The scourge that is Helpful People

Whether its part of my nature, a product of my environment or just something to do with being aspie, I have trouble asking for help.

Mainly, I just don’t feel I need it. Whatever I am attempting to undertake, I am perfectly competent to achieve, or I wouldn’t have started it in the first place. Simple, pragmatic fact.

Except its not a fact.  In what I know is a very aspie way, my view of the world is very black and white. I have trained myself over many years to perceive the almost invisible shades of grey that NTs see in everything.  And I can now, when I try, perceive those shades of grey in most things, but almost never in myself or my own abilities.

After a very long day, I was having trouble using the computer at home; simply selecting the option on a drop-down menu in Word was proving a hell of a challenge but, because I know that I am competent at using Word, when wife started making suggestions and, worse, pointing at the screen and showing me where to click, I verbally lashed out at her. I finished what I was doing and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on to make tea – my classic move of “I’m leaving the room, leave me alone” – and have a bit of quiet time to calm down.

Which would have been great if wife hadn’t then came in and said that when she tried to help it would be nice to have some gratitude.

Cue fight.

Now I’m sure any aspies reading this will understand the problem. Its not about someone helping, its about someone effectively questioning your competency, and trying to “help” where help is not necessary – even when it is!

The fight was brief, and I did explain to wife my frustrations at my own performance and the perceived criticism, but that I did appreciate that she meant well, and so its all sorted out.

Until next time, when virtually the same thing will happen again and we’ll end up having the same fight.

So, I need a solution; how do I convince myself that someone’s offer of help is not about criticism of me or my ability but a genuine offer of assistance with no agenda, particularly when I am rattlin’ (a good colloquialism for on the edge)

For now, I am simply going to watch for these instances and make a note of how often they happen and what my response is, how often it becomes a fight.

I suppose sometimes letting someone must be better as it will keep the peace, and there are days where its better to keep the peace than make a point, right?

 

Opening up: Asperger's & the new job

Its Day 4 of the new job, and while I am still waiting for that diagnosis (see previous blog) I have already made sure that both my line manager and the person I will be working most closely with, one of the office deputies, are aware of my situation.

On day 2 they decided to have a 10 minute chat with me about how it affected me, whether there was anything they could do to help and how it would manifest if there were issues.

I was really happy that it felt like someone was taking an interest without taking a negatively slanted view. Indeed, my line manager said that after she thought about what it meant, we could do with a few more with a touch of Asperger's in this line of work. It felt good :)

So, onto the job itself.  Mainly I am chaecking the structure of a data system and adding information to it under a strict set of guidelines with some complex user-tools.

Which means it suits me down to the ground.

I decided it would be nice to create a quick list of Pros and Cons comparing this job to the last one, and the results were as follows

Cons

• It pays less

Pros

• I don't have to deal with the horrific bitch who ran the last place
• My commute from door to desk is 8 minutes
• I am working in the same location that my wife is undertaking her teacher training and work placement
• My level of responsibility is significantly lower
• I am not responsible for other people
• It is less stressful
• Communication is much more open and honest, so there is very little politicking going on
• There doesn't appear to be any "us" and "them" within the department
• I can park 2 minutes walk from my desk
• There are gym facilities on site that I can use
• There is a library where staff can hire out DVD's. for free :)
• The atmosphere is much more laid back
• I get 4 days more holiday than I got at the old place, and thats at the starting allowance!
• There don't appear to be any periods that I can't book holiday during

OK, I'm only 4 days in and it already looks pretty good!

The other thing that is making me happy today is this: I have discovered that my former workplace have made my position redundant. Why does this make me happy? Because it reinforces my claim that they were trying to force me out, and it would mean that a case for constructive dismissal is more likely to succeed.  Added to that is the fact that they had a round of voluntary redundances a few months ago. I inquired informally about VR and was told that my position was too important to be made redundant, and so i was not eligible.

So, my former boss lied to me, denying me a redundancy payout, then bullied me out of the job and made my role redundant. 

I think i might just be talking to my union rep and possibly my solicitor very shortly.

Topsy turvy world

What a few weeks its been!

I had a meltdown at work. A full-on, screaming,  body-shaking uncontrollable rage meltdown which resulted in me going fully overboard, quitting my job and storming out.  There's more to the story, and it involves me putting a formal complaint in against the head of the department and working out my notice once in was assured that I wouldn't have to work with her.

But it was awful. I have never felt so out of control, so helpless and so frustrated and so ANGRY! I swear that woman deliberately goaded me into the meltdown, just so she could fire me due to my reaction.

Anyway, I left.

So, jobless, panicking, wife starting college, daughters just started school after summer holidays. For someone like me who thrives on routine this was as traumatic as it could have been.

So I work out my notice and on the last day, last Friday, I still did not have a job to go to. Terrified for what the future was going to bring for me and my family I left the workplace almost in tears. I was happy I wouldn't be going back there to work with that bullying, discriminating bitch, but just so worried.

And on Monday I had an interview, which by Tuesday had become a job offer and by next Monday will be back to full time gainful employment.

Awesome!

It just goes to show that sometimes throwing yourself into the abyss of uncertainty can have positive consequences. I have taken myself so far out of my comfort zone by doing this, but I think in the long run it will have positive benefits, not only taking away the stress of working in that place for that woman but just for the experience of having taken a leap of faith and have it work out.

Is there a socially acceptable way to say "your tits look bigger!" and other stangeness

I've fallen into bad habits.

That is to say, I've fallen into my old habits, and am acting like nothing is different (again!). I have to admit its very difficult to reconcile the ASD side of myself with my self-image.  I find it hard to acknowledge that there is something different about me (there definitely isn't anything wrong with me!) when what I am is all I know.

But there are days, like today, when my strangeness is right out there in the open and I just can't escape it.  And when i do, I come running back to blogging like an old friend who will not judge me. Maybe this'll teach me to do it more often again. Who knows? (rhetorical)

Today alone I have had 2 incidents within the space of a few minutes which unbalanced me.  Firstly was when I overheard a conversation about one of the people in work needing to borrow a laptop - a scarce resource at the moment - and being told that we couldn't help. She then realised someone else who she would be working with may have one, and expressed this by saying "Steve might have his laptop, mightn't he?"

My face flushed and my stomach grew taut. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate and had to keep my head down until they left the room. I immediately scuttled over to another colleague and asked "what do you think of the word "mightn't"?". She pondered this for a moment and said "well, its a colloquial use term, but not one I would use myself."

I frowned "so my instinct to throttle her for it is an overreaction?"

"definitely".

 That was an hour ago, and I still don't think it is! MIGHTN'T?!?!?!?!?! There aren't enough swear words in the world to express my distaste.

Shortly after that, I walked past another colleague who is lucky enough to be pregnant again, and I noticed that as well as her swelling belly, her chest is growing. She is fairly flat-chested normally, so its noticeable.

 I wanted to try to find a polite way to mention this, which appears to be an impossibility

 wow, you're really starting to swell now.  Have you had to buy new bras yet?  no, that makes me sound like I am interested in her underwear.

Are your nipples all sensitive? hmm... a definite no.

how many sizes have your boobs incre...just stop.

I found myself stuck in an obsessive loop: I can't not say anything, but there is nothing I can say, and I started getting frantic and panicky, and had to go and talk to the new girl (who is middle aged and sensible) with whom i have developed a decent working  relationship, just to say to her "Can you tell me if there is a polite way of telling a woman "your tits look bigger". I muddled this sentence out all in one, so it was more like

"Imsorryi'mnottryingtobeoffensivebutcanyoutellmeifthereisapolitewayoftellingawoman
"yourtitslookbigger"becauseihavetosayitandmybrainismelting!!!"

she took it in her stride, laughed with me about my dilemma and gave me a few tips on talking about how well my pregnant colleague is blossoming/ blooming/ looking flush with health. All of which will apparently be interpreted as "i can see your bosom expanding."

So I did.

And I am left feeling disappointed as I don't feel I said what i wanted to say, but at the same time the compulsion has left me and I can move on.  I'm glad its over, but it has jst served to remind me that all it takes is 2 minor incidents in quick succession and I am close to my limit.  I need to find a way to cope better.

The Missing head

Its driving me nuts!

I'm a section manager
within a department of a college. The admin section.  I have one of the other
section managers shouting at me that a learner hasn't received a full kit
and is missing a mannequin head.


Yes. A mannequin head

This is something that we give to our students for doing their hairdressing course.

So, cue me checking through the records to see if we have given it to the learner, and he signed for his kit in September. No mention of missing head

2 months later, MY line manager is telling me not to give him one if he's already had it ("you've got to protect my budget"), and the other manager saying he can prove that it never arrived (which he can't) and me stuck in the middle unable to do anything rational to resolve it.

Office politics sucks.

Combined with that is the fact that I am "not flavour of the month" with our system department as my emails "are tantamount to harassment".

What???

Those are pretty strong words.  All I do is email whenever I see an issue that needs resolving, or reply to requests for resolution from the other end.  Occasionally we disagree and I am as polite as I can be when i draft a response.

Now, however, I am such a loose cannon that my boss needs me to run every email I send to them past her to ensure I'm not offending people.  Its getting ridiculous, and on days like this I really wish I could just go back to bed.

I don't understand people!

What I'm hiding from

For a week or so now I have been aware that I'm avoiding writing a blog, I'm avoiding tweeting, and I am avoiding thinking about or addressing "the Aspie Question".

And the reason for it is pretty simple, and pretty sad, really. I don't want to acknowledge that I am Aspie.

There are some days where the knowledge of AS and how it relates to me is a real comfort, as it means there is something that explains the often inexplicable in my life: the odd choices, the strange habits, the behaviour that even I have never been able to justify.

But then there are the other days, where I realise how different I am, how little I understand the people around me, how often I am excluded from conversations in a passive fashion, just because I can't read the body language of others, and I don't react as they understand.  Sometimes I look at it, and think that this is too much of a burden to bear, that if I stop acknowledging it I can continue on with my life as I understood it before someone suggested I might be Aspie.

However, today has stopped me in my tracks because of two incidents, each of which is powerful in their own right and together brought me to tears.

At my work, one of my colleagues has M.S.. I am her line manager, but she is one of the only people who I have told about my AS issues, because I feel she understands what it is to be different but look the same, and I really value her opinion and just to have someone to listen to me who can get it.  To be honest I see her more as a friend than a colleague. A couple of days ago she had a M.S. relapse, and as a result has permanently lost some feeling in her hand, her arm and her leg, and some bladder control.  She told me this, and I was truly sad about it.
 Today, I was spoken to by my boss, who told me that my colleague with M.S. doesn't feel she can talk to me as I gave very little reaction to her news to me about her relapse and her lack of feeling in her hand.  I was appalled! I am really sad for her and sometime give her lifts into work to try to make things easier for her, and am genuinely concerned for her well-being  but to hear her view, apparently all I did was stop typing for a few seconds when she told me, then started typing again.
 When I told my wife about this, she said that's normal for me. the bigger the news, the more emotional, the less likely I am to react to it. I simply sit still and absorb the information. I wasn't really aware of this, but I thought back and realised that she's right. Petty things can get me very animated. Big things stop me dead.

But following on from this, wife said to me that it often appears that I take things too well, and I joked about when our eldest was born by c-section. I was at work and the hospital called me to tell me that I didn't have to worry and that the baby would come today, I just said "OK, call me if the plan changes" at which point the person on the phone said "ah. no. you're maybe being a little too laid back. you need to come to the hospital now!" Wife didn't laugh though. she pointed out that she had thought about that recently, in the light of AS, and realised that this was typical of my reaction. someone said not to worry, so I didn't, but it hadn't even occurred to me that she might feel lonely, or in need of company, sitting lone in a delivery ward awaiting an emergency c-section, which is major surgery when you come right down to it.

And so I sat there, at the dinner table, considering that moment of 5 years ago, realising that not once had I considered how lonely and scared she might have been; how worried for our baby's health. I don't know what I did think, I really don't. but sitting at the table, for the first time, I became tearful thinking about how hard it must be on wife. 2 AS children and an AS husband who is now undertaking a journey of self discovery.  How hard is it on her to hold all this together. how often her needs get put last. how often her desires get overlooked.

And while I deny my Aspie nature I will never change, and I will always be that self-absorbed.  So, my task tonight is threefold:

1 - Read theories on Aspergers and dealing with it by experts, and find things that work for me
2 - Write my blog and remember why I started doing it in the first place as a self-therapy
3 - Acknowledge, and never forget.

Some days its hard, and some days its ok, but its an ever present fact that I need to face

I am Aspie

Stress in the workplace: How do I avoid it?

I find myself caught in a bit of a bind at work, at the moment. My co-workers expect me to do the same job I was doing before I had a month off due to stress and depression, while not seeming to realise that the job I was doing was the reason I had that time off.

So today, when I was asked to return to producing a weekly report rather than the monthly one I had changed to since coming back to work, I said no. Firmly. I even then explained that the repeated report writing was one of the reasons that I had had to take time off: too much expectation on me and too much criticism of the report, which was really only meant to be a tool to allow other people to complete their work. The criticism of the report became "shooting the messenger" and attacking it became more of a focus than dealing with the problems highlighted within it.

So after I made it clear that I wouldn't do it more than once per month, what I got was not a head-on attack but a barrage of sideways, sniping comments criticising me for being intransigent and questioning what use this report was.

To be clear, this data is available to everyone. Anyone could do this, given willingness to devote time to it. It’s not like I am the sole source of the information.

Anyway, I found that I couldn't deal with the passive-aggressive criticism and decided to deal with the situation in the best way I could, by picking up my things and walking out of the room. I fear, however, that this may not have been the best solution. It meant getting chased down the stairs by the deputy head of the department (my mentor) who wouldn't let me just go for a walk and clear my head but made me talk about it. As I didn't have the time to resolve it internally or calm down it means I resorted to a foul-mouthed tirade, threatened to walk out and let out my feelings on the guy who caused me the most grief. I don't think any of this was helpful. Looking back on it, my attempt to defuse myself has made me look unprofessional, childish, resentful, aggressive and unbalanced.
I feel I am letting myself down and don't seem to be able to find a way to fix this.

Finding out that I may have Asperger's has certainly opened my eyes to a lot, including why I react the way I do, but it doesn't always help me control my reactions or judge what is the best course of action in a situation. I can't gauge at the moment whether I did the right thing, but it doesn't feel like I did.

Right now I feel vulnerable and alienated, and I feel that I am being judged on the way I am trying to avoid the stress. I don't really know what I can do.

And as a beautiful irony, the guy who caused me to need to leave the room has just come to me to ask for a different report I promised him (this was no problem) and told me how hard it is to walk a line about firmly stating a position without offending people.

Not knowing is the worst!

In the next 3 days I am seeing a psychologist, and occupational therapist and undertaking an exam on accounts. I am also meant to be undertaking a project for my accounts qualification, but am currently 2 months behind and it is the last thing on my mind.  As well as that I have numerous projects going on at work that I am trying to complete within certain deadlines.

And its all very stressful.  It feels like  my time off for stress has had little or no impact on my work. I still feel under pressure that I am not sure is actually there. 

So tomorrow's psychologist appointment is the first in what I expect will be quite a number of appointments, or just a few strung out over a long period of time, to find out if i am likely to be diagnosed as ASD.

I'd like to say the diagnosis isn't that important to me, but it is. I'm that sort of person. I have to know. I can't just make a self-diagnosis, or have my doctor say "maybe its AS."  I have to know or I will obsess about it forever.  And as it is it is the thing that is on my mind virtually every minute of the day.

Its such an odd feeling, and it does make me anxious that I may have AS. I know there are people who would frown at me for saying that but it does.  Not because of what it is, but because I would have had it for so long without realising, without it being diagnosed, and in a lot of ways it means I don't know myself.  If I knew that I had something that affected my social interactions I would have looked into it and tried to integrate better, rather than assuming that other people have always got it wrong about me and are idiots.  I am open and honest, and very loyal to my friends, but I have damned few of them because I don't come across well on first meeting (except to other people who are similarly unusual, I have found) and this is part of my frustration.

I wish I had known.

But I also have anxiety the other way; that the psychologist is going to say "actually, you're pretty normal. you don't have ASD".  I can't believe it would happen, all things considered, but I can't help worrying about it.  I genuinely don't know what I would do.  I need other people to understand how it is for me. I need acknowledgement that I have these issues. My whole life has been a trial of frustration, loneliness, resentment, outbursts, inexplicable rage stupid, unjustifiable decisions (to any NT person), and as I have got older pretty regular periods of stress and depression as I fail to find a way to cope with my life.

I'm not looking for an excuse, but I do need to find who I am to find how to cope

The agony of work

Anxiety.

Its my constant companion. From the moment I wake up in the morning until I go to sleep at night I am either feeling anxious about something or awaiting the next visit from the anxiety fairy.

It is at its worst when I am at work, and my mode for combating it is to sink into the job itself as much as possible and to shut out the outside factors. However, this is not always possible for two reasons

1. I work in quite a busy office environment which is open-plan and always has at least 4 members of staff
2. I'm the admin manager.

Being the Admin Manager means that I am a destination, and that people want to talk to me and ask me questions. As long as they relate to the process of work, this is fine. I can handle that. But when it comes to gossip and general office chat I am not so good.  There is a lot within conversation that isn't said, so many significant glances, nods of the head and in-jokes that are over my head.

I find it difficult to judge whether people are deliberately talking around me as they don't want me to know something or whether they expect me to be able to interpret this implicit sign language.

I can't.  I just can't.

Dealing with my boss is very difficult as well. While I can interpret most conversations (I think) I find it difficult to deal with her very definitive yet vague statements of "you know what needs to be done. Please sort it out" because I very often don't know what needs to be done, and I hate sitting looking at her blankly, and having to say "no I don't".

I also hate the fact I can't play the office politics games.  NO, scratch that. I hate the office politics games.  I can't bluff, disseminate, use delaying tactics or distract by switching people's attention to another topic. it doesn't work for me and even trying just makes me more anxious.  If I haven't done something I will say so, unlike some of my co-workers who will claim they are "nearly finished", or that it is ongoing.  The worst thing about it is that I am the one who ends up looking bad and ineffective, simply because I have been honest in my appraisal of my own work.

And of course people don't realise that this bothers me because even I'm new to being AS, and I certainly don't expect my co-workers to take it into account. Why would they? It really is my issue to deal with.

Every day I have to remind myself that no-one is doing any of this to deliberately upset me. Every day I try to bury myself in the work and interact as little as I need to. Every day is a struggle, but its a struggle that I feel I am getting on top of as I accept my AS nature.

Calmer now

After my panic this morning that it was going to be a bad day things have significantly improved.  I genuinely think that writing out why i was anxious really helped.  Seeing it written down enabled me to process it better.

I've always been a visual learner. Whenever I study for anything the best way for me to learn, even if i am reading something from a book is to write out the pertinent points. its as if the act of writing alone aids in my understanding of the subject.  When I was younger it seemed that the first time I wrote it down it would commit to long term memory too, as I never really felt the need to do any sort of in-depth study for exams and i would always manage to pass.  this seems to have faded with time, but that's the natural order, i suppose.

There are things i have been saying about how i view the world for years now, and i have always thought it was just idiosyncratic.  For example, I have always said that I can't picture myself in the future. Just can't see it! I can plan, I can diarise and I can prepare for the future but I can't visualise it. I certainly can't picture what i will be doing 5 years from now, how i want my life to be, what job i want to be doing or how I want to be living.  Its just not there and never has been.  Education or career choices have been based on what i think is interesting now, not on some long range strategy.

I really envy people who can get enthused about a job. I would love to be able to, I really would, but it think the only way that would happen is if i could use my skills to create a job role for myself based on something i really enjoy, rather than someone paying me to do something i don't really care about. The problem with that theory is that i don't really have any skills or particular interests that i could do that with.  so i am destined to spend my days doing work for other people.

The fear of anxiety overload

Today's going to be a bad one. I can already feel it.

Wife had car trouble yesterday that I thought I had fixed by charging the battery, but while the dash lights come on, it still won't start.

So my morning began with failure in the rain, and leaving a very stressed wife at home who had slept little because of her anxiety about the car.  all i can think of now is how little use I have been to her in this, how much stress she has in having to deal with three ASD people in the house and how much better she would be if I reduced that number to 2.

I just want to run away. And at this moment in time i think she'd let me.  And now I am in work all my worries about the job are smashing into me as well.

So I am sitting at my desk fighting back the frustration and tears, much like I was 6 weeks ago when I had my collapse that took me out of work for a month.  I'm not sure I can cope with today.

And I am thinking that the reason why I am so stressed now is that I can't cope with wife's stress. It wouldn't be the first time I have felt out of control when she get stressed, and i think its because I am so used to her being calm, measured and reasonable. Anything other than that is a change from the routine and affects me badly.

I think the idea that Aspies can't empathise is definitely a myth. Its just that, like so much else, we don't display that empathy in the same way as NTs. I absolutely empathise with wife, but instead of making sympathetic noises i take the stress on board and end up as anxious as she is.

I'm not sure that's helpful, but as I type it I am analysing and it is actually making me feel better. Maybe just sitting down and rationalising out why i feel the way i feel is exactly what i need.

I need to contemplate this further and come back

Telling the company

My relief at having a framework with which to engage with myself is matched only by my growing dread at what to tell people/ how to deal with it. I know its my issue to deal with and that I shouldn't expect anyone to change for me, but I do want people to know that my sometimes odd, unfriendly or distant way of communicating is not odd, unfriendly or distant by design

Well that's not always true. Distance holds my anxiety at bay and there are some people I simply don't like and don't want to be friendly with. But its mainly true.

Today's task of the day was letting my HR department know (previously i only told my line manager and her deputy), which i have done in in response i have received nothing: no word, no acknowledgement of the email. nothing.  i am really starting to worry that people think i am crazy or hypochondriacal (not sure that's a word. well, it is now and I'm claiming it). I mean, I'm not exactly rain man. I'm not even Sheldon Cooper (who is not Aspie, the creators of the Big Bang Theory are eager to let us know). this is the problem with the public perception of AS being characters from TV and movies who are always over the top, as the normal life of anyone is not interesting enough to put on TV. even "reality TV" has to have some sort of gimmick. lets face it, no-one would pay to watch people go about their normal business.

The current conundrum

See, this is the problem with my tendency to DECIDE. I have DECIDED that I have ASD before I have been diagnosed, although I don't know exactly where on the scale I am.  Asperger's is definitely a possibility  demonstrated by my BAP test results

the problem is that people who have known me for some time have reacted with a sort of polite indifference bordering of incredulity, and while no-one has said it to my face I can see that there are people who simply don't believe me. I shouldn't be surprised. there were plenty of people who didn't believe that there was anything wrong with my eldest who has been diagnosed as severely autistic, including our own doctor.

Its just galling that I am going to have to cope with this while under scrutiny from some people, particularly people in my work, who simply think that I am lying, acting up, playing for attention of simply talking bollocks.

 I've undertaken a number of other indicator diagnosis tests such as the AQ test which is a recommended AS test used diagnostically by professionals for adults (or so I have been told) where I score 43 out of 50. given that the wife scores 5, and that the advice is to talk to someone if you score over 32 I'm going to stick with my self-diagnosis until the NHS catches up (which will likely be in about 18 months time)

I know I have plenty of NT traits otherwise this would have all been picked up years ago. as it is people have merely been aware that I have had certain emotional control issues (put down to hormones in my teens) and have always been a bit of an oddball. certainly my collection of friends never helped with that perception: all RP geeks, little in the way of "normal" behaviour and charisma, all natural outsiders.  so when you are odd but within a group where your behaviour is not considered that unusual, people stop considering that you may be anything other than a little eccentric.

knowing about this years ago could have saved me a lot of emotional trauma

But the fact of the matter is I currently feel uncomfortable at work as I have people around me whom I genuinely feel do not believe me. so what do I do? what can I do? how do you convince someone that you have ASD when they have known you for almost 2 years and you look and act to all intents and purposes normal. I have been regulating my behaviour for years without relating it to ASD at all although given that i had to have a month off with stress obviously not very well.  knowing I'm ASD should make things easier, but what do I do now that I have told my work that this is what is happening with me, i feel if anything that it is making things harder.