Why can't I listen to other people's advice???

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Sometimes I feel so frustrated, depressed and just plain miserable I feel I need to talk to someone about how I feel. But when I do talk to someone what they do is give me advice on how to stop feeling that way. But instead of listening or thinking of trying it I always end up getting even more upset, usually to the point that I have a huge meltdown. It feels as if my brain is unable to hear and process the "advice-giving" part. Just a few days ago I had this problem when talking to my mother over the phone. Now she says she's afraid to talk to me about things because I'll get upset and what I say will make make her upset. Then she told me that she's worried about my father who is a heavy smoker and is having all kinds of health problems, such as when he got pneumonia last winter. She's afraid that he will die soon and that she will be all alone and she wanted me to move back in with her. That is a difficult choice for me because my parents live in the country where it's too far away from everything and you need a car to get anywhere and I don't drive. But I don't want my mom to be alone, either. Now I feel like I ruined our relationship with each other which was going so well for so long and it was all because I had to talk to her about my negative feelings and couldn't listen to her advice!

A few things come to mind:

There are times when you need to blow off steam, rant and rave, complain about how things are going, but you don't necessarily need advice. I often will talk about problems I am having in order to figure out what I think. Sometimes you just need to talk just to clarify what is going on. But when another person starts to give you advice, it interupts your own processing of the problem. Another person's advice can break your own concentration and prevent you from solving your own problems. The person giving the advice may have the best of intentions and you may even sound like you want advice, but in this particular instance, advice only confuses the issue.

If this is the case for you, it might be helpful to discuss this with your mother and explain that sometimes you are talking in order to explain the problem to yourself. In her defense, it may be hard to avoid giving advice and you may have to learn to gently ask her to stop from time to time.

Another problem is that the advice that works for an NT may be quite impractical for an Aspie. For example, I have a friend who often used to advise me on how I should behave around women I wanted to date. His advice always involved flowers etc. Things that I would feel extremely akward doing. He also frequently tells me I should go on vacations to quaint tourists towns. I have no interest in these things. His advice is focused on things he likes and understands and I think he has no comprehension of the things that work for me.

A third factor depends on how independent you like to be: I do not like being told to follow arbitrary rules. Advice given in certain ways can feel like pushy demands rather than helpful suggestions. The same friend mentioned above once started getting angry with me when after he suggested I buy a car with an automatic transmission, I said I planned to get a manual since I felt I had better control of the car that way. He seemed to take it as a personal affront that I would make my own decision.

Another way to look at the problem is that as useful as some people's advice may be, it can be overwhelming to process it all. Even though the advice, if taken and applied as directed, might prove very helpful, it can be very confusing to take it in and figure out how to apply it to your own specific circumstances. When I am stressed out, I can only deal with a few small bits of advice. If I have to try to remember and process a lot of advice, I just give-up in despair.

Related to the above, another thing to think about is you may be resisting everything to keep from being overwhelmed and to keep some control for your self. My mother has complained since I was a child that I frequently refuse other people's suggestions regardless of how useful they might be. I once was in an improvisational acting class and the teacher made the point that I frequently "said no to the exercise" That is to say whenever another actor would do something to focus the exercise in a particular direction, I would often refused to go along. I discovered that I have a knee-jerk resistance to other people controlling certain things and I will fight going along with them in certain situations.

Some or all of these might apply to you. Or maybe someone else will have a better answer. But I won't give you any advice.

Lars

Neurotypical style advice rarely works for a non-neurotypical brain. We don't think, experience or function the way they do, so solving a problem their way usually doesn't make sense and involves processes we simply can't grok. I see Non-Autistic people giving advice here on WP frequently and just shake my head at how pathetically misguided their attempts are - they just do not understand who they're talking to.

It's as if someone were saying to you "Look, its simple - what you gotta do is grow a pair of wings and just fly over that wall."


WTF? But they're serious. It really does seem that simple and easy to do - to them.

I don't even discuss my problems with people like that anymore. Its useless and endlessly frustrating.

As for moving out to the boonies, if you aren't a socializer, there's really nothing you can do in town that you can't do on the Internet (except get a good pedicure). But would living with your Mom just drive you crazy?

Every time you need to rant, you're welcome to do it, here.