Hello

[grommet]

Diagnosed, male, looking for peer support and understanding.

 

[poey]

Welcome grommet,

This is a great group and there are awesome folks here.
Feel free to ask any questions. We're all here to help each other.

-p

 

[wyverary]

Well, hello and welcome! Stick around, and as poey said, we tend to be a nice bunch, and are willing to answer any questions you may have, and of course you provide any input you can/want.

wyv

 

[grommet]

Thank you for the warm welcome. My introduction was rather cold I think. That happens so often for me, I say very little when I am feeling a lot. I really do appreciate the welcome from both of you

It's been a tough day. Good in many ways but when I came home I received a phone call and I was faced with a reality - what actually happens, compared to what I thought would happen. My lack of details about the phone call may be confusing but to sum up, I see the world in a very childlike way and it frightens and upsets me when things are not what I was told they would be. I always stop at Stop signs. I come to a complete stop with no forward inertia remaining in the car. I do it because the sign literally says, stop. I will not go on and on trying to explain myself, I know that can be boring or difficult to read. I will try to sum up.

Everyday I go about believing people will do the right thing and whatever rules that are posted will be followed. But people don't behave that way and I am always confused by it. My phone call today was from a city inspector from an agency I had made a complaint to. He told me that I was correct in "the strictest sense of the code" - those were his words. But he went on to try and find a way to talk me out of continuing my complaint but rather find a compromise. I believe I must follow the rules, whether I like them or not. I think it's the only way so many people can get along. It's fair. The inspector is supposed to enforce the rules but it's not his instinct to do it and he wants me to be like that too. I only understand rules. I can understand equations of compromise and act with them in mind but rules that are absolute are quite clear. My mind only thinks that way and it makes me very lonely when I feel alone in that.

It was a good day at work, I did well and got a lot done. Coming home and having that conversation with the city inspector made me feel lonely and frightened again. It made me feel like I wanted to retreat. The world does not make sense to me, not when people are involved. I know that I must pay the price of an item at a store, it is not negotiable. If I pay less and leave with the item I could be, in the extreme, jailed. But most of the rules I am told to follow seem to have a soft -- they seem to have exceptions that everybody has silently agreed to accept and I don't know how they got that information. I feel alone.

I work with my hands, it's all materials and measurements and the objects never lie. They also don't acquiesce. But once I deal with them in the way they must be, they will respond the same way every time. That is fair. That is right. People terrify me.

 

[Ereth]

Hi! You're right . . . people can be scary sometimes. But I hope AspiesCentral can be a kind of safe haven for you. It has been for me.

 

[Judge]

Thank you for the warm welcome. My introduction was rather cold I think. That happens so often for me, I say very little when I am feeling a lot. I really do appreciate the welcome from both of you

It's been a tough day. Good in many ways but when I came home I received a phone call and I was faced with a reality - what actually happens, compared to what I thought would happen. My lack of details about the phone call may be confusing but to sum up, I see the world in a very childlike way and it frightens and upsets me when things are not what I was told they would be. I always stop at Stop signs. I come to a complete stop with no forward inertia remaining in the car. I do it because the sign literally says, stop. I will not go on and on trying to explain myself, I know that can be boring or difficult to read. I will try to sum up.

Everyday I go about believing people will do the right thing and whatever rules that are posted will be followed. But people don't behave that way and I am always confused by it. My phone call today was from a city inspector from an agency I had made a complaint to. He told me that I was correct in "the strictest sense of the code" - those were his words. But he went on to try and find a way to talk me out of continuing my complaint but rather find a compromise. I believe I must follow the rules, whether I like them or not. I think it's the only way so many people can get along. It's fair. The inspector is supposed to enforce the rules but it's not his instinct to do it and he wants me to be like that too. I only understand rules. I can understand equations of compromise and act with them in mind but rules that are absolute are quite clear. My mind only thinks that way and it makes me very lonely when I feel alone in that.

It was a good day at work, I did well and got a lot done. Coming home and having that conversation with the city inspector made me feel lonely and frightened again. It made me feel like I wanted to retreat. The world does not make sense to me, not when people are involved. I know that I must pay the price of an item at a store, it is not negotiable. If I pay less and leave with the item I could be, in the extreme, jailed. But most of the rules I am told to follow seem to have a soft -- they seem to have exceptions that everybody has silently agreed to accept and I don't know how they got that information. I feel alone.

I work with my hands, it's all materials and measurements and the objects never lie. They also don't acquiesce. But once I deal with them in the way they must be, they will respond the same way every time. That is fair. That is right. People terrify me.

Whew...man I can relate to all that. Brings back some scary memories of being an insurance underwriter. Paid to enforce precise rules, yet also to bend them at times in the name of nebulous business decisions I wasn't always privy to. Yes- the rules always made sense. Bending them...not so much.

Anyways, welcome to AC!

 

[Vanilla]

Welcome

I know exactly what you mean by seeing the world through the eyes of a child, and expecting others to do the same. It was a real eye opener when I had realised that it wasn't just a few odd people here and there that broke the rules, but just about everyone seems to do it.

My mother was terrible for this, and it gave me much anxiety whenever she would encourage me to break the rules. I would root myself to the ground, and refuse to participate, as I knew deep in my heart that it was wrong.

And don't worry, it's natural to approach people a bit protective if you've done it all your life. The difference here is that we're all in the same boat, we all speak the same 'language', and we're here to help and nurture one another.

 

[Kelly]

Hello and welcome to AC

 

[MoCoffee]

Welcome to aspiescentral Grommet. I too can relate to your need to follow rules. The office I worked at for almost 20 years was really bad for making rules, and then expecting me to know when to suspend them. It was a nightmare. You will fit in here just fine, and I'm glad you found us.

 

[grommet]

Feeling better today. Talked with my gf last night for a long time. She said that people see things differently and for some people they see the rules as flexible. She calmed me down a lot.

I do feel welcome here and I appreciate the responses. To MoCoffee, I have had that experience many times in different jobs and it was painful. Rules would be announced, made clear. Then large groups of people would immediately ignore them. The bosses seemed happy, no complaints. I followed the rules exactly as they were given to me and was an outcast for it. I could not understand being told to do something but not being supposed to do it. I also never understood how everyone else seem to know as a group what mattered and didn't. I didn't see them talking about it or sending emails but they all seemed to psychically pass the information along. Of course that wasn't the means but I couldn't explain to myself how they all knew the same thing at the same time.

Years ago I applied for a job, it was controlling access to a government headquarters for an agency. I was told that everyone no matter what, had to provide photo identification and to turn away anyone who could not provide and to call in our law enforcement if I had any doubt. Except if it was the supervisors wife. I should just let her in. The latter was told to me unofficially - to use the expression, "off the cuff". I explained that I would have to follow the rules and could not do that. They said there'd be trouble if I applied the rules to her and I was told that I probably wouldn't work out in the position. It made me sad and bewildered. The rules were so clearly explained and I was told with urgency to follow them even getting a scary story of an intruder intending harm managing to get in recently and so the reason for the tighter security and right after that I was told quietly to bend the rules for the supervisor's wife.

I can't bend. I must follow the rules, I ache and cramp if I don't and squirm when others don't. I can deal with anything I can understand but without understanding I am lost. NT's communicate in a way that I cannot fathom. I prefer my ways but they are in steady conflict with the world around me. Maybe that is why so many of us like to work alone.