Not Sure How To Connect With People When Minor Stuff Makes Me Lose Many Spoons!

[Friday]

Again I'm sorry for wasting people's time. This is stuff I should know how to fix on my own. I mean if 2 year olds can make friends then I should be able to, too!

Actually, most 2 year olds can't/don't make friends, on their own. They're learning to make friends. And it takes a whole lot of teaching, getting bashed in the head with a truck, and screaming tantrums of I HATE YOU!!! before you can really trust any child to go into a group of children without very close adult supervision, and periodically wading in.

Stick a bunch of toddlers together? When they're not fighting like cats and dogs What you'll see is something called "parallel play" & "________ conversation" (crap. I forget the word. It's the same as parallel, but another term :wtf: ). What those 2 things are? Playing side by side, each doing their own thing, NOT playing together or with the same toy... And -often very excitedly- talking to each other about entirely different things. (We went to the zoo! // I like blue shoes! // There were lions & crocodiles & // The ones with Velcro!!! // & tigers & penguins & // that go zwip swoosh! zwip swoosh! // & icecream // Aieeeeeee! I like Icecream! // & we ran all around... The reptile house...oooooooooh. Dark and spooky! // chocolate is yucky! I like pink! // I LOVE pink! Like a flamingo! // Dingos are funny dogs // They're not dogs. They're birds. // I need to potty // & at the crocodiles they had a man with a funny hat // ). If you could turn off the sound? The 2 kids would look like they're actually talking WITH each other, on the same subject, instead of to/at each other on wildly different subjects. Every so often one will actually notice the conversations collide and be on the same topic for a millisecond, but then? Zoom! Off they go back into their own little worlds. Out loud.

^^^^
The point of all this being? When I get really symptomatic I have to effing relearn all that. No childhood trauma/abuse/neglect. The foundation was there. I learned as a kid how to interact with others. I also sorta kinda lost it. Completely. A few times. And really do have to go, step by step, learning how to talk to others. Learning how to play with others. Learning how not to hit someone in the head win a truck. And it really does tend to take a few years. With accompanying tantrums, and puppy-fall-asleep-midstride-exhaustion, and overstimulation, and shite for self control, and... All of it. Am I 2? Nope. Do I act like it? Often. Pisses me off no end, but I also haven't found a way around just having to go out & do it. Parallel play (sitting in a coffee shop, taking a class, buying groceries... Doing my own thing, while others do their own thing), before I can start to play together eith people (and then the overstimulation, and exhaustion, and tantrums), before I can start to make friends (and lose good ones because I treat them badly, and choose bad ones, because I don't have good standards, get), and before I can start learning how to be a good friend, again (and both be a good friend, and have good friends). Developmental milestones, one by one. Effing slowly. Over time.

 

[joeylittle]

Spoons, Stress Cup - same/same. Opposite imagery - spoons deplete, cup overflows - but the concept is parallel. I don't see any reason to linger on worrying if it's wrong.

I like @ladee's suggestion about counting, though. Taking the notion one step further and using it as a kind of metric. I'm going to adopt that one. It's never easy for me to know when I've done 'enough' in a day - even though I know that some days I'm capable of more than others, and that sometimes I don't need to push myself. Counting sounds nice.

 

[Suzetig]

I wonder if what happened in this thread might in some way mirror what happens in real life for you.

I saw you use an analogy that's in reasonably common use amongst people with chronic health conditions to explain what you're struggling with, a couple of people being a bit confused because they hadn't come across it before. When you explained with a link, folk largely got it but you had already gone to a place of "I'm worthless, wasting everyone's time, shouldn't have bothered", which is a really reactive way of interacting and might be about your general level of dysregulation or symptomology at the moment.

I didn't see your thread being rejected so much as people trying to get on the same page. It feels to me like you need people to get there very quickly in terms of connecting with you and don't have much wiggle room if they pick you up wrongly or need to work things out as they go.

I'm not saying this to blame you at all, more to help you think about what's being triggered in you in interactions with others. Because if it happens here, there's a good chance it happens away from here too. I wonder if there's a way for you to check in with yourself, slow down and respond rather than reacting when you think someone hasn't quite got you? Maybe check out what's happening and give yourself, and them the benefit of the doubt?

That in and of itself might save you some energy and leave you a bit less depleted - I can imagine this way of relating to folk would be utterly exhausting.

When you say your last three threads have all been like this, have you posted anonymously in all of them? (Not asking you to out yourself, just wondering)

 

[leelee]

Get a dog, they never reject you and are always happy to see you. A TRUE friend.

 

[leelee]

Lol no, losing spoons doesn't mean losing my shit. Although that would be a funny saying!

Here is t...

Thanks for sharing. Its hard trying not to use all your spoons in one day and worse if you lose them all on one situation/detail your done for the day.I can totally relate. Sometimes I spend all my spoons up, go to sleep exhasted, but always remember...... tomorrow is a new day.

 

[Freedomfighter]

I tried to connect with someone but it didn't work out. I KNOW the issue is them as the rejection was...

Whoa, we have to connect with people every day to get work done, or just to socialize, but we have to realize that people are their own beings. One can not force another to "connect" with them if they do not want to. I have had stalkers try to do that to me for years and years and years.

I am autistic and I have PTSD, I am actually doing the people a favor when I make it clear that I do not want to connect to them. I am actually saving them a lot of pain by making that clear from the getgo.

I find that a lot of people seem to instantly hate someone that does not want to be their friend or partner. And that catches me by surprise, because I can appreciate others without having to be a friend. I can learn from others without that, I seem to have the exact opposite problem from you: there are way too many people who want to connect with me and I always have to fend them off.

Go figure

 

[aut555]

Whoa, we have to connect with people every day to get work done, or just to socialize, but we ha...

Thanks for bringing in a different view on this. Friends are fickle, you can be perfectly normal and get dumped for no reason at all, so l think it's great if OP finds a friend that really cares. Maybe try some support groups in your area where everyone is dealing with spoons and life and you may find a great friend!

 

[anonymous]

Whoa, we have to connect with people every day to get work done, or just to socialize, but we ha...

I'm sorry but you completely misunderstand and I have a feeling that autism coupled with your life experiences means that you cannot understand where I am coming from.

This person indicated a true desire to connect with me and then disappeared without another word. I'm not a crazy psycho stalker and I resent any implication that I am FORCING people to connect with me.

It is clear that we have different definitions of connection. According to your definition I "connect" with MANY people on a regular basis. People I work with, people at church, people I interact with in public. This is not what I am talking about in this thread. I am talking about a more intimate experience where people get to know me.

I also have a feeling, due to your definition of connection, that we actually have comparable numbers of people trying to connect with us. However your autism & past experiences means you see it as something deeper than it is while my trauma past makes me see it as something insignificant and less than what it is.

I say this as someone who has known someone on the spectrum and has learned about it over the years. I am not trying to say this is definitely how it is, rather this is my perception of what's happening.

 

[anonymous]

Thanks for sharing. Its hard trying not to use all your spoons in one day and worse if you lose them all...

I did that yesterday. Spent way too many spoons and slept all day today. Tomorrow I will start fresh.

 

[anonymous]

Get a dog, they never reject you and are always happy to see you.

I have a dog & You're right. She is always happy to see me. She is a true friend. I just miss human connection though.

 

[anonymous]

I wonder if what happened in this thread might in some way mirror what happens in real life for you.

I...

Yes, you're quite perceptive. What happens is I feel a need to be perfect and if I'm not then I don't think the other person will like me and that's why I tend to walk away so quickly.

This is the message I've gotten over the years, it mainly started around my diagnosis when things started getting bad symptom wise and I pretty much lost all my friends. This pounded into my head that I must be perfect or people won't like me. So now when a flaw pops up or if I get even a hint that someone has a problem with me, I'm outta there like greased lightning.

But what happened in the situation in my first post wasn't like this. I didn't do anything wrong. The other person saw zero symptoms and I made no mistakes. There were no obvious flaws in me that I had exposed. This is why I say it wasn't necessarily about me. But this is also why I reacted so much worse. If I make no mistakes and am still rejected, that's a pretty dire situation & outlook. I can't be better than perfect.....and if I'm still rejected when I do nothing wrong......it leaves me with a hopeless outlook. How can I ever be better than perfect? I can't.

Of course this is flawed thinking because I know rationally that people end relationships when the other person did nothing wrong, but I'm just showing where my mind goes in all of this. And I know rationally that no one is perfect or even close to perfect. This is just how I perceive things.

 

[anonymous]

Spoons, Stress Cup - same/same. Opposite imagery - spoons deplete, cup overflows - but the concept...

I see what you mean. Two sides of the same coin but very different in my head, lol.

I see spoons in relation to energy levels and the stress cup in relation to stress. If energy levels are depleted I shut down & hibernate but if the stress cup overflows then I react or have an episode. This is how I see it anyway.