stubborness

Post Reply New Topic

i've been considered stubborn my whole life.....would that be the same as the characteristic aspergers "rigidity"?

i have many problems bc of this. i will not be forced to do something, it has to be something i choose to do. i get mad when someone tries to do this. then, i have problems thinking through things to decide what to do. i HAVE to think for myself.....bc i used to not, and used to go along with someone else - their decisions, etc. so now i think i'm even more stubborn than i used to be.

i have problems giving my son time-outs and consequences bc of this. i have boundary issues bc of this. i used to have NO boundaries, and not be aware of what they were, and just go along and enjoy life and probably being taken advantage of and manipulated (which i hate), yet was still stubborn when told what to do.

i would keep my reasoning to myself, bc sometimes people don't understand it. so i come off as being "mysterious" or "secretive". oh boy.

so....is the stubborness the same? i'm a 28yr old female btw.

Me too, very stubborn. The most stubborn member of the family. It has to do with adherence to routines and rigidity. That's what those technical terms mean irl.

i'm a stubborn little

I think not. I think it is a bit of wisdom stemming from this:


The challenge, of course, is to now keep all of that in proper perspective and to learn to "bend" as needed whenever doing so is actually best.

I agree. In fact, I wonder if they're sort of opposites? Rigidity typically has more to do with the insistence on (generally repetitive) behaviors sort of for their own sake. They're often not particularly well reasoned (to put it mildly) and ultimately don't make a lot of sense. Your stubbornness has too much "I'm going to think for myself, reason it out, and act according to my own free will" going on. I am no more in control of my rigidities than you were when you "used to go along with someone else." I "go along" with my rigidities in the same way it seems. Does that make any sense?

Here's an example. I eat the same thing every day for lunch. (In fact, I started a thread about this last week.) I'm very rigid about the menu. Sometimes I wish I could "break out" and try some other things -- but, nope, same thing every day, as though it's beyond my control. If I were being stubborn about it, I would choose a restaurant and really dig in my heels when my dining companion wanted to go somewhere else. "I want a steakhouse, and that's all there is to it." You might be accused of being controlling in that situation; but, you would never be accused of being somehow controlled by a porterhouse. Maybe the example helps...

I've been quite stubborn in my life up until now and plan to be so in the years to come, although my rigidity lessened when I got more experienced with social situations.

The parenting advices I leave to the parents here.

I hate it when people tell me what to do; I hate it when people observe me because sooner or later they are going to tell me to do things differently than I am. Although I feel like doing the complete opposite of what they tell me, I know it's in my best interest to consider that they may be right and to swallow my pride and do their bidding if, on reflection, I think they are. It's one thing to be stubborn about small, personal and private matters of little consequence and another to be stubborn about things that can actually cause harm. You can consider other people's opinions without letting them rule your life.

Hello tyliseea

I think it can be ... or not, it depends how stubborness is expressed. My husband (NT) and stepson (not officially diagnosed but I am 99.9% sure that he is AS) are both stubborn, but it is expressed differently, I can't think of how to explain it.

Shadi

I'm stubborn when it comes to information and facts, and often require a long talk to come to a solution or compromise ( ignore and agree to disagree) to move forward in a conversation. I was more stubborn as a child when it came to executing different actions that I needed to analyze before doing them or while doing them i wouldn't budge and snarl if someone tried to remove me from my task before I had finished.

After reading this thread I'm not sure if I'm stubborn or not.

People can see me as stubborn when I:

Will only cross the street at the lights or pedestrian crossing.
Not want to travel to new places.
Not want to socialise.
Not want to try different foods.

But these things that I'm not doing cause me a lot of stress, so when I flat out say 'no! I'm not doing it' people think I'm just being stubborn.

I'm extremely stubborn.
If I don't want to do something for whatever reason I don't do it, even if I cause big trouble with that.
- I don't do things that are senseless to me
- I don't try new things unless I really want it.
- I hate compromisses, I prefered it to have war with half of my classmates and get what I want instead of make a compromise and have peace.
- I'm extremely unspontaneous and have meltdowns if the smallest thing happens out of the ordinary.

Some people with Asperger's syndrome are misdiagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder because they are so stubborn. When I was a kid people would say I was "defiant" or "hard-headed". When I was 18 months old my physical therapist said I was the most stubborn kid she's ever seen. Even though I am 23 years old now, I'm still very stubborn

I'm very stubborn. I was never diagnosed with odd but they did refer to me as "passive-aggressive" a lot.

My understanding:

rigidity and stubbornness are not the same.

I am extremely stubborn. I learnt to tone it down to subtle forms but I'm just as stubborn as I was when the kindergarten and elementary school complained about that I was stubborn. I assume they confused my routines with stubbornness and just called it all stubbornness and impatience to accept as well as incomprehension of other people's wants and needs.

Stubbornness = my way or no way. There doesn't need to be a logical reason for stubbornness that keeps one from giving into a more favourable and sensible acceptance.

Rigidity = this way, my way, your way - all fine as long as it according to the the way that I can't deviate from without being negatively affected by doing so (or just believing that I will be). Not meeting certain social demands is rigidity if the demands are understood in therory but if they are not understood to be as important as they're too others and seem "pointless", "annoying" or if they'd actually be impairing to try to meet them.

I think a synonym that covers several meaning of rigidity is "stiffness". Stiffness doesn't allow for something to be easily bend because, for example, it could break down if you try. Or it won't bend the way you want it to because it's too stiff to comply with how you think it should be. Stubbornness describe "persistence" such as a resistance against a change or a strong resolve not to allow change.

Then the two can combine, of course. It makes sense to most people not to readily give into change without a thought if that change could harm you because you cannot change your way of functioning easily even if you wanted to.

My parents called me "Little Dictator" growing up, because of my rigidity and ensueing meltdowns if there occurred any deviations from my idiosyncratic norm. They also referred to me as a "stereotype", although I failed to understand their meaning for years, thinking that they meant that I was stereotyping others, instead of what they actually meant, which was that I was eggstremely rigid in sticking to my one true way and did not accept changes or new things. Of course, I did accept new things, but it took me a long time to do that, so when I finally accepted something new, the original bringing-up of the new thing had been forgotten in the mists of time, and it looked like it was completely my own idea to bring up the new thing.

I think it is the same. I know I can be very stubborn. I was also bossy growing up because everything had to be my way and I felt more comfortable if it was like that. I had to learn to be flexible and loosen up. It was not fun being labeled bossy and mean so I knew I had to change. My husband still labels me as "Beth's way or the highway" and I am not sure where he gets that from. I think I am pretty flexible. I am also labeled as a control freak.