Vague Instructions and Mental Shut Down

Post Reply New Topic

I don't know if I'm the only person who experiences this, but I've always had trouble with vague instructions. I can't even start something when I don't understand the whole set of instructions. I was concerned it was slow processing speed but I don't seem to have any trouble figuring other things out on my own.

I often feel like my brain works like a computer analyzing lines of code. As soon as something goes wrong, it breaks down and I can't think because I don't have any means of filling that error in code. I feel incompetent when this happens because apparently no one else I know has this issue, so I keep trying to reread/rethink the instructions and I never complete it. I come back later to see if the shutdown has resolved and the same thing happens again, repeatedly. It's always worse when it's verbal.

An example of what I mean by incomplete instructions:
Go over there and do some cleaning. Get rid of any mess.
Write a very well written paper and explain why one of these houses is better than the other.
Design an ad that perfectly conveys our company ideals (not stated previously), make it look appealing.

Example of instructions I do understand:
Go to that side of the room and clean up the papers on the floor. Make sure there are no scraps on the floor.
Write a report (with this layout) explaining why this house is more insulated and better in a cold environment.
Design an ad with our company slogan in the middle (and I am given the slogan) and put a picture of our mascot on the right side. Put a red background.

Yes! It's impossible to start a task that doesn't have a clear structure or expectation. The permutations of possible ways to complete it with all sorts of different outcomes overloads my brain and I freeze up. It's too much.

It's so frustrating to get vague instructions, because they always expect something specific but they don't actually say what that is. And I end up annoying them by asking ~20 questions to clarify exactly what they want, but I haven't figured out a way around that yet. So I'm sticking with being annoying because at least I get the job done.

At my job I write details in a notebook, so I can refer back to it for specifics when people ask me to do something general.

I don't do well with anything vague , to me , it's Kryptonite . The problem with being vague with people like us is that our mind race overtime to try and figure out what they might mean . It leaves me frozen like a deer in the headlights , overthinking everything . The funny thing is that it would never occur to me to just stop and ask the person to clarify what they said . Weird

When the instructions are vague, they can be interpreted a million ways. But when they are very specific, there is very few choices in fulfilling the tasks.

But when an NT describes a task with a great bit of detail, the NT who is suppose to perform the tasks is often very offended. They think what am I a child. So generally tasks are given a little vague. Also vague tasks can have a good amount of flexibility to achieve the final product and that allows creativity.

So if I was going to give advice to shore up this weakness, it might be along the following lines:

When the tasks is first given, ask a few important questions to narrow down the scope.

Then perform the task the best you can. This is called a straw man. It is not the final task, but the first cut. Then give it to your supervisor and request feedback so that you can improve the results.

To the op ior anyone, do you think its psychological or genetic or a little bit of each?

I have the same problem. When I was a volunteer teacher's aide at fifteen I was pretty useless until the guy I worked under caught onto the whole "from another planet" thing I was dealing with. I wasn't diagnosed at the time, but he quickly figured out the kind of instructions I needed and adapted his approach to make it easier for me. He would break the instructions down into specific steps and give them to me slowly, especially if I was being sent to do something on my own. I really appreciate it in hindsight, although I feel bad that I couldn't be as useful as I should've been.

Oddly enough, too much information also slows me down. "Go get the envelope in the green folder next to the books on the wall in the kitchen" is a request that completely confuses me when spoken aloud. The funny thing is that the cognitive testing I had told me that I was highly auditory, but spoken instructions are very difficult for me to process. I'm fine with audio books and podcasts, so I don't think it's solely related to cognitive processing. I think it's just the way my brain takes in instructions. I know that difficulty with instructions, especially spoken, is a prominent trait of NVLD, but I'm not sure how it relates to Aspergers.

I think this particular phenomenon is psychological and social as well. All kinds of vague and inexact things exist in nature without human involvement. There aren't many clear boundaries. This problem is most prevalent when it involves communication and person-to-person interaction.

Vague instructions have always been my weakness.

I do like to have explicit instructions, but if I don't I try and make my "best guess" as to what is required. Many times, I will get some of it wrong and require feedback. I'd often do something in a manner which I thought was helping, a solution that worked, but it wasn't the "right" solution. That's extremely discouraging.

I do the mental shutdown if there are too many different things that need to be done which is the exact kind of thing you don't want to happen if there are many things to do.

It made it almost impossible (OK, impossible) to do my previous job because I'd be working on something and someone would come by with something else. I shut down and then nothing got done. I asked that they not do that to me, but nothing happened in that regard.

I don't know about anyone else, but I find that I'm my own worst advocate. The things that need to be said or done to better help me don't get said or done. Then I'd get admonished, which just made the problem worse because then I'd feel I didn't deserve anything.