Self-control, impulse control

[onlything]

I had to work this stuff out on my own - simple survival requires it in many cases. I value my independence too much to let myself be limited by dysfunction. If it doesn't work, I work myself to the bone until it starts. Organisation, time management, memory tasks, prioritising, any other things I am so much slower at understanding and implementing - I was able to learn enough of these to manage my life on my own, at least until pandemic happened. It's not easy, but it's doable.

 

[Jumpback]

Struggles with self-control and impulse control are symptoms of executive dysfunction, as most of us know. I’ve had tremendous problems in this area for all of my life.

Do you struggle with impulse control? How so? How do you deal with it? Or do you feel out of control much/all of the time?

I’ve been fortunate to have had a nice family upbringing where there weren’t a lot of drugs around and I’m actually very emotionally even (like not bipolar, don’t have a ‘short-fuse’ temper, etc) and I am not really a thrill seeker and don’t physically act out because, for whatever reason these things don’t occur to me to do, but in what I do do I have very little self-control or impulse control.

Like I am very frustrated with a repeated sequence of events around a certain subject and I have a difficult time not repeatedly talking about it on here. I delete a lot of my own posts later when it starts getting out of control again, because I seem to be unable to control myself in the moment. It’s not like I doubt myself or think that I am wrong, but my brain just doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of ‘enough is enough.’

It’s kind of the same with everything, like I try not to buy potato chips or large amounts of beer because I will eat/drink all of it if it is in front of me and easy to get at.

But I haven’t always had bad eating habits or alcohol issues or smoking issues or drinking too much pop issues, it’s that stress with people (again usually about same subject) gets me started and once I get started in a certain direction, I can’t stop.

It’s like I am more like a train on the tracks going in one direction, where other people are more like nimble cars. If I get going in one direction and build up a head of steam in that direction, I just go in that direction

I guess that if I view personal choice versus societal causes differently than a lot of others because I started life on a very clear and good path, but then other people’s actions seem to cause so much confusion and anxiety that they basically seem to cause me to start going in a different direction. Like I feel like I would not be smoking and drinking without certain events happening, because I was not smoking and drinking before these events happened.

Or, like kind of like whatever holds true of other people about having a good supportive environment without temptations and wrongs to keep people on the right path, is like 5 times more true for me.

 

[Lemming]

Food and TV are things I struggle with a lot. I know what I want to do, logically -> eat healthy food, and focus on projects that are going to make my life better rather than watch TV. But, there I am a lot of evenings demolishing a whole packet of biscuits and binging on a box-set. For me it's mostly to escape from stress and other negative feelings like loneliness.

Useful stuff I have been working on is to make doing the right thing easier to do, so it reduces the amount of motivation I need to do it (as described in "Tiny Habits" by BJ Fogg). In those few moments I'm motivated I've learned a lot more healthy recipes, and I buy healthy snacks so they're always available in my cupboards.

I'm trying to introduce more ways to visualise progress as I find anything with a graph (or even just a number that can go up) super-motivating, but I have to make sure it's dangling in front of my face or that it opens up when I open my laptop, or I'll probably forget about it. I currently have an Excel spreadsheet (I'm so cool!) with a separate tab for each goal / behaviour I want (Eat Well, Learn French, Create a Writing Habit, etc), with columns for all the ways that I could hit that goal that day (e.g. Read a french book, listen to a french podcast). Then I note down what I do each day. For me it's helps to counteract some negative thinking that I can't stick to things, by providing proof of work done and progress made, however small. Plus, it just helps me to keep focussed on my goals every day, else I'd just drift.

 

[Metalhead]

I have a lack of impulse control when it comes to handling my own finances. I eventually signed up for a protected payer service, which turned out to be a lifesaver in my case. Now I always have enough cash to pay all of my bills and have food on my table. Impulse control with finances is much easier when I have a set allowance every week based off my income.

 

[Aspychata]

I dealt with the feeling instead of resorting to the bad behavior. That really helps. l didn't know random silliness would go on year after year in my life. I actually thought people would do more intelligent things. l was completely wrong. Some people aren't about intelligence- it's more they specialize in random stupidity. Who knew?

 

[Jumpback]

I dealt with the feeling instead of resorting to the bad behavior. That really helps. l didn't know random silliness would go on year after year in my life. I actually thought people would do more intelligent things. l was completely wrong. Some people aren't about intelligence- it's more they specialize in random stupidity. Who knew?

The thing is that people really do not think things through. Like people complied with the nazis because complying meant rewards and not complying meant punishments, and once mostly minorities and people searching for equality defeated Russian czars and gained control, they killed off the Russian czars innocent daughters and wealthy people and sometimes like innocents like religious people or anyone who might fail to comply. In things starting with the "white terror" on through to endless other things.

People just are normally interested in their own day to day things, so they just do whatever is in their own best interest without thinking things through

Just like, as a social nincompoop guy, you see men who you know are lying jackasses manipulating women and women actually choosing these guys over you because they don't know who is lying and who isn't (but you know because you are a guy and hear these guys bragging about lying or can just see what is going on more clearly) and you do not know what you are supposed to do and say the wrong things, and things get confusing.

Or like the KKK was basically dead until a 1915 movie made racism cool and the klan membership became massive. Or like my issues with sexual assaults and manipulations by gay men must mean I must be evil or have things repressed or wrong with me because social messages are in one direction, no one stopped and realized that I just am completely clueless and did not understand things...like of course gay men like men and men can be aggressive and commit sexual assaults and almost all minorities commit more crimes than majorities due to social ostrificatiin resulting in them not buying into the system and rebelling and because I am clueless autistic I got took things very literally, it is not a secret issue with repressed things and hate things, but people were invested in the movements of the moment so I am inconvenient and am probably somehow at fault.

Like if being extremely aggressive towards women seems to be a more affective strategy than not being extremely aggressive and playing a "numbers game", this is just going to result in guys being extremely aggressive.

Things always seem to boil down to most people just do not stop and think things through. They just do what is in their own best interest, or what seems to be in their own best interest

Things get weird when you just are not normal. Like I cannot control that I have this drive that the "world exists primarily to be understood" and am going to overthink or over investigate everything and not be able to not say things. Like it's a self control issue, but I am not sure that is such a terrible one. It's just like a different strategy and since being different makes me an automatic outcaste, I need more community support to feel okay with myself and not be ostracized and punished. But then being different or just being unable to follow the herd results in less social support and acceptance and external validation and more consequences and punishments for not really doing anything wrong

So things are weird. Like I feel like people whose executive functions work perfectly just very naturally follow the herd and look out for their own self interests and do whatever seems to be working best and this is how you get mass agreement with the nazis. Whereas my executive functions do not work right and result in all sorts of issues with everything, but not always in a bad way. And it's frustrating when people can't grasp why I can't be normal and just can't very clearly and efficiently look out for my own self interests without ever thinking things through deeply and why I might do certain things or get upset about certain things.

Like most straight guys would just avoid gay men and threaten violence if there was interest shown, but I am interested and sympathetic to the plight of gay men, but then get upset when there are sexual assault and manipulation issues and am treated more like a hate monger than sympathetically because I feel like this is wrong, because being upset goes against the dominate social message.

Like, to me, having a perfectly functioning executive function means you might just do what is expected of you and look out for your own best interests all the time and just do whatever the herd is doing even if it is wrong, because there is little point in going against the grain due to sticks and carrots. But having a different functioning executive functioning set can result in a lot of good things, but they are rarely recognized and not following the herd can be dangerous and result in consequences.

 

[Jumpback]

The thing is that people really do not think things through. Like people complied with the nazis because complying meant rewards and not complying meant punishments, and once mostly minorities and people searching for equality defeated Russian czars and gained control, they killed off the Russian czars innocent daughters and wealthy people and sometimes like innocents like religious people or anyone who might fail to comply. In things starting with the "white terror" on through to endless other things.

People just are normally interested in their own day to day things, so they just do whatever is in their own best interest without thinking things through

Just like, as a social nincompoop guy, you see men who you know are lying jackasses manipulating women and women actually choosing these guys over you because they don't know who is lying and who isn't (but you know because you are a guy and hear these guys bragging about lying or can just see what is going on more clearly) and you do not know what you are supposed to do and say the wrong things, and things get confusing.

Or like the KKK was basically dead until a 1915 movie made racism cool and the klan membership became massive. Or like my issues with sexual assaults and manipulations by gay men must mean I must be evil or have things repressed or wrong with me because social messages are in one direction, no one stopped and realized that I just am completely clueless and did not understand things...like of course gay men like men and men can be aggressive and commit sexual assaults and almost all minorities commit more crimes than majorities due to social ostrificatiin resulting in them not buying into the system and rebelling and because I am clueless autistic I got took things very literally, it is not a secret issue with repressed things and hate things, but people were invested in the movements of the moment so I am inconvenient and am probably somehow at fault.

Like if being extremely aggressive towards women seems to be a more affective strategy than not being extremely aggressive and playing a "numbers game", this is just going to result in guys being extremely aggressive.

Things always seem to boil down to most people just do not stop and think things through. They just do what is in their own best interest, or what seems to be in their own best interest

Things get weird when you just are not normal. Like I cannot control that I have this drive that the "world exists primarily to be understood" and am going to overthink or over investigate everything and not be able to not say things. Like it's a self control issue, but I am not sure that is such a terrible one. It's just like a different strategy and since being different makes me an automatic outcaste, I need more community support to feel okay with myself and not be ostracized and punished. But then being different or just being unable to follow the herd results in less social support and acceptance and external validation and more consequences and punishments for not really doing anything wrong

So things are weird. Like I feel like people whose executive functions work perfectly just very naturally follow the herd and look out for their own self interests and do whatever seems to be working best and this is how you get mass agreement with the nazis. Whereas my executive functions do not work right and result in all sorts of issues with everything, but not always in a bad way. And it's frustrating when people can't grasp why I can't be normal and just can't very clearly and efficiently look out for my own self interests without ever thinking things through deeply and why I might do certain things or get upset about certain things.

Like most straight guys would just avoid gay men and threaten violence if there was interest shown, but I am interested and sympathetic to the plight of gay men, but then get upset when there are sexual assault and manipulation issues and am treated more like a hate monger than sympathetically because I feel like this is wrong, because being upset goes against the dominate social message.

Like, to me, having a perfectly functioning executive function means you might just do what is expected of you and look out for your own best interests all the time and just do whatever the herd is doing even if it is wrong, because there is little point in going against the grain due to sticks and carrots. But having a different functioning executive functioning set can result in a lot of good things, but they are rarely recognized and not following the herd can be dangerous and result in consequences.

Or like maybe autistic women might not grasp games men are playing and get sucked into more ridiculous and terrible things than non autistic women because they just missed the game being played and the lies, then be more upset than normal about all this because they just did not know what the rules of the game were

But maybe autistic women might sometimes be more sympathetic and understanding sometimes....or at least that's how I work

I wish there were more categories to ASD or something. Like I grasp social wrongs and inconsisticies or whatever very well, but then I also get upset when I am trying to do something right and other people are mad at me because I just wasn't doing a normal thing and it resulted in negative consequences which are inconvenient.

Then I get sidetracked into other autistic issues about self control which are hard to control because I am so upset.

Like I just don't know, I feel like having a normal executive function and being normal means one just looks out for their own self interests very clearly and tends to comply, which results in things like mass compliance with the nazis, but being different results in inabilities to comply with being normal in all sorts of ways, both positive and negative