Changes in routine

Post Reply New Topic

How do you react to changes in routine? If I've been playing Xbox for a few hours, and my mom bursts in and tells me to vacuum the entire house, I get pretty pissed.

Another example is that everyday at school I have a schedule, and last week they changed the schedule I've been following for months. I was pretty adamant about the changes, and it was certainty hard for me to go to the new classes.

For me it depends. I get cranky and irritated and I get bitchy.

What do you mean by it was hard to get to the new classes? Did you have a hard time finding them?

That was the case today - I was not best pleased but it hasn't ruined the day.

I get irritated and irritate the hell outta anyone intruding on my freedom. when I can't make a fuss I have to go with the intrusion like say a friend visits unexpected I can't ask him to leave. if mom tells me to clean the house while I am engrossed in something I make a fuss.

I get pretty pissed when my usual routine is changed. Also, if something is planned and it gets changed or cancelled, then I get upset as well.

I remember I had a major anxiety episode when I was 15 when mom forced me to go outside to pull weeds with my brothers and her. I was in the basement sleeping and watching TV when Mom called me and I got irritated because she was interrupting me. She tells me to get dressed and I put on some pants instead under my night shirt and she drags me (not literally) outside and she tells me we are going to pull weeds. I get upset and she takes us out to the garden and there are all these huge weeds and I thought we were going to pull them all so I get even more anxiety. Mom doesn't give in and I get worse and worse Mom had to be on top of me. Then I ran away. I did find out later that day we were not going to be actually pulling all those weeds that day. My mom was like "You thought that?" and I was like "yeah because you said that's what we were doing, you didn't say how many we be pulling and how long we be doing it." I did ask "we are going to pull all these?" and she said "yes." I guess she didn't mean all that day.


Then later that week mom tells us we are all going to be moving boards around for our new house and I get worried because I was worried about having anxiety again but mom tells me it won't happen again and I asked her how does she know and she said last time she didn't tell me we were going to be pulling weeds so I wasn't expecting it so I got upset so that was why I got so upset but this time she told me.

If I know about the change in advance, then I can prepare myself for it and plan a new routine or schedule for me to follow, so the change of routine doesn't bother me too much. However, if the routine is interrupted or changed in little or no advance, then I find it more difficult to deal with. It interferes with my ability to function and upsets me or makes me nervous, because I don't get a chance to prepare myself for it or come up with a new plan/routine/schedule.

For example, if my morning routine is interrupted, for example by someone insisting that we leave the house 10 minutes earlier than we usually do so that we can stop somewhere on the way to work, it messes up my whole routine and makes me feel rushed and I'll function worse than normally, for example forgetting half of the things I needed to do or take with me and I'll feel stressed about this for a couple of hours. Or like happened recently, we invited some people over for lunch and asked them to come at 12:00. They called at 11:30 to say that they would come around 12:30, and then they finally showed up at 13:05. That upset me because it interrupted my cooking routine and I had to deal with constant changes that came with too short notice, which made me nervous, so the whole thing threw me off.

I have to have a very set routine. Where I live we have timetables so that the staff know who goes where and at what time. It isn't foolproof though so sometimes we are late to go out. I have tried explaining that all they need to do is give me a warning ahead of time where possible and then I don't freak out. I am supposed to have a 1 hour meeting with the house manager at 10:00 every Tuesday but I was told AT 10:00 that it was not happening because they suddenly decided to do another meeting. I was really upset and spent the rest of the day locked in my room crying and stimming. The good thing is I have an advocate who is going to shout at the manager for breaking the first rule of my autism: DON'T CHANGE MY ROUTINE WITHOUT WARNING!! !

_________________
I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

I become extremely angry, irritable, and kind of in meltdown mode (though at this point in my life I'm often able to control it manifesting externally and instead just look silently pissed).

I at least blurt out some gargling, unidentifiable noise... and that is the mildest case.

some parts of my routine i am happy to see the end of but the ones i am neutral to or fond of i am always disturbed if not really sad to see the end of and i try to find substitutes that are similar otherwise it feels like my day or week is wrong or unbalanced. i still feel off because about a year ago mash was taken off the air and now i have nothing to cap my day with. it gets to 5:00 and im lost. little things matter too. like getting my bus ticket on the same day at the same time. it's the holidays now but im half tempted to go to uni at the same times just to make myself feel better. i dont even like uni that much.

If someone lets me know beforehand then i am ok however if its last minute change then i get very annoyed as they have disrupted my routine and its difficult for me to recover.