"toughing it out" vs accomidating - where to draw the line?

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Last week my mom pulled me away from my usual routine for an hour to do something, and for some unknown reason that time it upset me more then normal (which is really saying something, because I generally get quite upset about routine changes). I begrudgingly went anyway, but to make matters worse my high stress level caused me to have a sensory overload despite there not being much noise. I just survived it without saying anything even though I was internally freaking out, and my mom didn't even know that there was a problem until I mentioned it later that night.

That got me thinking about when we should just "tough it out" and when we should try to get an accommodation of some sort. In retrospect I probably should have said something because the minor inconvenience for them of me not tagging along would have saved me from a lot of anxiety and a sensory overload. On the other hand though, I wouldn't want to really inconvenience people over making an accommodation. Before I learned most of what I know about autism I did more "toughing it out" then I really had to, I even tried to get myself to stop stimming to no avail. I just silently tried to not completely loose it and sometimes it made me super irritable. Lately I have been doing a bit less of that by telling people when there is a problem, but I am still a bit unsure about where to draw the line.

So what do you all think?

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I think there are no easy answers. It's all about balancing your needs with the needs of others.

Hi MikeMan, I don't think this one has a good rule of thumb that would work most of the time. I have to deal with this problem a lot. For example, it's an accommodation for my family to keep certain things in certain places so I can find them quickly as a blind person. Some accommodations are a little too much, like outright asking a friend, who lives far away, to drive me home because the bus stops running early. It's all situational, and I find myself asking people their opinion about what to do.

In the middle is best.
Don't tough it out too much of the time, and don't be accommodated too much of the time.

This was one of my biggest struggles in school and my psychologist gave me great advice.

A autistic person CAN tough through it, absolutely. But... It takes longer for us to than non autistics.

If you go into a new thing and go against your anxiety and stress, you will either burn out or meltdown, which is dangerous to your mental and physical health.

Like one of his patience started a new job and she had to tell her boss that she needs to start with short hours first and then go into longer hours slowly.

Dont be guilty for breaking down, it happens but once you feel better keep trying.

I agree it depends on if it's you alone, or if your in a relationship, have kids etc.

I think toughing things out will only make you stronger if you can do it. I think it's easy to coddle one self and no new ground can ever be gained doing that.

But there is a time for both. Knowing your limits while ever challenging them ever so slightly. Never fully letting yourself go, but not having to be a drill sergeant on yourself either.

I know I am currently losing my wife in part due to my inability to step up at key times and leaving her to figure s**t out. I'm not knocking anyone else, but in my own personal life, to me, that's not a man. I know gender roles/issues are a hot button topic around here so I'm not trying to jackknife the thread here, but that's my own personal opinion about myself when it comes to this sort of thing.

But to me, I hate when I feel like I'm being a b***h, and at times like those, I have been and I'm disgusted with myself personally...

For me it depends on how much it will take out of me to tough it out...which is hard to estimate ahead of time, I can usually guess pretty well from experience but sometimes I just don't really know how bad it will be. It depends on how long it will take me to recover, or how badly it will throw off my day, vs. how important it is for me to go along. Sometimes I can get overstimulated but know I will probably bounce back from it fairly quickly once I get away from the stimulus.

But there is a point where it gets too be too much, like if I feel a headache coming on or start feeling physically ill, or feel a rage attack coming on. That's when I know I have to get away. And I will try not to inconvenience other people, say if I was in a movie theater and just couldn't handle the noise, I would probably just go wait outside rather than have them take me home right away. But I try not to even get in those situations to begin with though. I would rather just opt out than to take the risk. It has to really important if it is going to give me a cluster headache or ruin the rest of my day or maybe even the next day as well.

Varies. Depending on your priorities between needs, limits, and should be's. Gaining flexibility and losing needs requires internal changes and growth by limiting accommodations.


I wish I could describe it, I either lost or reduced most of my ASD-wise needs for accomodation (overall comfort, meds-- tho I never took any psych meds) and that without any "toughing it out"s (coping, tolerating).
And I'm being 'coddled', I'm just challenging myself.

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Some talk about the curse of autism. To me this is the curse because the answer is different in each situation.

I really struggle with this too, in fact it's probably one of the biggest autism-related problems I have. I was trying to put it into words for a blog post the other day, then came on here and read your post, and you managed to put it into better words than I had managed!

The problem is, I have no idea what is acceptable and what isn't. And if I have a difference with someone, eg. my husband, obviously we each think we are right or we wouldn't be disagreeing, but I have no idea whether I am being reasonable or not, whether the difference is because I'm a woman, or I'm autistic, or we're just two people with different opinions. And even if I can work that out (ok, it's an autistic thing) I have no idea whether that affects the situation anyway - does it mean my opinion or wish or need is any more or less valid?

As everyone else has said, the answer is different in every situation, which is why it's so chaotic and troublesome: there is no formula to follow. I know I have some idiosyncrasies that I think are just common sense, and often people try to accommodate them, but I really hate putting people out, but then again, some of them are things that really bother me.

So really, I've just vented for a bit and not really said anything, particularly not anything useful, but no, you're definitely not alone in having this problem identifying what is reasonable and what isn't