“gratitude is an attitude”
Of course the impending holiday of Thanksgiving inspired this! As a child with trauma and anxiety, I learned to watch and be vigilant for anything that could be scary, dangerous, possible trouble impending, etc.
The term for this is “hypervigilant”, if you want to look it up.
I also had so many negative experiences with misunderstandings and punishments, bullying, etc that I became wary of others and mistrusted everybody’s motives nearly all the time.
The term for this condition is “rejection sensitive dysphoria”.
You watch everything and suspect everybody’s motives, worry that any interaction is going to be either emotionally painful, a trap to foil you and embarrass you, or to be used to cause distress or discomfort.
I had an overwhelmingly negative attitude, and overwhelmingly sad and distorted view of my world, and an overwhelming expectation of no good to come my way.
In therapy at the age of 30, the therapist pointed out that I had developed a “negative attitude” and that it was not normal or healthy, and it was unnecessary to my life.
I had to be taught to look for positive things. I learned to look for positives in any and every situation.
The best I could find for a lot of my experiences was that they taught me “what not to do”.
Thinking negatively was a ‘self defense” habit that I had developed because I had no other skills or “tools” to use to comfort and protect myself as a child.
I had to learn how to be positive, how to be healthily self assertive in a positive and open manner. I had to be taught that I had a choice in almost everything in life. I could choose the way I responded to others, to events, to random things that happened in my life. I could change my attitude! I struggled hard with this idea for quite a while and “disbelieved” it for the most part, even as I attempted to perform exercises assigned to me around positive thinking. It was a really hard concept to grasp and put into practice. Habits of any sort are notoriously difficult to break.
It has been a huge learning curve, but I can say at the age of 72, I have been able to develop a positive outlook on life and I face each day with a less fearful and anxious attitude. Life has become better. I see the goodness in it now. Even if I have to look very very hard to find the positive in some situations or circumstances beyond my control.
How to do it? Each time you catch yourself in a negative thought, (and you will have plenty of opportunities to do that!) try to look at whatever is happening at the moment that makes you think badly about it.
Turn it around and look for something positive instead.
Instead of “I have to do grocery shopping, I hate the crowds, I hate the noise, it is going to be so difficult to get there, I hate to put away the groceries” ,
Try looking at it from positive angles.
You are able to shop for yourself, you are able to buy groceries and get what you need, you have the means to get there and the ability to do the things you need to do to get good food and bring it home.
Your cupboards will be full, you will have what you need to be healthy and strong and independent.
Some people must fight for each of those things. OK, maybe you are one of them. Even those struggles can be put into perspective, alternatives can be found, things can be done and steps can be taken to help.
Looking for alternative viewpoints in any situation can be helpful in having a healthier life, building better foundations to live in a healthy and positive way, having better mental health and finding ways to enjoy life instead of fearing it.
If you have overwhelmingly negative friends, family members, or input such as news, whether newspapers, tv, radio, internet showing life full of tragedies, sorrow, pain, suffering, it does no good to fill yourself with these things.
They are beyond your control. But you can control your exposure to them and the time you allow them to occupy your mind!
The skill of separating those things in life that you can’t control from those you can, and deciding to react in a positive way instead of a negative way can be very helpful to living a better and more balanced life.
If it distresses you and you have no control over it, put it on a shelf mentally or lock the metaphorical door on allowing it into your life and dwelling on the pain, the distress, the sorrow.
It is somebody else’s struggle and there are others “out there” working on it, trying to help it, doing something from their own ability to have control over it. You can rest and you don’t have to solve the problem, you are not responsible, others in power to help those issues are working on it!
You can choose to focus on things closer to home that you can control for yourself.
It is OK to have moments of peace or joy when others in the world are suffering, it is OK to make time for yourself to heal and to find comfort and a quiet refuge among the horror that is brought into our homes every day via media we can control.
We can say no to habitual pain, discomfort, distress, anxiety by controlling our own behavior and attitudes and our environments, the input we choose to allow into our lives every day.
Yes, that is OK.
Choose to find peace and positivity where you can and to practice self examination and learn the skills of positive thinking.
Gratitude is an attitude, it is a habit that can be developed.
You can do what is in your power to help , then let others take care of it, find the patch of sunshine, look at the beautiful scenery, read a book , enjoy a painting, listen to music, you are aware there is suffering and pain in the world. Do what you can, (maybe donate to a cause or share information ) and look for something positive in your life. Focus on finding peace and looking for good in the little things that surround us all.
I have so much to be Thankful for. Have a wonderful, peaceful and grateful Thanksgiving.
Tag: autism rigid thinking
Autism Rigid Thinking
When we get stuck on an idea
One of the triad of features needed to diagnose us as autistic is “rigid thinking” and or rigid behaviors.
I had to laugh at myself a day ago, I got caught in a classic example of this behavioral pattern. Here is the story and a little more info about rigid thinking as part of our autistic experience.
Every day things can sometimes make me frustrated. I use a brand of toothpaste that has a flip top cap and which is very wide with a small nozzle like opening in the very middle.
Stuff collects between the hinge and the nozzle, when the tube is almost empty I must manipulate the thing with both hands to get a glob of tooth paste to emerge. ( I always use all the tooth paste, my parents taught me to be frugal, so throwing the tube away at that point is not going to happen).
I have spent the last week fighting to get increments of that last tablespoon of stuff onto my toothbrush, and cursing whoever designed that flip top roundly.
I am a compulsive tooth -brusher so this has happened up to 5 or 6 times a day for the past several days.
My husband happened to come into the room yesterday when I was struggling with the tube cap and I complained heartily about the design and the difficulties I was having.
No sympathy there : his response was “why don’t you just unscrew it?”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It had never crossed my mind that these flip top tubes were installed as screw on caps.
I was so focused on the design flaw and the struggle I was having I never explored other options. Of course I felt such a fool. Why had I not thought of that?
This sort of thing has happened to me all my life.
My intense focus and intent do not allow me to step back and explore other options. I have been ridiculed and mocked for not understanding things that seem simple and obvious to others.
My autistic rigid thinking does not seem to allow me to see that there are options in the way I address almost everything.
Once I learn a behavior or a thought pattern, it rarely occurs to me to change it. You can understand how limiting this can be. I continue to gain understanding of how profoundly my autism affects all facets of my life.
I had no idea why I have struggled in so many situations, and felt so stupid and humiliated, was shamed and embarrassed when I finally understood what seemed obvious to everybody else all along. But it happened over and over, from the time I was very small until just yesterday, and I am positive I will experience this again and again all the rest of my life.
I remember long ago having a discussion with a friend about how he recognized some of the sick behavior patterns he had developed in his unhealthy home situation as a child and how he was able to understand that and overcome it.
I remember distinctly, thinking that he must be brilliant to do this on his own, that any individual capable of figuring out such a thing and being able to self understand, self motivate, self learn/teach healthier and better ways of life must be a genius.
I had recently finished a year of therapy in which I learned the same things through my counselor, who had to point out that I could make choices in my behavior in the way I did almost everything in my life. I had to be taught healthier communication, and how to recognize my emotions and how to choose healthier ways to behave in almost all of my life situations.
I had not been capable of seeing these options, but had to have them spelled out, explained, and the new means of choosing, communicating, and behaving carefully taught to me.
Not only autistic individuals but others, too, can get caught in rigid thinking, especially if trauma and abuse are involved. Autistic people tend to have a natural inclination toward this behavior pattern due to our neurology.
We are so consistent in applying rigid thought and behaviors to our lives that this is used to sort the autistic individual and identify them. We must have rigid thought and behaviors to be diagnosed today as autistic. (see references to Autism’s pioneer Lorna Wing and the diagnostic triad of behaviors)
Use the internet to learn the many ways rigid thinking can apply to our thoughts and behaviors. Most all of the articles you find will be based on children’s behavior, since there is very little research having been done on older autistic adults, or even younger ones.to date.
As the kids diagnosed in the 1980s and later are in early adulthood there is more interest in learning how autism ages. I hope you are finding the information you need for self understanding as you explore all the ways in which autism works in us even in our very old age. I am 71 as I type this, diagnosed at 68 and discovered my own autism and began to learn about it around age 65. Diagnosis helps so much with self understanding, I will be sorting information and having “aha” moments like the one I described above until I die.
I am so grateful that I finally have the opportunity to heal and understand all those painful “whys” of a lifetime lived before I ever discovered autism was the answer.
OldLady With Autism 