The pain of sabotage, important reading.

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For my entire working life and much of school I couldn't understand this pain. I would always get it and it was so bad all I wanted to do was leave school/work as soon as possible and go home. I would leave school and run home or run for the bus. When I started work I would leave as soon as possible and never do any extra work to help the company which is always encouraged. So I wanted to help but couldn't and would always look bad and selfish for not doing more.

This week I finally understood the stress and pain I felt when outside the house, it was sabotage. I was unconsiously sabotaging my situations so that jobs would end, and I could be at home where I didn't have to deal with anxiety caused by the condition. At home I felt ok so I would do anything to end the sitaution and find a place of safety. Anything from midmorning and lunchtime breaks, weekends, days off, and unemployment served as safe haven when I wouldn't have to feel the anxiety, so I wanted more of the same. I had years on benefits and numerous periods of illness and misery where I would feel stomach pain which wouldn't leave me 24hrs a day for several days at a time.

Trouble was that in the end my sabotage pain was far worse than any anxiety I felt. Furthermore in the years since school finished I learned to control my anxiety to such a point that it was a much smaller problem. So now the sabotage was the issue. In the end I was sabotaging because of sabotaging and the pain was just escalating. I think the week I had in hospital because of stress was caused in-part by this problem.

So here's the amazing part. I realised how the problem worked and how to stop it:

I realised that thoughts like:

I feel too bad
I can't do this work
I'm tired
I'm too stupid to understand this
I always get fired, there's no way it can work, it always fails.
Work is evil

All of these things were unconsious sabotage. By thinking these things I was slowing myself down, which caused me to get fired so I could be at home. I wasn't trying to be ill, it was just that I felt so bad I wanted to be at home, which caused more sabotage, which caused more pain. I just couldn't figure it out. I was saying that I wanted the job, but at the same time I was trying to end it because I felt so awful.

I'm beginning to wonder if I've ever even exceeded my limitations. How to know when you are doing that? It could just be sabotage.

I'd say try to notice this pattern in your own life. It could be something which only certain personalities do, (I'm an ISFJ MBTI so it could be that.) I put this here in the hope that I could help someone not go through what I did.

Wow, this describes my experiences very well. In particular my attempt at going back to college three years ago. I wanted to be out there SO BADLY but when I got there I was so overwhelmed I started fixating on things that when I look back now were truly ridiculous. I pretty much imagined them, or imagined that they were problems. I had all my classes picked out and they were really interesting-sounding and even though my class had graduated three months before I still had in my first few days there run into a few people who meant a lot to me from my first two years there and made plans with them. But I really had a breakdown and I got suicidal and I had to leave. Looking back it was the biggest waste. Due to their new financial arrangement my tuition was even supposed to be free that year. But I came back home and was completely lost in what I thought were horrible truths about my life that made it so my life had to end. No. My God looking back I was so wrong. Some things you can't see til later though.

Oh - and I usually get INTP for what it's worth.

Last edited by purchase on 21 Oct 2011, 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think self-talk is important. And I think a person can respond to negative self talk with positive self talk.

For example, 'Maybe I can afterall. Even though I am tired, maybe I can look at it different ways and get it.'

'I can keep looking at it from different directions and get it at an unexpected time. That's all part of the zen of it.'

That is, I kind of try and be a gentle and respectful coach to myself.

My experience with being on the spectrum, I do need a fair amount of alone time, to process things. To, as much as anything else, feel my way through a situation. I use walks, and depending on the time of the day and depending on whether I feel positive or negative, sometimes the walks work very well, sometimes they don't.

I have one trick. It's really just a standard business method, but I like it a lot: Get there slightly early, leave on time.

If I'm there slightly early, I'm not going to let some overbearing co-worker make me feel bad about anything, they don't really have a valid complaint. I'm going to deflect the complaint even if it is valid. By being there early, I kind of stay caught up, including emotionally caught up.

And the part where they talk about promoting people who are willing to work overtime, please take that with a grain of salt. Corporations say a lot of stuff ('We like people who think outside the box.' Ha Ha) They really like a steady eddie as much as anything else. And there's a great deal of luck involved.

Wow. That is scary. I'm glad you're more okay now. A general practitioner once told my mother depression can start off situational and become biochem. That is, it's a downward spiral. And even though this is just one doctor, it made sense to me.

I know, if I'm partially included, if I'm close to social acceptance but it's not quite there, sometimes that hurts most of all. Maybe that was part of what happened with you?

And the very skills that make us bad for a number of traditional corporate jobs, maybe make us ill-suited for very conventional interaction like in a sorority or fraternity, also make us well suited for being

entrepreneurs
artists
journalist, and very honest journalists

and good honest creative friends, who know how to take alone time and that's accepted.

Now, jobwise, it's just that most of these careers are high potential payoff-low probability. If you have a family backing you up, that changes the equation. And/Or maybe a two track approach, two job tracks at the same time, like a musician in his or her spare time. (And some of these long shots do pan out, like Marv and Rindy Ross of Quarterflash, or Stephen King who worked in a hospital laundry and then taught English at a high school. But creative things just tend to be a long shot.)

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I kind of later decided, skip the low-grade followship skills of just standing around waiting for someone to do something, and graduate to leadership skills, which are more direct anyway and are more of what I’m interested in to boot. For example, I could ask three different people if they’re interested in trying the campus obstacle course Saturday. If all three say no, heck with it, there’s not enough of a baseline of interest. If one out of three says yes, it’s a question mark. We may be able to get enough interest. Two out of three we've got something.

Or taking a walk over somewhere, or playing frisbee, or going over to listen to a campus speaker.

Living in the dorm my first year way back in 1982-83, I met people. People in the classes themselves just seemed like they’re ‘overpeopled’ and overwhelmed with demands on their time. But also, and I wish this wasn’t true, going to a large state college, being a guy on a guy’s floor, they was also a fair amount of bullying, including physical intimidation. As if we’re a bunch of chimpanzees sorting out hierarchy (!), and I guess it’s not so different from that. And because of this, I recommend the skill of tight, defensive boxing to a draw. Maybe that's a story for another time. But just having this as a baseline does give low key confidence, then it's less likely a person will have to use it.

PS I kind of like Myer Briggs, too, in part because it provides an alternative or maybe just an addition to the monopoly psychology and psychiatry currently has to understanding those of us on the Asperger's / Autism Spectrum.

AardvarkGoodSwimmer: Yes fear of rejection is probably what gets to me every time. The thing is I knew these people very well, we'd lived in the same small house the first year there. I more or less take myself out of the game by convincing myself I'm not good enough. If everything seems too good to be true I think it must be and I make it so it doesn't end well if it isn't going badly on its own. I don't understand why a human being would do that. Well I do. To preempt the larger pain of being rejected by others. Cause if you do it yourself you at least don't know if they really would have rejected you. But getting into the pattern of rejecting your own self is the worst thing you can do because it ensures you NEVER have any success, whereas you will a great deal of the time if you keep going and are brave enough to let others make their own assessments. But depression and anxiety really interfere with bravery.

I'm glad I know cannabis and apathy

Many things in life simply aint worth it

I think it's often hard to reconnect with people you used to know. They might be kind of standoffish wondering why you went away. And even if they know intellectually, it may take them a while to feel emotionally comfortable. So, in this case, fearing rejection may have a rational basis.

I tend to jump levels. I tend to think if I intellectually agree with someone, we're going to be insta-friends. And no, not necessarily at all. I tell myself medium steps, kind of ping pong it back and forth. I try not to invest too much more than the other person invests, and accept that there's a great deal of luck involved in all this. Sometimes I succeed at believing this (that is, not blaming myself), often I don't!