Just go with the flow.

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(I originally posted this to my blog, but I felt like sharing it here as well. Feel free to discuss!)

"Just relax."
"You're over-thinking it."
"Stop analyzing things so much."
"Just go with the flow."

These words have been so commonly said to me throughout my lifetime, and yet they are almost as foreign to me today as they were when I was 5. This is not the same thing as "holding on to old grudges." That takes effort. Over-thinking things takes almost negligible effort on my part, and in many cases, it's enjoyable. I reap an amazing sense of joy out of uncovering things, understanding things, making sense out of things, and finding the patterns in things. The process of putting together the pieces of the puzzle and turning it into a full, complete, whole picture is the definition of exhilaration for me.

This holds true for anything and everything in my world. It's not just puzzles and games. It's all the little nuances of life. All the situations and emotions that fall within my reach have to be tortured by my mental paper shredder before I start painstakingly putting all the slivers back together again in a sorted order.

If putting together the pieces to form the whole is exhilaration, long-lasting puzzles that I just can't quite figure out and understand is pure torment. To be forced to stare at all the little pieces for so long and yet not be able to figure them out, nor just put them in a box, throw them away, and "move on" as others so casually suggest, is like suffering a life of misery and persecution simply because of how I think. I will tell someone else that it's not that simple, and they will say, Why yes, yes it is. So I find the middle ground, and I try to explain that I concede that it could be that easy if my brain were wired like theirs, but mine isn't, which means it's possible, but absolutely nowhere near simple.

"Let bygones be bygones."

This is replaced in my mind with, "Let's understand this so that it doesn't happen again."

I've never really been a person to simply feel through a situation on an emotional level. It's well known among people that know me that I have to work things out in my mind. I'm trying to understand the value in "going with the flow," and thus I'm working to adapt. I have to phrase it that way, because I don't think I can change my way of thinking. The most I can do is try to implement a new tool that will make others around me more understanding. When I try to work things out aloud I run into all sorts of terrible walls and land mines set up by other people around me. They don't want to over-think things. They don't want to look at the nitty-gritty details. I feel sorry for them that they don't, but on the flip side, they feel sorry that I do. It's natural and damned useful at most times to detail out every little last bit. If you've never put together a model plane or car, or put together a detailed puzzle while having to really analyze each piece, then you've never really understood the value in those details, and in a way I pity you. Someone like that gets to live a life that in my mind seems superficial, less stressful, and more "normal" than mine, and that works for them, but I really wish that those same people would stop trying to make me live their lives. Hitting a point of never-ending cognitive dissonance is for all intents and purposes PAINFUL to me, but having it ultimately resolve into understanding is an amazing feeling that never gets felt if one simply "goes with the flow" all the time.

Me too, in spades. Only the other day I tried to fit in and stupidly declared a problem with somebody to be a thing we should put behind us as "an example of clumsy wording." But I have to admit I can't do that. Every time I think of it, I want to re-visit the conversation and find out what they did mean, if they didn't mean what I thought they meant. I want to know why they said it, and a retraction isn't good enough, I want to know the feeling they were trying to convey to me that has been swept under the carpet by their retraction......people retract things when they think they've upset the listener, but to me that's a lie, I want their honest thought in the right words, and I can't rest until I know what they really meant......there's no smoke without fire.

As for going with the flow, I take that as meaning "don't express your own independent wishes, obey the majority." I refuse. My thoughts and feelings are real.

I agree, I have been told things like that my whole life, I have also been told I'm the most analytical person ever and I suppose I am, however I don't know if these sayings help or have the opposite effect. Sometimes I find I fixate on a detail but I'm trying to work on that and develop the ability to refocus faster.

Redacted

Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 6:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, I know what you mean.

When I was younger, probably up until about 13 I was always this way. I remember around 9 saying something like "even when I'm not thinking, I'm THINKING about not thinking", which is true but it would be in response to people telling me to clam down and stop overanalyzing, I was a complete and total spazz and was pretty awful in most social interaction just because I couldn't slow down.

This was also due to ADHD for me, but my process was very much like an Aspie's back then and still is to some extent, but I have less anxiety.

So I don't think I really "outgrew" AS or the traits that I had back then, but for me reducing anxiety improved my social skills A LOT.

I'm not sure why my anxiety lessened w/o meds, because I was on them for years but even afterward I just became mellower, somehow. Killed a decent number amount of brain cells, possibly, but even now I do return to that Aspie mode pretty quickly when I start to go into my little bubble, I become totally systematic, cannot pay enough attention to pick up on social cues, and come off as generally weird, rude, and even "special". Sometimes when I'm by myself I still get caught up in thought loops and I'll get so overwhelmed that I'll start counting in my head, something I've always done.

Luckily this doesn't happen very often but my point is that learning how to get to a very calm place within your own mind and then being able to go to that place when you'e around others (this is NOT easy and takes time) really does help with anxiety and could help many on the spectrum to learn to "go with the flow", at least sometimes.

I have started obsessively re-reading emails because of this. It's like any time it comes up again I need to get back into that moment of feeling, so I re-read it until I'm feeling it again. If someone replies to an email I've sent, or even a post I've made (like this one), I have to re-read those as well. It's not enough just to read the replies. It's as though everything has to be connected to the other or I don't make any connection at all.

I'm just rying to be my more natural self. (whatever that might be) So, needless to say i butt heads with alot of my family members because they just dont get it. I dont fit in to there
"oh your 31 and you arent living up to our good christian standards boy whats wrong with yous"

I'm such riff-raff you know,