Curious: Do we have a right to avoid overloads?

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Actually, he can.

We are not that far away, don't worry about it

FlintsDoorKnob is spot on about desensitising yourself, I'd say that an aspie always has a certain background level of stress, plus certain things that elevate this to the uncomfortable level.

Let's say:

A- = Alone, in a safe place or working on an interest (minimal stress)
A = Background Level of Stress and Anxiety (tolerable)
A+ = Boiling over, high stress / anixety level. (maximum stress)

Now your A things are different from my A things, my A+ things are different from your A+ things. My A+ things are certainly different from what they were 10 years ago and completely unrecognizable from 20 years ago. My A+ reaction hasn't changed a bit though!

Through exposing myself to my A+ things from time to time, they get a little easier. If I was to avoid all my A+ things, then i'd simply transfer some of my A things into A+ things. That would mean that instead of being A+ in large chaotic crowds or at a heights, or presenting to a hundred people or job interviews, I'd possibly feel A+ just leaving the house. Which would not be ideal. I keep things balanced well enough that my levels mean I can be employed and have some semblence of a social life.

Pretty much everyone who has written about surviving and being a successful aspie has made consious efforts to densensitise themselves.

Jason.

Well that sounds like it works for you, I personally have had to more or less desensitize myself to some things.......which now days I can tolerate my sensory problems much better. There are some situations though that I can only handle so much of no matter how much I try to desensitize myself. For instance what I said about feeling like a brain-dead zombie if I am in a wal-mart and similar stores for over 30 minutes. Its not like I'm irritated by that environment but could put up with it....my brain literally starts decreasing functioning and anxiety starts building up. My solution to that is instead of trying to desensitize myself to that I don't spend over 30 minutes in those places, and will seek employment elsewhere since zombies aren't much help.

So I do agree that what you are doing can be very helpful, just not for everything...I don't think repeatedly exposing myself for to long to an environment or stimuli that causes extreme discomfort or decreases my mental functioning in an attempt to desensitize myself to something that is not very important to me, is worth it because I think that would cause more stress for me and not help...so sometimes its better to pick more important battles.

A more important battle for me would be...trying to feel better about myself and building a little confidence so people wont be able to cause me so much pain when they try to harrass me for instance. Also something I've been working on for quite some time is trying not to take things as personally or at least try and think it through before over-reacting. Much more important than being able to shop for hours on end.

Not going to argue about this with you. Here you go. From the ADA website.

>Disability disclosure<


7. Q: When is an employer required to make a reasonable
accommodation?

A: An employer is only required to accommodate a "known"
disability of a qualified applicant or employee. Thus, it is the
employee s responsibility to tell the employer that he or she
needs a reasonable accommodation.

A supermarket is one of my A+ things as it happens, like you I can stand it for around 30 minutes. I have however learned to:

- Shop when it's quieter - Saturday afternoons or late evenings is best.
- Build a shopping routine - I organise my mental shopping list by aisle.
- Wear earphones / sunglasses when I remember.
- Play floor tile games.
- Go alone - people interfering with my bizarre shopping routines is a killer.
- Various routines / rituals for the checkout. - Any excuse to avoid small talk or eye contact with those in the queue.

So even though this is an A+ environment for me, the routine above, actually brings it closer to an A. It's bearable, I don't enjoy it, but I don't avoid it either. Routine trumps anxiety and that is an aspie trait and an effective strategy.

You are spending 30 minutes in there, so that's good. You could so easily avoid them entirely, but that would impact your independence.

Jason.

Nothing here says that a person can't disclose when they're being pushed into something they find difficult or impossible, and ask for accommodations at that point. Once it's disclosed, it's known. And an employee who says so at that point is telling the employer that he or she needs a reasonable accommodation.

Actually, I've been in a situation where I had to disclose something right at the point it became relevant, and I didn't have any trouble getting an accommodation. I actually got sympathy and a free meal, and it wasn't even strictly about a diagnosis. But, whatever. It depends a lot on your employer, not just an overly strict reading of the law itself.

You're arguing my point for me. What you just described is disclosure before the event happens. "When they're being pushed...." is before the event. What I've said all along and above link supports is that if you don't disclose til after an event occurs you can not say that the employer failed to make accommodations. In other words, if you get up on that stage and crap your pants without having disclosed your disability the change of underwear is on you.


PS. Did I tell you I like your kitty?

I have experience of how it can all go horribly wrong if someone doesn't disclose a disability or difficulty before the event. It didn't happen to me, but to someone, I'll call him Bob, who worked in my section for a time when I was a manager.

Briefly, Bob had been taken on as a temporary employee in another section of the large Council department I worked in. As a result of a change in employment law he became a permanent employee, but the temporary post he'd originally applied for ceased to exist. So, he was sent to my Section because we were short-staffed.

Bob had obvious physical disabilities which he had disclosed when he first applied to work for the Council, so he was not to do anything at all physical, such as carrying boxes or whatever. It soon became apparent that he had other difficulties too, but he didn't make them official, and even when I and my job share partner spoke to him about these difficulties he didn't tell us what caused them. So, we informally accommodated him. He really struggled with making or receiving phone calls, so we ensured as best we could that he didn't have to use the phone. At times there were so few of us in the office that he had to answer the phone, so we made up scripts for him to use on those occasions and he would basically acknowledge the call and say that he would pass a message to the appropriate person who would call back as soon as they could. So far, so good.

Then we were told that Bob was to go and work in the Cleansing Complaints Office for a few weeks as they were down to only one member of staff. This was clearly a disaster in the making as the reason they only had one person left was that they spent all day answering the phone and receiving complaints, often verbally abusive, from people whose bins hadn't been emptied. It was a horrible job and staff in that section were regularly off sick with stress.

I and my job share partner spoke to the departmental personnel officer about this, explaining that Bob would not be able to cope. But Bob himself would have had to register with them his reasons for not being able to do that job and he refused to do this.

He lasted less than two hours dealing with those phone calls, before writing a note which said, You can stick your f***ing job up your f****ing arses!" and going home. He was sacked.

I was called to speak at his formal appeal against dismissal and it was at that hearing that Bob revealed for the first time that he was being treated for chronic depression, had been diagnosed with ADD and there was a couple of other diagnoses which I can't remember now, but which were directly relevant.

He didn't reveal any of this to anyone before he succumbed to overload, and by the time he did disclose these diagnoses it was too late. If he had disclosed these issues at any time before actually going to the complaints section then all of that would have been avoided and we would have been able to formalise the accommodations we had already put in place for him.

I read you as saying that you can't ask for accommodations if you didn't disclose earlier or you disclosed at the same time you asked for accommodations. You can even disclose after something like that happens and ask for accommodations (as in, not needing to do that again).



I don't recall you saying so before. That's Miss Kitty Fantastico, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Willow and Tara got the kitten when they were spending a lot of time together (and Willow had possibly moved in, I don't recall) in the 4th season.

Well sometimes I have to go in stores, I just don't feel like pushing my 30 minute limit. But I don't really like shopping anyways so its not like I typically ever need to spend more than that in a store. I go to all the sections I am intrested in see if they have what I need, get distracted a bit when I see other random interesting things buy the crap and leave. As for routines I don't quite fit the typical aspie sterotype I probably could not come up with and stick to a routine if my life depended on it. So I have no routines to trump anxiety with and if anything the thought of trying to create and follow one makes me even more anxious. That is why I could do part time work I mean I can handle adhering for a schedule some of the time but I can't say in what order I do activities in. My shower schedule consists of when I notice my hairs dirty I take a shower. My eating schedule consists of 'am I hungry, no...wait I haven't eaten in two days so I must be, I just am not in the mood but will have to force something down anyways.' So yeah I typically have no idea what to do with myself for most of the time...and it might seem like that allows me a carefree fun time but it doesn't I feel more confused than I would like to most of the time.