor and i write computer systems but i am not able to estimate the value of my efforts. i have to decide how much to charge, and clients never suggest a price that they want to pay for my work.
they leave it to me to give them a quote, but i can not fathom what is too little or too much.
i usually quote a price for a job that i think is low, and they usually hire me instantly and happily at that price.
then when i am going home, i wonder whether i ripped myself off.
maybe i could have charged 3 times what i quoted.
i have no one that can advise me of what i should be asking, and i do not know where to find someone to help me.
i think i will charge the same rates far into the future because i am afraid to change my long set rates in case people suddenly do not want to employ me.
i can not keep up with the CPI because i can not increase my rates to match inflation due to my unsureness.
-----------------------------------

in my 20's, i was earning a lot of money and my mother was alive and my father was still thinking well, and they advised me on how and where to put the money i earned.

i decided that i would buy a house because i felt comfortable doing so because my father advised me that it was the right thing. my mother also kept on at me to work hard and get a house.
she used to take 50% of my income insistently (she hounded me for it) to mind for me until i had enough to buy a house and i eventually bought one. then after a few more years, i got another house (the one i live in now) because i was getting bonuses etc from my job because they won big contracts because of my software (i was a normal employee and not a contractor at that time).

then that company was forced to close and my mother died and my father lost his mind (they were married for 59 years) .
my income was halved and my advice and support from my parents was extinguished.

i have saved some more money, but i do not know what to do with it. i have some in the stock market, but i have a hard time deciding when to sell shares because i am so used to having them that i feel i am in danger in some way if i do not have them any more.
i know that is stupid, but i need someone that i trust to give me the courage to do things with large amounts of money.

most of my money (except for the assets) is in a bank account that earns just 3% interest. that is only $700 per month. before the GFC, i was getting $1900 per month in interest and that was a nice addition to my income.

my other house is needing repairs and i do not want to do it but i will because i have to, but i am letting my niece stay there because my sister (her mother) told me to let her stay or she would make sure i did not get any inheritance from my father when he dies.

she pays no rent and if i was more "NT" like (i can not think of any other adjective for it), then i would be able to get maybe $800 per week rent for it.
but as it stands, i am paying the rates and doing all the repairs and getting nothing for it. also the value of the 2 houses i have has reduced because of the GFC.

things are going downhill for me because my father is not thinking well anymore and my mother is gone.

dad may have advised me to sell the other house at the peak price time, and get rid of my niece because it is an absurd arrangement, and he would assure my that my sister has no control over his will. but i can not be sure. if i am not sure, i do not move.

i fear my earlier success will start to go to seed because now i am the only steward of my decisions in life.
--------------
my taxes are a nightmare and i can not be bothered to calculate what i should pay the government. there are about 200 pages i should read that will show me all the rules about what tax structure i am in. am i a sole trader or an enterprise? god knows. there are a couple of hundred pages of rules about both types, and there is about a 50 page guideline i must read just to be able to identify myself as a sole trader or an enterprise.

i am so uninterested in tax laws that i can not spare a moment of my life to read them.

so i pay $18,000 plus 40c for each $1 over $80,000 of what i "think" my annual income is to the government. that is the only simple rule i know for my income range.

i am scared that one day i could be told by the tax office that i owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to them due to compound interest on unpaid taxes. if that happens then i will have to sell the other house, and then i will not know how much of the sale price i should pay to the government in taxes (capital gains tax).

i ignore the whole thing in hope that my life will be over before i get to the point where i have no money.

if i was to lose my jobs i have now, i would not be able to get any new ones because all the ones i have are with companies who heard about me from companies they deal with.

if i tried to break into a clean market, i would not be chosen as an employee because i am not a likeable person. people do not warm to me, they feel cold to me. if they do not like me they will not award me the job.

then i will have to start living off my savings, and if they are taken away by people with lawsuits, then i will be left at the beginning again, but with no mum and dad and no youth on my side.

if it came to that, i would feel like a butterfly in a hurricane without my parents advise.

-----



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08 Jul 2009, 9:08 am

b9 wrote:
managing my financial life.

-----------------------------------
i work for myself as a contractor and i write computer systems but i am not able to estimate the value of my efforts. i have to decide how much to charge, and clients never suggest a price that they want to pay for my work.
they leave it to me to give them a quote, but i can not fathom what is too little or too much.
i usually quote a price for a job that i think is low, and they usually hire me instantly and happily at that price.
then when i am going home, i wonder whether i ripped myself off.
maybe i could have charged 3 times what i quoted.
i have no one that can advise me of what i should be asking, and i do not know where to find someone to help me.
i think i will charge the same rates far into the future because i am afraid to change my long set rates in case people suddenly do not want to employ me.
i can not keep up with the CPI because i can not increase my rates to match inflation due to my unsureness.
-----------------------------------

in my 20's, i was earning a lot of money and my mother was alive and my father was still thinking well, and they advised me on how and where to put the money i earned.

i decided that i would buy a house because i felt comfortable doing so because my father advised me that it was the right thing. my mother also kept on at me to work hard and get a house.
she used to take 50% of my income insistently (she hounded me for it) to mind for me until i had enough to buy a house and i eventually bought one. then after a few more years, i got another house (the one i live in now) because i was getting bonuses etc from my job because they won big contracts because of my software (i was a normal employee and not a contractor at that time).

then that company was forced to close and my mother died and my father lost his mind (they were married for 59 years) .
my income was halved and my advice and support from my parents was extinguished.

i have saved some more money, but i do not know what to do with it. i have some in the stock market, but i have a hard time deciding when to sell shares because i am so used to having them that i feel i am in danger in some way if i do not have them any more.
i know that is stupid, but i need someone that i trust to give me the courage to do things with large amounts of money.

most of my money (except for the assets) is in a bank account that earns just 3% interest. that is only $700 per month. before the GFC, i was getting $1900 per month in interest and that was a nice addition to my income.

my other house is needing repairs and i do not want to do it but i will because i have to, but i am letting my niece stay there because my sister (her mother) told me to let her stay or she would make sure i did not get any inheritance from my father when he dies.

she pays no rent and if i was more "NT" like (i can not think of any other adjective for it), then i would be able to get maybe $800 per week rent for it.
but as it stands, i am paying the rates and doing all the repairs and getting nothing for it. also the value of the 2 houses i have has reduced because of the GFC.

things are going downhill for me because my father is not thinking well anymore and my mother is gone.

dad may have advised me to sell the other house at the peak price time, and get rid of my niece because it is an absurd arrangement, and he would assure my that my sister has no control over his will. but i can not be sure. if i am not sure, i do not move.

i fear my earlier success will start to go to seed because now i am the only steward of my decisions in life.
--------------
my taxes are a nightmare and i can not be bothered to calculate what i should pay the government. there are about 200 pages i should read that will show me all the rules about what tax structure i am in. am i a sole trader or an enterprise? god knows. there are a couple of hundred pages of rules about both types, and there is about a 50 page guideline i must read just to be able to identify myself as a sole trader or an enterprise.

i am so uninterested in tax laws that i can not spare a moment of my life to read them.

so i pay $18,000 plus 40c for each $1 over $80,000 of what i "think" my annual income is to the government. that is the only simple rule i know for my income range.

i am scared that one day i could be told by the tax office that i owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to them due to compound interest on unpaid taxes. if that happens then i will have to sell the other house, and then i will not know how much of the sale price i should pay to the government in taxes (capital gains tax).

i ignore the whole thing in hope that my life will be over before i get to the point where i have no money.

if i was to lose my jobs i have now, i would not be able to get any new ones because all the ones i have are with companies who heard about me from companies they deal with.

if i tried to break into a clean market, i would not be chosen as an employee because i am not a likeable person. people do not warm to me, they feel cold to me. if they do not like me they will not award me the job.

then i will have to start living off my savings, and if they are taken away by people with lawsuits, then i will be left at the beginning again, but with no mum and dad and no youth on my side.

if it came to that, i would feel like a butterfly in a hurricane without my parents advise.

-----


Not so benign topic

And I thought I had problems...... :( :?

Biggest turnoff for me? Living in this crazy NT world.


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08 Jul 2009, 9:57 am

pensieve wrote:
Not understanding what I read (usually scientific).

I suspect this is about having difficulty getting a mental image of what is being said. If I have my information right, ASD folks think in pictures. It seems unrealistic to assume that [b]all[/] ADS folks do, but I have not encountered any ASD folks yet who claim they think in words. I know when I have trouble understanding what someone is saying to me, my problem is that I cannot form a mental image.

I have a lot more trouble understanding people who think in words, than people who think in pictures. I struggle to form a mental image from their descriptions, unless they are intentionally using descriptive language. I discovered recently that I incidentally transmit images to people when I talk to them. I would never have guessed this in 1000 years on my own. I have an online friend who is visually impaired, but very intuitive, practically a mind reader. She was born with only one functioning eye, but at a young age the lense of her functioning eye became infected and had to be removed, and now the left side of her retina is detached. She can see up to 5' with the aid of very thick glasses. She swears to me that she gets mental images of things that she would never have been able to see herself with her eye, in her mind's eye, when I describe things to her. I wonder whether I am not just strange. I wonder if this is more common than we realize in communication between people who are visual.



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08 Jul 2009, 10:25 am

salamander wrote:
Basically, I'm saying that I can't be myself anymore, because myself is what was causing the problem! That's not so good at all. Better for others now that I "get it", but not so good for me since I still don't get what I'm supposed to be.

I don't agree with you. I have felt the way you do, many times, this pressure to change me, and it irritates me that others don't have to turn themselves wrong side out to fit in. They are already what fits, just being their genuine selves. Why should I have to put myself through contortions? I should be able to find acceptance as the real me too. I don't think the problem is all in my court, other than deciding that I don't have time to waste worrying about what others think. I owe no one any apology for the way i was created.

I am also discovering that the older I get, the more impossible it is becoming to continue to be anything other than my genuine self. I was created this way for a reason. I might as well go discover what that reason is and go give myself to it, because it is becoming impossible to be any other way.



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08 Jul 2009, 11:07 am

Age1600 wrote:
pensieve wrote:
Age, I went through the same thing when I was younger.

I'm make myself a list of what stresses me out, lol

Not knowing the meaning to words some people use. I feel like I have to constantly run to a dictionary.
Thinking 'why is that supposed to be funny'?
Not getting maths.
Not understanding what I read (usually scientific).
When I'm out and I want to talk more but find it impossible.
Being at a concert and annoyed by noise and feeling uncomfortable in groups.
People (especially) family not understanding that I'm different to them.
Getting out of bed in the morning.


you didnt understand anything either, my understanding can get as bad as like for example, i wanted some honey so i instantly know from memory everything has to be in same place or its lost in my mind lol, so i try to pour it in that plate in front of me, wont come out i get upset and start headbanging, i need somebody to come over and prompt me to explain that the cap was still on, idk where the heck my brain goes, but i sure would like to find out ha ha, because stuff like that happens all the time, and next time ill go through the same process, my thinking and cognitive reasoning skills are very poor or should i say absent lol because my brain is never where its suppose to be ha ha.

I am trying to understand. Do you simply lack the ability to stop and look around when an approach fails. I might tend to loose my cool when say after the 25'th approach fails to accomplish my goal. Also your head must be constructed differently than mine.