Our routines and rules we follow

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I must admit to you that ever since I was a young child, I was - and still am - obsessed with all sorts of rules and routines imposed on me. For example, when I was a child of 4-6 and colored coloring books, I had to (!) use the color that was supposed to be used, according to the instruction. I remember that for a while I didn't have a pink crayon (I got a set containing one when I was maybe 6), and it felt very wrong to me to color something using the red crayon instead. No - it had to (!) be the pink color. Another example was doing things only from a strictly defined date onward. My mother and grandmother always told me that hazelnuts were to be eaten only from the Feast of the Assumption (August 15), and that's exactly how it had to be to me. As a child, I would never even have considered eating a hazelnut before that date.

And you? What about you?

Such self-imposed rules can be helpful to reduce anxiety. However, they can grow to be a sort of prison.

I consider Aspergers to be a neurological variant that is more complex, faster, or more sensitive such that one is almost buried in an avalanche of sensory and cognitive information. Attempting to devise ways to reduce this avalanche can result in rules. However, it can be helpful to develop additional skills such that one does not build a prison of rules.

I do remember doing this quite a bit, especially as a kid, making up rules or routines when it was unclear what I was supposed to do. Or I'd follow the laid out rules exactly. Especially in school. Though I was open to changing the rule when I learned more information.

I have some potential examples but when I wrote them out, I don't know how strong they are so I might try to think more on this topic and if I think of some good examples later I'll make another post.

I'm not sure with me. I find following routines and rituals difficult, due to ADHD. I always have to check dates on refrigeratorated items before consuming, but that's more down to food paranoia (I have severe phobia of getting sick).

My ADD has always been a much larger influence on my life than my late recognized autism. I was a feral child and asked for forgiveness rather than permission for the most part. I appreciate rules implied by immediate logic rather than preset. I don't think I'd do anything if I waited to understand rules.

If rules don't make sense I have little use for them.

wake up whenever I wake up. take minimal nutrition and swallow handful of pills. use toilet. log on. eventually eat supper. log on again. listen to some music, perhaps on YouTube or elsewhere. take night pills and go to sleep. rinse and repeat.

Afternoon tea at 3
Hogan's Heroes at 6

I tend to test rules imposed upon me by others and I hate too much structure, but if I do follow a guideline or instruction I tend to stick to how it was described. I have my own little rituals and ways of doing things and preferred times for doing those things. My main source of routine is fitness and I tend to time food and gym sessions in a particular way and get antsy if I don't get chance to factor it in. Food related routines are a prominent thing for me in general, I tend to crave a particular favourite dish or ingredient for ages at a time until I'm really bored of it. And then crave something else instead for the next few months-years. Or if I'm in specific towns or going into specific shops I'll get and do whatever my usual is for that particular place. I think I like to replicate whatever good day started it? It worked out the first time so why not.

I'm very particular about what I do at the zoo so I generally don't invite other people because I won't willingly accommodate them without becoming a grumpy b***h. I think I'm more rule followy about hobbies and interests, than any other area of life really. I can be rather structureless and aimless otherwise.