Self-Defeat Part 3: Indecision.

You need to make a very important decision in your life.  You have to decide which job to take, which city to move to, which girl you want to be with.  Life can throw you a lot of opportunities and you have to make the best choice.  So what happens if you're incapable of making the decision?  Either someone else makes it for you, or you don't make the decision at all.  This often leads to self-defeat since you couldn't allow yourself to succeed in making the most responsible decisions for yourself.

I have seen it within myself the most.  I have also seen it within others in my life.  Making decisions should be about yourself since you are in control of yourself more than you are other people.  Others often make decisions that are in their best interest.  Good people don't want to make choices for indecisive people themselves.  That in a way is too much power and responsibility.  This can also often lead to being incapable of making decisions for yourself since you were too focused on others.  There are plenty of people out there that will take advantage of such generosity and won't hesitate in doing so.

Of course, noone likes indecisive people at their whole.  The indecisive people are often those who can't take a stand and will fall for anything.  Indecisive people often allow others to take advantage of them.  So what exactly does this do for you?  Hopefully you have to learn your lesson that making a smart rational decision will show people that you stand for something.  Being indecisive often shows others that you can't make a stand.  Maybe you can't even stand up for yourself and what you believe to be right.

With that being said, no employer is going to wait on you for you to make up your mind.  No family member is going to do that as well.  None of your friends or girlfriends, or special people in your life will ever wait on you to make a decision.  If you want to give in to self-defeat by not being able to make a responsible decision for yourself, feel free to do so.  You will find that life for others will go on without you.

Self Defeat part 2: Just quit while you're ahead.

I did say that sensory issues or meltdowns would be the focus of this entry.  Well, it may or may not be.  It only depends on your actions during a certain scenario.

There comes the moments in life where you have to make a really tough decision about what to do with a loved one, or a friend or a special relationship with a girlfriend/boyfriend.  Everyone strives to end things on good terms with eachother and without hard feelings.  Sometimes it doesn't work that way.  This of course leads to some anger issues and some irresponsible decisions being made based off the emotions we felt around being told "I think it's time we part and go different ways."  Trust me, I have been there and I know I have made some horrible decisions because I didn't want to move on when the other did.  The truth is I should have just stopped and just quit while I was ahead.  Either I or the other person made the decision.  It should be a decision that we stick with.

When you have come to a rational decision about moving on, sometimes the other person will do whatever they can to convince you to change your mind.  It happens.  What also happens is we might have a feeling of empathy in that moment and realize that it's possible we were being too hard on that person when we wanted to move on and we give another chance as well.  This can pay off quite well and a great friendship/relationship can be restored and grow.

On the other hand, there was a reason you needed to leave that person behind.  Let's just say you know you needed to move on because it wasn't beneficial for one of you or both to continue such a friendship.  You have made that decision for the greater good and you need to let it go now and move on.  Someone could say some hurtful things to you and you might be hurt by it.  This is where you need to stop.  There is no need to go back, and there is no need to say anything hurtful right back.  If you do go back or say something nasty in return, the other person usually knows that they have you in the palm of their hands.  They can make you do what they want you to do.  Do you really want this kind of person in your life after all?

In my experience, if you have a friendship that isn't going to be of any benefit to you, or the other, or for the both of you for that matter, it might be time speak up.  If things work out, then good.  If they don't, just walk away without the hard feelings.  Once the hard feelings come into play, you have signalled to the other person that you have lost control.  Now they know not come back to you when they need a friend because they know that you will be bothered by them.

Making rational decisions about your friendships is the smart thing to do.  In your rational thinking, you can observe what the cost of being involved with another person is, and whether the cost is worth it.  Emotional decisions will bother the other person greatly.  This is the reason why you should quit while your ahead.

Part 3 will be about indecision.

Self-defeating behaviours part 1: Understanding Emotions

I have come across the three types of underlying causes to what got me diagnosed with Aspergers in the first place when I was 11 years old.  These underlying causes are Anger, Anxiety and Depression.  Sure there might be some OCD types of behaviours like a desire for routine, but this might just be normal.  Everyone desires routine.  The real problems are the Anger, Anxiety and Depression.

Anger management issues is probably the main cause of improper expression of your feelings.  Easily the biggest problem.  While anxiety does play it's role in it as well, expressing your pain is just the beginning stage of a depressive episode if not dealt with properly.  First let's focus on the anger management problem.

Anger management issues can easily result in a person who doesn't reveal what it is he wants, or doesn't even express their feelings for other people.  Proper display of such feelings often shows a confident person.  Proper display of anger actually helps a person.  Improper display of anger as evidence from a previous blog post will show a person who bottles up their feelings or can't take no for an answer.  This is the big confidence issue.  But what causes someone to bottle up their feelings?  Depends on the person and the situation.  But a person who likely has anger management issues is likely to pick the path of least resistance in arguments and will also likely have problems being taken seriously.

The anger management issues then leads to fear.  A fearful person is just to afraid to move forward and be tested in life.  A person who is afraid can’t succeed or even fail.  There were no tests to be taken.  Fear often leads to broken friendships and relationships and was likely due to the path of least resistance.  When one chooses the path of least resistance, they often convey to other people that they are too afraid to stand up for themselves.  All this started from anger management issues.

Now of course, from all this bottling up your feelings comes sadness and a lot of self-hatred.  A lot of self-abuse took place because it is possible there was no abuse from other people.  There was no abuse because the person being abused didn’t speak up his feelings ahead of time.  That’s the way others are going to see it even if you truly did get abused.  The depression stage often leads to isolation.  It also leads to a lot of anger directed inwards and a loss of faith in one’s self.  This is the stage in which it is obvious to others that you have no respect for anyone since you probably didn’t have respect for yourself.

Part 2 will focus on the Meltdown aspect and the sensory issues.

Possibly the best relationship advice given to NT Female.

Why didn't I think of any of this.  the poster who responds, LeLetch, quite possibly understands the dynamics of relationships better than I do.  And this was an eye opener.  Even look through the forum and you have my answers as well.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5629645.html#5629645

Dealing With Change

Yes, we all like to have things as they are.  Sometimes life is easier that way and it makes us comfortable.  We don’t have to run away from anything and life seems fine.  However, change can happen on a moment’s notice.  How do we adapt to change?  Sometimes change can be stressful as well because we are brought out of our comfort zone and we have to face something unknown to us.  We simply have to deal with it.

Change happens everywhere.  The government could implement a new law that says noone is allowed to smoke anywhere.  Just imagine the panic that will happen for those who are smokers.  Imagine the results of banning tobacco.  I know the government will never allow this to happen here because they would lose a lot of money off the taxes that come from the sales of tobacco.  But can you imagine the widespread panic that smokers now have to stop smoking and deal with this change, even if they aren’t ready to deal with it?

That’s simply the point I am making here.  Change can happen without us being ready for it.  This comes from simpler things in life.  Take loss of employment, loss of a romantic partner or the need to adapt to a change in the dynamics of your workplace environment or relationships.  It is all stressful and we all would like to know ahead of time if we need to plan ahead.  It doesn’t always work that way though.

I’ve had the bombshell dropped on me before that I was going to be unemployed.  I have also left jobs for emotional reasons as well as practical reasons.  These practical decisions were made because I could no longer deal with the environment I was in, or I simply knew it was time to move on.  I just knew that the investment of my time could be better spent at another place of employment.  That is why I leave jobs.  The emotional reasons for it were mostly because I dealt with enough and decided I needed room to breathe.  I could have rested on it for a day or two and then made a decision, but it didn’t work that way at the time.

Sometimes an employer will decide it’s in the best interest of the company (and maybe you as well) that your services are no longer required.  This decision is usually decided without much notice and you now have to deal with the sudden change in your routine that you weren’t ready for yet.  This can be similar to the loss of your romantic partner.  You may not have been prepared for it yet, even though they clearly thought it over and are ready to move on.  You now have to deal with the fact that the person you felt closest to is no longer going to be around and that they likely have decided to be with someone else as well.  These changes usually force you to adapt.

Another common change is in our friendships with other people.  We often have friends that meet new friends and elect to spend more time with that person and they get closer.  We sometimes feel excluded and don’t like the decisions being made.  Yet we are forced to adapt and we go and meet new friends to spend time with or spend more time with other friends we have made.  

I know for myself and other Aspies that we don’t like the sudden change in life.  It often disrupts our routine that we enjoy.  We also don’t deal well with the fact that some of the friends we value are now deciding to give more attention to someone else.  It is possible that I and many other Aspies start overthinking and misapply the knowledge we have and do the wrong thing in these scenarios.  The new friends our good friends make could come and go.  This tends to increase our stress as we have to decide what to do next.  It’s amazing that sometimes in moments of stress, we sometimes don’t even do what is in our best interest.  I believe this works for everyone though, but more often than not, I have found in the past that I don’t deal well with it when the time comes.

The stress of these situations has probably forced me to make decisions based on emotional fight or flight responses rather than taking a time out and sitting back to really rationalize what I am doing.  For some people, prior abuse could be the deciding factor in deciding to do things so suddenly.  This ends up looking like an unforgivable mistake in the eyes of many people I come across regardless of what your intentions are.  People often remember how they felt and will disregard your intentions instead of listening to why.  The key here is to remember that you have to listen to the other person’s side as well.  They will simply not let me back in their life after I make a decision like this.  There isn’t anything that can be done afterwards.

A bad decision will likely result in these friends now treating you like they never met you or knew you.  So my best course of action is treat them the same way.  People don’t believe me when I take responsibility for my actions most of the time.  So it might be wise to end things responsibly rather than wait after a while and then take responsibility.

Ego and Confidence

This is a novel idea that many people may have learned, but how many people actually know this (hint, I alluded to this in the Tale of the Honest man).  Your ego and Confidence are two different things.  But what makes them so different.  I keep hearing the debates on the Wrongplanet.net dating forum that these guys believe that identity and status are important to the partners they attract.  The truth is these guys aren't entirely wrong.  But they focused way too much on the ego portion of things and less on the confidence.  It's easily noticeable that they haven't focused on the confidence because they were too focused on the identity of others.  I am just as guilty and who knows how long it will take before the confidence is where it needs to be in order for me to establish and maintain the healthiest relationships with people.

The truth about your ego is this- it's all about your identity and status.  This is where your insecurity comes into play.  The less status you have, the more insecure you are and the more likely you are excluded from hanging out with people.  Your ego is what drives your reputation.  With your ego comes the selfishness of your behaviour as well.  Those with certain status want to be around those with people of the same status or higher.  People want to be validated and feel valued based off their ego.  It is not to be confused with confidence however.

Confidence truly comes from your emotions and your ability to control it.  It comes from knowing how to express yourself appropriately (time and place, as well as the intensity of the emotion).  The less a person knows about expressing themselves appropriately, the worst their confidence is.  However, it is well known that a person who never expresses their feelings or doesn't handle rejection well is lacking in confidence.  It is the lack of confidence or none at all is where a person is all about ego.  This usually doesn't help in maintaining and establishing relationships.

So of course... a stronger ego is influenced by confidence. The less confident you are, the more fragile your ego. The more confident you are, the more status you attain.

Real morals that could be useful.

Follow up to Aspie Sense of morals.  Go ahead and use this if you want.  I have these written on a piece of paper and attached to my bedroom wall for me to look at and read everyday.

I have to admit, some of those morals don't really make sense to me at all now.  They are just weird rules put in place, and some of the rules didn't necessarily mean fun.  I will apply the new set of morals that should fit my life.  They should go as follows:

1. Be honest with your word- This should be taken into consideration with when you should speak as well.  Sometimes honesty needs to be held back for a more appropriate and sensitive moment.  which leads to the next three rules.
2. Do your best not to take things personally- People always make decisions out of their self-interest.  It's not always because of you or what you are or what you did.  In fact, people may not even be thinking of you at all when they make decisions.  Don't be personal about it.
3. Do your best not to make assumptions- You aren't a mind reader so it is best not to bring up anything to someone without the facts.  Accusations usually offend even if you end up being right.
4. Always do your best- It varies on a daily basis.  Do the best with what you have regardless of your circumstances.  Smart people usually know when another is not doing their best.
5. Don't name drop- When sharing your stories, be careful to exclude obvious details like names, or evidence of who it was.  These kind of stories can come back to you if you are not careful.  Be careful dignifying the stories as well.  Remember honesty and truth are two different things (honesty- emotions, truth- facts)  Use the truth and honesty with respect in mind.
6. Do your best not to complain- A lot of people will have difficulty with this.  Everyone is about self-interest as it is.  But to complain when things don't go your way gives others a reason to avoid you.  Why?  for their own self-interest.
7. Respect your own boundaries- Just because someone might be upset with you doesn't mean you should get upset with them back and look for payback.  This is usually where boundaries a person has set get disrespected.
8. Respect others boundaries- Others may not make it clear what their boundaries are.  If they make it clear, respect them.  If in doubt, consider your own boundaries in a situation.
9. Take care of yourself- Its hard to be compassionate and caring when you don't take care of yourself.  It starts with you and then works its way outwards.
10. Try not to overthink things- It's harder to show empathy this way.  Usually a sign that you need to follow number 9.

The first four rules are based off The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz