Reacting to change

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How do you react to change? Like, if your routines change, plans that are made suddenly change, etc.

I've noticed that even minor changes stress me out and overwhelm me. Something like having to work an hour earlier will stress me out for the whole day, or the order of things that I do during the day changing will make me worry. If I have something planned and anything about it changes or it gets canceled I also worry about that.

I ask a lot of the same questions to people in my family to make sure that things like plans or routines will stay the same, or if something does change that I can try to prepare for it. I get really bad anxiety if I don't know what's going on or if something is going to change.

I spend a lot of days really overstimulated because despite trying to be prepared things constantly change, and most things are unpredictable. Today was one of those days and it always leaves me exhausted.

As the OP implies, it's certain kinds of change that give us problems - maybe unexpected changes to our routines or to things that we hadn't realised our functioning depended on.

I can certainly get knocked off balance by those kinds of changes. My plans often assume the basic facts and circumstances surrounding the plan will remain static. Too much rigid thinking in a non-rigid world. Then I discover that I'd been depending on something or other staying the same, and for a time I don't know what to do. Once I'm executing a plan, it's hard for me to quickly focus on the overall plan to make changes - my brain is rather locked into the process of following the individual steps one by one.

I've made some progress by becoming aware that things are prone to change, and to some extent I factor that into the planning stage. In particular, if it's got anything to do with other people, I half expect them to throw a spanner into the works. A tradesman says he'll turn up today, but I'm not going to get caught out by seeing that as definite. Somebody's arranged a gathering, and I know it's likely that they'll change the day or the time, or that when I get there I'll find there are people there I wasn't expecting, or people I was expecting won't arrive. If I try to do something online, I half expect that they'll have changed the website since last time I tried. When change doesn't have the element of surprise, it's easier for me to handle. Of course it makes planning more complicated, but at least it doesn't throw me into a complete tailspin.

I don't really have a routine so that sort of change doesn't bother me. In fact I welcome it because too much routine can cause burnout, funnily enough. Sometimes I avoid certain situations if it means coming out of my comfort zone but that isn't the same as disliking change.

The only change I don't like is development, like close family members moving away or having babies, or my favourite stores closing or moving or whatever. Sometimes I just want things like that to stay the same forever.

I like predictable routines.

Once I have figured out how to do something I keep doing it that way. I might tweak the routine when I realize there is a possible improvement...but then that is my new routine.

Yeah, it's like I'm a train and everyone else is a car. I'm steaming along in one direction and there's an obstacle in the path, everyone else can turn and drive around, but I have to slam on the brakes and go through a whole process of surveying the area and building new tracks before I can move past.

I don't handle that kind of change very well. I find that if my schedule is changed without warning for any reason, I will have a meltdown or shutdown later on that day when I get home.

I don't really change the things that I do or the way I do them that often. My day now pretty much follows the same routine, in a specific order + specific times for certain things. Something as simple as having to eat something different than I usually eat, or skipping a "minor" step of the routine, will make the whole rest of my day feel "off" and make me susceptible to being overwhelmed and having shutdowns/meltdowns.

I think one needs to have routines and plans that have been made with this thing in mind: everything won't always go as planned.

This is why I say that routines and plans can be bad. You can't expect everything to go as planned all the time. When your routines and plans are too strict or inflexible then you'll experience problems sooner or later.

The questions is: how to do this?
You need to have more than one option in mind.
Let's say you've watched the weather forecast and it'ssupposed to be sunny outside. You plan for that kind of weather and only for that. Then you wake up and it is a rainy day. You should have planned for rain as well, ie be prepared for it.
Perhaps you cannot take the walk you wanted to.
I know it is a silly example but I think you understand.

Don't trust the weather forecast? They can be wrong even though it is not not that likely.

You might be talking about more serious changes than in my example. I still think you can plan with such changes in mind.
I can be difficult to be aware of what could happen but I am sure there are people who can help you.

All I have said seems to be about what to do before the change(s).


What do you think?