I can only answer maybe? Because it's a thing that a lot of people do for a lot of different reasons and in different ways... It could be about wanting to avoid conflict and following social rules for being nice - which are pretty common might be stronger urges in people who have experienced trauma, or who find it hard to predict how other people might react or who are more comfortable having social rules/roles to follow than they are with in-the-moment-self-reflection or assertiveness. And obviously many/most of (particularly late diagnosed) autistic adults have been through trauma but so have quite a lot of neurotypicals. Would ypu have felt afraid react more strongly in the moment? Where you following a politeness/cultural script in how you responded at the time? Was your reaction related to a power differential? Were you responding as if you were in a past situation/dynamic? Or it might be about not being fully in touch with your feelings until later - because processing emotion takes spoons (which may be generally low or be being eaten by stuff having concurrently with the difficult thing as well as being reduced by the difficult thing), because a person tends to have monotropic focus and can either do Thoughts or Feelings but not both at once (i am like this) or because some people generally find it difficult to be aware of the emotions as they happen (alexithymia can be co-morbid with autism but isn't a necessary part of being Spectrum). Are there times when you are more or less aware of your feelings in-the-moment? Even when you are aware of your feelings do you need time/space to work out how to express/process them? Or it could be a problem of rumination and over focusing on negative experiences - which is common in people experiencing depression and/or anxiety. Which are both kinds of HeadWeasles that can and do happen to anyone but Autistic people are particularly vulnerable. Are you experiencing intrusive negative thoughts? How much mentally replaying a situation do you need to tell yourself "yes, that happened and it hurt and i might act different if it happened again" and how much is unhelpful?
And i'm sure there are other possibilities i've not even thought of.
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Date: 2019-11-26 10:49 pm (UTC)From:I can only answer maybe? Because it's a thing that a lot of people do for a lot of different reasons and in different ways...
It could be about wanting to avoid conflict and following social rules for being nice - which are pretty common might be stronger urges in people who have experienced trauma, or who find it hard to predict how other people might react or who are more comfortable having social rules/roles to follow than they are with in-the-moment-self-reflection or assertiveness. And obviously many/most of (particularly late diagnosed) autistic adults have been through trauma but so have quite a lot of neurotypicals. Would ypu have felt afraid react more strongly in the moment? Where you following a politeness/cultural script in how you responded at the time? Was your reaction related to a power differential? Were you responding as if you were in a past situation/dynamic?
Or it might be about not being fully in touch with your feelings until later - because processing emotion takes spoons (which may be generally low or be being eaten by stuff having concurrently with the difficult thing as well as being reduced by the difficult thing), because a person tends to have monotropic focus and can either do Thoughts or Feelings but not both at once (i am like this) or because some people generally find it difficult to be aware of the emotions as they happen (alexithymia can be co-morbid with autism but isn't a necessary part of being Spectrum). Are there times when you are more or less aware of your feelings in-the-moment? Even when you are aware of your feelings do you need time/space to work out how to express/process them?
Or it could be a problem of rumination and over focusing on negative experiences - which is common in people experiencing depression and/or anxiety. Which are both kinds of HeadWeasles that can and do happen to anyone but Autistic people are particularly vulnerable. Are you experiencing intrusive negative thoughts? How much mentally replaying a situation do you need to tell yourself "yes, that happened and it hurt and i might act different if it happened again" and how much is unhelpful?
And i'm sure there are other possibilities i've not even thought of.