The Most Maddening Thing

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To me the most maddening aspect of being Aspy is the "not knowing" that comes with social interaction and place, by which I mean having such tremendous difficulty being able to discern whether what I am feeling/interpreting derives from actuality versus "faulty instrumentation."

I was just on the phone with my wife after literally hours of trying to get through to her all day long---I'm away from home at the moment working at a remote site in Alaska; she's back home in town at work at the local hospital---not on the phone with her 2 full minutes when the guy she's working with just starts talking to her about shipping frozen fish back home to Texas...on and on and on....I finally just said "Apparently he can't see the phone in your hand or else what he's saying is more important than I am right now!" and hung up on her.

This kind of thing has been going on for my entire life, but I've been particularly sensitive to it over the last several years (we've been married for almost 25 years)...and the thing is, I just cannot frikking "tell" whether it's just me and my Aspy tendency to overly expect attention to/from people when I'm talking to them, or whether I just don't "get" that it's really not rude to start talking to other people as if they aren't already talking to someone else, whether it be on the phone or in person. Happens a lot...though most often with my wife...but maybe that's because she's the person I'd be talking to the most anyhow just by default.

Aaarrrggggghhhhhhh

See what I'm getting at? I can't tell whether I'm over-reacting towards her, towards the person doing the interrupting, or whether it's something else. I don't start talking to other people when they are clearly talking with someone else at the moment....nor do I pay any attention at all to other people, even my kids, when they charge in and start talking to me when I'm clearly talking to someone else (unless it's warranted, of course, like "The house is on fire!).

I'm 44 this year and have done, I think, a halfway decent job of "playing" NT games my whole life...but lately I feel like it is getting harder and harder and more and more exhausting...to the point that I'm ready to just say F*ck it all and "slouch" into full blown "This is just how I am, so like it or leave it" in terms of being who/what I want to be at any given moment instead of trying to figure out whether what my "faulty instruments" are telling me is right or wrong at the time--is it an aspy thing this time? or is it just bad behavior on my part? or are they being rude? or are they being normal?

WTFH!! !!

No, I don't think it's faulty instrumentation or you overreacting. I think it is rude of the person talking to someone when they are clearly on the phone. However, I'll sometimes quickly throw in a word or two if I have something to ask/tell someone that the person is on the phone with -- (i.e. if my husband is on the phone with his brother and I wanted to remind his brother to bring a book when he comes over later -- to save another separate phone call afterwards).

I really hate it too when I'm talking to someone and then that person is carrying on a long conversation with someone in the same room on their end. One of my friends does this and I really hate that, so I don't talk to her much on the phone. I find it really annoying...

So, I don't think you're overreacting...

Gnome...

Once my initial tantrum/rage have subsided I tend to think that it's a combination effect....whatever it is/was that set me off would fit the definition of rude/whatever "bad behavior," but in my case my (potential) reaction ends up being way too overmuch compared to the offense itself, or at least it FEELS that way to me.

But...when I don't speak up or act out (never physically or violently) I end up being resentful and harboring feelings of having been belittled/blown off. I don't know which I dislike more--the conflict that goes with confronting the other person or the self-excoriation that goes with shutting up and "behaving" since I fear what I will say/do in response. So then I've personalized the whole thing, taken it as deliberate "castration" if you will---doesn't matter who it comes from, that's what it seems like is being said/done, a sort of "in your face/you don't matter and whatcha gonna do about it?" thing.

And...when I have responded rather than purely internalize people are usually aghast at my reaction/words. Funny thing is, I personally find my reactions/words much less offensive and threatening to ME than the things that set me off to begin with. That, though, is something that I think comes from people being so accustomed to me being relatively peaceful/quiet/meek, so it is doubly shocking and unsettling to them when I do unload....

Sigh. It's making me crazy....

I work in a call centre with roughly a thousand people, so I get this a lot. People who spend their entire day on the phone and resent interruption seem to think it's absolutely fine to come up to me while *I'm* on a call and, without even bothering to attract attention or say hello, thrust a bit of paper in my face and start chanting "Can you do something with this? I need you to do something with this. Are you going to do something with this? Will something get done about this?" before just throwing the bit of paper at my desk and buggering off in a huff because their sales target is infinitely more important than the instructions I'm receiving from the company's Chief Operations Officer, their manager's manager's manager.

There's nothing aspie about getting angry with this kind of thing, it's just unbelievably rude, inconsiderate and ill-mannered and it drives me up the wall on a daily basis lol.
</rant>

what's happening, IMO is these are little meltdowns. the reaction will seem disproportionate to what caused it. it isn't really - it's your AS all the way. something is overloading you. i have a very very short fuse on the phone with either business oriented phone calls (phone company, asking a store's hours of operation or something) or a call with my mother if something interrupts her attention.

it is absolutely rude, also (to interrupt a phone call). but why it affects you so dramatically could be that it is frustrating to have a thought interrupted abruptly and then try to resume it when the interruption has run its course. phone might be an area of frustration to begin with, and so you are in a tense state ready to erupt if something causes you further stress. you could try explaining to your wife that you need this accommodation: keep calls short, and do not allow interruptions, period.

awhile back someone asked on the NT / AS hotline something like "why do NTs insist on talking to you when you're in a stressful situation like ordering food, trying to find forks and napkins in a lunch line .. " and the NT response was "they wouldn't realize it was stressful." so i think this might be a case like that. an interruption on the phone when we expect someone's full attention is just so much more frustrating for an aspie, other people won't stop doing it unless we say it's really important that they stop.

i completely flip my lid sometimes if during conversation about something that's bothering me, i have to repeat something i've said. it seems completely illogical, but i've realized how incredibly difficult it can be to put together and speak a sentence about my thoughts / feelings and the effort of having to do it twice is a far bigger stress than it would be for an NT. they can't possibly understand that sort of thing if you don't explain. i am becoming pretty good at identifying these sorts of triggers because it's very important that i do - i can be impossible to spend very much time with (therapist said of me once that it was like walking around in a field of land mines).

hope this is helpful. makes sense in my case, and when i identify something so precisely i like to share the info. but i realize your situation might not exactly be the same, or this explanation might not make as much sense to you as it does to me.

hi aleutianrocks,

i can relate to your feelings very much, as i have the same "problem" with my husband. i am the Aspie and he's the NT.
it drives me absolutely nuts when i am talking to him about something that is important to me and he simultanously manages to text on his phone, type into the laptop and fool around with our son.
i just stop talking mid sentence ( like you, hang up the phone, basically ) and carry on doing what i was doing before the conversation.
then he shouts at me to carry on talking and that he is not stupid and capable of multitasking.
it has nothing to do with multitasking, you're not trying to impress a future employer or a neuroscientist, it's simply manners, i feel like yelling at him so many times.
and just like you, i sense that the feeling to just "let rip" and tell everyone to love me or leave me increased tremendously over the last few years.
sometimes i think that the problem is actually not us picking up, whether it is impolite or not, because in the end we do, but to pick it up to late and being unable to nip it in the bud, like a skilled NT would. NTs get into contact with ill mannered people, but they seem to have a radar that warns them in time and neither do they bottle up until they explode, but make their feelings known in a manner that gives the other person ( with the same radar and the same skills ) to adjust their behaviour accordingly.

I will start a thread about NT techniques, which we Aspies will never understand,

Here is a taster:

I was a passenger on a bus, which was just about to leave a stop ( doors closed, indicators on, wheels slightly rolling ),
when a business man with flapping briefcase came dashing down the road and hammered on the doors.
the busdriver had one of his gracious days and reopened the doors and the man got on.
instead of profusely apologizing and thanking the busdriver this man said in a voice, so everybody on the bus could hear him:
"YOU'RE EARLY, MATE!"
No, the bus was not early at all, it was actually slightly late due to road works.
the only reason his comment was made, was to spare himself one of those customary bus driver tirades about people never being on time, him now getting behind schedule, etc. etc.
He nipped the problem in the bud by turning the tables right from the beginning.
AND IT WORKED!
I as an Aspie and a woman, brought up as people pleaser, was confounded!
The busdriver did not say a peep....
And the worst thing of all - the ill mannered idiot won,


I as an Aspie would have first of all realized that the bus was late and the reopening of the doors was an act worthy of a thank you at least if not an apology for being late.
But then again, i as an Aspie probably would have not tried to catch that bus anyway, because i would have died at the thought of all the disapproving stares of the rest of the passengers,

so next time you call your wife you maybe should enquire first thing, whether all the fish had been successfully shipped and
silently hope that freezer truck broke down,

Thanks to everyone who has taken time to reply so far. And Pale Blue...this is surely inappropriate, but I think I love you

I agree that identifying triggers and subsequently doing one's best to moderate exposure and/or response to those same triggers can be terrifically helpful. I think that I have at least a fair handle on most of my triggers....but that doesn't make the aftermath any easier when the trigger is pulled, either because one can't avoid exposure or because one has no control over the particular exposure.

I'm sure that I have been "pure magic" to be with as a spouse over the years....but then again, things surely haven't been any more "magical" for me on my end either, being married to an NT.

My wife and I were actually divorced for a few years, and separated yet again another time...both initiated by me when I said that it wasn't fair to either of us any more to keep going on with the clashing....but that is another story entirely. I have zero doubt how the story would be reacted to here on this forum were I inclined to go into it at some point....same as what went on in my world each time we split: her family/friends said good riddance to bad rubbish when I left, and my family/friends said the same thing, though not to her (difference being the usual NT thing--we Aspies can let "them" be their own thing without commenting to them on how they have failed to meet OUR expectations...but the NT's always gotta let US know exactly how sh***y they think we are....).

As to the situation that I described this evening....I think it's an Aspy thing to pay close attention to people who are communicating with us, respond to those people even if it ends up being point by point...and ALSO to (foolishly, apparently) expect that other people will be paying attention to us when we are communicating with them. "I listened to you and responded to everything you said," is frequently how I feel, "but you haven't responded to any of the points that I've raised, nor did it even seem as though you could possibly have been attending to what I said to begin with!"

I'll shut up now since I'm turning this into a rambling rant....

(But I still think it rude to interrupt others and/or to be the one interrupting others....Aspy or not!

...and Pale Blue....just exactly as you have said regarding how you would have reacted had you been the late boarder....I would have avoided the bus and silently told myself that I deserved to miss it, don't you dare impose upon the others on the bus, etc....and had I gotten on the bus, I would have been extremely apologetic and pacified in demeanor...

"I think it's an Aspy thing to pay close attention to people who are communicating with us, respond to those people even if it ends up being point by point...and ALSO to (foolishly, apparently) expect that other people will be paying attention to us when we are communicating with them. "I listened to you and responded to everything you said," is frequently how I feel, "but you haven't responded to any of the points that I've raised, nor did it even seem as though you could possibly have been attending to what I said to begin with!"

i couldn't put it any better,

this is also the point, when we misinterpret that some questions about our interests are merely rhetorical... it took me YEARS to figure out that my husband is not in the least interested in science, politics or the boring ( in his eyes ) like.
i tried over and over again to find a "hook" to get him interested, but in vain, , all displayed interest in the beginning was just part of a courting ritual i presume, lol.
i just have to let the poor man be, and try hard to keep up to date with the Premier League, to ensure at least some kind of conversation is possible.

btw, it is perfectly permissible to feel romantically inclined towards me for 5 minutes, .