I am tired of accomodating other people

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Joined: 25 Nov 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,138

25 Feb 2014, 5:45 pm

When I was diagnosed with ADHD, it didn't change things for the better. It was hard to get accommodations in school. No one in my family ever cared to understand it. Bringing it up at work only made me a target, and vocational rehab wouldn't help me with finding a job. It seemed like it made things WORSE to be diagnosed, and for years I tried to just put it out of my mind that I ever had a diagnosis.

So I have thought a lot about whether or not it would do any good to be evaluated for autism, or whatever else I might have. What good would it do?

If I thought it would help me to find a better job, something that would be a better fit for me, I would go for it. But I highly doubt that vocational rehab would be any more help now than it was 15 years ago.

Whatever I have, I am high functioning and I am not really looking for anything out of the ordinary, a little understanding from people who supposedly "care" about me would be nice but I have given up on that. My job is stressful, and it takes a lot out of me, but I like the kind of work that I do. There is not much my employer could do to accommodate me.

I am missing out on a lot of things in life, but I am resigning myself to accept that it is what it is, and maybe I am just not meant to have friends, or a partner, or to have any real closeness with my family. It is desolate, but again, how would a different diagnosis change anything?

So today I was thinking what do I WANT to change. I just want people to let me be. I want to do my job, go out shopping, do whatever I have to do in peace without having other people constantly intruding on me and expecting me to be something that I'm NOT. I want to stop putting on this persona every day to be friendly and agreeable and understanding of other people and their BS need for chit chat.

And I realized, I am NOT expecting other people to be accommodating of ME. It is actually the other way around. I am the one accommodating them.

redrobin62
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25 Feb 2014, 5:54 pm

When I was evaluated for autism, and I found out that I am autistic, it brought me some peace of mind. I no longer had to guess about whether or not I am on the spectrum. Did it give me accommodations for work? No. Everything stayed the same. My personal life didn't change. That stayed the same, too. Knowledge is power, though and it gives people strength. I like knowing there's a place to which I belong - Wrong Planet.

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dianthus
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25 Feb 2014, 9:13 pm

Granted the way my brain works is not normal but I have learned to compensate for my deficits the best I can, and something in me just rails against the idea that I should have to say I have a "disorder" when it is other people who do things to cause problems for me.

Like every day in my job, because I am out in public, I have random people coming up to make small talk and chit chat WHILE I AM WORKING and I feel like snapping at them, how would you like for me to come to YOUR place of work and yammer on at you while YOU are working? But the sad thing is that a lot of these people probably would be more than happy to just run their mouths all day instead of working.

Is there really supposed to be something wrong with ME because I find it distracting? But I try to be polite about it, while giving the hint that I'm really busy and don't have time to talk, and I should not even have to explain myself at all anyway. Gee, if NTs are so brilliant at reading body language they should be able to SEE that I'm busy.

1401b
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25 Feb 2014, 9:53 pm

dianthus wrote:

[...]
So today I was thinking what do I WANT to change. I just want people to let me be. I want to do my job, go out shopping, do whatever I have to do in peace without having other people constantly intruding on me and expecting me to be something that I'm NOT. I want to stop putting on this persona every day to be friendly and agreeable and understanding of other people and their BS need for chit chat.

And I realized, I am NOT expecting other people to be accommodating of ME. It is actually the other way around. I am the one accommodating them.

The easiest (and funnest) way to accomplish this it to act like an outrageous and gregarious flaming fag.
Because it's so fun (at least for us, and usually for them) MUCH is forgiven! Now you're seen as an in-touch, self-aware, sophisticated, fun loving person that means no harm by our words or eccentricities.

The only serious problem with this solution is that it can get a guy "Gay Friend-Zoned" right quick with the attractive women that he might have wanted to date.

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(14.01.b) cogito ergo sum confusus

melissajean
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26 Feb 2014, 2:18 am

I like how you say that if NTs are so good at reading others then why can't they understand when we want to be left alone. I encounter this all the time and I really sympathize with you. I constantly grapple with choosing between having friends by being someone I'm not or being myself but being alone. It makes me very upset to know that I can't be accepted as I am, even by my own family. I guess we just have to really enjoy being alone and when we do need companionship then try to seek out other people with AS. The world would be a better place if people didn't focus so much on socializing.

kifotv
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26 Feb 2014, 3:30 am

1401b wrote:

It's sad but it's so true. i think this is a social tool more people should use. It might help in tough situations, and it may assist in combating the gay personality stereotypes.

I don't really understand it. No one gets excited about a persons faith in their heterosexuality, but if I even mention liking guys (which I do, but still), they get all giggly and happy. I hate doing the flaming thing, but sometimes a gay accent is the difference between getting yelled at and getting an apology. So odd...also, people really seem satisfied when they can convince themselves "THEY KNEW IT", like they could read you so well they figured out your orientation (pssh).

EDIT: and on the friend-zone thing, I noticed when I was younger that acting gay around girls parents made them more at ease with me, like they thought I hadn't realized it yet and wasn't going to hungrily devour their daughter, so I got to take them out more/later and it was nice. Now, in mid 20s, it really seems to freak parents out. I don't know about other people, but I never try to ask a stranger out, regardless of how attractive s/he is, that's just a recipe for an awkward, fumbling conversation, so acting gay doesn't really have any general negative effect.

mila_oblong
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04 Mar 2014, 2:09 am

dianthus wrote:

To paraphrase Mr. Garrison (South Park) in the 14th episode of the 3rd season, "The Red Badge of Gayness", : Yeah! Why do we have to betheirb*****s every year? :ncool:

Seriously now, I'm sick and tired of accommodating others (NTs) too. We aren't asking to be paid to do nothing for the rest of our lives while earning a 6 figure income, dammit! Well, I know I'm not, but it's like pulling teeth to try and get understanding from these guys. If you or I or any others like me have to jump through hoops to get to where we want to be or what we need out of life, frankly, I'm going to return the favor. The only difference is is that I'm going to add a little fire to my hoops that the NTs have to jump through if they want to get somewhere with me.

bumble
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04 Mar 2014, 8:14 am

dianthus wrote:

People are inconsiderate and self absorbed. They can clearly see someone is busy and will still interrupt them to chat about nonsense. It's lack of self control or self discipline I think. They are quite frankly just rude.

If it's an emergency or someone is in need of urgent support that is different but half the time its for some irrelevant rubbish that is not in the least bit important at that moment in time.

There is a time and place for general chit chat and it's not whilst some poor soul is trying to concentrate on what they are doing. I may have trouble with some social cues but even I can see when someone is clearly busy and will tend to avoid interrupting them out of consideration until the the time seems more appropriate unless it is really important or somehow related to what they are working on (info they might need to know).

I am loathe to consider myself disordered for the same reasons as you stipulate in the post I quoted. I think of myself as having common sense and being considerate instead.

IKnowWhoIAmNow
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04 Mar 2014, 5:36 pm

dianthus wrote:

I am missing out on a lot of things in life, but I am resigning myself to accept that it is what it is, and maybe I am just not meant to have friends, or a partner, or to have any real closeness with my family. It is desolate, but again, how would a different diagnosis change anything?

It depends on what support is available in your area; I don't just mean medical support but also self-help groups and autism-related charities and so on.

For me, employment rehabilitation was the key; 60% of my recovery and development stemmed (as by-products) from that; the rest, though painful at the time, was ultimately as a result of finding a social hobby with a technical bent to it, so I could meet more people like me, either eccentric NTs or people with varying degrees of AS. YYMV.

All I would say is you may have to make a lot of the running yourself, and there will be setbacks, but "don't give up".

dianthus wrote:

So today I was thinking what do I WANT to change. I just want people to let me be. I want to do my job, go out shopping, do whatever I have to do in peace without having other people constantly intruding on me and expecting me to be something that I'm NOT. I want to stop putting on this persona every day to be friendly and agreeable and understanding of other people and their BS need for chit chat.

This. It really annoys me and I have in the last year or so had to learn not to be so angry with people who do it, for various reasons.

Partly, it is because NTs genuinely cannot understand our needs; it seems impossible for them to comprehend the concept of people who single-task by nature or who differentiate between "important" and "trivial" and who have a sense of priority. My line-manager where I do my volunteering has only just begun to realise that I find multi-tasking difficult, though with practice, I have become better than I was.

The other side of the coin is that Aspies often do it to each other without realising it, though only on important matters; my Mum and I have this problem and forget not to interrupt each other when busy; she has a lot of AS traits and like me, one of them is being somewhat focused on the important matters of the day to the inadvertent exclusion of all else.

It's easy to forget that no matter the importance of something, for Aspies it is very necessary to neatly finish their current activity or get to a safe stopping point before allowing an interruption. In this sense of accommodating people's needs, being implicitly aware of another person's needs is very difficult for us

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