is it difficult for you to "let go" of negative experiences?

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Yikes. I'm the OP and in no way when I posted this thread did I intend in any way to have things be so tangential or even off topic. I guess that happens sometimes.

Perhaps I should have been more specific that my post was meant to ask people if they have problems letting go of things that many people do not have a problem letting go of, ergo, things of relatively little consequence relatively speaking. In no way was I asking if anyone had problems "letting go" of crushingly traumatic experiences.

May we correct course?

Richard has been given a 30-day vacation.

Carry on.

Difficult to let go of negative experiences?

Well, I'll just say that while I may forgive my enemies, I will never, ever forget their names.

Since I have trouble with this, I wonder how others manage to let things go.

Yesterday, I got pretty irritated with a judgmental person who disapproved of my son’s ADHD medication. I should have just let it go immediately instead of letting it bother me for awhile on what was, otherwise, a great day.

That is a recurring and popular topic, if you take a look around.

I have the tendency to ruminate negative past events. I keep thinking and thinking about them and if I insist on that for some time, those thoughts overpower me and I react to them angrily as if they were happening right now.

Looping on the negative
has been a constant
my whole life.
A loop for me is
a short, conscious, emotional
but partially involutary,
review of an experience.

Negative experiences
that are strong and personal
will trigger an hour or so
of fast loops,
as in 5 second loops.

More general negativity
slides me into long slow loops,
as in minutes.

Too many negatives
shoved together too closely
will trigger a cascade of
uncontrolled loops
which I refer to
as my headful of bees.

That takes hours subside
and sidelines me.
My accupuncturist
can quiet the bees.

On a bigger scale
perhaps my savant skill
is grudge holding.
A tiring way to feel safe.

Re: Refrigerator Mother, there is a pretty simple resolution to the debate IMHO. If we assume that AS is genetic, and expresses either stronger or more frequently in males, most AS kids are being raised by NT mothers, and a minority by AS mothers, who are trying to pass for NT. All mothers are above criticism, because they are in the position of benign dictator, caring for people who are a danger to themselves and others, and unable to care for themselves, so AS mothers use that immunity to avoid being called cold.

AS is more of a handicap for the nurturing parent - my NT sister never gave up on trying to get one NT response from our mother, even though she had enjoyed a good relationship with NT father and lived a "normal" life.

Y'all can move this if you like - I just saw the old saw pop up here.

Answering the OP's question
I have this problem too! My negative thoughts seem to focus around autism-related things in my childhood. As you may have seen on some of my other posts, I suffered greatly from many aspects of ABA therapy. "De-sensitization" treatment was probably one of the worst, though. Since my hearing is sensitive, I get frightened easily by loud, sudden noises. When I was younger, the ABA therapists would expose me to the very sounds that terrified me such as the use of a helium tank to inflate balloons. They would make me go to Party City and hear balloons being inflated at the front WITHOUT ALLOWING ME TO LEAVE OR COVER MY EARS. I remember that when I was about 5 and had wandering issues, the ABA therapists suggested I be confined to my bedroom using a childproof doorknob latch on the inner side of my door, essentially making my room a prison cell with no toilet or shower. Childproofing is really not that effective on five-year-old children, especially if they are smart, physically strong, or both in my case. Eventually, my parents got rid of the latch. Long after my ABA treatment ended, I informed my parents that what had happened to me was harmful and traumatic. My mom denied it, making me wonder if she still believes in ABA. I was diagnosed with GAD sometime while I was receiving ABA, making me wonder if the ABA caused damage significant enough to cause the mental health disorder. Later on in life around the time I was in middle school, I developed social anxiety, which may or may not have been related to memories of ABA therapy. I always resisted therapy I believed to be harmful, but I started to become more open about it around my early teenage years.

The flip side of this is that when I remember times I've gotten a big laugh, it really cheers me up.

I wonder if the most negative thing on forums is when someone has been told they are getting the boot even when a whole other host of factors and different people are chartering the users end. Ifsomeone is on a journey to a better place, it is unfair to belittle their disabilities with inappropriate actions just to ''keep constructive order''.
People need to be more entitled to a free defence mechanism rather than have their bodysuit formally stripped and taken away, just so planet earth can breathe normally. Even though clearly, that would be a tall order for newcomers.

I actually really appreciate honesty and personal development, so if somebody told me that something in the past was still irking them then I would respect that they could tell me that rather than hide it. I suppose it's hard for ASD's to not be honest, since sometimes we are brutally so like in your cake story.

I don't personally remember negative experiences, just the embarrassing ones. For example, being unable to speak in front of class or act in drama was a bit mortifying for me and I will never forget it. Further, I'll always remember that the school forced us to do that when they should know full well we're not all great orators.

Irrespective, it's actually basic psychology that negative experiences stick. This isn't even exclusively an autism thing, it just happens to more or less everyone. I don't know if you've ever heard the hypothetical of the 100 people, 99 people that shake your hand yet the 1 person that does not will be the one that lives on in your mind due to the negative experience.

I think what is particularly important is not that you can't let go of these things, but that you must always bring them up. Your wife likely has her fair share as well but she likely doesn't want to burden you with them or believes them now irrelevant. Bringing them up is not a bad thing, but maybe the best thing to do is try to hold off on them if she seems to be evidently frustrated. I mean, sometimes they're not appropriate but other times they make for great conversation starters.

Yes, there is cause, the way I see it is that some things tend to leave traces of themselves behind even after such experience(s) have long passed away. Honestly, I can recall a specific incident involving a tyrant though non-intentional mind you, for I don't actively choose to relive such things.Honestly, I try to find somewhere in my mind places,people,times that were more humane and not as unpleasant. No!, my life is not entirely filled with darkness but, there has been spots of it from different scenarios and so forth.These days I do my best to look forward to a time when I'll be relatively stress free.

I do all the time. They normally come to me when I'm not really doing anything that requires active movement or thinking. (i.e: in a train ride or watching television) But recently (June) I had an episode that triggered a wave of complex PTSD (cPTSD) which includes "mundane bad experiances" mixed with actual trauma. One of the mundane bad experiances I had was when i was in pre-K...

One of my "stims" as the kids call it, was saying my first and last name together over and over again in a moment I would feel intense emotion. I want to say I had this stim from the moment I could talk up until maybe kindergarden. At the time I wasn't dignosed with ASD, but I did have a minor physical disability and everyone in school knew about this. My parents would say that I was "speacil" as in I may have some challenges compared to my peers. But I took it as I am like a god. So I was in pre-K and I was doing something "bad" (not bad as in I was harming anyone or myself, but I wasn't following directions) and I remember my peer saying "I'm gonna tell the teacher." and I shouted at the top of my lungs "(first and last name) NEVER GETS IN TROUBLE!" I don't recall what happened afterwards as I've blocked so many traumas and bad experiances from my head, but I remember shouting that. It is really embarssing looking at it now.

I have an extinction curve. I get like Yosemite Sam (rassafrassa rackafracka etc etc) for a while then realize I'm just perseverating. That, unfortunately, seems to be hard wired, one of my Aspie things.

Once I get to that point, I can step back and decide if there's anything to salvage. Sometimes not... I figured out a while ago that most decent people behave decently from the get-go, and if there's a real misunderstanding, genuinely decent people will want to fix it rather than look for reasons to blame *you* for it. They might even try to be the first to bring it up so they can apologize unprompted! (P.S. yeah, I try to be that person if the oobleck came from me. I try.)

Nowadays I tend not to try to repair a breach that I didn't instigate, unless I have really good reason to believe the other person is a decent sort. I'm guessing pretty well, these days, it usually works when I try. Sometimes I'll try anyway, mainly to serve as a warning to others.



Now that I'm an old lady, though, my tolerance for nasty has really diminished. I. Don't. Have. To. I'm not getting a grade and there won't be any more raises in my future.



So if the negative experience is bad enough, and I don't think the other party is likely to meet me even halfway, there's just a permanent stepping away. Not necessarily total silence. There are gradations from "will chat briefly on neutral subjects" through "will yank you back onto the curb so you don't walk in front of a bus, but otherwise nah" to "I wouldn't pee on ya if ya were on fire".