Any other Aspies struggle with ambiguous instructions?

Post Reply New Topic

I find myself usually trying to figure out what to do without the instructions, and I only use them if I can't figure things out.

Yep, I need specifics.

Absolutely. I hate it when people give me vague instructions and expect me to figure out what they actually want. I especially hate it when they get mad at me for asking them to elaborate. If I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do, how am I supposed to do it?

I also hate it when I'm trying to follow a how-to guide online, and they leave out important information because they assume you already know what to do. Well, if I knew what exactly I had to do, I wouldn't be looking up a how-to guide, now would I?

I had this today, and it occurred to me uncharacteristically that maybe it was not my problem, it was that the woman who was giving said instructions didn't want to spare the time to focus on me, explain herself, or offer any assistance. All she wanted was to get rid of me and make me do the work she is getting paid for.
Ironically, when I went back and asked for clarification of how, exactly, I was to carry out the task, she put my resistance down to me apparently being lazy. I doubt the lazy one in this situation was me - I was seeking precision, she was trying to fob me off. Maybe it's not you.

Definitely, especially if the instructions are verbal and long-winded. Adding a lot of detail on why they want it they way they do just swamps the actual instructions. At work, I take a lot of notes. My boss recommended that I summarize the instructions in an email to confirm my understanding. It also acts as an informal contract when the client accepts the summary. It worked well enough that she decided to have everyone do the email summaries.

It's harder outside of work, though. My work generally has a lot of very formal procedures which suit me well, but in non-work situations, people do get annoyed if I have to ask them to explain or clarify. This really seems to be a problem in the so-called service industry, for some reason. I pretend to be a little hard of hearing sometimes to get a repeat explanation.

Heck yes - all the time.......

Ask my wife about that.

I've always had trouble with ambiguous instructions. But I include *most* instructions in that category. And to make it worse I am NVLD, too, so I need very precise, *verbal* instructions. I do okay now b/c I work in a technical field & much of what we do has to precisely fit business rules, etc.. So in that environment asking specific questions for clarification is seen as a good thing. It helps that I usually work through a person who is semi-technical and semi-business; they are my liaison to the rest of the company & all those NT people who need things.

At home, I almost have my NT spouse trained to realize that when I question something, I'm not objecting. Rather, it's because I can't do it until I understand what "it" is. I've also learned to preface my questions with, "No problem, but I need more detail", or, "Okay, but what do you mean by, "that", please? ... that sort of thing. I'm especially useless with pronouns.

Yes, I need to be given very clear, specific instructions.

Yes

My experience has been that NT"s don't get the fact that to us all instructions are ambiguous instructions. There's always some type of assumption for all but the simplest situational instruction.

Edenthiel is right. Almost all instructions, no matter how "clearly" stated are, in fact, vague.

Because no matter how clear they try to be, NT's leave out context of implied processes, presupposed word/phrase meanings, and expectations of a commonly understood methodology. They will only be "followed" in an NT manner by a member of the hive-minded NT.

Had a guy in a metal yard driving a forklift wave his hand wildly around at me. I had no idea what it meant so I left and came back later. When I got back, he was furious saying you better get rid of that attitude. I told him, you gestured at me and I had no idea what that meant, so I left so you could do whatever it was you needed to do without my car being in the way. He was like, oh. As if he never thought that might be a possible response.

Whether it is in office administration, or equipment repair, or just the clerk on the phone asking for a fax, none of their instructions say what they really mean. "Well, I meant for you to print that on the laser printer," "oh, I meant for you to load that batch into the first vat. It's ruined now." Meaning is implied and is not common between the hive-mind NT-verse and the autie/aspie-verse.

And when the autie-verse collides with the NT-verse, their presumption is that you should have known that the implication was to do it the way the NT meant for you to do it.

I'd be cautious with this. There are times when I under-think a problem, when it was actually a much more involved process. But of course, everyone else realized that except me.

I've taken the first 3 RDOS Aspie Quizzes on the internet which all pointed to me being on the spectrum. The quiz is now up to No. 4. I took it twice yesterday but it kept on saying I had too many contradictory answers to their similar questions, or something like that. How am I supposed to answer, then? The way they want me to? The questions on the Quiz were vague to me and could be read many different ways. Some questions didn't even apply at all, like the sex questions, because I don't have a partner and I'm a virgin anyway.

My advice would be to try not to get frustrated about it, and find out before any similar future testing if someone can sit with you during your testing so you can ask detailed questions about every item, if necessary. If they won't do that, try to find a place that can.

I despise self-assessments. I don't understand how any person of professional standards can treat them with any kind of reliability or validity beyond just initial intake (and I've studied experimental design for my degree).

If there's a real condition present, the doctor or psychologist should be able to run a test for it (if a physical problem), or put you in situations where you can demonstrate your performance, rather than have to come up with scenarios in your head about how you might have acted in the past, or could possibly behave in a given situation. I don't see how answers on those things can be taken as anything other than conjecture and hearsay. If a person doesn't have an accurate self-concept, the answers are going to be unrelated to their actual life experience anyway.

The assumption of the test designers that everyone taking their test is sexually experienced and/or active with no opt-out option is further evidence that they clearly are not qualified to design a test for the entire human population. It's laughable they can't see that as a flaw. But the psychological profession is at the stage of doing the best it can do within the NT-verse.

The fact that your answers are internally inconsistent is probably a marker for some aspect of your condition, but the test designers won't see that. They're just going to use that to say that you're taking their test incorrectly. Because their hive mentality assures them that their questions are structured properly, regardless of the ambiguity that they dismiss by saying "just answer as best you can." NT's testing auties. Lunacy.