Options and choices

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Does anyone have a problem with making choices? This seems to have happened to me ever since a breakdown... before that I didn't perceive it, though by no means does that objectively mean that my choices were made optimally.

Recently it's become worse, though... I had a small problem choosing between either cocoa or coffee just now, for example. I just don't seem to know what's needed, and my indecisiveness often spirals out of control.

Is this an autistic trait? What about a symptom of depression?

I can have problems making seemingly trivial choices. I can't speak for everyone but for me I have noticed that it started in childhood (or maybe was always there) with having anxiety when making a choice which had some consequence or other e.g. whether I would stay with my mum or dad at the weekend (my parents were divorced when I was young). It stayed like that but then as a young adult I made some very bad choices and it progressed to anxiety about relatively trivial choices like your cocoa or coffee example. I can find something to obsess about in nearly any choice. For that one it might be like this:

I really want a coffee but coffee has a lot of caffeine in and I need to sleep in a couple hours so maybe I should have the hot chocolate. But I really want the coffee! But if I have the hot chocolate it might make me fall asleep and I don't want to go to sleep yet. ANXIETY

I am absolutely horrible at choices

Choices, smoiches.... hate them. I will eat the same thing for months for dinner because I can't decide what to have. I go and spend $100 at the grocery store and get a bunch of stuff that I realize later I won't be able to cook or have the desire to cook. Like this week I got a bunch of stuff that takes forever to cook, homemade soups, baked potatoes, etc. no quick things, so I ate out twice already. Spending money I don't have to make up for poor choices/inability to decide, really sucks.

If I could settle on the perfect diet that gave me 100% nourishment, wasn't hard to prepare and relied on fresh, in-season produce, I'd just make that every day and eat it for the rest of my life. Honestly if I could eat french fries, ice cream, yogurt, fruit and some veggies every day, that's all I'd eat.

I hate making choices. If I can't find a logic to making a decision, I have to rely on someone else. When one thing over the other is not a matter of which is better but which you want...forget it. I'm out.

Yes, absolutely. The degree of difficulty seems to be increased if there's pressure to make a decision quickly, if there's a high number of options, if there's something else already stressing me out, and when other people are involved.

If it's something where I can logically think of and come up with the best choice, then it's fine, but when there isn't a clear best option I'm terrible at them.

I sometimes have a problem, but not as bad as others here. With food, it's more a matter of habit and preference. I have a habit of eating the same meal for every meal until it, or at least some of the ingredients needed to make it, are gone. Then I will pick another meal out of what I have available and do the same thing, and so on, until it's time to go to the store again. I will sometimes make an exception in the summer. If I run out of cold meals, but still have hot meals, I may go out to restock on cold meal foods, as I don't like to eat hot meals when I am hot. However I don't have that problem in the winter, as I will eat either hot or cold meals in the winter.

However, by eating the same thing for each meal until it's gone, I do avoid having to make choices.

Absolutely. I've had an exceptionally difficult time making choices (whether trivial or important) most of my life. If someone asks me what we should eat, what movie to see, where to go, etc. I refuse to answer because it causes so much mental strife. Can't tell you how many times my ex-girlfriend and I had arguments over my uselessness when it came to deciding what to do because she felt it put pressure on her to be exciting and spontaneous when in reality, I had no opinion whatsoever on any of it, ha. This extends to my opinions as well; I can listen to an entire album and then have no clue as to whether I liked it or not...I might be able to say I enjoyed a certain part of a certain song but as far as my overall enjoyment, I feel like there's an empty chasm of indecision. Yay!

I can be indecisive about some trivial things (which can of soup to buy, what to drink on any given day, what to get at the fast food joint-always ending up getting chicken nuggets because it's something I know I like), but can generally force myself to make a decision on important matters.

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."

Learn it and love it.

I'm really bad at making decisions. If I have a choice between buying two different things, I'll compare the pros and cons of each for days! I go through this all the time with parts for my rc cars. There is such a huge selection of electronics, engines and tires that I sometimes feel completely overwhelmed when trying to figure out how to set them up.