Do other Aspergers have trouble letting go?

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I had a very hard time letting go of things recently. I would tend to obsess over things and it would ruin my day. It's a combination of things, really. I have a very low irritability tolerance, explosive anger, and obsessive behavior. Something as small as being interrupted with what I was focused on (a phone call for instance) could just completely ruin my day. My doctor put me on a low dose of medication and now I've been feeling very pleasant and I just don't hold on to those negative feelings as much. But don't let my situation convince you that medication is the answer. The effect is starting to wear thinner each day.

I'm not a religious person (Atheist), but I did read a lot of things on Buddhism and through reading that I've also learned to let things go. I've found that the more compassion I have, the less I hold on to negativity. Believe me, it's not easy at all and I still struggle with it, but it is possible.

Do you also have trouble letting go of people and objects as well? I do and I think there may be a connection to it.

I tend to always replay things through my head which is a problem for me. I recall so many more bad times then good times from over the years and certain memories will randomly pop into my head. I have gotten better over time and try not to hold my harsh grudges after watching how much it has poisoned my mom over the years. To see my mom filled with so much hate and how many times I have seen her go beyond extreme is rather disturbing and I do not want to end up the way she has.

Hrmn, "letting go." :(

Sometimes, things fall out of my hand because I lost my sense of touch for a minute.

I get very attached to objects. Cried for months over the loss of a childhood stuffed aminal.

I can't hold a grudge to save my life. Have an endless wellspring of compassion and forgiveness for others.

Can't forgive myself for pretty much anything, though. Massive permanent guilt issues, even when I've corrected behavior that hurt others.

Learning to laugh in the face of evil is helpful for letting go. A safety valve, if you will. When I was 25, my two friends both went paranoid schizophrenic withing a couple months of each other. they completely lost the ability to let go of any idea, and conspiracy theories ate both of them away until they were institutionalized. I forced myself to learn to laugh at the things I cannot change, with some success. Wasn't easy.

It seems I have more trouble letting go when I can't defend myself. Back in July, I was forced to stop riding a horse I had been working with for over two years. A few months prior, the barn owner changed her position that she had given him to me. She wrote me that if I were so much as to take him off property for one month for training, I'd have to put a deposit of cash on him or buy him outright. Back to July. We had been disagreeing at lot about his training so I really wanted to re-locate to a better situation for us both. I just didn't have the $$$ to buy him and take him with me, so I was forced to leave, without him. I was devastated. Then the fallout.
The barn owner convinced everyone that I abandoned the horse and should be charged with neglect. To this day, she has not admitted that she was really his owner, not me. I actually had to contact an attorney to defend myself from her threats. Because of the situation she created I can not face my accusers and tell my side, to clear my name.
This is proving difficult to live with. I really can't figure out how to deal with this one.
Oh, well. I guess (more) time will tell.

Anyone's emotional flexibility varies according to what one is either obstinate or flexible about. From my own experience at least, I have eventually come to the conclusion that spectrumites can be either more passive/indecisive or more adamant about certain things than other people. This may also affect our perceptions, not just our decisions.

Last edited by petitesouris on 23 Nov 2011, 1:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

that's probably the reason why we can never leave this site...

I hold grudges for a very very long time. I still don't get on with my brother and barely speak to him because of how he treated me when we were kids / teens.

I file every nasty experience away in my mind and go over it and I will sometimes do my best to get back at that person or persons responsible in the harshest way possible. I know that this is bad and so I do my best not to get into situations in which someone may upset me. This results in me taking alot of crap or not biting back when someone baits me, sometimes I can brush it off but most of the time I will seethe over it for weeks and think of several ways to get them back before (99% of the time) deciding they aren't worth the effort or potential backlash.

there are small remarks i let slid, but if it's anything bigger than that - i can hold a grudge for a looooooooong time. i used to go up the stairs in school, first grade, with my elbow on the banister as some kind of ritual or ocd, i don't know, and my b***h of a classmate picked on me because of that. i hate her up to that day and i'm forty five. i sometimes fantasize about meeting her in the street and beating the hell out of her.
i hold grudges from childhood. but if someone hurt me innocently, not deliberately, not because this person is a bully, i forgive immediately.
couldn't let go for a year after the death of my first cat. i was depressed for half a year and felt like i couldn't go on. i went crazy over it, walked like a zombie for months and barely ate a thing or slept. the second one less, because it was so expected. i knew what was coming, i've knowing for a long time.
i can very easily accept being alone, though, dealing with it much better than a NT would. don't know if that counts...

^ a valid point.

I never thought about it in that way, when my grandmother died I mainly felt nothing, there were small instances when I'd be devastated but on the whole I got over it very fast, she died of terminal cancer so it was expected.

My childhood dog died recently, she'd been ill for a couple of weeks, nothing specific but one day she just collapsed and had to be put to sleep. I'm still not over it and often think about her (at least 2/3 times a day) and I'm almost in tears, I dream about her almost every night and the guilt is horrendous. I wonder if it was because it was slightly unexpected because this time last month she was fine, a little off her food but still full of life wheras my grandmother slowly slipped away over a period of months and ultimately was out of her misery at the end.

I have always had trouble letting things go. Things play over and over in my mind, and as another poster here said, things that happened years ago randomly pop into my mind.

On several occasions people have had to point out how bad what just happened was, but if I feel betrayed or disrespected it takes me an insanely long time to get over it.

I have a hard time letting go of anything really. I have a strange tendancy to want to preserve everything I do aswell. I take everything that is said / done to me way too seriously and it messes with my mind a bit.

I try to preserve things like scenarios and events, no matter how miniscule in importance. This often comes out as mild hoarding (I get way too emotionally attached to everything I own, even litter) and if I've had a certain thing to eat and I find it memorable, I will not want to eat that thing for a while after, in order to leave it as it was. Even if this means denying myself some enjoyment. This going for practically everything, from eating to the clothes I wear and places I visit etc.

If someone says a nasty comment to me, such as name calling or other forms of insult, it will keep replaying again and again in my mind and repeating itself. I've always been told I "take things to heart" and I need to lightnen up.

It does get quite problematic though.

I have a big problem with this cause i always feel like people just HAVE to say sorry, people often tell me to just pretend nothing happened and get on with it but i just can't do it cause it won't prevent it from ever happening again.

Does anyone have any tips for helping you let go?

I have majorly big issues with letting go but I find that if I think of all of the bad things the person did to me, it helps me get mad at the person and it helps me let go a lot easier. I just think of what a horrible person they were and basically makes me hate them.