ASD Change or Human Change

Post Reply New Topic

1. Are you talking about a simple process change (e.g. this is how I was taught to brush my teeth and I need to do it this way always, otherwise I will have a meltdown)? And, what happens if you noticed someone doing it a different and better way? Were you willing to change if the choice was yours? Or were you unwilling to observe (via in-person or even on TV) how others did things?

Yes, process change, difference in order, difference in spatial arrangement of things, lack of particular same thing happening eberryday (we had to go to a park for several minutes eberryday no matter the weather, 0 degrees, blizzard, hailstorm, hellfire). It was like the thing that can't be changed was deeply implanted in my brain, and I never noticed anyone doing it a different way. For some things like the park thing, I dropped it suddenly one day (it lasted more than a year), and it never came up again.

2. Are you referring to any change? As opposed to changes you pursued? As opposed to change imposed by others?

I am talking about change in specific set of things that usually had to do with me, how I did things, how things looked to me, I didn't control other people much, because I didn't notice other people much.

3. What happened if the change was unavoidable? I used to enjoy certain TV shows when I was young, and became quite sad when the TV network changed their schedule. However, I had no control over these. Yet, this impacted my daily routine.

I don't recall any instances of this, because most of the things that I couldn't change were controlled by me, and I wasn't affected much by things outside me, see answer 2.

4. How did you react to school? As school involves change? Each year, you enter a new grade (a big change). Then, you have winter and spring breaks (another change to daily living). Then school ends (yet another change). Each of these are external changes imposed by others?

These changes were not my specific set of things, so they didn't affect me. Also, I was allowed to do what I wanted for most of school day in school and didn't have to conform to class, so school activities were again controlled by me and effects from outside were small.

5. Was you resistant to change because you were settled into a pattern, that you thought was "good enough"?

They were deeply implanted patterns. I didn't have any introspection about them. They just were.

6. Were you confident that change was not needed, because you had optimized a process/procedure that you were comfortable with?

No introspection. These things were at lower level without thinking about them or rationalizing anything.

To summarize, I would say that my resistance to change has two parts:
1) Things that can't be changed => specific set of things (could be anything) that can't be changed for me
2) Big reactions to changes in things that can't be changed => meltdown, shutdown, life can't go on if not changed back

Taken twogether, these don't mean that I can't handle any changes at all or I can't also like changes or new things or spontaneity, but it means that I have big reactions that disrupt daily functioning when my specific things that can't be changed are changed, and usually there is no rational reason that the things can't be changed, but it is like the way they are is deeply implanted in my brrrainzzz, and changing those specific things is highly harmful to my functioning.

This is not same as 1) not liking specific changes, but not having big functional disruptions when those changes occur, and it is also different from 2) not liking changes or spontaneity in general. My mother doesn't seem to like spontaneity or unplanned occurrences or things that she is not prepared for, but she doesn't freak out when the fat bunny figurine is moved two millimeters and turned two degrees from its designated location and orientation in the universe. I freak out when that happens, but I hardly plan for anything and go into many unknown situations without planning and I am ackshuly comfortable with that, plus I have EF deficit of sucking verry merry berry much at planning, which makes planning much harder than doing whatever I need to do when the time comes.

For me, resistance to change is caused by not understanding things.
When discussing going on a holiday, or a situation at work, or some financial advice I rarely understand the situation as a whole whereas normal people mysteriously just seem to "get it" through some kind of strange telepathy.
->So I have to ask a million questions about the situation.
->If those questions aren't adequately answered I refuse to take part in things
->If I am still forced to take part in the situation then intense fear occurs.

Although this difficulty would appear to be caused by ASD, it seems very different to what btbnnyr describes. So maybe I don't experience the "authentic" autistic resistance to change. If something on my shelf moves slightly I couldn't care less, because I fully understand that change and how it will affect me (not very much at all).

If I freak out from a change in the schedule, it is often compounded by the fact that I have a hard time thinking quickly about an alternative solution. If my husband changes my plans, I have tunnel vision and think that everything is going to fall apart and has to be canceled. Usually after I calm down (maybe after a couple of days after I blow up) I could usually see a solution that I didn't see while I was in said crisis. If my husband tries to make alternative suggestions at the moment, I usually can't even consider them because my brain is in such panic/anger mode.

Whether or not I like change or not depends on what the change entails.

I was very upset when London's original Routemasters were taken off their last proper route in Late 2005 and all of 2006. I also took a bit of flack for it as 2006 was winding to a close. That change and the stuff that came with it was a nightmare.

I was scared but I was more excited and joyous when I got over some anger issues and went back to my Mod roots during the last four months of 2009. I stopped spiking and colouring my hair and started listening to my favourite band of all time once again, along with other bands from the 60s. I was also shocked about how attractive I am when I don't hide my lips, which made me feel vulnerable at first. That was a good change.

I'd rather look like Mick Avory and feel vulnerable and human, than look scary and be angry.

I have resistance to change.

A letter that my mum had from school, in grade 1, described an incident where my desk and "bin" (a container with my school supplies) were moved and I threw a big tantrum and had to be taken out of the classroom and to the office. Another year I was described as a "child who likes sameness in routines". I had certain dishes that I had to always use when eating my meals and would only eat certain foods, at one point only plain pasta with butter.

When there are or were deviations from my routine the world isn't right and I have overwhelming anxiety.

As an adult, I still eat the same foods, one's a broccoli and chicken stir-fry that my mum makes and then there are frozen dinner lasagnas and pizzas of a certain kind that I'll eat when we don't have the chicken. Also, I have certain things I do everyday in a certain order, websites that I go to and things I do online. There's a particular show I watch while I eat meals at home.

Depends on what type of change you mean here.
I am very resistant to things like wearing different clothes from those I decided to wear on that day, not doing things I do every day (no matter the order in which I do them), not saying certain sentences I usually say (eg: I never let my father go to work before telling him "pay attention" at least four times), and other minor changes like that.
Other changes that seem to bother a lot almost every NT I know don't bother me at all.
Sometimes, my teachers tell the class to bring a certain book and then when we bring the book to school they say that they have changed their minds and we won't use the book anymore. That annoys all the people in my class, expecially my friend Harriet who is very organized, except me. Know why? Because I probably didn't even bring the book to school
Or when people cancel an appointment at the last minute. It doesn't bother me and anyway I do it a lot as well. I just did so today.
It also doesn't bother me when there's a sudden change of plan. Because I never have a plan and if I have one, I am probably not going to follow it.
I am also very disorganized and I honestly don't like people who are too organized because I feel trapped and smothered around them.
To make it short, I am very resistant to minor changes, and I have an OCD-like tendency in this, but major changes that bother other people don't bother me at all. I think I am quite flexible, and I honestly think most NTs I know are not enough.
Note: I have ADD that makes me very disorganized. I don't have a resistance to routine changes for the simple fact that I am too disorganized to have a routine. Sometimes I would like to have one because I am very anxious and having one would spear me a lot of anxiety, but seeing people like Harriet, who get blocked and angry when things don't go according to plan, makes me see the bright side of it because when the very well organized people get stuck and can't go on I usually can use my intuition to do something on the spot and I can go on without spending too much time on a plan. This is why I think that being very organized is both a great advantage and a great limitation.

^^^
Interesting, I am very disorganized too despite my need for sameness. I do forget appointments and things like that. I do have things I have to do in a certain order but not at certain times, I'm really bad at keeping to a schedule with time.

I am bad making plans like what time to do things at what by what time and what time to do this or that and making things in what order to have my days so that is why I don't really have same routines or live on schedule. I am bad at it and it's too stressful to make one. I think I would do better if I had a routine but I don't have one. That is something that is a problem for parenting because kids need a routine and ASD parents are supposed to be good at it because they love their routines and live them. But we do have bed time for our son and stick with it most of the time.